BIOGRAPHY.

INTRODUCTORY.

To the world, the life of a practical man is knowledge; of an honest man, freedom; of a generous man, persuasion; of a great man, character.

What a man thinks is theory; what he does, example. To do well is wisdom; to do ill, folly. Success comes from right thinking and well doing; and continued security alone comes from perseverance in both of these.

The moral world is to man essentially a world of causes; and there is no duty fraught with more permanent benefits than that of pointing out the origin and result of the acts and conditions of men. This remark is not applicable alone to one class of men, such as have distinguished themselves by extraordinary acts on remarkable occasions, but may be extended to all classes that contribute to the advancement of the great cause of humanity. Man, considered as an individual, is a being of great diversity of power. He is endowed with intellectual fac

ulties, which discern, compare and reason; and which, by the force of their inherent nature, explore the unseen regions of thought, truth and science. He has perceptive powers, which look out upon the external world, and appreciate the architecture of all created things, in their localities, uses, and array of native beauty. He is blessed with sentiments which exalt, dignify and refine his wants and wishes; and is swayed by those elements of passion, which, though they sometimes impel him to do the work of war and desolation, impart energy to will, firmness to his consciousness of duty, and promptness to action. Placed, as he ever has been and ever will be, in the diversified relations of power, possession and want, of enjoyment and suffering, of hope and fear, of wealth and indigence, of industry and indolence, of skill and inefficiency, of prudence and prodigality, of success and failure, of justice and cupidity, of integrity and faithlessness, of patriotism and treason,

man is influenced, on the one hand, by countless motives to do right; and, on the other, he is beset by innumerable temptations to do wrong. He is saved either by the wisdom of experience, or by the love which he bears to goodness, for the sake of its blessings. He is lost either by a reckless indulgence in passion which invites temptation that he cannot withstand, or falls by neglecting the means of knowledge, and the teachings of experience. To fail in duty, implies ignorance of moral causes; to fail of success in enterprise, implies a want of practical knowledge.

It is a common error to suppose that biography is useful only when applied to extraordinary men. We refer to men such as Washington, Franklin, Newton, Napoleon, Cuvier, La Place, Kant, Luther, Calvin, Huss, who may be denominated the representative men of nations, of reforms, of revolutions. They make up a portion of the world's history; and all their genius and strength have been applied either to the momentous affairs of government, to reforms, or to the sublime developments of science. They have mastered, in their time, the great subjects which involved the interests of an age, or of a generation; but, in the duties incumbent upon a citizen in all the walks of private life, or in the higher demands of public duty, they have furnished no more examples to be noted for the study of posterity than can be found scattered throughout the civilized world, in every society, in every class, profession and condition.

In this view of the subject we are confirmed by the strongly expressed opinions of that giant thinker, Dr. Johnson, who says:

"I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful. For, not only every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers, in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use; but there is such a uniformity in the state of man, considered apart from adventitious and separable decorations and disguises, that there is scarce any possi