errors upon the world as virtues too daz- such sympathetic emotion to appeal to; zling to be understood, with a determina- but it has other sentiments less noble on tion which no evidence can shake. Not its side. This paradoxical human race, only does he say nothing if not good, but which cannot refuse its admiration, its he turns with the adroitest partisanship applause, its adhesion of sentiment, to the evil itself into a heroic adaptation of any generous champion, and whose unithe instruments of evil to a good purpose, versal breast thrills at the warm touch of and will rather affront the world to its a genuine enthusiasm, is also, and almost face with high scorn, as unworthy to hear at the same moment, pleased to be in. of and incapable of understanding a char- formed that all goodness is a pretence acter so elevated, than allow that there is and all enthusiasms hollow, that the idols a speck on the sun of his idolatry. Such are clay and the heroes contemptible. passionate interest and appreciation carry | We do not attempt to explain how it is us away; the warmth, the generosity, the that the two are compatible, nor are we devotion, give of themselves a certain at all concerned for the consistency of greatness to the subject. We cannot be mankind. Enthusiasm of the highest and lieve of him that he could be put on such cynicism of the lowest description exist, a platform without some natural worthi- we are aware, in the same circle, even ness, some real claim upon our admira- sometimes in the same mind; and the tion. Neither Cromwell nor Frederick man who one day puts all his breath into were heroes congenial to the ordinary one lusty cheer for the good and true, and mind; even those who maintained most acknowledges, with the eloquence of supstrongly the historical greatness of the pressed tears and a voice quivering with Lord Protector, were willing to admit that sympathy, any noble appeal to his emosentiment and romance were on the other tions, will send forth peals of laughter the side, and that his great figure was not one next on the discovery that the hero is a to charm or attract though it might over-humbug and that he has been cheated out awe. And Frederick, called the Great, of his sympathy. Perhaps the pleasure was a still less likely object of popular there is in finding out that, after all, no admiration. Yet we were all dragged at one is so much elevated above the ordithe chariot wheels of these conquerors, nary level as the idealist would have us making protests, perhaps, that were believe, is a more widely-spread sentiment scarcely audible in the roar of the royal than any other. Even those who are progress, and, to our astonishment, were ashamed of so unworthy a feeling are compelled to approve of everything so moved by it. We are so conscious of a long as the spell lasted, and found that lower strain ourselves, so well aware that even Drogheda and Wexford, even Sile- the higher mood is temporary in us, and sia, instead of crimes upon which charity that even from the height of an occasional itself could do nothing but drop a veil, elevation we drop into selfishness and were but additional glories on the hero's stupidity, by some dismal law of gravitacrest, deeds for which our approval, our tion which we have little power and perapplause, were challenged, as a sort of haps less will to resist, that it consoles us test of our own capability of judging. to find others no better than ourselves. There is something grand in the impetus It is from this sentiment, no doubt, that of such enthusiasm as this. It takes all the developments of scandal-mongeraway the reader's breath; it casts dull ing take their origin: we do not say of justice into the shade, as a sort of hum-gossip, which is not necessarily scandal, drum and unheroic quality, judging by and may have a kinder source in the inline and measure, incapable of the greater alienable human interest in everything inspirations of a heroic code. The re- that illustrates our common life. The sult may not indeed be permanent, but it cynic principle, as applied to biography, is overwhelming while it lasts. is, however, to the credit of human na ture, of far more rarity than that of the enthusiast. Perhaps this fact gives it, when it appears, the greater power. But there is a difficulty at the very outset in explaining what motive a writer can have in choosing as his subject a character of which his moral estimate is very low. Friends there are, no doubt, who love without approving; and it cannot be questioned that the prodigal in a family, the

It might afford a cynic amusement to consider upon whom the great contemporary example of an opposite class of biography has been exercised. The enthusiast-biographer passes away, and his system with him. It is not a true system; but there is a large and generous warmth in it which appeals to the universal heart, and, for the moment at least, subjugates the judgment. The opposite plan has no

all likelihood, if he is at all' equal to his subject, permanent public opinion will be fixed, or at all events largely influenced, by the image he sets before it. It will be his to determine how far the man of whom he writes carried out his own creed, and was worthy of his greatness, or de

conse

black sheep in a group of companions, is | fold- for the individual and for the world. very often the individual whom the others In both cases the biographer holds an regard with the greatest tenderness. But office of high trust and responsibility. In in most cases their faults are those of youth; they produce almost invariably tragic consequences, and they are often compatible with qualities so genial and lovable that the judgment refuses to condemn, and the heart clings to the victims of their own folly, those who themselves are the greatest sufferers by their imper-parted from the ideal which he set up for fections. Save in such instances as these, however, it is difficult to understand why a biographer, himself a man of intellect and character, should voluntarily seek the society living, or devote himself to the elucidation of the life when ended, of a warped and gloomy soul, whose temper is odious to him, and whose defects he sees in the clearest light. The meaning of the enthusiast's work is simple, but not that of the detractor. We ask ourselves, What is its motive? Is it a cynic's gratification in proving that to be the "wisest, meanest" of mankind is possible to more than one historical personage, and that no one can be more petty and miserable than he who is most great? Is it a pleasure in associating moral deformity with genius, and showing, in one who has strongly demanded veracity as a condition of life, a character ignoble and untrue? These are questions somewhat apart from the question we set out by asking, Whether a work executed in this spirit can fulfil the true objects of biography? But they are inevitable questions. Impartially, the cynical record is no more biography, in any true sense of the word, than is the enthusiast's; but it is almost impossible to be impartial in such a discussion, and we must add that, according to all our capabilities of judging, it is less so. the enthusiast by turns justifies himself by discovering the latent nobleness of a man whose motives have been misconstrued, and at all times is likely to serve the ends of justice better by thinking the best, than he can ever do who thinks the worst. For it is more often in perform ance than in intention that men go astray. Save in the very worst cases there is a certain ideal, a shaping of better things in the mind, which love divines, but which hate, dulling the finest insight, is unconscious of. We all set out with a better intention than our performance comes up to, and our defender is at all times more nearly right than our de

tractor.

For

Neither of the two, however, attain the true objects of biography, which are two

others, yet was indifferent to in his own
person. A mere record of facts will not
satisfy either the reader or the conditions
under which such a writer ought to work.
He is expected to enable us to surmount
or to correct such momentary impressions
as we may have taken up from chance en-
counter with his subject, and to give guid-
ance and substance to such divinations of
character or life as we may have gleaned
from the public occurrences in which he
was involved, or the works he has left be-
hind. While we stand without, eager to
gain a glimpse through an open door or
window of the object of our interest, he
is within, in the very sanctuary, free to
examine everything; and he is
quently bound to spare no pains in elicit
ing that truth which is something more
and greater than fact, which it is possible
even may be almost contradictory in its
development, and which is of far greater
permanent importance than any mere oc-
currence. In every portrait the due value
of differing surfaces and textures must be
taken into account, and we must be made
to perceive which is mere drapery and ap-
parel, and which the structure of the in-
dividual beneath. If this is true of the
pictured history which represents but one
movement and one pose, it is much more
true of the whole course and progress of
a life, which it is the office of the literary
workman to set forth, not according to
momentary and easily recognized tricks of
manner, but according to the real scope
and meaning which pervade and inspire
it. That which is accidental, and due to
the force of circumstances, is thus on a
different plan from that which is funda-
mental. The most patient may be subject
to a burst of passion, which, seen uncon-
nected with the rest of his life, would give
a general impression of it, in reality quite
false, though momentarily true. Thus
Moses, the meekest of men, might possi-
bly be known to the carping Jew by the
one act of scornful impatience which
marred his public life, rather than by all
the long-suffering with which he endured
the continual vagaries of his stiff-necked

people. Nor is it less easy to disentangle | beautiful wife wrapped in her veil, yet the character from the little web of petty not so closely but that King Abimelech susceptibilities which often, to the cur- sees her; and the patriarch betrays a sory observer, throw a mist over the most generous and noble spirit. The biographer must be in no respect cursory. It is his business to preserve us from being deceived by appearances, and still more to guard himself from superficial impressions. And if he is unfortunately compelled, by evidence which he cannot resist, to form an unexpectedly unfavorable judgment, it is the merest commonplace of honorable feeling to say that the most scrupulous care must be taken in testing that evidence, and that anything that is mere opinion must be discarded and left entirely out of the question.

weakness, which, had he been a modern would have been either concealed or excused, or brought against him, with a babble of contending tongues. Neither this divergence nor any other does the ancient Scripture leave out. There is no explanation, no softening down. The man was the father of the faithful, a good man, the best man of his time, the friend of God, a most noble human personage; and yet there was a moment when his courage and integrity failed him. The primitive writer does not separate this event from the context, or apologize for it, or represent it as the object of a lifelong Towards the world his duties are repentance. He records it precisely as scarcely less important. To give an erro- he records the arrival of the three wonneous impression of any man, living or derful guests, whom Abraham, standing dead, to the mind of his country and gen- in the cool evening at his tent door, pereration, is the greatest of social sins. ceives to be more than men. The one But the living may outlive every misrep- scene and the other are set before us with resentation; and the most unpardonable equal brevity, without hesitation in the offender in this respect is the man who one case or vainglory in the other, in the persuades a whole community into injus-clear setting of those Oriental skies and tice towards the dead. Without even going so far as this, a biographer has to discriminate between the legitimate and noble interest which mankind takes in every man sufficiently distinct in character or genius as to have identified himself from the crowd, and that prying curiosity which loves to investigate circumstances, and thrust itself into the sanctuaries of individual feeling. The question of how far the world should be allowed to penetrate into those sanctuaries, and to invade the privacy which every soul has a right to guard for itself, is one in which the delicacy of his perceptions and that good taste of the heart, which no artificial standard can supply, will be severely tested.

There is a kind of heroic candor and impartiality belonging to the early ages of history which cannot well be emulated in our more intricate condition of society. The biography of the Old Testament is a model of this primative method. As soon as the primeval age, in which we see darkly men as trees walking, gigantic fig. ures faintly perceptible, in a dim largeness of existence unlike ours, is over, how clearly and with what complete human consistence does the wonderful history of Israel, the wandering nation, begin in the great figure of Abraham setting out upon his journey in nomadic freedom, not knowing where he is going, his flocks and herds trudging behind, his

desert scenes. The patriarch had his faults; they stand there as they happened, like his virtues, no one asking pardon or attempting to account for them. Moses, too, the great prophet, the chosen guide and lawgiver, he who talked with God, and brought the shining tables of the law out of heaven, and reflected in his own dazzling countenance the glories he had seen, neither of him is there any picture of perfection. Sometimes his heart fails him, sometimes he is presumptuous and arrogant, though the most patient of men. His sudden passion, his brag of that power which is not his but God's, are told like the rest, plainly, without shrinking and without exaggeration. David is made up of faults, a man out of date, belonging rather to the Middle Ages than to that primitive time, full of generosities and chivalrous traits, but also full of guile when necessity or inclination moves him, of hot and undisciplined passions, of love and self-indulgence, redeemed only by that openness to conviction, that selfabasement and impassioned penitence, which are "after God's own heart." Not one word of excuse for all these evil deeds says the primitive impartial record. His crime, his grief, his punishment, are all before us to speak for themselves. There is no moralist to say, "These were the manners of his time." All is set down as it happened, for our judgment. We see the man of impulse moved by a touch,

with all his senses keen and unbridled; and even, in some respects, an analytical loving, sinning, repenting, yet with some study of his inner being; for when he thing gracious about him that wins all stands and reasons with himself over hearts; letting his enemy go with high Saul's slumbers in the cave, we assist at generosity, scorning to take advantage of the processes of thought that go on in his sleep and weariness; pouring out before rapid mind, and perceive how much natthe Lord, in an outburst of noble and ural piety and magnanimous impulse there grateful emotion, that pitcher of water is in the young adventurer, yet how truly from the well of Bethlehem, which had his romantic generosity serves the best been bought at the peril of men's lives, purposes of policy. But all is told without and was so precious a draught for him. a reflection, without a moral. No doubt The story is absolutely impartial, nothing this has something to do with the perenhid, nothing unduly dwelt upon, the one nial attractiveness of the Old Testament part balancing with the other. Such im- historians. They are never exhausted; partiality is incompatible with modern for the reflection, the judgment, the analy manners. Had such an episode as that sis, and moral summary are all left to the of Uriah the Hittite occurred in the life reader, whose faculties are kept in full of any modern general, how sedulously play by the very simplicity and primitive would one class of historians have con- straightforwardness of the tale. cealed or slurred it over, how bitterly another dragged it forth and put it in the front of every other incident of his life! It would have called forth a little literature of its own; the apologists discovering a hundred reasons why it should not be believed at all, or why it should be considered a just and generous way of dealing with a man who had deserved a worse fate; while the assailants made it the chief incident of his career, and dismissed all public services, all private qualities, as too insignificant to be noticed in comparison with such a crime. The Bible historian does neither; he tells us the tale, the temptation, the retribution, in brief but full detail the beautiful wanton on the housetop, the doomed soldier in the front of the battle, the king, in all the flush of success, confronted by the stern prophet with his parable. Nothing could be more succinct yet more graphic. The historian will "nothing extenuate," neither will he "set down aught in malice." When the incident is over, he proceeds with perfect composure to the next, without prejudice or prepossession. Such a method is not practicable nowadays. It was the more robust constitution of the antique mind which could go on again, calmly wiping away the past as if it had not been; but, though we cannot attain to the serenity of this state of mind, there are lessons in it by which we may profit. Who among us stands more evidently be fore the world than King David? All that is written of him, and all that he himself has written in illustration of the close yet picturesque narrative elsewhere afforded us, would go into a very small volume yet there is nothing that is important left out. We have the picturesque incidents on which modern art reckons so much,

Speak of me as I am," says Othello, "nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." This is an epitome of the code which we have endeavored to set forth. But the mode of the biographer of the period would, we fear, coincide but little with these instructions were he to set to work to write a biography of the Moor. Such a production could not be other than the work of a partisan. There have been many essays upon Othello, and many critics have endeavored to explain and account for that extraordinary conversion of the admiring and confiding husband, the dignified and courteous general, whose self-defence is such a model of noble candor and simplicity, into the wild and savage avenger of his supposed shame, the miserable man whose very soul is jaundiced by suspicion. It is a change which will always remain inexplicable; for Iago's arguments, however skilful, are not sufficient to produce such an effect, and but for the glamor of Shakespeare, we should dare to doubt whether such a transformation could have been. The poet does not condescend to argue, nor does he appear even to have foreseen the difficulty. But were Othello a man of to day he would not leave his character, with so easy a mind, in the hands of his historian. The biographer would be nothing if not a partisan. He would enlarge upon Brabantio's bitter words, till there should not be a vestige left us of the spotless image of that gen. tle lady, married to the Moor, who has commanded all our hearts. Or, on the other hand, he would make such a picture of the swart savage, half-civilized and dangerous, in whom all tigerish impulses were but suspended, ready to leap into ferocious life, as the critic sometimes fan

.

cies in his bewilderment, but Shake- | his own profession, to object or restrain, speare never drew. On one side or the other, the consciousness of the catas trophe would color all his thoughts, and everything would be set down in malice, and strained to account for it. (For mal-ful writer is in this way the most unfet ice let us read a theory, for the biographer who destroys a reputation does not necessarily do so out of any evil intention.) And thus the fine problem which supreme genius leaves to us to settle in our own way, and which excites our interest and sympathies more than any other, the never failing mystery by which a group of the innocent and unsuspecting are caught in the meshes of fate, and driven into a tragic complication of crime and misery without any agency of their own - the favorite subject of tragedy-will be worked out into an endless discussion of motives and tendencies, and Othello no longer know himself under the host of imaginary details, with which his story is extenuated or unkindly set down.

and their protests are but little effectual,
being, as they are, without power or au
thority, and subject to imputations of
rivalry and personal feeling. A success-
tered of all men. The more unjustifiable
his revelations are, the more are they
likely to amuse and please the public; and
he has this privilege besides, that no evi-
dence brought against their justice after-
wards can do more than excite a contro-
versy, which the public, more amused
than ever, take as a personal question,
without in any great measure departing
from the first impression which the first
speaker has made. In a recent instance
there has been a chorus of indignant
voices raised against the biographer who
has misused his advantages and traduced
his subject. To what profit? The great
audience, which is the ultimate judge,
heard his story first, which was a story
told with all the grace and effect of a prac-
tised writer; and it is in vain that our ob-
jections are made, in vain that the very
material he has collected contradicts him
at every turn. The general reader is not
skilled in the laws of evidence.
He ac-
cepts what is told him, as he has a right
to do. The squabbles of the cognoscenti
do not move him. If he examines at all
it is into the claims of the first speaker to
his faith. And who can contest those
claims? They are indisputable. The
closest of many friends, the most trusted
of companions, the executor of his hero's
last wishes, is there any one who can
shake his position, or assert that he does
not know? There is nobody; and the
public is perfectly justified when it ac-
cepts the original witness, and lets the
rest of us rave unheeded. Thus the posi-
tion of the biographer carries with it a
power which is almost unrestrained, the
kind of power which it is doubly tyran-
nous to use like a giant. Not even the
pulpit is so entirely master; for we all
consider ourselves able to judge in re-
spect to what the clergyman tells us; and
we have his materials in our hands, by
which to call him to account. If we must
let him have his say at the moment, it is
only for the moment, and we are always
ready to hear all that is to be said on the
other side; but the biographer has a far
more assured place, and if he is not re-
strained by the strictest limits of truth
and honor, there is nothing else that can

Such an exercise of the faculties may
be harmless in the world of imagination,
but it is disastrous when it is employed
upon the facts of real life; and we must
add that the biographer must use his
imagination only as an adjunct to his
sympathies, and as giving him the power
of realizing the position of his hero, and
putting himself in his place; and that he
must violate no law of testimony, and call
no unfair witnesses, such as are debarred
by nature and the common sentiment of
humanity. A barrister who has to defend
a man's character before the tribunals of
the law is not more bound to use legiti-
mate means and approved testimony than
the historian, to whom is absolutely com-
mitted the care of his reputation, the as-
pect with which he shall stand and en-
counter the gaze of coming generations.
Were the advocate to call the gossips of a
fireside coterie, and bring forward the
disjecta membra of a waste-paper basket,
the judge would call him to order, the jury
would make indignant protestations, the
omnipotent solicitor banish him ever
after from his confidence. But the biog-
rapher is all the more deeply responsible,
since, in his case, there is no authorita-
tive voice to check his proceedings; the
great jury of the public is too vast, too
irresponsible, too indifferent, to afford any
serious opposition, and the publisher,
concerned only for a great sale, is little
likely to exercise any controlling influence
over a writer who fulfils this first neces-control him in heaven or earth.

sity. There remain only his brethren, so To those who have stepped out beyond to speak, of the bar, the competitors of the ranks of their fellows it must thus