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    EMINENT BRITISH STATESMEN.*

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    By John Forster , Esq . of the Inner Temple . Few fine works have been produced without their authors having a strong natural sympathy with the given subject ; and in no instance is this more especially requisite than in the construction of a fine biography . To collect , arrange , and studiously , perhaps elegantly , elaborate all the facts , dates , anecdotes , and oify ? r

    materials , many a man can do this ; hence such signal failures as Scott ' s account of Napoleon , or as Proctor ' s Life of Kean , —adapted for the use of well-regulated families . These things afford no data for philosophy ; posterity will take no note of them ; and even the near-sighted eye of present times is frequently apt to treat them with prelusive indifference . A fine biography ca / only be written by one who enters fully into the private as w « ll as public character of the object of his work . He must know the man as well as the circumstances . He can only do this by

    identifying himself with the thoughts , feelings , and actions , of the individual in question . He must actually resemble him in some points of character ; must deeply appreciate all the chief qualities for which he was eminent ; and possess sufficient imagination to comprehend and combine , where the broken or insecure chain of facts leaves shadows and short-comings beyond the grasp of the

    analytic mind . In short , when he has carefully collected all the raw material of facts , he must see the truth shining clear through the cobwebs of convention , through the contradictory evidence , through the real as well as the apparent contradictions of character ; must be able to separate principles from acts , as well as trace them into each other , and have the manhood to write down

    in p lain words the full result of his investigations . Many a mediocre character has been raised to undue eminence by the ability , the partiality , or the imposing style of his biographer ; and thus transmitted with a false importance to future times ; and many a great man has been defrauded of his " fair

    proportions / ' or forgotten altogether , for want of an able and honest chronicler of his principles and deeds . To be worthy of fame is onl y the passport to posterity ; the bark that ig to convey , its depth of hold and sea-worthiness , the skill and courage of its helmsman , and the season of the time , depend on innumerable contingencies . * Vol . 11 . Biography . Cabinet Cyclopaedia . l ^ ongmAn , Sec . 1836 .

    No . 116 .

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    461

    Eminent British Statesmen.*

    EMINENT BRITISH STATESMEN . *

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• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1836, page 461, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2660/page/1/