sudden glow and extinguishment of desire, the growth and decay and almost imperceptible transference of affection, the vehement outbreaking of indignation or remorse curbed and silenced by painful coercion, the stricken hopes long cherished but untold, which induced an unwilling estrangement from his fellows.

But we may be told that the autobiographer has the strongest motives to represent himself in the fairest light, and may therefore be justly suspected of concealing his more odious qualities, and of exaggerating his fair ones. Were the disclosure made to vindicate his character or conduct, we might entertain such an apprehension. But when, as is usually the case, the memoir is but a diary drawn up to determine his progress in mental or moral culture, and intended for his own inspection only, or when it is designed for the gratification of his friends or the instruction of his children, the ground of the objection vanishes, and the suspicion cannot stand. On the other hand, the biographer is also exposed to bribery from prejudice, passion, or interest; and may with equal justice be accused of misrepresenting facts or of misstating them; and if he be not misled by partiality, he is always in danger of being blinded by ignorance, for the documents on which he must rely, are usually the letters and works of the individual whose character he is describing, and his best external testimony is the reports of interested friends or equally interested enemies. Setting then the chances against one another, we find the balance in favor of the man who describes himself. Accordingly we come to the perusal of an ordinary biography with a feeling of distrust-a disposition rigidly to scrutinize the fact narrated, and to give a hesitating assent to the correctness of the representations and inferences. But we sit down to the narration of an autobiographer as to the conversation of a friend whose integrity we cannot question, and whose accuracy we have no reason to impeach; and apart from the minuteness and feelingness of this statement, we find its impressions deepened by our unreserving confidence in his fidelity.

This reasoning may account for the fact, that the characters exhibited in works of fiction possess so little assimilating power. We find in fiction almost everything peculiar to biography, distinctness of outline, minuteness of detail, every trait of character, clothed with all the vividness and reality of action. But between the evidence which accompanies them and that of biography, there is a wide difference. The novelist aims only at verisimilitude in his story and demands of his hearers only a passive acquiescence. He describes a personage which may or may not have existed. His chief solicitude is to make the actions and qualities of this personage harmonize with each other, and correspond to the circumstances in which he is placed. We read a fictitious narrative therefore with

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the same feelings with which we witness the personation of a character on the stage. Our judgment is temporarily suspended, and our credulity, our love of the marvellous allowed to govern. yield ourselves to the full influence of an illusion. We can at any moment recollect ourselves and break the charm, and the spell is effectually broken at the termination of the play, when we are constrained to feel that it was all deception. But biography commands us not by its plausibility, its internal symmetry, for the character of an individual is often a medley of discrepancies strangely but intimately blended; but by an external evidence for the truth of every part, an evidence to which we are compelled to assent. The portion which we may reject for defect of testimony, does not constitute a portion of the biography. Another reason for this difference of effect may be that our relation to every individual of one species induces us to study more closely a veritable narrative than a legend of romance. This bestowal of superior attention on such delineations of character, gives us a more discriminating view of them, and fixes them more firmly in the memory, and thus augments and perpetuates their effect.

The noblest end of biography, and indeed of every kind of writing is the melioration of our moral nature. For our glory consists in the perfection of that, and our happiness mainly depends on it; for sensual pleasures are transient in their duration and by frequent repetition destroy themselves; the delights of fancy are limited in their extent, and unsatisfying; reasoning, though it gives birth to some of our most exquisite gratifications, fatigues and exhausts; and those enjoyments only which result from the exercise and due cultivation of our moral faculties, retain their freshness and grow in intensity forever. Every science may be made to contribute to this end. We said too that the object to which every branch of human knowledge ultimately tends is the science of man, meaning the philosophy of the intellect. These propositions are not at variance. For the laws of mind are ascertained by an inspection of the sciences, since they may be considered as exhibitions of the mode in which men analyze, combine and classify the objects of their thoughts, and these with their collaterals, constitute the science of the intellect. They may be made to conduce to moral improvement, in various ways. They may be made to conduce to this end, through the intimate connexion between our mental and moral constitution, by throwing light upon the powers of the mind, and enabling us to wield them with greater skill and efficiency. The nature of this connexion we cannot now discuss; but our meaning will be apprehended, from the fact that a distinct perception of speculative truth is generally accompanied by a corresponding distinctness of moral perception, and delicacy of moral feeling. Moreover the sciences are but

compilations of the laws of nature. These laws force upon us a conviction of the attributes of the great Architect divine, and teach us the relations we sustain to other men, and the duties consequent on them; and thus, whatever tendency to the promotion of virtue there may be in natural religion, is derived from these laws. Again, the subjects of the sciences teach every one its lesson. Whether they be incidents in the natural or moral world, portions of the sensitive or animate creation, a man may consider them in such a manner as to rise from the contemplation a wiser and a better man. Every species of writing, then, may be said to promote moral improvement, for we may glean good from all. But too often we are compelled to search long and tediously, amidst filth and pollution, for the expected good, and find it after all, a scanty recompense for our ill-starred labor; too often they come to us in the guise of a friend and with his smiles, but there is a dagger in their sleeve. There may be beauty in the rich greenness of their verdure, and fragrance in their abundant blossoms, but the hiss of the adder is heard from beneath. But we would award a praise, infinitely higher than that of rhetorical beauty or strict logic, to a class of works whose legitimate and almost sole tendency should be to refine our moral nature. Hence we place the highest value on religious biography. In the memoir of the scholar we are made acquainted with the intellectual man alone. We are instructed respecting the control of his mind, habits of inquiry and progress in the career of discovery, and are sometimes admitted to the secret laboratory of the soul, and permitted to observe the workings of those hidden energies whose emanations we had been accustomed to admire. We retire from the scene with an accession to our knowledge, for the pathway to the fountains of truth has been pointed out to us; and with our resolutions invigorated, for we bring back a truer notion of the extent of human capability. But the biography of a religious man opens to us the inner temple of the soul-the repository of tender and rich and sublime affections, and we may go in and gaze with unalloyed and tireless admiration on its magnificent beauty-an arsenal of spiritual weapons, bright burnished, whence every man may take a model for his own accoutrement. In the biography of a religious man we find a more valuable information, and lay down the volume with a more salutary impression on our hearts-more valuable information, for we read of the loftiness and glory of moral worth, and the triumph of moral victory-with a more salutary impression on our hearts, for our thoughts are expanded from the littleness into which they are too apt to shrink, and we are reminded that we have just begun an onward, upward and eternal flight. Difference of opinion or practice constitutes no solid objection to this species of biography. For though we may censure the creed of others as

containing too little or too much, though we may condemn their state of feeling as too cold or fervent to extravagance, though we cannot always imitate or sympathize, we can always admire; for in all this diversity of thought and feeling we see the strugglings of a noble nature, thralled by its infirmities and sins, to attain communion with Him who is the fountain of goodness and blissfulness, and a likeness to His stainless purity. Besides, there is something beautiful and ennobling in this recognition of dependency, in this acknowledgement and bewailment of waywardness and imperfection, and in this high purpose of reaching after perfection. We can admire therefore the devotion of the untaught savage who mingles his voice of solitary thankfulness with the universal anthem of created things. We can admire the wild and fiery zeal of the enthusiast, who, misled by a warm heart and unchastised imagination into the darkness of mysticism, at one time, overwhelmed with a view of his own uncleanness, prostrates himself in the abjectness of unwarranted selfabasement, and agonizes for a visible token of deliverance, and again, exalted by the conceit of a supernatural illumination, ventures where the awed Archangels veil their faces.' We like the Book of Martyrs, with its awful demonstrations of the strength of man's endurance, and of the power of truth. We love to follow the pious man into his retirement, and witness the earnestness of his broken petitions, and heartfelt ascriptions, his tears of penitence and joy; for our minds are overshadowed by a deep consciousness of the Divine presence, and overspread with a serene joyfulness; and the truths, that in the tumult of our daily employment had flitted before us in distant and shadowy procession, assume the form of near and palpable and solemn realities, and we return to the duties of life with a stronger determination, and lighter heart, and more elastic step. We love, though the scene is exquisitely painful, to watch the Christian in his dying hour, and we derive an unction from the sight of a fellow mortal laying off the cumbrance of earthly cares and the slough of mortal weakness, and entering a new existence in renovated beauty; and looking forward in glorious prospective, we see him exchanging corruption for incorruption' and 'progressing upon the dateless and irrevoluble circle of eternity, clasp inseparable hands with joy and bliss in over measure forever.'

We would recommend biography, not merely to quicken the footsteps of him who loiters in the pursuit of truth, not merely to diffuse a deeper, richer, finer tone of feeling. It is a debt we owe the great and good, to preserve in our hearts, as a sacred deposit, the memory of their worth. We owe it to them as benefactors. They are the benefactors of our race; for their example points with impressive gesture to the height which man can reach, and with resistless eloquence commands to climb. We owe it to future genera

tions to transmit every memorial of their worth. We are taught from our earliest infancy to lisp with almost veneration the names of Washington and Franklin. We are proud to call them countrymen, and guard their reputation with a jealous eye and faithfully teach our children the invaluable lesson. With juster pride, may we claim alliance with those Heaven-born spirits, and with deeper reverence may we guard and transmit their virtues, whose bright course has given us higher apprehensions of the destiny and dignity of man, and kindled within us a quenchless desire to attain the one and fulfil the other.

MICHELL.

ON THE DEATH OF MISS FANNY V. APTHORP.

"Tis difficult to feel that she is dead.

Her presence, like the shadow of a wing
That is just given to the upward sky,
Lingers upon us. We can hear her voice,

And for her step we listen, and the eye

Looks for her wonted coming, with a strange,

Forgetful earnestness. We cannot feel

That she will no more come-that from her cheek
The delicate flush has faded, and the light
Dead in her soft dark eye, and on her lip,
That was so exquisitely pure, the dew
Of the damp grave has fallen! Who, so lov'd,
Is left among the living? Who hath walk'd
The world with such a winning loveliness,
And on its bright, brief journey, gather'd up
Such treasures of affection? She was lov'd
Only as idols are. She was the pride
Of her familiar sphere-the daily joy
Of all who on her gracefulness might gaze,
And, in the light and music of her way,
Have a companion's portion. Who could feel,
While looking upon beauty such as hers,
That it would ever perish! It is like
The melting of a star into the sky
While you are gazing on it, or a dream

In its most ravishing sweetness rudely broken.