Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“
[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

LIVES

OF

CELEBRATED AMERICANS:

COMPRISING

BIOGRAPHIES OF THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY
EMINENT PERSONS.

[ocr errors]

BY

BENSON J. LOSSING,

[ocr errors]

AUTHOR OF HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES,' FIELD-BOOK OF THE
REVOLUTION," AND WAR OF 1812," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED WITH OVER 100 FINE PORTRAITS.

BY LOSSING AND BARRITT.

HARTFORD:

THOMAS BELKNAP.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by

BENSON J. LOSSING,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York,

PREFACE.

BIOGRAPHY is

"Lives of great men all remind us
We may make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us

Foot-prints on the sands of Time.'

OGRAPHY is History teaching by example. It is the basis

of all historical structures. The Chronicles of the nations are composed of the sayings and doings of their men and women. These make up the sum of History.

Sallust says, "I have often heard that Quintus Maximus, Publius Scipio, and other renowned persons of the Roman Commonwealth, used to say that, whenever they beheld the images of their ancestors, they felt their minds vehemently excited to virtue. It could not be the wax, nor the marble, that possessed this power; but the recollections of their great actions kindled a generous flame in their breasts, which could not be quelled till they, also, by Virtue, had acquired equal fame and glory."

It is with the earnest desire of producing precisely such effects upon the minds and hearts of the young people of our country, that this volume has been prepared-that these images have been set up. The Roman youth were excited to great, and generous, and virtuous deeds, by the sight of material objects and the voices of Orators. Our youth have their aspirations for noble

« AnkstesnisTęsti »