LETTER V. The British House of Commons. London.
My excellent Friend,

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

THROUGH the politeness of a friend,
I was yesterday admitted to the gallery
of the British house of commons. Never
were a man's expectations higher raised.
To see the grave fathers of the senate, the
collected wisdom of a nation known by its
commercial enterprise, its colonies and its
victories, throughout the habitable globe,
was, indeed, a spectacle so august that I
anticipated it with pleasure tempered by
reverence: not that I expected to see the
curule chairs, the fasces and lictors of the
Roman forum, or to discover, in British
countenances, that inflexible composure of

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

features which dignified the conscript
father slain in his ivory chair by the barbarian
Gaul; but I had reason to expect to
see a solemn assembly of wise, dignified
men, in sober consultation upon the important
concerns of the greatest commercial
nation in the world. In an assembly
of hereditary legislators, like the house of
lords, there might be dignity, but a general
display of great talents, as it is fortuitous,
could not be expected. In the house of
commons, elected from the great body of
the people, I justly expected to find the
talents, the learning, the wisdom and political
science of a wise nation collected in
one brilliant focus; to hear the persuasion
of Cicero, the subtlety of Eschines, the
thunder of Demosthenes, with all I had
read, and more than I could conceive, of
ancient eloquence, poured from British lips
in language nobler than that of Greece or
Rome.

It seems, in going at too early an hour,
I had committed the common blunder of

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

the plebeian who is invited to dine with
my lord. I had taken my seat in the gallery
full three hours before the feast of
reason was served up: there were only a
few official attendants of the house present.
After a while, several gentlemen came in,
booted and spurred as if from a fox-chase:
they formed little parties of chit-chat. As
I understood several of them were members
of parliament, I was not a little anxious
to hear them converse, hoping to stay my
appetite with some eleemosynary scraps of
wisdom, as we, in Boston, take a relish
of punch and oysters, at noon, to prepare
the appetite when invited to a fashionable
dinner. I was soon gratified; two of them
came within hearing, and seemed earnestly
engaged in discourse. Aye, thought I,
now you are untwisting some knotty fiscal
point, or quoting Puffendorf, Grotius, and
Vattel on the laws of nations, or citing
passages from the laws of Oleron, to correct
the defects of your maritime code.—
Suddenly, one of them vociferated—“done

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

“for five hundred guineas; Creeper
“against Sweeper, feather weight.” Now,
as Creeper and Sweeper were two authors
upon political economy of whom I had
never heard, I was somewhat chagrined.
To be sure, to hear the great statesmen
of this great nation converse in my native
tongue and be unable to comprehend
them, was rather mortifying. I was so
simple that, at first, I thought the learned
Creeper might have written a commentary
on Smith's wealth of nations, and that the
erudite Sweeper had illustrated Dr. Price's
essay on finance, by the negative quantities
of algebra. Feather weight, I naturally
concluded, alluded to the balance of power
in Europe.—One of the senators roared
out, “My lord! my lord!” and, upon a
nobleman's approach, said, familiarly,
“ha, Clermont! I have betted five hun
“dred guineas on your gelding, Creeper,
“against Featherstone's Sweeper, provi
“ded my groom, Jim Twamley, rides.”
“I beg your pardon, Sir John,” replied

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

his lordship; “no man straddles my fa
“vourite horse, upon the turf, but my
“self;—but I will back you for five
“hundred more, and ride myself. Why,
“you know, knight, that I beat Sky-
“Scraper, at the heats for the king's
“plate, and took the long odds, though
“Twamley rode Sky-Scraper, and I car
“ried weight.” Not as a politician, I
hope—I aspirated. It was now apparent
these members of parliament were also
members of that sublime political seminary
the jockey club. I had, however,
candour enough to consider that all great
public bodies must exhibit some weak
and indecorous members; and, as the
house began to fill, I observed many gentlemen
whose appearance would have done
honour to the areopagus of Athens.—The
speaker, a dignified man, arrayed in an
imposing costume, took the chair. The
house was immediately called to order,
and business commenced; but it was not
very interesting, being merely the passage

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

of certain bills, through the routine of the
house. The seats were soon filled, and the
minister arose to open what is called
the budget. This beggarly term, which
impresses a stranger with the tags, rags,
and jags of a beggar's pack, is, however,
not unaptly chosen; for, in this region of
taxes, there are few objects so mean as not
to be included in this financiering budget.
The minister, in a plain style, and monotonous
voice, remarked on the various
expenditures of the past, and the taxes
necessary to be levied to meet the present,
exigencies. He acknowledged that the war
with France was commenced on very different
principles from which it was now
to be maintained. He endeavoured to elucidate
those principles; but I was so dull
I could not comprehend him, which I sincerely
regret, as it has long been an object
of curiosity, with me, to discover why
Great Britain involved herself in this ruinous
war; but he was very clear that,
however the war began, it was now to be

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

maintained on a principle of self-defence;
and he seemed to console himself in the
reflection, that, as the nation now contended
for her very existence, the people
could not require any more substantial
reason for the augmentation of taxes. He
was heard with patience, but no sooner
seated than half a dozen members arose
in opposition, and there was some time
lost in deciding who should speak; and I
thought rather too much disorder in producing
order. The second orator spoke
with much more animation, but was heard
with much less patience. He had prepared
a very bitter philippic against the ministry,
which, to me, scented very strongly of the
midnight oil. He represented the nation
as on the verge of ruin; miserable at
home, and a laughing-stock abroad: he
displayed a novel style of rhetoric: he was
generally, although he spoke in a higher
key, as monotonous as the minister: he
accented and emphasized whole sentences
instead of syllables or words: he had

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

copiously enriched his speech with quotations
from the English classics, and, when
he came to those passages, he would prepare
himself by a pause, cast his eyes
towards the treasury-bench, (a seat occupied
by such of the administration as are
members of this house,) and pronounce
the quotation in an octave above his common
tone, and sometimes repeating it
with “sir, I say,” “sir, I am bold to
“say,” “sir, I do not hesitate in saying.”
After about two hours' exertion, he seemed
suddenly to arouse all his energies, and,
casting his eyes indignantly towards the
treasury-bench, vociferated “Mr. Speaker,
“I am bold to say `there is something
“`rotten in the state of Denmark,' and I
“now crave the attention of honourable
“members while I point out this defec
“tive plank in the vessel of the common
“wealth, and drag from their lurking
“holes those pestiferous worms who are
“gnawing the foundations of the constitu
“tion;”—but ere he could extract one of

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

this “corporation of politic worms,” he
was interrupted by a burst of clamour—
order! order! order!—hear him! hear
him! hear him! was the cry. Amidst
this hubbub I thought I could distinguish
sounds very like coughing and shuffling
the feet, but there is something so wretchedly
vulgar in such conduct I had rather
discredit my own ears than impute it to
such a venerable body: indeed, there was
something so indecorous, and at the same
time so ludicrous, in the whole scene, I
hesitated whether to laugh or weep. The
cry of order! order! was vociferated in
accents so similar to the play-house off!
off! to a hissed actor, my first impression
was that, by the wand of Harlequin, the
commons had been changed to Coventgarden
theatre, and I seated in the shilling-gallery,
and I could scarcely forbear
exclaiming, to this legislative orchestra,
caira, caira! roast-beef, roast-beef! God
save the king!—After a while something
like silence (which, however, would be

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

called an uproar in any decent assembly)
was produced. The orator attempted to
speak again, but part of his speech being
struck out, by a decision of order from
the chair, so deranged the whole that,
after some abortive attempts to splice the
rope of his rhetoric, he sat down, apparently
exulting in the confusion he had
made.

A slender, dapper member now arose,
(the very reverse of the hoary ancient who
quieted the tumult in the æneid,) and
suddenly restored good-humour. The
sole object of this pert, voluble legislator,
seemed to be to say smart things; in
which, with some help from those standing
English wits, Joe Miller, Quin, and Ben
Jonson, and some quotations from “Laugh
“and be fat,” he was, indeed, very successful.
He compared the requisitions of a
certain popular leader, to obtain a view of
certain secret negotiations, and the reply
of the cabinet minister, to a story which
he said he had read in a learned author.

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

“A certain man having something con
“cealed carefully under a cloak, was
“required to tell what it was, by an in
“quisitive fellow. `Sir,' said he `can you
“`keep a secret?' `Yes,' replied the
“inquirer. `So can I,' retorted the hu
“morist.”—This threadbare story, which
may be found in the earliest edition of the
oldest jest-book in England, actually convulsed
the house with laughter! Yes,
Frank, the members of the august British
house of commons—the conscript fathers
of Great Britain, actually grinned with joy,
and shook their sides with laughter like a
knot of “younkers on the green!”—
Only think, Frank—a merry house of
commons, funny wisdom, jocular profundity
of thought!—Why, a laughing
legislature is to me as incongruous as a
skipping, tripping bishop, a comical clergyman,
or a buxom, romping penitent.
I was ashamed, mortified, disgusted. I
felt the dignity of my nature violated.
I felt more—I remembered I was of

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

English descent, and I blushed for the land
of my ancestors. You know, Frank, that,
notwithstanding the irritation of our revolutionary
contest, there is an undescribable
something clinging to the heart of every
Anglo-American which sensibly associates
us with the glory of old England.
In the days of our fathers, this clime was
universally known, through the colonies,
under the endearing appellation of the
mother country; and when my honoured
father went to Bristol, to establish a commercial
connection with the house of
Tappenden and Hanby, it was said, in the
family, he was going home. Ah! if
British statesmen could feel all our fathers
felt, and we are disposed to feel, in uttering
this domestic, affectionate, sacred word,
they might attach the profits of our commerce
in a measure not to be attained by
all the despotic intricacies of their maritime
code. I felt the full force of the
word—I was in my father's house—I was
at home: but when amidst the fathers of

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

the nation, convened in solemn assembly
to deliberate on mighty subjects, which
involved not only their own existence, as
a state, but the welfare and peace of the
world, I beheld them listening to the bald
jokes of a mountebank, and grinning like
clowns at his ribaldry—by the bones of
my English ancestors, I could have gone
backwards, like the children of Noah, and
cast a garment over my parents' nakedness.—
I have visited the house several
times since, but found it changed

“From gay to grave, from lively to severe.”—

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

these evanescent members are all pledged
to their party, and have actually had their
minds made up for them, you must be
sensible it would be of no use for any one
of them to hear arguments in favour of
his own decided prepossession, and arguments
on the other side might tend to
raise doubts of the rectitude and wisdom
of his leaders, and to entertain such doubts
would be an unpardonable weakness in a
true-bred politician. They have, I am
told, a practice for members on opposite
sides to pair off, to save themselves from
the tedium of a debate. Now, this is
equally rational; for if a pair of intellectual
balances could be provided, the
talents of these pairs would so nicely equiponderate
that the wisdom of either party
in the house would be diminished in accurate
proportion. Indeed, it is to be
lamented that this mode of pairing off,
which is at present confined to the mute,
could not be extended to the speaking
members; for although the fewer the

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

members the less disquiet may be expected
in a noisy and quarrelsome family,
yet, if the promoters of discord, the brutal
husband and scolding wife, would sometimes
pair off, it might wonderfully conduce
to the quiet of the mansion.

But, to be serious; amidst all the bustle
and puerility of the British house of commons,
I have heard some gentlemen, who,
if you, who have been modelled from the
ancient schools, would not acknowledge
to be orators, yet you would allow them to
be sensible men, speaking pertinently
upon subjects which they seemed intimately
to comprehend, and in language
which might pass from their lips to the
press, and, without correction, be read and
admired as specimens of fine, if not
energetic speaking.

[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]

p408-050 LETTER VIII. The House of Lords. London.
My excellent Friend,

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

THIS day I visited the house of lords.
I assure you I had devested myself of all
my republican prejudices against this assembly
of hereditary legislators. I can
readily perceive the propriety of the existence
of such a body, in a limited monarchy,
who can guard the constitution
against the popular intemperance of the
house of commons on one hand, and the
extension of the royal prerogative on the
other. English history records honourable
instances of its utility in both these
particulars; and their extinction by the

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

long parliament should be a memento to
the British nation, that whenever the house
of lords is annihilated the crown will be
involved in its destruction, and the commons
made the tools of a despot. Their
high rank and proud titles are also objects
of emulation: they are at the disposal of
the sovereign, and not unfrequently conferred
as the mede of merit. They are to
the British, what the civic crowns, the
ovations, triumphal cars and arches, were
to the ancient Romans; and their soldiers
and sailors seek for nobility in the cannon's
mouth.

The house of lords is to the house of
commons, in point of decorum, what the
Opera-house is to Drury-lane theatre.—
Here is no shilling-gallery, no cat-calls,
no vulgar vociferation; but, then, even an
opera is not without its absurdities. It
exhibits heroes in recitative, dancing
princes, and British lions, who, like Nick
Bottom, “can roar you like any sucking
“dove.”

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

The noble lords were not convened, at
this time, in their legislative capacity, but
were sitting, as a high court of errors, to
revise a judgment rendered by the court
of king's bench. This was quite an
interesting scene to me. A hereditary
legislature has something essentially ludicrous
to the mind of a republican; but
hereditary judges, men supposed to be
born with an intuitive knowledge of Norman
French, and monkish Latin, and, in
opposition to the doctrine of Locke, come
into the world with their minds impressed
with the innate and complex ideas of their
municipal code, and possess, by birth,
what my Lord Coke calls the perfection
of human reason, which cannot be acquired
by the plebeian except by the intense
study of a long life, might provoke the
risibility of even Littleton himself.

This baronial bench seemed to me even
more absurd than the court of errors in the
state of Connecticut, where the council of
that state, composed generally of plain

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

farmers, correct the judgments of their
supreme court, composed of men of the
first legal talents. I noticed this juridical
solecism to a respectable clergyman of
that state, but he maintained its propriety,
for, he observed, “the great object of a
“government is, undoubtedly, to render
“justice to its citizens; but it is also an
“object of the next importance to render
“it in such manner as it shall meet the
“comprehension of the great body of the
“people. Our supreme court (he added)
“do the first, and I assure you it greatly
“aids the latter to have the opinions of
“our most eminent lawyers revised, re
“versed or confirmed by men of common
“sense.”—But the case of the Connecticut
judiciary is not (as the lawyers say)
in point, for it might, perhaps, be thought
derogatory to the noble and high court of
errors in England, to compare them to
men of mere common sense. Whilst

“We laugh where we must, let us be candid
“where we can.”

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

Although a man born a judge, simply
considered, is as ridiculous as a man born
a watchmaker, yet, to place the British
house of lords, considered in their judicial
capacity, in the fairest light, we should
rather compare them to a cast, or family,
devoted for ages, by the laws and constitution,
to the fabrication of watches. It
is obvious, although such a family, or
cast, may contain many members who
would be bungling workmen, and even
idiots who could not count the hours, yet,
in the main, it is probable they would
conduct the business of watch-making to
great advantage, as the whole tenor of
their education and converse would lead to
an acquaintance with that art. With this
view, I sat with some impatience to hear
the opinions of these hereditary judges—
grounded, as I anticipated, upon the profoundest
investigation, and delivered in
the best style of Blackstone and Mansfield.
I had therefore to exercise all my patience
while the advocates were mooting the

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

points in the cause, in the bald style of
the English reports, which our friend,
Joseph D*****, used to say, seemed to
be literal translations of law Latin. You
recollect those joyous vigils when, to enliven
our wine and cigars, we used to call
upon our friend to give us a dissertation
upon the classical elegancies of the Term
Reports, which he would illustrate by apt
quotations from Bracton, Fleta, and the
elder English jurists—or those enchanting
strictures of my Lord Coke upon the
statute de donis conditionalibus, the beauties
of which, he declared, were always
flotsam, jetsam, and ligan in his memory,
and which, he gaily asserted, in neatness
and force of expression, could only be
surpassed by that memorable and delectable
definition of a man-milliner, given by a
modern English lawyer of refined taste.
“A man-milliner, is a person exercising
“the art, trade, occupation, business, la
“bour, work, and mystery of a milliner—
“BEING A MAN.”

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

One of the advocates was very profound
and very dull; indeed, he was so tedious
that a young Scotch lawyer, near me, expressed
some very unequivocal signs of
impatience—but a companion checked
him with “hoot mon, when a mon speaks
“in character ye should na' withhold
“praise: do na' ye ken the mon is an
“advocate of the English sessions?”

The counsel for the defendant replied:
but if the argument of the first was infused
with poppy, that of his learned brother
was saturated with opium. If the first
was Somnus, the second was father Nox
himself;—eldest night—ere Satan, that
Brindsley of Milton, had canalled chaos,
and built a bridge and rail-way o'er
the “wide abyss,” for the transportation
of original sin into paradise.—Pardon the
magnificence of my metaphor, my excellent
friend; remember I am in training
for the honours of a blue-stocking club—
and when I sometimes adopt the gorgeous
metaphor or quaint epithet, consider them

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

as specimens of my progress in the elegant
art of modern English fashionable
fine writing.—By the aid of the Scotch
gentleman's snuff-box, I kept awake until
the arguments were concluded.

The Lord Chancellor, who presided,
prepared to collect the opinions of the
noble judges. Now was a moment of
anxious expectation. As I expected he
would begin with the youngest, I felt not
a little solicitous to discover how the
young peers would acquit themselves on
a subject abstruse in itself, and rendered
more so by the eloquence of the learned
counsel.—The Lord Chancellor seemed
to comprehend the subject, and stated the
main and collateral points with clearness
and precision—and called upon the noble
lords for any thing they might have to
offer. One of the law lords (as they are
styled here—that is, a lord who has acquired
a knowledge of the law in the
good old, vulgar, democratic way of study
and practice) gave his opinion. He was

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

followed by several others of the same
class.—The Lord Chancellor then stated
the main point concisely, and said—“my
“lords, is it your opinion that the judg
“ment of the court of king's bench be
“affirmed?”—casting his eyes hastily,
and cursorily, and I fancied rather contemptuously,
over the hereditary judges—
and, without waiting, or, indeed, having
any time, to estimate the votes, said “it is
“affirmed.” His lordship then gave his
own opinion seriatim, and adduced several
arguments in favour of the defendant
in error, of greater weight, I thought, than
any which had been advanced by the
counsel—and, finally, supported the judgment
of the court of king's bench, and the
present opinion of the house, handsomely.
Now, I thought this very considerate in
his lordship; as he appeared, manifestly,
to have formed and pronounced the judgment
of the house for them, it was certainly
very kind in his lordship to show

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

the noble lords that there might be something
very handsome said in favour of it.

After all the wisdom and parade of
this high court of errors—if this great
nation, so justly proud of its unrivalled
judiciary, as they have now a court of
conscience, (which, by the by, has jurisdiction
only of trifling matters, and is
not a court of record in England,) would
only copy humble Connecticut, and substitute
for their high court of errors a
court of common sense, it would greatly
improve the system—and the judgment,
in this case, would have been reversed
with the approbation, at least, of all those
who have a common share of it: for the
cause turned solely upon a point of ancient
practice. It was agreed, on all sides,
that the merits of the original suit was
with the losing party, and the decision,
by the house of lords, operated as an extreme
hard case. But the old maxim of
the English law, fiat justitia ruat cœlum,
is now understood to mean—let

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

precedents govern if justice is trampled upon.
This adherence to the technæ of forms
and practice is of great importance in
English jurisprudence. The people are
taught to pride themselves in their judicial
system, and they verily believe that
the science of the law is better understood,
and justice more impartially administered,
in the English courts, than in
those of any other nation. But the English
law is a science so transcendantly
mysterious, that nine-tenths of the people
cannot comprehend it; and when they, at
times, discover the folly and wickedness
of other departments in government, they
console themselves with the inflexible impartiality
of their judiciary.

The first natural impression of justice
is its inflexibility. It is ever uniform, and
knows no “variableness or shadow of
“turning.” Therefore, by a scrupulous
adherence to ancient forms, however absurd,
or however injurious to individuals,
the people are persuaded of the steady

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

course and inflexible administration of
justice. Although the essential doctrines
of the English common law have, in modern
days, been as mutable as the fashions
in Bond-street—although Lord Mansfield,
during his presidency in the court of
king's bench, effected as great a revolution
in their municipal code as ever
Mirabeau contemplated in the French
constitution—yet, as he scrupulously preserved
the forms, it excited no alarm.
This great law reformer seemed to have
learned wisdom from the unsuccessful
attempt of the czar Peter to deprive his
clergy of their beards. Lord Mansfield saw
that the sword of despotism, which could
cut in sunder the doctrines and revenues of
the Greek church, was blunted in its edge
by the formal beards of the clergy; and
while he perverted the spirit, he forbore
to meddle with the ancient and venerable
habiliments of the law. And there
can be no doubt that the foundations of
the great system of English common law

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

may be broken up, and, in pursuance of
the principles of Mansfield, the rights and
interests of the landholders may be made
subservient to the gains of the merchant,
and the rights, interests, and liberties of
the common people sacrificed to both—
yet, while its forms continue, while the
dignified costume of the judges shall be
preserved—while the rust of Norman and
Saxon technæ remain, and the ancient
formal practice of the courts abide, the
people will be content to worship the
venerable body—while the spirit of the
common law, of that common law which
was the birth-right, the glory, and the sure
defence of the liberties of their ancestors,
is fled to mingle with the departed spirits
of those more enlightened Englishmen
who transmitted it, as their richest legacy,
to their posterity: let us, my friend, endeavour
to guard against the delusions of
forms, and look to the essence of that
rational liberty for which our fathers successfully
fought.

[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]

p408-064 LETTER XI. English Biography.

London.
My excellent Friend,

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

AMONG the innumerable works issuing
daily from the English press, there
are none more frequent than those devoted
to biography. Indeed, there is no book
more pleasing than memoirs of eminent
persons, written judiciously. The stately
pen of the historian, whose object is event,
cannot condescend to gratify curiosity
with personal notices. In reciting the
eventful battle, the generals may be named;
in recording the treaty, the statesman may
be noticed; but we learn no more of them
than is necessarily connected with those

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

events. The perusal of history leaves on
the mind of every reflecting reader, a curiosity
to know more of those great men,
of whom the mirror of the historian has
afforded but a glimpse. We wish to be
informed whether heroes or statesmen
derived their bravery or wisdom from
a long line of illustrious ancestors, or
achieved greatness by inherent worth. To
gratify this laudable curiosity was, undoubtedly,
the origin of biography; and
it must be acknowledged that the lives of
the good and the great, written with
judgment, often illustrate history, and present
the most instructive lessons to mankind.
Plutarch is, at once, the model for
biographers, and his lives the mirror in
which the folly and deformity of modern
English biography may be seen: I do not
think I read any modern works with such
abhorrence, disgust, and ineffable contempt.
I am an enthusiast in legitimate biography.
You know, my dear Frank, that if my
little library can boast of any thing like a

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

complete collection, it is in the biographical
department—to which I have frequently
repaired for profit and delight.
Indeed, what can be more profitable and
delightful than to turn the pages of correct
biography; to trace genius from its
birth; to see the Herculean mind strangling,
as it were, the snakes of ignorance
in the cradle; to observe its inherent
energies bursting the dense mists of poverty
and obscurity; to view the man of
mighty genius leaping into the angry flood
of life, like Cassius into the “troubled
“Tyber,”


—“buffeting its surge
“With lusty sinews; throwing it aside
“And stemming it with heart of controversy,
“Until he gains the point proposed.”
When the master-spirit, in despite of
poverty, obscurity, municipal restraint,
and the shackles of ancient custom,


“Gets the start of the majestic world,
“And bears the palm alone,”

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

and leaves the epoch of his existence to
denote and glorify the age and country
which gave him birth, we read and are
inspired with noble ambition; our mental
powers are awakened. If we possess a
latent spark of genius, it is kindled to
a flame. We learn to buffet misfortune,
surmount despondency, and dare to be
eminent. But this is no representation
or effect of English biography. The object
of their biographers is not to excite
emulation in great, but to fill the vacuity
of little minds; not to exhibit their heroes,
statesmen, and literati, with dignity
to the present, or transmit their characters
with splendour to future ages—but,
by minute, frivolous, ludicrous, and often
indecorous anecdote, to belittle them in
the view of their cotemporaries; and to
convince posterity that the praise bestowed
on them by historians, or acquired by
their works, is totally unfounded. The
English connoisseur in painting will tell
you that the portrait of a great man cannot

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

be perfect until its tints are mellowed by
time: but the English have yet to learn,
that the same will equally apply, in a
metaphorical sense, to the original. To
render a great character perfect, they
should suffer time to mellow its tints, and
cast a friendly and oblivious shade over
those glaring colours which degraded it
in the eyes of cotemporaries. But the
present English biographers do not write
for posterity: No—they write for circulating-libraries,
reading-rooms, ornamented
studies, loungers, pastry-cooks, and green-grocers.

I adore Plutarch, who made me acquainted
with the worthies of Greece and
Rome: I honour the anonymous author
who made me acquainted with the great
Galileo: I am inspired with enthusiasm
while I read. “I live along his lines”—I
give the reins to my imagination—I am
present with the great mathematician when
he first points his newly invented telescope
toward the heavens, and establishes, by

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

observation, the Copernican system—I see
the sun of his genius now bursting
through the dense clouds of monkish
ignorance, then obscured by those of
ecclesiastical bigotry; and, finally, pouring
its strong light through after-ages, which
shall not be extinguished until the system
he illustrated shall be dissolved.

I am grateful to the man who wrote the
life of the modest Harvey, who gave consistency
to the art of physic by the discovery
of the circulation of the blood.
The obstacles he encountered from ignorance
and envy, which discredited his
discovery, despoiled him of his manuscripts
and his household goods, and attempted
to rob him of his fame, and
which he requited by bequeathing his patrimony
for the benefit of the art—afford
a lesson which may be useful even in my
small sphere.—Dr. Burnet's account of
the life and death of John, Earl of Rochester,
presents a more powerful antidote to
vicious pleasures than the choice of

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

Hercules. In his relation of the death-bed
repentance of this eminent martyr to debauchery,
every sentence is a homily
which speaks consolation to the pious and
bids the infidel prepare for future judgment.—
In the lives of Galileo, Harvey,
and others from the same school, I see
much to admire and to emulate, and nothing
to excite ridicule or disgust; I am
grateful to such biographers. But I do not
thank the author who pursues his hero
into the recesses of domestic life, and exhibits
the disgusting infirmities of our
common nature. I owe no obligations to
the biographers who exhibit to me the
Duke of Marlborough “saving a groat”—
Addison and Parnel in their cups—Dean
Swift lampooning good Mrs. Sheridan, at
Quilca—or the moral Dr. Johnson belabouring
Osborn, the printer, with a
folio. Such puny anecdotes make no part
of legitimate biography. It is trifling
with the reader of reflection, and worse
than trifling with the subject of their

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

memoirs. The Duke de Rochefoucauld
observes, that no man was ever a hero in the
eyes of his valet-de-chambre—and one
would imagine that the lives of most of
the eminent men in England were written
by their valets, or rather by their grooms
or scullions.—I have just been disgusted
by reading a few pages of a work which
the author has had the effrontery to style
biographical: but it is not biography; it
is the mischievous scandal of waiting-maids—
the buzz of a village bar-room—
and the gossip's tale at a vulgar accouchement.

It is difficult to decide whether most
injury is done, by these pretended biographers,
to their readers or to the reputation
of the subject of their memoirs.
When we peruse an ethical work—for
instance, should we read lessons of sublime
morality in the Rambler—should we be
convinced, by his wondrous force of language,
of the necessity of self-denial, temperance,
and the control of inordinate

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

passions, we should be immediately impressed
with an idea that the author lived
an eminent example of the precepts he
enjoined; and, even should we be deceived,
it is for our own benefit we should
continue to think so: but when we are
told, by his biographer, that this austere
moralist was a glutton, and a wine-bibber,
that his ungoverned passions, at times,
precipitated him into broils and striking,
and even into an association with the
lowest grades of sexual pollution, the
charm is dissolved, the writer is devested
of half his moral persuasion. If you
doubt this position, my friend, look into
yourself: you may have been pleased, it
is true, with an elegant ethical essay, written
by a known profligate, but you never
had your heart warmed or your life amended
by a sermon on temperance from a
drunken parson. It is true in writing as
in preaching, that the sentiment which
reaches the heart must be supposed to
come from the heart. In this view, therefore,

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

many of the modern biographies may be
considered, not merely trifling but pernicious—
not only disreputable to the subjects
of them but injurious to the cause
of virtue. Mr. Boswell, one of the most
fashionable of these anti-biographers, apologizes
for the insertion of several anecdotes,
very discreditable to Dr. Johnson,
by the moral obligation of a strict adherence
to truth; but he should have reflected
that the truth is not violated by the
omission of facts immaterial to the great
object of relation. Were a man called to
testify to a contract in a court of justice
he would not be guilty of perjury
should he omit to relate that one of the
contracting parties, on his way to the
court, had fallen into a jakes: but if this
regard to truth must, without limitation,
govern the biographer, why did he not inform
us, at least in a marginal note, how
many times in a year his illustrious friend
performed his non-naturals.

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

You who have often rallied me upon
what you was pleased to call the sickly
delicacy of my taste in belles-lettres, will
readily conceive the disgust I am exposed
to by perusing several recent biographical
works which you will receive by Captain—.
The truth is, when I inquire after
some great man whose fame has crossed
the Atlantic, I am immediately referred to
an elegant edition of his life—and, in reading
it, feel the same disappointment as if
I should employ Mr. West to paint a
full-length portrait of William the third,
expecting he would represent, that hero
mounted on his proud charger, contending
for kingdoms at the battle of Boyne, and
he should (in the spirit of an English
biographer) represent the glorious protestant
deliverer perched in his water-closet,
writhing in all the contortions of a dry
belly-ache! Oh, it is vile! it is descending
from the dignity of the biographer, to
expose the infirmities of the wise for the
gratification of the idle; to patch the

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

venerable garb of wisdom with the motley
of Harlequin, and hold it forth as a laughing-stock
for folly. When the public taste
can relish such biography it presents a
sure but melancholy proof of the decadence
of learning in any country.—Although
he cannot boast of originality, Dr.
Johnson set the fashion of this gossiping
biography. In his lives of the British
poets, he was sedulous to collect those
little ana which make weak readers laugh
and wise men grieve. From him we learn
that Addison tippled, and his wife was a
termagant; that Prior affected sordid
converse in base company, and that his
Chloe was a despicable drab; that Pope
was a glutton, and fell a sacrifice to a silver
sauce-pan, in which it was his delight to
heat potted lampries; and that Rag Smith
was a sloven. When I first read Johnson's
Lives of the British Poets I regretted
those littlenesses, but when I read his life
of the immortal Milton, the latchet of
whose shoes (with reverence be it spoken)

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

he was not worthy to unloose, I then hoped
I should live to see the day when some
biographer of his own school might write
this author's life, and mete out to him the
measure he meted unto others. I have
lived to be fully gratified—I have read the
life of Samuel Johnson, L. L. D. by Mrs.
Hester Thrale, Sir John Hawkins, and
James Boswell, Esq. and, to my infinite
satisfaction, these three have raised a
tripod of incense to his fame, from which
any man of decent regard to his reputation
would be happy to fly for sanctuary to the
pillory.

Such an abhorrence of these, and similar
biographers, has been excited in those
who apprehended they might be damned
by them to everlasting fame, that, to rescue
their memories from obloquy, and their
friends and relations from shame and sorrow,
several eminent literary men have
been compelled to publish their own memoirs.
Among these, Richard Cumberland,
grandson of the great Bentley, and

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

the first dramatist in England, has lately
published an account of his own life and
writings, and I am told, by one of his
friends, he means, by adding supplement
to supplement, to preclude the possibility
of his memory's being lacerated by these
biographical hyænas. That he published
his own memoirs from such motives is apparent
from one of his concluding sentences:—
“Man has no need, no right, no
“interest, to know of man more than I
“have enabled every one to know of me.”
David Hume, near thirty years before,
wrote his own life; which should be esteemed,
by the English, in mode, a model
for biographers; for he has disclosed all
those incidents which the world has any
need, right, or interest to know.

Besides those memoirs which issue
proudly from the press, in appropriate
volumes, there are a variety of voluminous
biographical collections, alphabetically arranged,
which are filled with celebrated
names, known only to the collectors: and,

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

in addition to this, the magazines lend
their aid to perpetuate memory; and
here, with wonderful industry, the darkest
recesses of obscurity are ransacked to find
names and anecdotes to fill their columns.
It is curious to observe what ingenuity is
displayed to eke out the memoirs, and give
celebrity to a man whose life might be
abundantly comprised in the biography of
a village tombstone. One of these Lilliputian
biographies I will extract, for your
amusement, from the Gentleman's Magazine—
it will serve as a specimen.

“August.—Died, at Wragby, on the
“23d ult. Mr. Jacob Bonnycastle, aged
“64.—N. B. Some notice of this eminent
“person in our next.”

“September.—Mr. Jacob Bonnycastle,
“whose death we announced in our last,
“was the son of Mr. Isaac Bonnycastle,
“and grandson to the justly celebrated
“Mr. Abraham Bonnycastle, who, in
“1742, was the first person who disco
“vered the approach of Lord Anson's

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

“ship, the Centurion, after her voyage
“round the world. The late Mr. Jacob
“Bonnycastle was forty years usher to
“an academy—and was remarkable for
“having never used but one pen during
“this period, which was made of a gray
“goose-quill. It is said, in his youth, he
“actually conversed with a gentleman
“who was familiarly acquainted with the
“celebrated Bamfylde Moore Carew,
“king of the beggars.”

Now, one would suppose sufficient had
been said to emblazon the memory of the
“mighty dead”—not so: in the next
number we find further notices of the
“celebrated Mr. Jacob Bonnycastle, in
“a letter from `a schoolfellow' to the
“editors of the Gentleman's Maga
“zine.

“Sir,

“The ample justice you have rendered
“the memory of my learned and illus
“trious friend, Mr. Jacob Bonnycastle, of
“Wragby, has emboldened me to correct

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

“a few inadvertent errors in your state
“ment, for the benefit of posterity. The
“pen which Mr. Bonnycastle solong used,
“to his own honour and that of the na
“tion, was not deplumed from a gray
“goose, but once adorned the pinions of
“a crow. Mr. Bonnycastle was not the
“son of Isaac Bonnycastle, but of the late
“Andrew Bonnycastle, who was executed
“for sheep-stealing. His uncle was the
“noted Edward Bonnycastle, commonly
“called lying Ned. His mother was a
“noted beauty, in her youth, and was kept
“by the famous blackleg, Colonel Kelly.
“His maternal grandmother was the cele
“brated Moll Huggins, well known in
“the metropolis, about the year 1737, by
“the name of wapping Moll.—You may
“rely on these facts, as I have been inti
“mately acquainted with this worthy
“family near half a century.