It is, indeed, not improper to take honest advantages of prejudice, and to gain attention by a celebrated name; but the business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over thofe performances and incidents, which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestick privacies, and display the minute details of daily lise, where exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and by virtue. The account of Thuanus is, with great propriety, laid by its author to have been written, that it might lay open to posterity the private and samiliar character of that man, cujus ingenium et candorem ex ipfuts fcrip'is Junt olim Jemper miraturi, whofe candour and genius will to the end of time be by his writings preserved in admiration.

There are many invisible circumstances which, whether we read as enquirers aster natural or moral knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge our science, or encrease our virtue, are more important than publick occurrences. Thus Sallust, the great master of nature, has not forgot, in his account of Catiline, to remark that his walk was now quick, and again flow, as an indication of a mind revolving something with violent commotion. Thus the story of Melancthon afsords a striking lecture on the value of time, by insorming us, that when lie made an appointment, he expected not only the hour, bur the minute to be fixed, that the day might not run out in the idleness of suspense; and all the plans and enterprizes of De Wit are now of less importance to the world, than that part of his personal character which represents him as careful of bis health, and negligent of bis life.

But

But biography has often been allotted to writers who seem very little acquainted with the nature of their task, or very negligent about the performance. They rarely afford any other account than might be collected from publick papers, but imagine themselves writing a lise when they exhibic a chronological series of actions or preferments; and so little regard the manners or behaviour of their heroes, that more knowledge may be gained of a man's real character, by a short conversation with one of his servants, than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree, and ended with his suneral.

If now and then they condescend to insorm the world of particular sacts, they arc not always so happy as to select the most important. I know not well what advantage posterity can receive from the only circumstance by which Tickell has distinguished Addison from the rest of mankind, the irregularity of bis pulfe: nor can I think myself overpaid for the time spent in reading the lise of Malherb, by being enabled to relate, aster the learned biographer, that Malherb had two predominant opinions; one, that the loofeness of a single woman might destroy all her boast of ancient descent; the other, that the French beggars made use very improperly and barbarously of the phrase noble Gentleman, because either word included the sense of both.

There are, indeed, some natural reasons why these narratives are often written by such as were not likely to give much instruction or delight, and why most accounts of particular persons arc barren and useless. If a lise be delayed till interest and envy are at an end, we may hope for impartiality, but must expect

Vol. V. C c little little intelligence; for the incidents which give excellence to biography are of a volatile and evanescent kind, such as soon escape the memory, and are rarely transmitted by tradition. ,We know how sew can pourtray a living acquaintance, except by his most prominent and observable particularities, and the grosser seatures of his mind; and it may be easily imagined how much of this little knowledge may be loll in imparting it, and how soon a succession of copies v.-ill lofe all resemblance of the original.

If the biographer writes from personal knowledge, and makes haste to gratisy the publick curiosity, there is danger lest his interest, his sear, his gratitude, or his tenderness, overpower his ridelity, and tempt him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an act; of piety to hide the saults or failings of their friends, even when they can no longer suffer by their detection; we therefore see whole ranks of characters adorned with uniform panegyrick, and not to be known from one another,, but by extrinsick and casual circumstances. "Let me remember," says Hale, "when I rind myself inclined to pity a "criminal, that there is likewise a pity due to the "country." If we owe regard to the memory of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue, and to truth.

Numb. 61. Tuesday, Ofiober 16, 1750.

Fal/us honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret

i^utm nlji mendosum tt mendacem? Ho ft.

False praise can charm, unreal shame controul

Whom but a vicious or a sickly foul? Francis.

To the RAMBLER.

S I R,

IT is extremely vexatious to a man of eager and thirsty curiofity to be placed at a great distance from the fountain of intelligence, and not only never to receive the current of report till it has satiated the greatest part of the nation, but at last to find it mudded in its course, and corrupted with tainu or mixtures from every channel through which it flowed.

One of the chief pleasures of my lise is to hear what passes in the world, to know what are the schemes of the politick, the aims of the busy, and the hopes of the ambitious; what changes of publick measures are approaching; who is likely to be crushed in the collision of parties; who is climbing'to the top of power, and who is tottering on the precipice of disgrace. But as it is very common for us to desire most what we are least qualified to obtain, I have suffered this appetite of news to outgrow all the gratifications which my present situation can afford it; for being placed in a remote country, I am condemned always to consound the suture with the past,

C c 2 to to form prognostications of events no longer doubtsul, and to consider the expediency of schemes already executed or deseated. I am perplexed with a perpetual deception in my profpects, like a man pointing his telescope at a remote star, which before the light reaches his eye has forsaken the place from which it was emitted.

The mortification of being thus always behind the active world in my reflections and discoveries, is exceedingly aggravated by the petulance of thole whofe health, or business, or pleasure, brings them hither from London. For, without considering the insuperable disadvantages of my condition, and the unavoidable ignorance which absence must produce, they often treat me with the utmost superciliousness of contempt, for not knowing what no human sagacity can discover; and sometimes seem to consider me as a wretch scarcely worthy of human converse, when I happen to talk of the fortune of a bankrupt, <;r propose the healths of the dead, when I warn them of mischiefs already incurred, or wish for measures that have been lately taken. They seem to attribute to the superiority of their intellects what they only owe to the accident of their condition, and think themselves indisputably intitled to airs of insolence and authority, when they find another ignoi of sacts, which because they echoed in the streets ot London, they suppofe equally publick in all oilier places, and known where they could neither be leen, related, nor conjectured.

To this haughtiness they are indeed too much encouraged by the respect which they receive amongst Us, sor no other reason than that they come from

London.