Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851

"No harm, my boy," said the Parson tenderly; "you have nothing to fear – all is explained and forgiven."

Lenny looked up, and the veins on his forehead were much swollen. "Sir," said he sturdily, "I don't want to be forgiven – I ain't done no wrong. And – I've been disgraced – and I won't go to school, never no more."

"Hush, Carry!" said the Parson to his wife, who, with the usual liveliness of her little temper, was about to expostulate. "Good night, Mrs Fairfield. I shall come and talk to you to-morrow, Lenny; by that time you will think better of it."

The Parson then conducted his wife home, and went up to the Hall to report Lenny's safe return; for the Squire was very uneasy about him, and had even in person shared the search. As soon as he heard Lenny was safe – "Well," said the Squire, "let him go the first thing in the morning to Rood Hall, to ask Master Leslie's pardon, and all will be right and smooth again."

"A young villain!" cried Frank, with his cheeks the colour of scarlet; "to strike a gentleman and an Etonian, who had just been to call on me! But I wonder Randal let him off so well – any other boy in the sixth form would have killed him!"

"Frank," said the Parson sternly, "if we all had our deserts, what should be done to him who not only lets the sun go down on his own wrath, but strives with uncharitable breath to fan the dying embers of another's?"

The clergyman here turned away from Frank, who bit his lip, and seemed abashed – while even his mother said not a word in his exculpation; for when the Parson did reprove in that stern tone, the majesty of the Hall stood awed before the rebuke of the Church. Catching Riccabocca's inquisitive eye, Mr Dale drew aside the philosopher, and whispered to him his fears that it would be a very hard matter to induce Lenny to beg Randal Leslie's pardon, and that the proud stomach of the pattern-boy would not digest the Stocks with as much ease as a long regimen of philosophy had enabled the sage to do. This conference Miss Jemima soon interrupted by a direct appeal to the Doctor respecting the number of years (even without any previous and more violent incident) that the world could possibly withstand its own wear and tear.

"Ma'am," said the Doctor, reluctantly summoned away, to look at a passage in some prophetic periodical upon that interesting subject – "ma'am, it is very hard that you should make one remember the end of the world, since, in conversing with you, one's natural temptation is to forget its existence."

Miss Jemima blushed scarlet. Certainly that deceitful heartless compliment justified all her contempt for the male sex; and yet – such is human blindness – it went far to redeem all mankind in her credulous and too confiding soul.

"He is about to propose," sighed Miss Jemima.

"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he drew on his nightcap, and stepped majestically into the four-posted bed, "I think we shall get that boy for the garden now!"

Thus each spurred his hobby, or drove her car, round the Hazeldean whirligig.

BIOGRAPHY. 9

Although history and biography both relate to the affairs of men, and are employed in the narrative of human events, they are governed by opposite principles, and require, for their successful prosecution, different powers and habits of thought. The main object of history is the tracing out the growth of nations, the great events which lead to their rise or fall, the causes operating on the social body, which at one period conduct to power and greatness, at another induce weakness and decay. Biography is concerned with individual life. Its aim is to trace the annals, not of nations, but of persons; to portray, not the working of general causes on the progress of empires, but the influence of particular characters on their most interesting episodes. The former requires habits of general thought, and the power of tracing one common principle through a great variety of complicated details; the latter, close attention to individual incidents, and a minute examination of the secret springs of human conduct. The first is closely allied to the generalisations of the philosopher; the latter requires the powers of the dramatist. The two branches of composition, however, are nearly allied, and frequently run into each other. History generally finds its most interesting episodes, often its most important subjects, in the narrative of individual greatness; biography is imperfect unless, in addition to tracing the achievements of the individuals it records, it explains their influence upon the society among whom they arose.

What we call the histories of antiquity were, for the most part, only biographies, and they owe their principal interest to that circumstance. The Cyropædia of Xenophon is a philosophical romance, clothed with the eloquence of an orator; the fragments which remain of Sallust, the rhetorical narrative of Quintus Curtius, are the avowed biographies of individual men. Even the regular histories of classical times owe their chief charm to the simplicity of the subject, in which one state or contest stands prominently forward, and the others are thrown into a shade which only renders the more striking the light thrown on one particular subject, or the efforts of individual greatness. Herodotus has earned his deathless fame by the narrative he has given of the great war between Persia and Greece, on which the destinies of mankind depended; Thucydides by his profound exposition of the strife of aristocracy and democracy in the contest between Lacedæmon and Athens. The long narrative of Livy has survived the floods of Time almost entirely from the charming episodes descriptive of character or manners which he has introduced, and the dramatic power with which he has narrated the exploits of individual men; and what has given Tacitus immortality, is neither any luminous views on the progress of mankind, nor any just appreciation of the causes of greatness in particular states, but the depth to which he has fathomed the real springs of action in particular men, and the terrible truth with which he has unveiled that most appalling of all spectacles – a naked human heart.

The great difficulty of history, as it must be written in modern times, arises from the multitude and complication of the events which have to be recorded. So intimately connected have the States of Europe been since the rise of modern civilisation, that he who writes the annals of one must write the history of all. The progress, internal and external, of all its powers must be brought forward abreast; and such is their number and importance, that not only is the historian oppressed with the variety and complication of his materials, but he finds it next to impossible to produce interest in the reader amidst such a sea of details; and often fails, from the impossibility of attaining that essential requisite in the rousing of human sympathy – unity of emotion. Add to this the infinity of subjects a historian even of an individual state must now embrace, and which almost overwhelm the exploits of particular men by their multitude and complication. Strategy, statistics, trade, navigation, commerce, agriculture, taxation, finance, currency, paper credit, poor laws, agriculture, socialism, chartism, form a few of the topics, any one of which would require volumes for its elucidation, yet none of which can be omitted without exposing the historian to the imputation, from some one or other, of having overlooked the most important part of his subject. So great is this difficulty, so extensive the embarrassment it produces, that it may safely be pronounced to be insurmountable by any effort, how great soever, unless the endeavours of the historian are aided by unity of interest in the subject, or overpowering greatness of influence in the characters with whom he has to deal. But it is, perhaps, only in the wars of the Crusades, of the Succession in Spain, and of the French Revolution, that such unity of interest is to be looked for, or such surpassing grandeur of character is to be found, from the achievements of a Richard Cœur-de-Lion, a Marlborough, or a Napoleon.

From this great difficulty, biography is entirely free, and thence the superior interest with which, when properly treated, works of that description are attended. We are so constituted that we must concentrate our interest; dispersion is fatal to its existence. Every novelist and romance-writer knows this; there must always be a hero and a heroine; but two or three heroes and heroines would prove fatal to the interest. Ariosto tried to divide the interest of the reader among the adventures of a dozen knights-errant; but even his genius proved unequal to the task, and he was obliged to concentrate the whole around the fabulous siege of Paris to restore the broken unity of his power. The great and signal advantage of biography is, that, from its very nature, it possesses that personal interest and individual character which the epic poet and novelist feel to be essential to the moving of the human heart, but which the historian so often finds himself unable to attain, without omitting some important parts of his subject, or giving undue prominence to the characters of individual men.

For this reason it is, that the most popular works which ever have been written have been biographies of illustrious men. No one would think of comparing the intellect of Plutarch to that of Tacitus, his eloquence to that of Cicero's, yet he has made perhaps a greater impression on the imagination of subsequent ages than either of these illustrious men. If we examine the images of the mighty of former days which are engraven on our minds, we shall find that it is not so much the pictured pages of Livy or Quintus Curtius, as the "Lives of Plutarch," which have given them immortality. We complain of his gossip, we lament his superstition, we smile at his credulity, but we devour his pages; and, after the lapse of seventeen hundred years, they remain one of the most generally popular works in existence. It is the same in modern times. No one would think of comparing Boswell, in point of intellect, to Johnson; in point of eloquence to Burke; in point of genius to Gibbon; yet he has produced a work superior in general interest to any of these illustrious men, and which is daily read by thousands, to whom the "Reflections on the French Revolution," the moral essays of the "Rambler," and the "History of the Decline and Fall," will for ever remain unknown.

To render biography, however, thus generally attractive, it is indispensable that its basis should be that first element in the narration of human action – Truth. Without this, it wants the great superiority of the narrative of real event over fictitious creations, how interesting soever they may be – that of recording what has actually occurred in real life. How important an element this is in awakening the sympathies of the human heart, may be seen even in children who, when particularly fascinated by any story they are told, invariably end by asking, "But is it all true?" The value of truth, or rather of what is "vraisemblable," is felt even in imaginary conceptions, which it is well known are never so attractive, or interest so powerfully, as when they most closely resemble the events and characters of actual existence. The real is, and ever must be, the only sure foundation of the ideal. Novels are most delightful when they approach nearest to what we behold around us in real life, while yet containing a sufficient blending of romance and sentiment, of heroism and magnanimity, to satisfy the higher aspirations of our being. Biography is most charming when it depicts with fidelity those characters, and records with truth those events, which approach nearest to that imaginary perfection to which every generous mind aspires, but to which none ever has attained, or ever will.

It has been said with truth, that the events which are suitable for epic poetry are such as are "probable but yet elevating." We are so constituted by our bonds to earth, that our chief interest must ever be derived from the virtues or the vices, the joys or sorrows, of beings like ourselves; but we are so filled with more ennobling thoughts and aspirations, by our destiny in Heaven, that we can be satisfied only by what points to a higher state of existence, and feel the greatest enjoyment by being elevated, either by the conceptions of fancy or the records of reality, to a nearer view of its perfection. If novels depict merely imaginary existences, they may charm for a season, like the knights of Ariosto, or the heroes of Metastasio; but they are too much in the clouds permanently to interest sublunary mortals. If they record merely the adventures of low, or the vulgarity of middle life, they may amuse for a season, like the characters of Smollett; but they will sink ere long, from the want of that indispensable lifeboat in the sea of time, an elevating tendency. It is characters like those of the Iliad, of Shakspeare, of Scott, and Schiller, which combine the well-known and oft-observed characteristics of human nature with the oft-imagined but seldom seen traits of heroism and magnanimity which border on the realms of the ideal that for ever fascinate the imagination, and dwell in the heart of man. The reason is, they contain enough of reality to tell us it is of humanity that the story is told, and enough of the ideal to make us proud of our connection with it.

The great and chief charm of biography is to be found in this, that it unites, from its very nature and object, those two indispensable requisites to durable popularity in works of fiction, and combines them with the value and the solid information of truthful narrative. It possesses the value of history, without its tedium – the interest of romance, without its unsubstantiality. It culls the flowers from the records of time, and casts into the shade all the accompanying weeds and briars. If a judicious and discriminating selection of characters were made – if those persons were selected for the narrative who have been most illustrious by their virtues, their genius, or their magnanimity, or, as a contrast, by their vices, and who have made the greatest and most durable impression on human affairs, a work might be produced exceeding any one of history in its utility, any of romance in its popularity. David Hume strongly advised Robertson, eighty years ago, instead of writing the Life of Charles the Fifth, to write a series of biographies, on the plan of Plutarch, for modern times; and it is, perhaps, to be regretted that the advice was not followed. Yet were the abilities of the Scotch Principal, great as they were, not such as peculiarly fitted him for the task. His mind was too philosophical and discursive to give it its chief interest. He wanted the dramatic turn, the ardent soul, the graphic power, the magnanimous disposition, which was essential to its successful accomplishment. A work in three thousand pages, or six volumes, recording the lives of fifty of the greatest and most illustrious men in Europe, from the days of Alfred to those of Napoleon, executed in the right spirit, and by a man of adequate genius, would be the most popular and elevating book that ever appeared in Modern Europe. Many such have been attempted, but never with any success, because they were not set about by the proper minds. To do justice to such an undertaking would require a combination of opposite qualities rarely to be met with in real life.

As biography deals with individual characters, and is relieved from the extended and perplexing subjects which overwhelm the general historian, it admits, in return, of an expansion into many topics which, although often in the highest degree amusing, and sometimes not a little interesting, would yet be felt to be misplaced in the annals of the great changes of nations or of the world. As the delineation of character is its avowed object, and the events of individual life its principal subject, it not only admits of but requires a thousand incidents and descriptions, which are essential to a right understanding of those characters, and form, as it were, the still life of the picture in which their features are to be portrayed. Such descriptions are not unsuitable to general history. Mr Macaulay has shown in his History that his observations on that head in the Edinburgh Review were founded on a just appreciation of the object and limits of his art. But they must be sparingly introduced, or they will become tedious and unprofitable: if any one doubts this, let him try to read Von Hammer's History of the Ottoman Empire, one-half of which is taken up with descriptions of dresses, receptions, and processions. But in biography we readily give admission to – nay, we positively require – such details. If they are not the jewels of history, they are the setting which adds to their lustre. They fill up our conception of past events; they enable us to clothe the characters in which we are interested in the actual habiliments in which they were arrayed; they bring before our eyes the dwellings, the habits, the mode of life, the travelling, the occupations of distant ages, and often give more life and reality to the creatures of our imaginations than could have been attained by the most laboured general descriptions, or the most emphatic assertions of the author.

For this reason, as well as on account of the known influence of individual character, rather than abstract principle, on the fair sex, there is no branch of historical composition so suitable for woman as biography; and Miss Strickland has shown us that there is none which female genius can cultivate with greater success. The general bent of the female mind, impressed upon it for the wisest purposes by its Creator, is to be influenced in its opinions, and swayed in its conduct, by individual men, rather than general ideas. When Milton said of our first parents —

"Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed:For valour he and contemplation formed;For beauty she, and sweet attractive grace;He for God only, she for God in him;"

He foreshadowed man as the appropriate historian of the general march of human events – woman, as the best delineator of individual character, the most fascinating writer of biography. The most gifted of her sex is a proof of this; for if a few men have exceeded Madame de Stael in the broad view she takes of human affairs, none have equalled her in the delineation of the deepest feelings and most lasting passions of the human heart. As it is the nature of woman's disposition to form an idol, (and it is for that very reason that she proves so attractive to that of man,) so, when she comes to composition, we rejoice to see her form idols of her heroes, provided only that the limits of truth are observed in their delineation, and that her enthusiasm is evinced in depicting the real, not in colouring the imaginary.

As graphic and scenic details are so valuable in biography, and give such life and animation to the picture which it exhibits, so we willingly accept from a female biographer, whether of her own or others' life, details which we could not tolerate in the other sex. When the Duchess of Abrantes, writing after the fall of Charles X., recounts in her charming memoirs the enchanting Schall de Cachemire, which excited her envy on the shoulders of Josephine – or tells us that at a certain ball in Paris, in 1797, she wore her blue satin dress and pearl ornaments, and at another, her pink silk, and diamonds, we perhaps smile at the simplicity which made her recount such things of herself; but still we gratefully accept them as characteristic of the costume or manners of the time. But we would never tolerate a male biographer of Murat, who should tell us that at a certain ball at Naples he wore his scarlet trowsers and black furred jacket, and on his coronation looked irresistible in his blue and silver uniform and splendid spare jacket; – not even though we know that in Russia he often returned to his lines with his sabre dripping wet with the blood of the Cossacks whom he had challenged and slain in single combat, and although the experience of all ages has confirmed the truth of Philopœmen's observation, that "to soldiers and women, dress is a matter of no small consequence."

Though details of this description, however, are valuable and admissible in biography, and come with peculiar propriety and grace from a female hand, it must be observed, on the other hand, that there is a limit, and a very obvious one, to the introduction of them, and that, if not inserted with caution, they may essentially injure the popularity or utility of a work. In particular, it is seldom safe to carry to any considerable length in the text the introduction of quotations from old histories or chronicles of the period, which often are filled with them to the exclusion of all other subjects. We know that such original documents have a great charm in the eyes of antiquarians or antiquarian biographers, the more especially if they have brought them to light themselves; but such persons learned in ancient lore constitute but a small fraction of the human race. The great body of readers, at least nineteen out of twenty, care nothing at all for such original authorities, but wish to see their import condensed into a flowing easy narrative in the author's own words. For this reason it is generally safest to give such original documents or quotations in notes or an appendix, and to confine quotations in the text to characteristic expressions, or original words spoken on very important occasions. Barante and Sismondi in France, Tytler in Scotland, and Lingard in England, have essentially injured the general popularity of their great and learned works, by not attending to this rule. The two Thierrys have chiefly won theirs by attending to it.

The great popularity and widely extended sale of Miss Strickland's Queens of England, almost equalling, we believe, that of any living author in this country, and much exceeding that of any prior writer, whether of her own or the other sex, in the same period in biography, is a proof both of the intrinsic excellence of that work, and the thirst which exists in the public mind for works of that description. We have long been of opinion that the narrative of human events might be rendered as popular in the outset, and far more and durably interesting in the end, than any works of fiction; and that the only reason why this has so seldom taken place, was because historical works were in general constructed on wrong principles. The great success which has recently attended historical composition in this country, especially in the case of Mr Macaulay's History and Miss Strickland's Lives, is a proof that this view of the subject is well founded. And of the two, biography, when supported by learning, and handled by genius such as both these learned writers possess, is much more likely to be generally popular than extended history, because it partakes more of the character of Romance, and possesses in a higher degree that unity of interest which is the most essential element in all arts which aim at pleasing or fascinating mankind.

Scotland is a country peculiarly fortunate in the characters it presents for biographical genius. This arises from its physical weakness when compared to the strength of its formidable neighbour, and the resources which it has ever found in the persevering and indomitable character of its inhabitants. The former in every age of the wars with England has made its plains the seat of conflict; while the latter has always secured their success in the end, though often after fearful reverses, and always against tremendous odds. The proof of this is decisive. Scotland, after three centuries of almost incessant conflict, first with the arms, and then, more formidable still, with the gold of England, was still unsubdued when her monarchs ascended the English throne, and the rivalry of two noble nations was turned into the blissful emulation of peace. It is this combination of circumstances which has caused her history to be so prolific of incident, and has rendered, as strangers so often have remarked, every step in her surface historical. Her physical weakness filled it with incident – her moral strength with heroic incident. Go where you will, you meet with some traces of the great or the beautiful, the gifted or the fascinating, of former days. The ancient walls and castellated rocks of Edinburgh teem with historical recollections of the highest interest, which the kindred spirit of modern chivalry has done so much to illustrate.10 In the short space of twenty miles – between Falkirk and Stirling – are four battlefields,11 on each of which the fate of Britain was determined, or armies as numerous as those which met at Waterloo encountered each other. Lochleven exhibits the mournful prison of beauty: Niddry Castle, of her evanescent joys; the field of Langside, of her final overthrow. Cartlan Crags still show the cave of Wallace; Turnberry Castle the scene of Bruce's first victory; Culloden, the last battle-field of generous fidelity. Every step in Scotland is historical: the shades of the dead arise on every side: the very rocks breathe —