has been found but a slow and meagre substitute for those oral communications, in which alone details are satisfactorily brought out; and in which, the memory of the relater becoming, as it were, gradually charged, the sparks of anecdote are always most freely and livelily elicited.

But, even if there had not existed this obstacle-if the writer still had remained in the midst of those facilities of information, which the kindness of Mr. Sheridan's most eminent cotemporaries would have afforded him, he should yet have thought it due both to himself and to the public not to precipitate, from any motives of immediate interest, a work to which so much responsibility is attached; and in which, from the long political life of the individual who is the subject of it, events yet recent, and persons yet alive, must be discussed and characterised with a degree of freedom, which investigation and reflection alone can justify.

In attempting, indeed, such a memorial of one who has but just disappeared from among us-of whom all is remembered, both the evil and the good, and whose fame has not yet undergone that purifying process, by which Time removes such light and casual spots, as may have fallen upon the shining names selected to adorn his annals — the biographer has a

task of no common difficulty to perform. Whatever advantages he may possess in the freshness and authenticity of his materials, derived either from personal knowledge, or the many living sources to which he can refer, are heavily counterbalanced by that multitude of opinions and prejudices — still actively surviving the object of their variance-which he has to encounter and consult both in seeking and speaking the truth. In many instances, too, he finds the memory, which he would wish to honour (as Cicero found the tomb of Archimedes, "septum vepribus et dumetis") beset with imputations which, however trifling, disfigure its grandeur, and which the hand, of oblivion alone can gently and effectually clear away.

There are also, perhaps, some further reasons why, in sketching the portraits of distinguished men, a biographer should not be too near his subjects. What he gains in minuteness and precision of detail, he may lose in the general effect of the whole; and, instead of that comprehensive delineation of character which entitles biography, even more than history, to be called "Philosophy teaching by examples," his views may be limited, partial, and microscopic; he may dwell upon foibles till he becomes blind to virtues; and, in recording only the littlenesses of the great, he may resemble one who would give us a map of the narrow lanes and passages of

Constantinople, instead of a splendid panorama of its seas, its temples, and its palaces.

On the other hand, however, it is equally to be apprehended, that in endeavouring to generalize the features of character, or represent them in that softened light through which they will be seen, at distance, by posterity, too many of those small but precious lines, which mark the peculiarity of the individual, may be lost; and the picture want that air of reality, by which alone our sympathies can be wakened, or the love of fact, so natural to the human mind, be satisfied. This vagueness becomes, perhaps, still more objectionable, when it is assumed as the means of evading disagreeable truths; and when, like those painters who conceal their want of anatomical knowledge under fine superficial finish and abstract smoothness of form, the biographer timidly escapes from an analysis of conduct and of motives, into wide generalities of praise and misleading palliations of wrong. This charity to the dead, if carried too far, becomes injustice to the living; a sort of haze is thrown over the boundaries of error, and the world is defrauded of one half of that lesson-as useful at least in warning as encouraging-which the history of Genius and its frailties bequeaths to mankind.

Though a haste to publish is, in most instances, like that which Madame de Staël attributes to travellers "cette hâte pour arriver là où personne ne vous attend”—it may without vanity be taken for granted that the life of a man so gifted as Mr. Sheridan, written with all the advantages of access to the papers he has left behind him, and of authentic communications from the persons with whom he lived, must be expected with no small degree of impatience by the public; and it is from this consideration that we have felt ourselves called upon, to offer these few words of apology for a delay, which, upon ordinary occasions, we are well aware, the public can bear with a degree of fortitude, for which authors in general seem but little inclined to give them credit.

After all, however, let the biographer do his duty as he may, it is in the volumes which are here presented to the world, and in the record, however imperfect, of his parliamentary exertions, that the most durable memorials of Mr. Sheridan's name exist. By these he will be known in after times, when all of him, but his genius and his patriotism, are forgotten; when alike the partiality which would throw a veil over faults, and that depreciating spirit which judges of eminent men only by their defects, shall have yielded to the calm, unerring estimate of posterity; and, as an orator, elo

quent in the noblest of causes, as a statesman, steady in the most trying times*, and as a dramatist, successful in every walk of his art, he will rank perhaps among the greatest that ever embellished any age or nation.

* During the period of Mr. Pitt's administration,

Champs Elysées, Paris,
November, 1820.

THOMAS MOORE.