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clear. They could clearly see, and bravely do, in a human light. In private, social relations, the less we inquire touching these persons the better.

William the Norman was such a man: he courted his wife, Matilda of Flanders, by rolling her in the kennel, on the way from church'importunate lover!

Napoleon was a strong man. He would, when the King of Rome was born, gladly have sacrificed his wife, Maria of Austria, had it been necessary for one of the lives to have been sacrificed.

Few of the men, whose names are historical, bear a microscopic examination. Alfred stands almost alone in this respect. These men, these historical men, are the pillars of fire; rays dart out from them, illuminating a whole territory-nay a whole continent. The illumination is not confined to extensive tracts of country; it extends to remote time. This is history—a drama acted on the large stage of the world; and in this sense, many humbler lives than those of warriors and emperors are historic.

Did Charlemagne strike out a more extensive range of conquests than Watts? Did Rhodolph of Hapsburg found a mightier empire than John Faust? Did Napoleon effect social revolutions more complete than Arkwright? Great names do give their character to periods of time. It has

been said that every institution is the prolonged shadow of some great man.

There is nothing in the political state of Continental Europe that does not remind us of Charlemagne there is nothing in the local government of England that does not remind us of Alfred.— Louis IX. was one of the great names of historic biography. "He reformed from the centre outward," sitting upon the throne of Charlemagne, and resolutely defending that extended feudalism of which Charlemagne was the founder-yet he broke up and destroyed its power. There are few greater names in history than that of Louis.What was the result of that protest against, and abolition of the law of diffidation? Louis was the peace-maker of all France in his day. To him, and to his influence, the serenity of advancing civilization over the whole land during the middle ages may be traced. He was, in the truest sense of the word, a great man-a man of ideas. He himself struck a blow at the spirit of the middle ages, and he prepared the way for the most daring attacks upon the reign of perpetual despotism.

Names of this order represent ideas—vast ideas. Yet the mind and the life of the father of the Revolution should be studied as far as possible by itself. The state of empires should not be con

fused with the author of the great changes. Biography would lead us to an examination of the individual character of this or that man-would show us, in a measure, how it came to pass that he was thus forced out to action; how he, of all men living, or of all kings living, became the founder of influences so vast. If the mind of a Zodiac of kingdoms has been affected by the existence of that one mind, surely the study of that one must be a matter of no little importance.

Biography, we said a few pages back, was a museum. Yes, and there lie before us the memorials of every age, country, and race. The analytic process has not been very keenly applied to the papyri in the museum, or what a store of lessons might have been revealed! What lessons are constantly revealing, spite of the carelessness with which its pages are usually perused? The analytic process applied to historic biography-simple enough difficult enough-it would lead to important conclusions, perhaps, in reference to the birth of nations; it would explain many incoherencies and difficulties in historic character. Mr. Sharon Turner has applied it thus, in his account of the Life of Alfred ;* and whatever may be the conclusion in our own minds, in reference to the "His

* In the Anglo-Saxons.

toric Doubts" of Horace Walpole, in his "Life of Richard III.," or Miss Halstead's life of the same personage, they both furnish us with hints which may be profitably applied to the explication of other mysteries of history. Analytic biography rescues from contempt and dishonour, many a name that popular prejudice may cast its revilemeuts upon; and the same authority consigns many a boasted and heroic name to the pillory of everlasting shame and contempt. The illustrious and magnificent maiden, Joan of Arc, is proclaimed to all, the prophetess, and priestess, and real monarch of her country's liberties; while it dooms Catherine de Medicis to perpetual infamy. Our literature, at present, is eminently characterised by analytic acumen, in treating of historic character; and this not always from the discovery of new facts in the chronicle of a life, but from the application of the experimentum crucis, the test of character, to old records; the judging of characters, not in patches, but in their entireness; not in fragments, but as wholes. Thus we have been compelled to re-read many ancient histories, and to re consider the preformed judgments of many ancient men.

We find by this verdict, that Mahomet, no more than Cromwell, was the impostor we deemed him to be; he was not an impostor, we fancy, to himself, and that is the test and the key to all impos

ture. We find that we have walked through the galleries of history under an illusion, with reference to many of the master builders; grateful for the hints of great critics, we have proceeded to apply this test of wholeness to monarchs and madmen, to pontiff and priest. There is, now-a-days, no character too dignified to be brought beneath the compasses of criticism.

It is to this province of analytic biography that we hand over these illustrations which meet us in reference to Race, and its distinctions. Who does not hail with emotions of joy every word tending to show how near all the varieties of the human family are to each other, although the sun has painted a different colour on the skin, and perhaps compelled also the pronunciation of a different language? Who does not hail those records of humanity, which proclaim that all these are brethren? Biography has thus an ethnographical character and importance. I know there are differences between the Grecian and the Iberianbetween the Swiss mountaineer and the Hindoobetween the North American Indian and the Mexican-between the Egyptian and the Hindoo. Biography notes to me the difference. then? Let us still travel on to note these points of difference, or resemblance. If the men of these different races will tell us their story-if they will

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