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 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 biothe ideal. Novels are most delight-graphy is to be found in this, that ful when they approach nearest to it unites, from its very nature and what we behold around us in real object, those two indispensable requilife, while yet containing a sufficient sites to durable popularity in works blending of romance and sentiment, of fiction, and combines them with of heroism and magnanimity, to the value and the solid information of satisfy the higher aspirations of our truthful narrative. It possesses the being. Biography is most charming value of history, without its tediumwhen it depicts with fidelity those the interest of romance, without its characters, and records with truth unsubstantiality. It culls the flowers those events, which approach nearest from the records of time, and casts to that imaginary perfection to which into the shade all the accompanying every generous mind aspires, but to weeds and briars. If a judicious and which none ever has attained, or discriminating selection of characters ever will. 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 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 wellknown and oft-observed characteristics of human nature with the oftimagined but seldom seen traits of heroism and magnanimity which border on the realms of the ideal 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 pourtrayed. 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 Philopomen'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 tosee 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. In the short space of twenty miles-between Falkirk and Stirling are four battlefields,† 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 battlefield of generous fidelity. Every step in Scotland is historical: the shades of the dead arise on every side: the very rocks breathe "Yet, Albyn, yet the praise be thine, now She has the spirit of chivalry in her soul, and the colours of painting in her eye. She sympathises with all the daring spirit, the bold adventure, the chivalrous devotion, of the cavaliers of former days; and she depicts with not less animation and force the stately scenes of departed timesthe dignified processions, the splendid ceremonials, the imposing pageants. She has vast powers of application, and her research is unbounded; but these qualities, so necessary as the foundation of a historian's fame, are in her united with the powers of painting and the soul of poetry, and dignified by the elevated objects to which they are directed. The incidents of individual life are of peculiar importance in Scottish annals, because, with the exception of two periodsthe war of independence under Wallace and Bruce, and the national struggle for emancipation from Popish tyranny at the Reformation-there have seldom been what we call popular movements in Scotland. Everything, or next to everything, depended on individual character; the great game of the world was played by kings and queens, nobles and knights. On this great theatre the queens played, as they do everywhere, a most important part. The instructor of man in childhood, the object of his adoration in youth, of lasting influence in manhood, woman has, in modern Europe where her destiny was first fully developed, exercised an important sway, and more so than is generally supposed on national affairs. But nowhere has this influence been more strongly felt than in Scotland, where queens have appeared, whose beauty and misfortunes have become immortal in story, and been for ever engraven on the human heart by the hand of genius, and where the chivalrous and daring disposition of the country, the perfervidum Scotorum ingenium, at once penetrated some with the most devout adoration of their charms, and inspired others with the most vehement jealousy of their ascendency. • Mr Aytoun's noble Lyrical Ballads, and Mr Grant's admirable History of the Castle of Edinburgh. + Falkirk, Torwood, Bannockburn, Stirling Bridge. In her delineation of individual and still more honourable circumcharacter, Miss Strickland evidently stance. It is the inevitable effect of takes the greatest pains to be impar- a long course of injustice, whether in tial; and the multitude of new docu- the rulers of men, or the judges of ments and facts which she has brought those rulers, the annalists of their on both sides of the question in regard lives, to produce in the end a reaction to her heroines, is a sufficient proof in the general mind. This is more that this most laudable principle is a particularly the case in persons like ruling one in her mind. But she Miss Strickland, actuated by genewould be something more or some- rous and elevated feelings, and who thing less than mortal, if no trace of feel conscious of power to redress predilection was to be found in her much of the injustice which the longpages. It is rather, however, in regard continued ascendency of a particular to families than individuals that this party, whether in religion or politics, leaning is apparent. She is evidently has inflicted on the characters of Hisinimical to the Tudor and friendly to tory. Nowhere has this injustice the Stuart race. In this she only been more strongly experienced than shares the feelings of the chivalrous in Great Britain during the last two and the enthusiastic of every age and centuries. The popular party in country; for the leading qualities of politics, and the reformed in religion, the one were as calculated, on a re- having in both these countries, after trospect, to inspire aversion as those a sanguinary struggle, been successof the other were to awaken sympa- ful, and a family seated on the throne thy. The first was selfish, overbear- which embodied, and in a manner ing, cruel, but often exceedingly able: personified, both these triumphs, the latter generous, unsuspecting, nearly the whole historians who heroic, but sometimes sadly impru- treated of the period for a century dent. Success at the time crowned and a half were entirely one-sided. the worldly wisdom of the one, and When Hume wrote his immortal hisdisaster, long-continued and crushing, tory, he complained, with justice, that at length punished the unhappy want for seventy years power, reward, and of foresight of the other. But the emolument had been confined to one results of the time are not always in- party in the state, and that the dicative of the opinion of futurity: sources of History had in consequence and already the verdict of mankind been irremediably corrupted. has been secured in regard to the rhetorical powers and impartial spirit rival Queens who brought their for- did much to remedy the evil, but he tunes into collision, by two pleaders of had not industry and research suffisurpassing power in swaying the hu- cient to do the whole. Much was man heart. Scotland may be proud left to the just feelings, and generous that one of these was found in the because disinterested effort, of the most gifted of her sons, whose genius high-minded who succeeded him in has, in one of his most perfect histo- the path of historical inquiry. Mr rical novels, immortalised the prison of Tytler's great and authentic History Lochleven and the field of Langside; of Scotland, and Lingard's able and and Germany may well exult in the valuable, though one-sided, History reflection that the other appeared in of England, have gone far to give that matchless genius who three cen- the opposite side of the picture turies after her death imbibed, on the which Malcolm Laing and Burnet had banks of the Saale, the very soul and painted in so vehement a party spirit, spirit of the age of Mary in England, and Macaulay has since continued and has for ever engraven her heroic with such remarkable historical power. death, and the imperishable scenes of But much remained yet to be done. Fotheringay, on the hearts of men.* Antiquarian industry, chivalrous zeal, have of late brought many of the concealed or suppressed treasures of History to light; and it is those which Miss Strickland's partiality for the Stuart and aversion to the Tudor race, may be explained by another * Schiller, in his noble drama of Maria Stuart. His |