E 9789 INTRODUCTION. Ir is the delight of naturalists to indicate how the same law asserts itself under widely different circumstances: they point to the leaves and stems visible in fossil remains, to the same botanical organization in the pale flower buried under Alpine snows and the radiant calyx of the Tropics-to the identity of material in the cloud and the iceberg. A similar parallel may be drawn from the history of character; its phases re-appear continually, modified by time and place, yet essentially one and the same. No class is represented by the philosophy of antiquity; no general or special development is stamped on any age, and no individual man has become memorable-but have their existent prototypes and representatives. Human nature has always been the same. The plays, the biographies, and in later times, the novels and journals of every civilized nation illustrate this more impressively even than history, which is too general to bring out, except occasionally, the refinement of this law. Character is as truly bequeathed as estates. Every favourite ideal personage is so thorough a fidelity to the reality as it always exists; Shakspeare's greatness consists in the fact that he has contributed more to the common stock than any other author. The more we see of the world, the more it becomes "a gallery of pictures;" and it is an interesting study to compare features, trace lineages, and realize how a certain form of character is affected by circumstances as it is thus inevitably reproduced. Another desirable result of this study of character is, that from individual types we learn to recognize species, and gradually discriminate the nice shades which mark each separate form of the same genus. Observation becomes thus habitually quick and accurate, and we never want subjects of entertainment or knowledge while mingling with our fellow-creatures. In the following Biographical Essays, written at considerable intervals of time, the attempt is made to sketch a varied group of characters, and bring into strong relief and contrast the different vocations and original endowments of men as diverse in their circumstances as their genius. The nationality of the author is obvious, but in every instance he has attempted to follow the maxim of the great German critic, and judge each character by its own law. The success of a similar attempt,* when republished in this country, has encouraged him to offer a new series of Mental Portraits to the English public. *Thoughts on the Poets. LONDON, JULY, 1853. |