LIST OF PLATES.

INTRODUCTION.

MEMOIRS of distinguished men are, in the aggregate, the history of the times in which they lived. History is made, like the sea, from many sources. The thousands of rivers and lakes that empty themselves into the vast body of the ocean, are in the aggregate lost when embodied in one immense whole; the mighty Mississippi may be traced in its progress, and gulfs may be formed by immense streams, so as to be made out in a chart;—so is it with man. Obscure men sometimes are the causes of great revolutions; but it is impossible, like so many rivers that run into the ocean, to mark them out; but there are men whose thoughts have flowed as strong and as powerful as the mightiest of rivers, and whose names are indelibly fixed on our memories.

He who assists to preserve those landmarks-those intellectual giants, for the admiration of posterity, does great service to mankind. What should we be like, if by some means or other it would be possible to erase with one stroke the names of Shakspeare, Dante, Voltaire, Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Washington, Franklin, and thousands of others, from the scroll of fame? There is only one answer,-brutes. Then it is self-evident that it is one of the most important acts we can perform, to record the deeds of the mighty intellects of the day.

To become acquainted with the history of the past is the desire of every educated man. Not to know it, lowers us at once in the scale of human intelligence. We can form some idea of the difficulties of not knowing history when we come to investigate the early history of Christianity. Tertullian and Josephus have handed down to us some contemporary history, but still far from satisfactory; we fain would know more of those times that ushered in a new era, of the very greatest importance to the human family. The student of ecclesiastical history can best tell the difficulties attending such an inquiry.

The writings of the apostolic fathers have added much to our knowledge of Christianity; without them we should be in darkness on many points they elucidate. The destruction of the Alexandrian library is the greatest loss to history that has ever taken place; with it, it is fair to surmise, that many important historical questions, which are now doubtful, would be

easily explained. The errors of the past can alone be seen through the medium of history. We may cavil about exceptional points, but the broad marks of ages are as clear to be seen as the light of the sun in the heavens. We may cavil about the abuses of the Roman Church, and the excesses of the Protestants during the days of Queen Elizabeth; but the impartial observer can see evils in both. Brilliant as appears the literature of the Elizabethan age, yet there are many things hidden in obscurity that the untiring zeal of Malone, Drake, Hallowell, and Collier cannot unravel. The private life of the greatest genius of any age is almost buried in oblivion; relics of Shakspeare are prized next to those of our Redeemer: and right it is, for God seems to have concentrated in this one man a divine attribute, so wonderful are the works he has written. Shakspeare is not the only great genius of that age whose life is but little known: we have rare old Ben Jonson, Kit Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher, Robert Greene, Massinger, and others. If the men of that age had been as careful as we now wished they had been, all the commentators of the dramatists we have had these last seventy years would have had but little to write. The numerous glossaries that have been written on obscure words, and the different interpretations given by different writers, would have been avoided, if the importance of contemporaneous history had been fully understood. But such omissions have no doubt been the cause of the thinkers of this age seeing the importance of noting everything down that would elucidate any event, and even words that are now going out of use, and new words that are coined amid the traffic of the age, are all carefully preserved in their original meanings. The old Anglo-Saxon words that our most original writers used so plentifully and so successfully, are somewhat giving way to the revolutions in science and art. The Dictionaries of the present day would appear to an Elizabethan scholar a huge, ponderous mass of barbarous words. But notwithstanding these encroachments, there is a conservative element in the language that produces a reaction, and which will ever render it impossible to be superseded.

Probably not any man understood the value of contemporary history so well as Pepys. In his celebrated Diary we have chronicled all the leading events of his time; though by many of his day considered foolish, yet it isone of the most valuable fountains of historical lore that can be drawn from, and it should be added, inexhaustible. The stirring events of those times, though not chronicled with the brilliancy of a Macaulay, yet not the less true as facts. Without Pepys's Diary, the history of that period would be far from being so satisfactory as it now is; and succeeding ages will pay more tribute to his industry and foresight. Clarendon and Burnett, though they may be considered as partisans, yet more truth than error is to be found in their histories; it is only by thorough sifting of matters on both sides of the question that anything like truth will be found.