undisturbed under my native sod." And, accordingly, there are five pounds per annum each for 10 poor boys of the village of Norton so long as they will remember industriously to pluck the weeds and to remove the nettles that deface the gravestone of Francis Chantrey. The sculptor subsequently paid a formal visit to Norton and carefully selected the spot for his last resting-place. While looking for it he encountered the gravedigger who approached him mattock on shoulder; "I am looking out a place for a grave,” said Chantrey," but I don't mean you to dig it.” “I hope I shall,” replied the gravedigger quietly and civilly and it is likely enough that he did, for within a year the renowned sculptor was deposited near the humbler family dust that had mingled with the earth before him.

:

November 8, 1851.

A BIOGRAPHER DESCRIBED.

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CAREER OF LORD LANGDALE.

A BIOGRAPHER, as described by Mr. Macaulay, is "a literary vassal," bound by "the immemorial law of his tenure, to render homage, aids, reliefs, and all other customary services to his lord." But a biographer, according to modern practice, is a literary plasterer and bricklayer, working with a hod on his shoulder, and a trowel in his hand, most industriously engaged in the disposal of bricks and mortar. Nothing, it will be admitted is easier than to pile up in a waggon a whole warehouse of papers, and to shoot the contents bodily into Mr. Bentley's printing-rooms; but the labour is surely that of a carter, not of a littérateur. It is not very difficult, we know, to arrange a deceased gentleman's correspondence in the order of time, but a countinghouse clerk is not a biographer when he has performed the mere mechanical service. Since the immortal Bozzy slept-having achieved biographical fame that Plutarch might have envied-men's lives. for the most part have been written in water, and that of the muddiest. We have gone on from bad to worse. At this moment the biographical art is extinct in England; it has gone out with pugilism and the drama. We need not be ashamed of our historians, for Macaulay, Grote, Hallam, and Mahon are among us. Scott is dead, but we will not blush

for the novelists while Dickens and Thackeray are here, and the author of Coningsby is Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. Poetry is not lost, for Tennyson still lives. Science is upheld in the three kingdoms by the most illustrious representatives; but where are the biographers? Southey died the other day, and we know not how many monthly volumes appeared to give account of his most interesting life, yet no one denies that the memoir of the virtuous laureate has still to be written. Wordsworth soon followed his friend, and a literary chronicle of his career was put forth which we are bound to pronounce discreditable to all parties concerned in the publication. The survivors of great men are, in fact, not to be trusted with the records of the dead; they attend to their own personal needs rather than to the public requirements, absurdly magnifying points respecting which the world at large is utterly careless, and jealously withholding information which, if a memoir is to be written at all, it is of the very first consequence to supply. We do not pine for every epistle good or bad, dull or clever, frivolous or important that a hero has written, neither do we call for every memorandum that may be found after death in his drawers; but, when heroism is vindicated, we demand all the evidence essential to uphold the vindication. The exact measurement of a departed worthy is not a matter on which we are oversolicitous; but we do claim all the particulars-and genius knows how to give them, briefly as well as vigorously-without which it is impossible to know wherein consists the excellence, or what constitutes

MODERN BIOGRAPHIES.

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the worth. Dryden tells us that, "as the sunbeams, united in a burning-glass to a point, have greater force than when they are darted from a plane superficies, so the virtues and actions of one man, drawn together into a single story, strike upon our minds a stronger and more lively impression than the scattered relations of many men and many actions." There is no disputing the fact, but the " single stories" with which we have been favoured of late years are themselves "scattered relations" altogether without point, without force, and without fire. A man's memory has been suffocated by the very means taken to perpetuate it. The world has asked for an embalmed heart, and it has secured a lumbering carcase. We care not to name exceptions to the rule, for they are too few to be admitted against the argument. It is lamentable to think that one of the most interesting branches of literature has been thus suffered to decay either from the insufficiency of men to do the work or from the folly and perverseness of those who have refused to place the work in proper hands. It was with a feeling of positive relief that we heard upon the death of Tom Moore that the poet had left behind him, written with his own hand, an account of his life sufficiently elaborate to save his editor all the anxious pains of composition. Great as our faith may be in the fearlessness of Lord John Russell, whether in politics or literature, on land or at sea, we should unquestionably have had to enrol him in the daily increasing list of dreary biographers. How is it possible that the gay, sparkling, exuberant spirit of Moore could find adequate interpretation from the

pen of our constitutional statesman? No doubt we should have had from Lord John an admirably lucid description of the long struggles that preceded the passing of the Relief Bill of 1829, àpropos of Thomas Moore's religious opinions, just as we had from Dr. Wordsworth a whole chapter upon the long pedigree of his uncle, whose "respectability" was of much greater consequence to the Canon of Westminster than his finest poetical labour; but with such accidents the lovers of Tom Moore and his brilliant muse have no concern. We shall hear from the fullness of his own soul all that the world are eager to learn in connexion with the daily doings of their jocund poet; and great will be our disappointment if, by means of this precious legacy, biography does not win back a portion of the respect of which our modern writers. of memoirs have taken such desperate pains to rob her.*

Mr. Thomas Duffus Hardy the author of Lord Langdale's Life, must go down in the old category. We have no doubt that gentleman is a most efficient public servant; but he has no better pretensions to the biographical chair than we have to the Mastership of the Rolls. He too is a carrier not an artist. Attached to the Record-office, he has carefully labelled all the letters, reports, and other documents belonging to the late Lord Langdale upon which he could lay his hands, and given an account of his treasures with all the scrupulous conscientiousness becoming his office. Light and shade, studied effect, the subordination of parts to a whole, are

It is sad to think that the publication of Moore's Diary has destroyed the hope here entertained.