1

LIVES

OF

THE ILLUSTRIOUS.

(The Biographical Magazine.)

VOL. I.

"A true delineation of the smallest man, and his scenes of pilgrimage through life, is capable of
interesting the greatest man. All men are, to an unspeakable extent, brothers; each man's life a
strange emblem of every man's; and human portraits, faithfully drawn, are, of all pictures, the
welcomest on human walls."-THOMAS CARLYLE.

LONDON:

J. PASSMORE EDWARDS, 2, HORSE-SHOE COURT,

LUDGATE HILL.

MDCCCLII.

R

Li

DONATED BY THE

MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATIO

NEW YORK CITY

PREFACE.

WE beg to present the First Volume of THE BIOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE to the world. The First Number was issued into existence with a Prospectus from which we extract the following:

"The Great Man frequently makes the Great Age. Great Ages are the beacon lights of history, and the grandest manifestations of the power and dignity of our race. How important, then, that we should acquaint ourselves with the rise and growth of great men, of their birth and childhood, their progress in learning, their earlier efforts, and maturer struggles; their trials, vicissitudes, difficulties, sorrows, hopes, aspirations, and successes; their chequered or brilliant lives, and stormy and triumphant deaths; their influence on the world's destinies, and their relation to the past, the present, and the future. In reading and studying the lives of other men, we become acquainted with the capabilities and possibilities of our own.

romance.

"Perhaps no species of literature is more interesting to the general reader than Biography. The life of a great poet, or statesman, or divine, or philosopher, or artist, or historian, is generally bounded by a beautiful In the faithful records of the world's most illustrious ones, may frequently be seen a verification of the maxim, that truth is more strange than fiction. Biographical Literature legitimately combines the charms of the poem, with the most substantial teachings of history. In a well-written Biography the reader finds that which is useful blended with that which is captivating, and that which pleases and excites united with that which is personally interesting.

""Lives of great men all remind us

We may make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time:

Footprints which, perhaps, another

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother
Seeing, may take heart again.'

"Gratifying as it is to know that Biographical Literature is so extensively read in England, it is surprising that no periodical exclusively devoted to it has yet appeared; and especially when the country teems, as it does, with such a variety of cheap Journals and Magazines.