catastrophes which overshadowed his latter years, it is not the least that it prevented the completion of that autobiography with which Mr Lockhart has commenced his Life. His simplicity of character, and the vast number of eminent men with whom he was intimate, as well as the merit of that fragment itself, leave no room for doubt that he would have made a most charming memoir, if he had lived to complete it. This observation does not detract in the slightest degree from the credit justly due to Mr Lockhart, for his admirable Life of his illustrious fatherin-law on the contrary, it forms its highest encomium. The charm of that work is mainly owing to its being so imbued with the spirit of the subject, that it may almost be regarded as an autobiography.

Continental writers of note have, more than English ones, fallen into that error which is of all others the most fatal in autobiography-inordinate vanity. At the head of all the delinquents of this class we must place Rousseau, whose celebrated Confessions contain a revelation of folly so extreme, vanity so excessive, and baseness so disgraceful, that it would pass for incredible if not proved by the book itself, which is to be found in every library. Not content with affirming, when past fifty, that there was no woman of fashion of whom he might not have made the conquest if he had chosen to set about it, he thought fit to entertain the world with all the private details of his life, which the greater prudence of his most indiscreet biographers would have consigned to oblivion. No one who wishes to discredit the Genevese philosopher, need seek in the works of others for the grounds of doing so. Enough is to be found in his own to consign him to eternal execration and contempt. He has told us equally in detail, and with the same air of infantine simplicity, how he committed a theft when in service as a lackey, and permitted an innocent girl, his fellow-servant, to bear the penalty of it; how he alternately drank the wine in his master's cellars, and made love to his wife; how he corrupted one female benefactress who had sheltered him in extremity of want, and afterwards made a boast of her disgrace; and abandoned a

*“Il y a peu des femmes, même dans le haut rang, dont je n'eusse fait la conquête si je l'avais enterprise.”—Biographie Universelle, xxxix. 136.

male benefactor who fell down in a fit of apoplexy on the streets of Lyons, and left him lying on the pavement, deserted by the only friend whom he had in the world. The author of so many eloquent declamations against mothers neglecting their children, on his own admission, when in easy circumstances, and impelled by no necessity, consigned five of his natural children to a foundling hospital, with such precautions against their being known that he never did or could hear of them again! Such was his vanity, that he thought the world would gladly feed on the crumbs of this sort which fell from the table of the man rich in genius. His grand theory was, that the human mind is born innocent, with dispositions only to good, and that all the evils of society arise from the follies of education or the oppression of Government. Judging from the picture he has presented of himself, albeit debased by no education but what he himself had afforded, we should say his disposition was more corrupt than has ever been imagined by the most dark-minded and bigoted Calvinist that ever existed.

Alfieri was probably as vain in reality as Rousseau; but he knew better how to conceal it. He had not the folly of supposing that he could entertain women by the boastful detail of his conquests over them. He judged wisely, and more like a man who had met with bonnes fortunes, that he would attain more effectually the object of interesting their feelings, by painting their conquests over him. He has done this so fully, so sincerely, and with such eloquence, that he has made one of the most powerful pieces of biography in any language. Its charm consists in the picture he has drawn, with equal truth and art, of a man of the most impetuous and ardent temperament, alternately impelled by the strongest passions which can agitate the breast love and ambition. Born of a noble family, inheriting a great fortune, he exhibited an uncommon combination of patrician tastes and feelings with republican principles and aspirations. He was a democrat because he knew the great by whom he was surrounded, and did not know the humble who were removed to a distance. He said this himself, after witnessing at Paris the horrors of the 10th August:-" Je connais bien les grands, mais je ne

connais pas les petits." He drew the vices of the former from observation, he painted the virtues of the latter from imagination. Hence the absurdity and unnatural character of many of his dramas, which, to the inhabitant of our free country, who is familiar with the real working of popular institutions, render them, despite their genius, quite ridiculous. But, in the delineation of what passed in his own breast, he is open to no such reproach. His picture of his own feelings is as forcible and dramatic as that of any he has drawn in his tragedies; and it is far more truthful, for it is taken from nature, not an imaginary world of his own creation, having little resemblance to that we see around us. His character and life were singularly calculated to make such a narrative interesting, for never was one more completely tossed about by vehement passions, and abounding with melodramatic incidents. Alternately dreaming over the most passionate attachments, and labouring of his own accord at Dante fourteen hours a-day; at one time making love to an English nobleman's wife, and fighting him in the Park, at another driving through France with fourteen blood horses in harness; now stealing from the Pretender his queen, now striving to emulate Sophocles in the energy of his picture of the passions, he was himself a living example of the intensity of those feelings which he has so powerfully portrayed in his dramas. It is this variety, joined to the simplicity and candour of the confessions, which constitutes the very charm of this very remarkable autobiography. It could have been written by no one but himself; for an ordinary biographer would only have described the incidents of his life, none else could have painted the vehement passions, the ardent aspirations, from which they sprang.

From the sketches of Goethe's life which have been preserved, it is evident that, though probably not less vain than the French philosopher or the Italian poet, his vanity took a different direction from either of theirs. He was neither vain of his turpitudes, like Rousseau, nor of his passions, like Alfieri. His self-love was of a more domestic kind; it was characterised more by the home-scenes of the Fatherland. No one will question the depth of Goethe's knowledge of the heart, or the sagacity of the light which his

genius has thrown on the most profound feelings of human nature. But his private life partook of the domestic affections and unobtrusive rest in which it was passed, exempt alike from the grinding poverty which too often impelled the Genevese watchmaker's son into disgraceful actions, or the vehement passions which drove the Italian nobleman into brilliant crimes. Hence his biography exhibits an extraordinary mixture of lofty feelings with puerile simplicity, of depth of views with childishness, of divine philosophy with homely inclinations. Amidst all his enthusiasm and effusions of sentiment, he was as much under the influence as any man of creature-comforts; and never hesitated to leave the most lofty efforts of the muse, to participate in the substantial advantages of rich preserves or sweet cakes. This singular mixture arose, in a great measure, from the habits of his life, and the limited circle by which, during the greater part of it, he was surrounded. Living with a few friends in the quiet seclusion of a small German town, the object of almost superstitious admiration to a few females by whom he was surrounded, he became at once a little god of his own and their idolatry, and warmly inclined, like monks all over the world, to the innocent but not very elevating pleasures of breakfast and dinner. Mahomet said that he experienced more difficulty in persuading his four wives of his divine mission than all the rest of the world besides; and this, says Gibbon, was not surprising, for they knew best his weaknesses as a man. Goethe thought, on the same principle, his fame was secure, shipped as a god by his female coterie. opinion of his own powers, and of the lofty mission on which he was sent to mankind; but his self-love was less offensive than that of Rousseau, because it was more unobtrusive. It was allied rather to pride than vanity; and though pride may often be hateful, it is never contemptible.

when he was worHe had the highest

The Life of Lord Byron which Moore has published leaves no room for doubt, that the latter acted wisely in consigning the original manuscript of the noble poet's autobiography to the flames. Assuming that a considerable part of that biography is taken from what the noble bard had left of himself, it is evident that a more complete detail of his feelings and motives of action would have done any

thing rather than have added to his reputation. In fact, Moore's Life has done more than anything else to lower it. The poetical biographer had thought and sung so much of the passions, that he had forgot in what light they are viewed by the generality of men; he was so deeply imbued with the spirit of his hero, that he had come to regard his errors and vices as not the least interesting part of his life. That they may be so to that class of readers, unhappily too extensive, who are engaged in similar pursuits, is probably true; but how small a portion do these constitute of the human race, and how weak and inaudible does their applause become, in the progress of time, when compared to the voice of ages! What has become of the innumerable licentious works whose existence in antiquity has become known from the specimens disinterred in the ruins of Herculaneum? Is there one of them which has taken its place beside the Lives of Plutarch? Whatever is fetid, however much prized at the moment, is speedily sunk in the waves of time. Nothing permanently floats down its stream but what is buoyant from its elevating tendency.

Boswell's Life of Johnson is so replete with the sayings and thoughts of the intellectual giant, whom it was so much his object to elevate, even above his natural Patagonian stature, that it may be regarded as a sort of autobiography, dictated by the sage in his moments of abandon to his devout worshipper. It is not going too far to say, that it is among the most popular books in the English language. Johnson's reputation now mainly rests on that biography. No one now reads the Rambler or the Idler-few the Lives of the Poets, interesting as they are, and admirable as are the criticisms on our greatest authors which they contain. But Boswell's Life of Johnson is in everybody's hands; you will hear the pithy sayings, the admirable reflections, the sagacious remarks it contains, from one end of the world to the other. The secret of this astonishing success is to be found in the caustic tone, sententious brevity, and sterling good sense of Johnson, and the inimitable accuracy, faithful memory, and almost infantine simplicity of his biographer. From the unbounded admiration with which he was inspired for the sage, and the faithful memory with which he was gifted, he was enabled to commit to paper, almost as they