away its fame, like those northern insects that prey

"On the brains of the elk till his very last sigh;"

how very few who track the errors of genius to the tomb, take into consideration, or are capable of estimating the influence on the physical and moral constitution of studious habits inordinately pursued, of mental exertion long continued, of bodily exercise perhaps wholly neglected! How little do they know of the morbid sensibility of genius, who mistake its gloom for dreary misanthropy; or the distempered visions of "a heat oppressed brain," for impersonated opinions; or the shadows of a sickly dream, for the real sentiments of the heart! How few of the fatal friends who violate the sanctity of private life to minister to the prevailing appetite for literary gossip, ever think of referring the imperfections they drag into public notice, (yet fail not to deplore,) to a temperament deranged by ill-regulated, or excessive mental application, or of attributing "the variable weather of the mind, which clouds without obscuring the reason" of the individual, to the influence of those habits which are so unfavorable to health! Suicide might, indeed, have well had its horrors for that bard, who was even a more

sensitive man than "the melancholy Cowley," when he was informed that one of his bestnatured friends was only waiting for the opportunity to write his life. But how devoutly might he have wished that "nature's copy in him had been eterne," had he known how many claims were shortly to be preferred to the property of his memory, and how many of those who had

crawled into his confidence were to immortalize his errors, and to make his imperfections so many pegs for disquisition on perverted talents.

Of all persons who sacrifice their peace for the attainment of notoriety, literary men are most frequently made the subject of biography; but of all are they least fitted for that sort of microscopic biography which consists in the exhibition of the minute details of life. The Pythoness, we are told, was but a pitiable object when removed from the inspiration of the tripod, and the man of genius is, perhaps, no less divested of the attributes of his greatness when he is taken from his study, or followed in crowded circles. We naturally desire to know every thing that concerns the character or the general conduct of those whose productions have entertained or instructed us, and we gratify a laudable curiosity when we inquire into their history, and seek to illustrate their writings by the general tenor of their lives and actions.

But when biography is made the vehicle, not only of private scandal, but of that minor malignity of truth, which holds, as it were, a magnifying mirror to every naked imperfection of humanity, which possibly had never been discovered had no friendship been violated, no confidence been abused, and no errors exaggerated by the medium through which they have been viewed, it ceases to be a legitimate inquiry into private character, or public conduct, and no infamy is comparable to that of magnifying the faults, or libelling the fame of the illustrious dead.

"Consider," says a learned German, "under how many categories, down to the most impertinent, the world inquires concerning great men, and never wearies striving to represent to itself their whole structure, aspect, procedure outward and inward. Blame not the world for such curiosity about its great ones; this comes of the world's old-established necessity to worship.— Blame it not, pity it rather with a certain loving respect. Nevertheless, the last stage of human perversion, it has been said, is, when sympathy corrupts itself into envy, and the indestructible interest we take in men's doings has become a joy over their faults and misfortunes; this is the last and lowest stage-lower than this we cannot go."

In a word, that species of biography which is written for contemporaries, and not for posterity, is worse than worthless. It would be well for the memory of many recent authors, if their injudicious friends had made a simple obituary serve the purpose of a history.

It is rarely the lot of the wayward child of genius to have a Currie for his historian, and hence is it that frailties, which might have awakened sympathy, are now only mooted, to be remembered with abhorrence. It is greatly to beregretted that eminent medical men are not often to be met with, qualified, by Dr. Currie, by literary attainments, as well as professional ability, for undertakings of this kind. No class of men have the means of obtaining so intimate a knowledge of human nature, so familiar an acquaintance with the unmasked mind. The secret thoughts of the invalid are as obvious as the symptoms of his disease there is no deception in the sick chamber; the veil of the temple is removed, and humanity lies before the attendant, in all its truth, in all its helplessness, and for the honourable physician it lies-if we may be allowed the expression -in all its holiness. No such medical attendant, we venture to assert, ever went through a long life of practice, and had reason to think worse of his fellow men for the knowledge of humanity he

obtained at the bed-side of the sick. Far from it, the misintelligence, the misapprehension, that in society are the groundless source of the animosities which put even the feelings of the philanthropist to the test, are here unknown; the only wonder of the physician is, that amidst so much suffering as he is daily called to witness, human nature should be presented to his view in so good, and not unfrequently in so noble, an aspect.

It is not amongst the Harveys, the Hunters, or the Heberdens of our country, or indeed amongst the enlightened physicians of any other, that we must look for the disciples of a gloomy misanthropy.

In spite of all the Rochefoucaults, who have libelled humanity,-in spite of all the cynics, who have snarled at its character, the tendency of the knowledge of our fellow-men, is to make us love mankind. It is to the practical, and thorough knowledge of human nature, which the physician attains by the exercise of his art, that the active benevolence and general liberality which peculiarly distinguishes the medical profession, is mainly to be attributed. “Do I," says Zimmerman, "in my medical character feel any malignity or hatred to my species, when I study the nature, and explore the secret causes of those weaknesses and disorders which are incidental to the human