The biographers of Lamennais trace the beginning of his downfall to his exemption from his daily Office.

The principal source from which all biographers started and to which they always returned, was the Qorân, the collection of words of Allah spoken by Mohammed in those twenty-two years.

The critical biographers of Mohammed have therefore begun their work of sifting by eliminating the improbable and by choosing between contradictory data by means of critical comparison.

In connection with this evolution, some of our biographers of Mohammed, even where they do not deny the obvious honesty of his first visions, represent him in the second half of his work, as a sort of actor, who played with that which had been most sacred to him.

Whether we say with the old European biographers "impostor," or with the modern ones put "epileptic," or "hysteric" in its place, makes little difference.

David's biographers say nothing of the kind.

The Alexandræan Tragedy, Cræsus, Darius, and Julius Cæsar, all which in the opinion of the ingenious Mr. Coxeter (whose indefatigable industry in collecting materials for this work, which he lived not to publish, has furnished the present Biographers with many circumstances they could not otherwise have known) were written in his lordship's youth, and before he undertook any state employment.

Yet too great stress has hitherto been laid on it by his biographers.

His biographers, Condivi and Vasari, thought these charges worthy of serious refutation, which proves that they were current.

The biographers tell us further that no one could be more simple in private life, or more devoted to his own family: his nephews and nieces having no idea that their favourite "Uncle Tom" was a great man.

Most of his biographers affirm that he was the son of a butcher.

This very remarkable coincidence has led several of Dryden's biographers, and Dr. Johnson among others, to suppose, that the satire was actually written to ridicule Shadwell's elevation to the honours of the laurel; though nothing is more certain than that it was published while Dryden was himself laureate, and could be hardly supposed to anticipate the object of his satire becoming his successor.

In the case of monarchy one can also watch the intellectualisation of the whole process by the newspapers, the official biographers, the courtiers, and possibly the monarch himself.

Indeed, one of her biographers relates that Oldfield always went in state to Drury Lane, accompanied by two footmen, and that she seldom spoke to any one of the actors.[A]

To the rescue from oblivion of their personal histories, a host of biographers have appeared, scattered over the whole period that has elapsed since their deaths to the present time.

Reference is here made to the "Memoirs of a Lady of Quality," and to the passages respecting young Annesley; and since biographers do not seem to have touched especially on the manner of their introduction into the novel, we will give a word or two to this point.

Their leave-taking of the public, their "retirement," as biographers call it, is one death; since a playgoer then considers an actor dead "to all intents and purposes"a very non est.

He returned to London, and thence went to Canterbury, in 1780, to play low comedy characters, where he first became what theatrical biographers term "a favourite.

Owing to these, and many other incongruities, his character has necessarily been represented in various points of view and in various colours by his biographers.

He entered into negotiations, successively, with the Count of La Marche, the King of England, the Count of Toulouse, the King of Aragon, and the various princes and great feudal lords who had been more or less engaged in the war; and in January, 1213, says the latest and most enlightened of his biographers, "the treaty of Lorris marked the end of feudal troubles for the whole duration of St. Louis's reign.

It is possibly this pavilion to which Badâyunî, one of Akbar's biographers, refers when he describes a Brahmin, named Dêbi, being pulled up the walls of the castle, sitting on a charpâî (a native bed), till he arrived near the balcony where the Emperor used to sleep.

One of her biographers, leaving nothing to the imagination, assures us that "substantial esteem and respect were the foundations of their matrimonial happiness, rather than any pretence of romantic sentiment.

He knew, too, before, Charles' private sentiments towards him, and we incline with some of his biographers to suppose that these words of royalty were simply the signal to Waller to fire the train which the king knew right well had already been prepared.

In later years Bismarck apologised for many of the speeches which he made at this period: "I was a terrible Junker in those days," he said; and biographers generally speak of them as though they required justification or apology.

Many quotations have been given, some from Marivaux himself, or from contemporary biographers, of so authoritative a nature as to add more weight than any summing up by the editor, and others from celebrated French critics, whose views, or whose picturesqueness of expression, have been often invaluable.