(Should Mr. PUNCHINELLO object that this biographical sketch is desultory and "wandering," let him try, himself, to write the biography of a lady who is incessantly and frantically roaming from one end of the country to the other, and if he don't wander it will be a wonder.)

Sidney, the ideal gentleman, the Sir Calidore of Spenser's "Legend of Courtesy," is vastly more interesting as a man than as a writer, and the student is recommended to read his biography rather than his books.

In 1873 Miss Whately published a biography of Mansoor Shakoor, and in 1881 she wrote Letters from Egypt for Plain Folks at Home.

It is perhaps too much to require that some competent person prepare his biography, but the public have a right to expect at least a few reminiscences.

He gave a short biography of Mrs. Silk which would have furnished abundant material for half-a-dozen libel actions, and alluding to the demise of the late Mr. Silk, spoke of it as though it were the supreme act of artfulness in a somewhat adventurous career.

Hinchman and Gummere's Lives of Great English Writers (Houghton, Mifflin) is a good single volume, containing thirty-eight biographies.

Of course we don't want biographies of merely selfish, stupid, brutal, ill-bred menbut everyone ought to be thankful when a life can be told frankly, and when there's enough that is good and beautiful to make it worth telling.

By "Lives" are here meant the old MS. biographies which have come down to us from ages before the invention of printing.

This requires a separate biography.

The reason for attempting a new biography of Vergil at the present time is therefore obvious.

For ten years before beginning these biographies he had given himself up to conversation, and the ponderous style of his Rambler essays here gives way to a lighter and more natural expression.

We close his biography, and our curiosity is satisfied.

That is the worst of English people, that they have no idea who deserves a biography and who does not.

But there were many strong, if not great qualities in his composition, and so much that was picturesque and strange in the incidents of his career and the state of society which formed his character, that we have found this biography one of the most instructive and entertaining we ever read.

I know of no one to whom I would look with more confidence, in these respects, than to yourself; and, I assure you, I should receive as high and unexpected favors any communication of the kind you suggest, that would aid me in furnishing biographies, tales or sketches, illustrative of Indian life, Indian character, and Indian mythology and superstitions.

In this, he was following the example of his predecessor Washington, with whose career as a surveyor the youngster who knew Weems's biography by heart, was of course familiar.

When the excellent Dean Burgon dubbed his dozen biographies Twelve Good Men, it probably never occurred to him that the title suggested three companion volumes; but so it did, and two of them, Twelve Bad Men and Twelve Bad Women, have made their appearance.

Nor I; and therefore I esteem biography, as giving us what comes near to ourselves, what we can turn to use.'

But I waive the biographies of all other scriveners for a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener of the strangest I ever saw or heard of.

We are forgetting the biography and recalling Mr. Choate himself, a theme too fruitful for a literary notice.

To the young men of the country we especially commend this biography, in the full belief that it will stimulate and stir to effort many a sensitive youth who feels within himself the capacity to emulate the spirit which prompted Dr. Kane's actions, if he cannot hope to rival their splendor and importance.

(k) Consult several biographies of great menfor example, Morley's Gladstone, Froude's Carlyle, Darwin's Life, Huxley's Lifeand make a comparative study of their early reading.

He belonged to the plebeian ranks, being the son of a watchmaker; was sickly, miserable, and morbid from a child; was poorly educated, but a great devourer of novels (which his fathersentimental as heread with him), poetry, and gushing biographies; although a little later he became, with impartial facility, equally delighted with the sturdy Plutarch.

"' On that peg Carlyle's imagination hung a whole biography.

The learned Abbé Maracci, who in 1698 produced a Latin translation of the Qorân accompanied by an elaborate refutation, was no less than Hottinger imbued with the necessity of shuddering at every mention of the "false" Prophet, and Dr. Prideaux, whose Vie de Mahomet appeared in the same year in Amsterdam, abused and shuddered with them, and held up his biography of Mohammed as a mirror to "unbelievers, atheists, deists, and libertines.