chooses Colonel Jack, or Moll Flanders, it is his own fault. But history not only continually exhibits the doings of bad men, but it exhibits only the bad, or at any rate the worse, acts of good ones: for most men are better in their private than in their public relations. Frail and corrupt as human nature is, it is by no means so hateful, so utterly forsaken of Heaven, as the transactions of kingdoms and republics (there is little difference between the two) would incline us to think. The best part, even of the most conspicuous characters, is that which makes the least shew and the least noise. And after all, the history of nations is only the history of a small portion of the life of a very few men. We cannot be supposed to censure the study of history: we only wish it to be properly balanced by studies which tend to keep the eye of man upon his own heart, upon the sphere of his immediate duties, of those duties, where his affections are to be exercised and regulated, and which, considering man as a person, consider him as sentient, intelligent, moral, and immortal. For simply to think of a man as a sentient being, is inconsistent with that hard-hearted policy which would employ him, reckless of his suffering or enjoyment, like a wedge or a rivet, to build up the idol temple of a false national greatness; to regard him as intelligent, or rather as capable of intelligence, condemns the system that would keep him in ignorance to serve the purposes of his rulers, as game cocks are penned up in the dark that they may fight the better; to regard him as moral, corrects the primary conception of national prosperity; and to revere him as immortal, commands peremptorily that he shall never be made a tool or instrument to any end in which his own permanent welfare is not included. It is in all these capacities that the biographer considers his subjects. He speaks of actions, not as mere links in the concatenation of events, but as the issues of a responsible will. He endeavours to place himself at the exact point, in relation to general objects, in which his subject was placed, and to see things as he saw them-not, indeed, neglecting to avail himself of the vantage-ground which time or circumstances may have given him to correct what was delusive in the partial aspect, but never forgetting, while he exposes the error, to explain its cause. The work to which these remarks are prefixed is purely biographical. It professes no more than to introduce the reader to an acquaintance with the several Worthies that may drop in upon him during the course of publication. As it will comprise characters in every profession, of all parties, and many religious denominations, the author cannot in all cases undertake to decide upon the professional merits of those whose lives he has endeavoured to depict; or to criticise purely professional works, such as relate to physic, engineering, &c.; but will faithfully detail the judgments which have obtained public credit. As to matters of opinion, whether political or religious, his rule has been, to make each speak for himself in his own words, or by his own actions, taking care, as far as possible, to represent the opinions that men or sects have actually held, in the light in which they have been held by their professors-not in the distorted perspective of their adversaries. He enters into no engagement to withhold his own sentiments; but he will not judge, much less condemn, the sentiments of others. A work of this nature necessarily borrows much, but wherever original matter was attainable, it has been gladly used, and in the proper place, thankfully acknowledged. And so far we have discharged our duty as chairman to the combined meeting of the great Counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire. H. C. THE LIFE OF ANDREW MARVELL. "Justum et tenacem propositi virum." HORACE. "A man in justice grounded, and secure ANDREW MARVELL. Or Andrew Marvell, a patriot of the old Roman build, and a Poet of no vulgar strain, it is to be regretted that our notices are less ample and continuous than his personal merit deserves, or his exalted walk of public action would induce us to expect. His name, indeed, is generally known-a few anecdotes of his honesty are daily repeated-and a single copy of verses, no adequate sample of his poetic powers, keeping its station in the vestibule of Paradise Lost, records him as the friend and admirer of Milton. But the detail of his daily life-the simple background of the stirring picture-the intermediate transactions which would make up the unity and totality of his story-might indeed be easily supplied by imagination, but cannot be derived from document or tradition. He The mind of Marvell, like the street and the wall of Jerusalem, was built in troublous times. From his youth upwards, he was inured to peril and privation; and, though he does not appear to have been personally engaged in civil conflict, he could not escape the tyrannous trials of those "evil days"-reproach and wicked solicitation, and sundering of dearest ties, by violent death, and exile, and crueller estrangement. Yet if his heart was often wounded it was never hardened. ever retained and cherished his love of the gentle, the beautiful, and the imaginative. His virtue, firm and uncompromising, was never savage; nor did his full reliance on his own principles make him blind to perceive, or slow to acknowledge, whatever goodness appeared in men of other faith and allegiance. He was a wit and poet, and as these qualities made him no worse a patriot or christian, so they probably made him a more amiable man. The father of Marvell, who bore both his names, was a native of Cambridge, and M.A. of Emanuel College, a recent foundation, which was strongly embued with puritanism. Having taken orders, he was elected master of the Grammar School at Hull, and in 1624 became lecturer of Trinity Church, in that town, where his son Andrew was born, Nov. 15, 1620. The elder Marvell was a learned and pious man, who seemed to retain the principles of his college, and possessed a |