dead,
and all hope of reward is past, nothing should be remembered to be
said of them. What, moreover, can be more agreeable, than for a man
to read his own biography, especially when drawn by the partial hand
of friendship, and retouched in each successive edition, as new
circumstances require, new virtues are disclosed, and new deeds demand
a record? It may be likened to the reading of one's own epitaph,
wherein one can see to it for himself, that SHAKSPEARE did not speak
advisedly when he wrote, "It is the evil only that men do that lives
after them, while the good is interred with their bones." And besides,
biography is history; and history has been defined to be "philosophy
teaching by example." By having his own biography in his library,
therefore, a man may become his own philosophical teacher, and save the
expense of a professor; while, at the same time, he can enjoy the
consolation of seeing how mankind around him are improving themselves
by the study of his example. Should the subject of the present sketches
object, that the writer has deviated from the course of most modern
biographers, by the indulgence of his old-fashioned notions of
impartiality and truth, he must plead guilty to the charge; but, in
mitigation of punishment, he would beg leave to relate a story:

It is written in the annals of the Celestial Empire, that there once,
and for ages, existed an historical tribunal, instituted for the
purpose of perpetuating the virtues and vices of their monarchs. One
day the Emperor Tai-t-song summoned the President of this tribunal
before him, and ordered him to exhibit the history of his own reign.
The President declined to obey the mandate, upon the ground that they
were required to keep an exact record of the virtues and vices of their
sovereigns, and would no longer be at liberty to record the truth, if
their register was to be subject to the royal inspection. "What!"
exclaimed the Father of the Sun and the Uncle of the Moon, "you
transmit my history to posterity, and do you assume the liberty of
acquainting it with my faults?" "It is inconsistent with my character,"
rejoined the President, "and with the dignity of my office, ever to
disguise the truth. I am bound to record the whole, even to the
slightest fault; and such is the exactness and severity of my duty,
that I am not suffered to omit a record of our present conversation."
Tai-t-song had an elevation of soul to be found in the hearts of few
mona