rough all its
phases, until the restrictions of the mother became oppression, and the
love of the children was converted into hatred; that it traces the
growth and expansion of American industry,--the dawn of American
invention, so full of promise,--the development of the principle of
self-government, so full of power,--the bitter contest, so full of
lessons which, used aright, might have spared us more than half the
blood and treasure of the present war.

To appreciate the difficulty of this work, we must remember that the
inner and the outer life of the subject of it are equally full of
marvels; that, beginning by cutting off candle-wicks in a
tallow-chandler's shop in Boston, he ended as the greatest scientific
discoverer among those men renowned for science who composed the Royal
Society of London and the Academy of Sciences of Paris; that, with the
aid of an odd volume of the "Spectator," used according to his own
conception of the best way of using it, he made himself master of a
pure, simple, graceful, and effective English style; that the opinions
and maxims which he drew from his own observation and reflection have
passed into the daily life of millions, warning, strengthening,
cheering, and guiding; that he succeeded in the most difficult
negotiations, was a leader of public opinion on the most important
questions, and, holding his way cheerfully, resolutely, and lovingly to
the end, left the world wiser in many things, and in some better, for
the eighty-four years that he had passed in it.

Nor must we forget, that, among the many things which this wonderful old
man did, was to tell us half the story of his own life, and with such
unaffected simplicity, such evident sincerity, and such attractive
grace, as to make it--as far as it goes--the most perfect production of
its class. Then why attempt to do it over again? is the question that
naturally springs to every lip, on reading the title of Mr. Parton's
book.

Mr. Parton has anticipated this question, and answered it.
"Autobiography is one of the most interesting and valuable kinds of
composition; but autobiography can never be accepted _in lieu_ of
biography, because to no man is the giftie given of seeing himself as
others see him. Rousseau's Confessions are a miracle of candor: they
reveal much concerning a certain weak, wandering, diseased, miserable,
wicked Jean Jacques; but of that marvellous Rousseau whose writings
thrilled Europe they contain how