ench tongue.

Then there is that great and vivacious chronicle of the house of Burgundy
during the fifteenth century, the Memoirs of Messire Olivier, Sieur de la
Marche. No historian would write of the Flemish wars, from the Peace of
Arras in 1435 to the taking of Ghent by the Archduke Maximilian in 1491,
without constant reference to this invaluable work, for la Marche was
often an eye-witness of the events which he records. Yet so far it has
not been rendered in English, and I know of no complete edition in modern
French. It is the same with the memorials of Bouchet, Chartier, de
Coussy, Crillon, Olivier de Clisson, and many other great soldiers, all
of whom have much to say of the wars 'contre les Anglois.' The famous
history of Bertrand du Guesclin[79] contained in 'Le Triomphe des Neuf
Preux' does not seem to have been reprinted after its second appearance
in Spanish at Barcelona in 1586, and there is no English version.

Why is it that biography has such a peculiar fascination for most men? Is
it but curiosity to know how others have passed their lives, mere idle
inquisitiveness? Or is it that we may store up in our minds what these
great ones said and did upon occasions that may occur to us some day?
This is, perhaps the more likely; for women dislike biographies, and
women, we are told, care not a fig for examples, but act upon their
native intuition. Be the reason what it may, the fact remains that for
one man who looks to the future there are fifty who look to the past.
Moreover the sages of all times encourage us to seek examples in the
lives of other men, and examples are certainly of more value than idle
speculations. 'With what discourses should we feed our souls?' asked one
of that pleasant philosopher Maximus of Tyre. 'With those that lead the
mind [Greek: epi ton prosthen chronon]--towards former times,' replied
the sage--those that exhibit the deeds of past ages.

Possibly it would be better to include biographical dictionaries under
this heading than under 'Dictionaries.' Oettinger's 'Bibliographie
Biographique Universelle,' published first in quarto at Leipzig, 1850,
describes some 26,000 biographies, under their subjects' names. A second
edition appeared in two octavo volumes at Brussels four years later.
There is a useful catalogue of 174 biographical dictionaries in all
languages at the end of the third volume of John Gorton's 'General
Biographical Dictionary,' the 1833 edition.

[Sidenote: Fam