GIBBON GROTE MACAULAY MOTLEY. BY THE REV. PETER ANTON, DYSART. Biography is by nature the most universally profitable, universally pleasant, of PREFACE. NEITHER this book nor the series of which it forms a part pretends to any higher claim than to be a concise epitome of the lives which it recounts, designed for those whom youth, business, disinclination, or lack of opportunity prevents perusing long biographies, but who nevertheless desire, as shortly as may be, to know what those great men were, what they did, and how they did it. The design being purely personal, criticism is introduced only to give a more complete presentation of the subjects and the lessons they teach, and to illustrate, embellish, or vary the narrative. We are sanguine that such an effort will be found to be of use by those among whom it is believed to be most desiderated-from schoolboys who have little more than read their first novel to business-men whose exacting occupations leave scanty leisure for the pursuit of knowledge. |