(1471-1530) 28 ... ... *-1552) 206 · (1498—1556) 330 ...... (1514-1557) 364 (1500-1558) 393 (1515-1568) 410 PREFACE. IT is a true, though trite remark, that Virtue before she can become (as Plato predicted) the object of intense attachment, must be rendered visible as it were by being embodied in real characters. So personified, under an indefinite variety of shapes she offers to every diversity of genius some noble model of imitation, recommended by it's intellectual or it's moral affinity. And hence the utility of Biographical Collections in general. Of the following Collection in particular it may farther be observed, that beside presenting at least one distinguished example in nearly every respectable division of society, it exhibits an almost continuous view of the English Annals, from the rudiments of the Reformation under Henry VIII. to the conclusion of the last century. Yet in this, from the frequent occurrence of contemporary Lives, it has been found no easy matter to allot in just proportions to each, as they respectively embellished or influenced the des 1 tiny of their country, their shares of the national story. Occasional repetitions, under such circumstances, are inevitable. They characterise, indeed, the most valuable aggregate of ancient Memoirs : and what the Theban was doomed to encounter, may be endured without disgrace by the British Plutarch. Since some principle of succession however was to be acted upon, and no two Lives here introduced, though nearly co-eval, are exactly conterminous, it became necessary to regulate the order by the dates of one of their extremes; and that of their Deaths has been adopted, both because the beginnings of Greatness are usually more precarious as to the age at which they take place, and the sway which it exercises over public affairs is generally more considerable even in advanced years than in early youth. That this Compilation is founded upon another of the same name, of which the last English edition was printed in 1791 (and has, subsequently, become scarce) is merely mentioned, in order to escape the charge of unacknowledged obligation. For not to advert to entire Lives omitted and inserted, of those which are retained the larger part are in a great measure re-composed. The stile, in fact, of the pre ceding work had obviously occupied but little of the writer's attention. Clumsy insertions, without the grace or the interest of episode, continually break it's tenor: in the details of battles, throughout his later volumes, it is too complimentary to say, that he has copied the dull particularity of gazettes; and he has disgraced them all by numerous and irrelevant traits of hostility to our Established Church. These, it is superfluous, I trust, to add, I have deemed it in more than one capacity my duty sedulously to expunge. Still, a Collection of Lives is almost necessarily a cento. Written and re-written nearly to satiety, they can now only be attired in a different garb, or arranged in a different succession. Of one privilege, indeed, I have extensively availed myself; that of desecration. An apology will hardly be expected * For a similar freedom exercised upon Mr. Laing's 'History of Scotland,' though exceeding the strict limits of my allotted function, which was confined to verbal and idiomatic criticism as preparatory to the second edition, I had the high honour of that gentleman's very flattering acknowledgement: "I am particularly obliged to Mr. Wrangham (he observed, in a letter to a friend) for his liberal strictures upon certain passages which, the ardor of composition being now over, I did not hesitate immediately to expunge." Those, who have collated the two editions, will be at no loss to compute the extent of these suggestions. |