The Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Longman.

PERHAPS in English literature there is no work for which there is greater need than a General or Universal Biographical Dictionary. Not that we have not abundance of books which lay claim to that character. But then almost every one of these are but copies of, or compilations from, their predecessors, without any of that research and scrutiny that would correct errors and supply wants; so that grave errors have been circulated until many of them may be said to have become inveterately fixed in the public mind, with regard to the lives of a number of eminent individuals.

For the construction and system of details, or for the actual composition of a Biographical Dictionary, some may at first fancy that no great talent, no rare qualifications or habits beyond the most ordinary kind, are needed. It may be said that facts alone are required; and facts, too, that may be most distinctly systematized in regard to nature and arrangement. Give the country in which the person was born, the date and condition of his birth, the year and circumstances of his death,-filling up the course of his history with simple notices of his works, achievements, &c., and of the incidents and passages that distinguished him, and this is all which is demanded. But it must very soon appear to the reflecting mind, that although a Biographical Dictionary cannot properly admit of long dissertations, of minute criticisms, or of argumentative opinions, regarding the doings, the productions, and the character of its subjects, yet that the few leading facts to which we have alluded would amount to a very dry sort of chronology indeed; whereas no small degree of entertainment, as well as of instructiveness, is naturally expected whenever one is led to believe that he is to hear of a life that has been thought worthy of having print bestowed upon it.

It becomes exceedingly clear that many things must be comprised in the plan and execution of a Biographical Dictionary; and also that many must be eschewed; while a steady eye to certain yet numerous distinctions must be kept directed. Nay, it becomes perfectly manifest, that such a publication ought not only to be a work of many years, and according to a meditated system, but should present the combined labours of a number of persons, each particularly conversant with the particular department to which his contributions belong. And not less essential still,-there ought to be a superintending unity of plan and ability, in order to give consistency of execution and tone to the whole. A work conducted with a due observance of these things, and if written, not as compilations are generally done, but with liveliness, and as if not only a deep interest by the contributor were felt in his subject, but as if he had been full of it, and only gave its essence, could not fail to be wonderfully popular with the people of this country, who appear to

cherish an uncommon thirst for information of a biographical sort, at the same time that our annals are extremely rich in the materials required.

Some Biographical Dictionaries give us a very arbitrary selection of names, and also very elaborate disquisitions on the subjects connected with these names. Now, it is plain, that a work which treated of all persons about whom a reader is likely to consult a dictionary of the kind mentioned, on a similar scale, could never be comprised in any reasonable number of volumes; nor, when so comprised, could it answer the purpose that ought to be intended,viz., to furnish rather a manual of such information as is likely to be generally useful, and guides to greater storehouses to be found in many separate and scattered publications, than to be large deposi

tories themselves.

Again, the number of names found in a Biographical Dictionary, must be regulated by excluding such as are likely to prove of so little interest and value as to be seldom sought after; while the relative length of the articles, and the minuteness of information given, will depend on a proper admeasurement of circumstances, regarding which not only will every person form his own judgment, but will make due allowance for the consideration of others. It is certainly desirable that all names that occur in Literature, Science, History, or Art, concerning which the general reader is likely to want information, should be introduced with adequate notices; whereas many of minor character may need only to be introduced so as to let the inquirer know who the person was, and the dates of his birth and death.

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But some of the most venerable names might be altogether passed over in silence. What occasion is there for introducing those in Scripture, which indeed, if either given at more or less length than found in the books of the sacred writers, must lead to error? does not even seem necessary to go into many details with regard to illustrious persons or others, of whom Hume, Gibbon, &c., have written at large, or of whom particular notice is taken in works most familiar to the public. In case of the omissions suggested in our last observation, specific references should be introduced; and indeed throughout the dictionary, whenever more information is likely to be frequently desired about the individual life than the article affords.

The first Biographical Dictionaries in England were little more than translations. Original works of the kind, however, came to be attempted; and sundry ones, of more or less merit, and for the most part in folios, continued from time to time to appear. In 1790, Dr. Aikman began a General Biography, in ten vols., quarto; and subsequently Alexander Chalmers was engaged by the booksellers of London, on a new work of the kind, which extends, we believe, to

thirty-two vols. octavo. But while the preceding ones were very deficient of names and often faulty, the last-mentioned was especially dull and inaccurate. The fact is, the best complete Biographical Dictionary at this moment in England is the "Biographie Universelle." Now, this has been felt to be disgraceful to the country; and not merely because it shows that we are dependent on our Gallic neighbours, but that we rely upon a dictionary that is inconveniently voluminous, at the same time that an inferior space is allowed in it to British names, as regards proportion.

Of each of the various projected Biographical Dictionaries that have recently been heard of, we need not particularly speak. One of these was partly arranged by the late Rev. Hugh James Rose, B.D., and has been in the course of publication during several years. But it has not been allowed to proceed without some strong animadversions, and certain untoward disclosures of inaccuracies, by lynxeyed critics. Mr. Bolton Corney, for example, has pointed out a number of grave mistakes, occurring too within a comparatively small space at the commencement of the work. Besides, he has assailed the anonymous character of the contributors; this being a point, he properly observes, which concerns the public, the contributors themselves, the editor, and the proprietors. "The biographer," he remarks, "has to collect materials from various recondite sources, to appreciate opposite evidence, to pass sentence on men of all sorts, of all parties, and of all ranks. It is fit, therefore, that the public should have some clue to his character which the name would afford."

But, to notice the "Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge;"-we think it very probable that even this latest projection and undertaking of the kind will not be able to escape such searchers as Mr. Corney; although we do not look upon every error which his hawk-eye may pounce upon as things not to be expected even in works of the sort, even when commenced with much profession and many promises. In the mean time we are not in a condition to pronounce upon the work now immediately under notice, seeing that only the first half of the first volume has come before us, and which carries us no farther than the article "Agathoclea." The following opinions, however, are borne out by this earliest instalment: it is handsomely got up in every mechanical sense, is closely and clearly printed; so that thus far it is a cheap and tempting pennyworth. But what is better-the articles are written with vivacity and vigour, exhibiting a competent acquaintance with, and a hearty interest in, the subjects. Further, and more rare still, there are tokens as well as professions of original research; while, if the views be not frequently entirely new, they are at least sometimes so strikingly put as to have the force and attraction of novelty. Last of all we have to state that not only is there a goodly

array of selected contributors, with an editor (Mr. Long) who is of known character; but the responsibility for which Mr. Corney stands out, is thrown upon the principal writers, for their signatures are affixed to their articles, a key to which will be published hereafter.

We present two specimens, in which it will be seen that there is a good condensation of facts delivered in a vigorous style, together with a necessary and firm criticism. The first subject is Eschines :—

The materials for the biography of Eschines are scanty, and they are not entirely trustworthy. We have no information about his parentage and early life, beyond what we obtain from his own speeches, and those of his rival Demosthenes; and the contradictions between the two accounts are such as prevent us from giving entire credit to either. It is not certain that these speeches were ever delivered in public in the form in which we have them; and if this were certain, we could not safely take an assertion of either orator to be true simply because it was made in the presence of all the Athenians.

Æschines says, iu his Oration on the Embassy, that his father, Atrometus, lost his property in the (Peloponnesian) war; that after being driven out of Athens during the tyranny of the Thirty, he served as a soldier in Asia; that he belonged to a Phratria which shared in the same religious rites with the Eteobutada, a family from which was taken the priestess of Athena, (Minerva,) the guardian goddess of Athens; and that he assisted in restoring the democracy. All his ancestors on his mother's side also, he tells Demosthenes in his speech, were free. His eldest brother, Philochares, had a good education, and served with Iphicrates, and was several times in command of the Athenian forces. Demosthenes had asserted that Philochares was a painter of alabaster boxes and drums; an assertion to which Eschines makes this answer. His youngest brother, Aphobus, had been sent on an embassy to the King of Persia, and had honourably discharged his duties in the administration of the Athenian revenue. Æschines married the daughter of Philodemus, and the sister of Philon and Epicrates, all respectable Athenian citizens; and he had a daughter and two sons at the time when he made this statement, in the year B. c. 343. His father was then alive, and in his ninety-fifth year. Both his father and his mother were probably present when he made this speech.

Thirteen years after, (B. c. 330,) in reply to the alleged abuse of Æschines, Demosthenes, who was not at all inclined to be abusive, as he says himself, states of Æschines as follows, in his Oration on the Crown. That his father's name was Tromes; that he was once the slave of a schoolmaster, and wore fetters round his legs, and a wooden collar round his neck; that his mother was a prostitute, and brought her son up in a brothel; and that a slave, a piper, took her from this honourable occupation; that Æschines had in some way got himself enrolled a citizen; that he added two syllables to his father's name, and called him Atrometus, and gave the honourable name of Glaucothea to his mother. Further on, Demosthenes recurs to the subject. He charges Eschines with being brought up in great poverty: he was employed in the same school wlth his father, and his business was to make the ink, wipe the benches, and sweep the school-cccupations more suitable to a slave than a free youth. On attaining to man's estate, he assisted his mother in the absurd and indecent ceremonies of some superstitious practices, by which she got her living. His next employment was as a clerk to some inferior magistrates; then he figured

as a third-rate actor, and was hissed off the stage for his failure. Demosthenes says that he had a handsome person and a fine voice.

To attempt to extract the truth from two such opposite statements is an idle task, and it is equally uncritical to make a biography of Eschines by rejecting a part of each of the two stories. We may, however, admit that the youth of Æschines was spent in poverty and hardship, that his education was imperfect, and that he rose to eminence, through various low stations; we may also admit that Demosthenes, as he tells us, laboured under none of these disadvantages. He thus unconsciously teaches us to estimate the abilities of Æschines more highly than his own.

Before we proceed to speak of the dramatic character of Æschylus, we must explain several of his innovations, which will enable us to form a clearer estimate of the artistic merits of his plays.

The Greeks justly regarded Æschylus as the father of tragedy. Before his time, the art scarcely deserved the name of drama; and the progress which it made under the direction of his genius was far greater than any which it owed to his successors. It required much more power to raise the drama from the state in which it was in the hands of the poets previous to Eschylus, to the condition in which we find it in his works, than merely to continue what he had commenced. Before the time of Eschylus only one actor appeared on the stage at once, who carried on the dialogue with the chorus, or told his story to the chorus. Eschylus introduced a second actor, which was the first step towards making the dialogue and the action independent of the chorus. The dialogue now became more free and animated; and the contrast between a principal (protagonistes) and a secondary character (deuteragonistes) enabled the poet to interest his audience in the action, which before his time was of secondary importance, the chorus being the principal part of the drama. But the action in the dramas of Eschylus is yet not altogether independent of the chorus, which takes a considerable part in the events of the drama. The complete separation of these two elements was reserved for Sophocles. An innovation like this was undoubtedly adopted by the contemporaries of Eschylus, as he himself at a later period adopted that of Sophocles, by which a third actor was introduced. There are dramas of Eschylus in which three persons appear upon the stage at once ; but in this case the dialogue is carried on by only two of them. A third actor who takes part in the dialogue does not occur in any drama written before the year B. c. 468, when Sophocles showed the advantage of a third actor. The part of the protagonistes was in most cases performed by Eschylus himself, and the names of two celebrated actors are known who were trained and instructed by the poet, and probably acted the parts of the deuteragonistes. They were Clearchus and Myniscus of Chalcis. Before the time of Eschylus, the poets generally acted their own dramas, and were obliged to perform the parts of the several characters of a piece one by one in succession. This inconvenience was obviated in some degree by the introduction of a second actor, though the same actor was still obliged to perform several parts. There are however several points in the dialogue of the Aschylean drama, which remind us of what the art was before his time. The dialogue is sometimes carried on between the actor and the chorus; and in this as well as in other cases it proceeds with great regularity, which to a modern critic would appear stiff and unnatural. The verses are mostly distributed in certain proportions VOL. II. (1842.) NO. IV.

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