PREFACE.
Lord Bacon expressed his regret that the lives of eminent men were not more frequently written; and added that, „though kings, princes, and great personages be few, yet there are many excellent men who deserve better than vague reports and barren elegies.“ And one of our own poets has beautifully said,
„Lives of great men all remind us
We may make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
„Footprints, that perhaps another —
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother.
Seeing, may take heart again.“
The „footprints“ of nearly three hundred and fifty individuals of distinction and eminence are collected in this volume. And not only their footprints, tracking their pathway through life, but their very faces, preserved through the magic power of the pencil, and conveying toposterity the varying expression of features in „the human form divine.“ Nearly all of these three hundred and fifty individuals have lived in the last three centuries, and more than three hundred of them in our own country. The great majority of them have completed their voyage across „life’s solemn main,“ and entered that country „from, whose bourne no traveler returns;“ while some fifty or sixty of the number are still on the stage of life, holdingvarious positions of distinction among their fellow-men.
Wordsworth has said, speaking of man in his individuality,
„The child is father of the man.“
The remark may with equal propriety be applied to the race collectively; for the welfare, character, and future progress of the race are always shaped and measured by the experience and history of the past. It is universally conceded that biography is the most instructive, as well as the most pleasing department of history. The biographical sketches, in this volume, have been prepared with care by a competent and conscientious writer, from the best materials and sources within his reach. And great pains have been taken to obtain the best likenesses of the oriirinals, from which to engrave the portraits. It is believed therefore that few works combine, in a more eminent degree than this, the two grand elements requisite to make a valuable book, viz., the useful and the attractive, the utile cum dulce of the Romans.
Being well aware that the useful and attractive character of the volume would insure for it a very great demand, the publishers have provided, in a liberal manner, for the best materials and elegant mechanical execution of the work, and at the same time have placed it at such a moderate price as to bring it within the reach of every family and every school library in the land.
„Lives of great men all remind us
We may make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
„Footprints, that perhaps another —
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother.
Seeing, may take heart again.“
The „footprints“ of nearly three hundred and fifty individuals of distinction and eminence are collected in this volume. And not only their footprints, tracking their pathway through life, but their very faces, preserved through the magic power of the pencil, and conveying toposterity the varying expression of features in „the human form divine.“ Nearly all of these three hundred and fifty individuals have lived in the last three centuries, and more than three hundred of them in our own country. The great majority of them have completed their voyage across „life’s solemn main,“ and entered that country „from, whose bourne no traveler returns;“ while some fifty or sixty of the number are still on the stage of life, holdingvarious positions of distinction among their fellow-men.
Wordsworth has said, speaking of man in his individuality,
„The child is father of the man.“
The remark may with equal propriety be applied to the race collectively; for the welfare, character, and future progress of the race are always shaped and measured by the experience and history of the past. It is universally conceded that biography is the most instructive, as well as the most pleasing department of history. The biographical sketches, in this volume, have been prepared with care by a competent and conscientious writer, from the best materials and sources within his reach. And great pains have been taken to obtain the best likenesses of the oriirinals, from which to engrave the portraits. It is believed therefore that few works combine, in a more eminent degree than this, the two grand elements requisite to make a valuable book, viz., the useful and the attractive, the utile cum dulce of the Romans.
Being well aware that the useful and attractive character of the volume would insure for it a very great demand, the publishers have provided, in a liberal manner, for the best materials and elegant mechanical execution of the work, and at the same time have placed it at such a moderate price as to bring it within the reach of every family and every school library in the land.
Dieses Kapitel ist Teil des Buches THE AMERICAN PORTRAIT GALLERY - FROM CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME.