Biographical dictionary

“ It may not be strictly true, though more than one great writer has said it, that history is nothing more than biography; but certainly it is true that biography is a very large and important part of history, and it is not possible to write biography without writing history. ”

“ He had no great powers of research and was prone to rely for his facts on his retentive memory, but his biographical work was invariably that of a tasteful, discriminating, and well-informed compiler. ”

“ In 1851 he had written a supplemental volume of R. Chambers's ‘Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen,’ and immediately before his death he prepared a new edition in 3 vols., revised throughout and continued with a supplement, which was published between 1869 and 1871. It is by this work he is best known as a writer. ”

“ The place of G. among historians is in the first rank, and if the vast scale of his work and the enormous mass of detail involved in it are considered along with the learning and research employed in accumulating the material, and the breadth of view, lucidity of arrangement, and sense of proportion which have fused them into a distinct and splendid picture, his claims to the first place cannot be lightly dismissed. ”

“ He has simply surveyed, as far as one man may do so, a vast biographical and philosophical literature, and culled such expressions of opinion as have been voluntarily given to the world or recorded by biographers. ”

“ His writings were far too numerous and far too diverse in subject to be of permanent value. His fame now rests chiefly on his services to political and specially to legal reform, and to the diffusion of useful literature, which are his lasting monuments. ”

“ Our country is not old in centuries, nor rich in traditions, but it is strong in men and glorious in achievement; and an adequate collection of American biography may well be regarded as a household treasure. ”

“ His fame rests on his Polychronicon, a universal history reaching down to contemporary events. The work is divided into 7 books and, though of no great value as an authority, has an interest as showing the state of historical and geographical knowledge at the time. ”

“ Other works are On the Use and Abuse of Political Terms, Authority in Matters of Opinion, The Astronomy of the Ancients, and a Dialogue on the best Form of Government. The somewhat sceptical turn of his mind led him to sift evidence minutely, and the labour involved in his wide range of severe study and his public duties no doubt shortened his valuable life. ”

“ Was educated by her father in the most careful manner; instructed in various sciences, in Latin, in her own language, French, and in geography, in the knowledge of ancient marbles, of cameos, medals, history, poetry, and drawing, and was with the highest applause elected a member of the Parisian academy. ”

“ He was graduated at Harvard college in 1802, studied theology, and in 1804 was licensed to preach and was first stationed in western New York. While holding the position of assistant librarian at Harvard college, he began the '"American Biographical and Historical Dictionary" (1809) , which was the first work of the kind published in the United States, and which he revised and enlarged from the original seven hundred American names to eighteen hundred names in 1832, and seven thousand names in 1857. ”

“ He was appointed in 1865 Prof. of English Literature in Edin., where he exercised a profound influence on his students, many of whom have risen to high positions in literature. Though a most laborious student and man of letters, M. took a warm interest in various public questions, including Italian emancipation, and the higher education of women. ”

“ He was distinguished as a poet and as an historical critic. Besides collections of poems, his best known works are the 皇朝武功紀盛, an account of the wars of the present dynasty, and the 簷曝雜記, containing notes on matters of interest in his own time. ”

“ Absorbed in study, he wrote less than his wide and deep learning qualified him for. Among his works are A History of England to 1509, and he also wrote on Early England up to the Conquest, and on Alfred and William the Conqueror. ”

“ He wrote in addition to it various text-books on history, a life of Queen Elizabeth, a memoir of Sir George Grey, and many articles and reviews. He was recognised as a leading authority on the department of history to which he had specially devoted himself, and he made his mark as a Churchman. ”

“ The lives of the mothers of great men form an important branch of biographical literature: and it is usual, even in the paternal line, to find traces of hereditary taste or talent tending toward original production. ”

“ Biography and History, which have always formed a conspicuous portion of the contents, will retain the prominence assigned them, and will be treated with the added breadth that springs from increased familiarity with authorities and more exact appreciation of the province of the Biographer and the Historian. ”

“ He wrote Memoirs of the Reign of George II., which gives a very unfavourable view of the manners and morals of the Court. It is written in a lively, though often spiteful style, and contains many clever and discriminating character sketches. ”

“ But it too frequently happens that the biographical notices of great men consist rather of personal, trivial, and unimportant details, than of a clear and broad outline of the influence which they exerted upon the pursuit and upon the age in which they were distinguished. ”

“ The biographical story, the tale of the leader who towers above his fellows like the Matterhorn above the Valais foothills, is a boon to every teacher of history. Because it is unified in plot and dramatic in appeal to the imagination, it is the most easily handled of all the history material, and should be used freely. But if children are not to have a distorted idea of the story of the human race, we must not stop with the biographical tale. ”

“ It is the usual practice with biographers to dwell at length and in explanation upon the discoveries and doctrines of the object of their labors, forgetting, apparently, that these things are almost universally known already, and that the main design of a biography should be to make public and illustrate the private life of those whom the world already knows as philosophers, statesmen, divines, or otherwise. ”

“ It has been said that the output of histories during the nineteenth century has exceeded in bulk and volume the production of all previous centuries. And in all the countries now standing in the forefront of civilisation, the chief product of their serious literature is at this time historical and biographical—for I take authentic biography to be a kind of handmaid of history. ”

“ Biography is that department of history that gives the facts and events of an individual [161] life. It is at once an interesting and important form of history. We have a natural desire to know the lives and characters of the men who have in any way risen above their fellows, and been associated with great social, literary, or political movements. While great men are in large measure the creatures of mighty movements, they at the same time give direction to historic development. ”

“ To take out one of these side figures of history, and to make it the centre of a separate picture, grouping round it all the great events and characters among which it moved, is the work of a biographer. And by many it will be felt that nothing invests the general history of any period with such a living interest as viewing it through the light of some one human life. ”

“ If I speak of individuals, it is with a view to giving some of their best things, best deeds, etc. “Straws show which way the wind is blowing,” it is said; hence only enough of each biographical sketch is given to show the status and trend of the person spoken of. We are too young, as a people, to make lengthy biography. ”

“ The sifting of human creations!—nothing less than this is what we ought to mean by the humanities. Essentially this means biography; what our colleges should teach is, therefore, biographical history, that not of politics merely, but of anything and everything so far as human efforts and conquests are factors that have played their part. ”

“ If the materials, of which history and biography are made—the sources of information—were accessible to every reader, and the patience and ability were his, to examine for himself, there is, probably, no historian nor biographer, in whose accuracy and impartiality, his confidence would not be occasionally weakened. ”

“ This plan provides a new and very valuable means of reading the biography of any noted personage, one of the great advantages being that the accounts of the various events in his life are not all in the language of the same author, not written by a man anxious to bring out the importance of his special hero. ”

“ The history of a word, by showing the causes which determine its use, is in these cases a better guide to its employment than any definition; for definitions can only show its meaning at the particular time, or at most the series of its successive meanings, but its history may show the law by which the succession was produced. The word gentleman, for instance, to the correct employment of which a dictionary would be no guide, originally meant simply a man born in a certain rank. ”

“ Biographical Dictionaries Biographical dictionaries offer basic information about the life, career, and accomplishments of individuals. Those that include living persons will sometimes provide an address or other contact information. ”

“ The present volume brings the ‘Dictionary of National Biography’ to the end of the alphabet, and thus completes an undertaking of exceptional magnitude in the history of publishing. The goal has been reached after eighteen years of unremitting labour, and, like travellers at the end of a long and difficult journey, those who are responsible for the design and execution of the Dictionary turn their thoughts instinctively on the conclusion of their task to the general features of the ground they have traversed and to some of the obstacles they have surmounted on the road. ”

“ The department of Biography is full and complete, embracing the lives of all eminent persons, ancient and modern. In American biography, particularly, great pains have been taken to present the most comprehensive and accurate record that has yet been attempted. ”

“ If one were engaged upon a formal work of biography rather than a mere essay in character, it would be just and proper to investigate the family sources from which the individual member is sprung; but I must content myself within the bounds which I have set, and leave the larger task to a more laborious hand. The essence of history lies in the character of the persons concerned, rather than in the feats which they performed. ”

“ In one sense biographies and autobiographies are certainly among the most valuable materials for the historian. Biography, as Heinrich Simon, not Henri Simon, said, is the best kind of history, and [15] the life of one man, if laid open before us with all he thought and all he did, gives us a better insight into the history of his time than any general account of it can possibly do. ”

“ One of the most useful and pleasing forms under which knowledge can be presented to the general reader is that of the Biography of distinguished men, who have contributed to the progress of that knowledge in some one or other of its various departments. ”

“ All these qualifications for a biographer and an historian she has brought to bear upon the subject of her volumes, and from them has resulted a narrative interesting to all, and more particularly interesting to that portion of the community to whom the more refined researches of literature afford pleasure and instruction. ”

“ It all grows, however, in genealogical trees, these being the predominant intellectual growth in the editor's mind. In fact, your thorough genealogist is quite a peculiar intellectual phenomenon. He is led on by a special and irresistible internal influence or genius. If he should for some time endeavour to strive after a more cosmopolite intellectual vitality, the ruling spirit conquers all other pursuits. ”

“ Since entries are not numbered, users must search an entire page to track down an index reference and can easily overlook other references to a person or subject on the same page. Although poorly indexed and lacking a clear statement of principles guiding the selection of studies, Biography is the best guide to English-language publications on the theory and practice of biography. ”

“ The biograph is a marvellous toy of the time, but literature in its lower forms of information, of history, travel and description, has been a biograph for the mind's eye from the beginning; and in its higher forms of art it performs a greater service by bringing into mental vision what it is above the power of nature to produce. ”

“ The great charm of biography consists in the individuality of the details, the familiar tone of the incidents, the bringing us acquainted with the persons of men whom we have formerly known only by their works or names, the absence of all exaggeration or pretension, and the immediate appeal to facts instead of theories. ”

“ in other words there is properly no history, only biography. ”

“ The true conception of biography, therefore, as the faithful portrait of a soul in its adventures through life, is very modern. We may question whether it existed, save in rare and accidental instances, until the 17th century. The personage described was, in earlier times, treated either from the philosophical or from the historical point of view. ”

“ Although formulaic in organization, predictable in style, usually uncritical in interpretation, and relying largely on popular sources and information supplied by biographees, Current Biography does treat a substantial number of writers from throughout the world. ”