ABSTRACT
The penury of literary biography is a complaint of long standing, and the justness of it is evident in the scanty memorials that have been left of the
learning and genius of former days. Anxious to redeem our own times from the charge of negligence, our constant efforts are employed in collecting from primary sources accurate information concerning the characters whose portraits give interest to our numbers. It is seldom, indeed, that the materials so obtained are copious or various, because pre-eminent merit is generally of a retiring nature, and the delicacy of friendship is not easily prevailed upon to be communicative.
