the attention of the reader, or proper for his pen;
and, it is singular, that the writers of biography should
have so seldom taken up the lives of philanthropists.
Almost every grade of society, and every adventurer,
has been described, while those who laboured for the
good of mankind have been, with some few excep-
tions, neglected. The reading world have been sup-
plied with countless volumes written upon the deeds
of warriors, who have desolated nations, and marked
their footsteps with blood. In the opinion of men,
they had conquered their fame:
They were the mighty of the world,
The demi-gods of earth;
Their breath—the flag of blood unfurled
And gave the battle birth.
They lived—to trample on mankind,
And in their ravage leave behind
The impress of their worth.
And wizzard rhyme, and hoary song,
Hallowed their deeds, and hymned their wrong.
The statesmen and orators, as well as warriors, have
had their Plinys and their Plutarchs to hand them
down to posterity in a blaze of glory; and even the
poets who were neglected while living, have had their
Cibbers and Johnsons to tell the world how they suf-
fered and how they sung; while the philanthropist,
whose deeds have an influence on the moral world,
as the dews of heaven have upon the natural, has
hardly found a poet or historian. Not even a name
has been left on record for the good Samaritan. In
a few instances, it is true, genius and feeling have
burst out into a sweet strain of honest eulogy of the
benevolent, such as will never be forgotten. Pope's
tuneful tribute to the Man of Ross, and Burke's
eloquent description of Howard

, can never be lost.
Some, in modern times, have sketched the lives of a
few philanthropists, but frequently in so tame a man-
ner, that one would think that there was a canon
against showing the slightest enthusiasm in com-
memorating the good. Some few have broken through
their shackles, and dared to assign them a place in the