Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by

CHARLES SCRIBNER,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York

C. W. BENEDICT, STEREOTYPER AND PRINTER,

201 William Street, N. Y.

PREFACE.

THE individuals whose lineaments of character

are sketched in this volume, comprise a period of thirteen centuries, and exhibit almost every variety of station, from the wilderness to the throne. They differ in age and sex, in intellect and attainment, in clime, profession and tenet, yet in one respect they are alike. Statesmen or divines, poets or philosophers, in poverty or in wealth, one possession was common to all. The favorite of genius and the child of obscurity, derived from the same source, that "knowledge which maketh wise unto salvation." Divided as widely as the eagle soaring among the stars, from the lowliest mother-bird

upon its grassy nest, to one single, simple hope they came at last.

If we admit, for a moment, that religious hope to have been a delusion, it were still a pity to pass through life without its solace. Still more mournful to tremble at the gate of death, without its sanction.

May we all, who shall from these pages cultivate an acquaintance with the great and good, know the sustaining power of that "faith, which worketh by love,' and find a smile on the face of the dark-winged angel,

when with cold hand he leadeth us to our Father's House.

L. H. S.

HARTFORD, CONN.,

Dec. 25, 1851.

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