CHARLES CALDWELL, x D.



at an inordinate and unmerited degree of standing and applause,
by representing himself as the chief or one of the chief person-
ages, and most effective agents, in every interesting scene and
enterprise described by him. In opposition to these two strong
and imperious feelings, is an excess of modesty and diffidence,
inducing the self-historian to forego, in his narrative (by an entire
omission, an inadequate representation, or some other mode of
diminution or concealment of scenes and events), the amount of
reputation and distinction, to which, from the part he performed
in them, he is justly entitled. I need hardly add, that a pre-
dominance of the faculty of cautiousness, or secretiveness, or of
both united, may readily, in cases which, without being specified,
must present themselves to every one, make the autobiographer
swerve from truth. Nor would it be difficult to refer to other
feelings, which, when in a state of excitement, are but too well
calculated to produce the same effect. Indeed, deep fbeling of
every description, is unfriendly to accuracy of perception, repre-
sentation, and thought. While, by augmenting pathos, and render-
ing expression more elevated and intense, it may add to the force
and effect of eloquence and poetry, it withholds from philosophy
its purity and soundness, and from history the invulnerable
authenticity which should always characterize it.
  In proof of the incalculable value that may be imparted to
autobiography, as a source of instruction in the philosophy of
human conduct, that of Dr. Franklin may be confidently adduced.
Of that wonderful man, the biography written by himself-plain,
simple, and unlabored, as it is-contains, notwithstanding, an
amount of philosophical teaching tenfold more abundant, genuine,
and useful, than could have been incorporated in it, by all the
other biographers on earth. It is hardly sufficient to call that
composition the autobiography of Franklin. With but little
metaphorical extravagance, it may be pronounced Franklin him-
self; consolidated and pellucidly embodied in the essence of his
own words; still living, acting, thinking, and feeling, with each
spring of action, whether of body or mind, together with the
action itself and its several consequences, as distinctly.visible as
if they were inclosed for exhibition in a cabinet of crystal.
  If the representation, made in a preceding paragraph, of the
several causes, so adverse and influential as to be likely to de-



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