GREAT MEN AND THEIR BIOGRAPHIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12278, 15 February 1902, Page 3

GREAT MEN AND THEIR BIOGRAPHIES.

Mr Asc|tntfi, iu tlio speech which drew from Lord Koseliorv his vision of a biographical Utopia, remarked the fact that. "the most fplmdid genius of his own or any other lime loft behind liiin outside his writings hardly a single undisputed trace, of his own personality." Yet there, are extant quite 140 "Lives of .Shakespeare," scattered in a Shakespeare library of more than a thousand vo.nmef. Half of them are critical, and there arc no fewer llian 90 hooks respecting the Authenticity of Shakespeare's work. Twenty iudhors have dealt with Shakespearian forgeries, 60 others have had I heir say on works " attributed to .Shakespeare," and 150 moro have fallen in love with " Koineo and Juliet." As though to conipcii.s'ite for the lack of perP'tnnl history iu the 110 "Lives" of Hhakesptarr, 26 eoneordanrcs and dictionaries devoted to .Shakespeare have rome into existence, and there arc in the British Museum WWIIHi Bill 111 l Ilium Hill ■ I II mil I liimmiii ■

quite 60 books recording posthumous celebrations of the birthday of t!ic man of whore personality, as Mr Asipiitli said, we know practically nothing. Napoleon shares with Shakc-peare the distinction of the highc.-' place in biography. The two ligllie;. so vastly different in their livi s and in the mark they left on the world, have engaged the attention of the writers of nooks more than auj other two men who could be named. Kigiu hundred authors have fell it their mission to give to the world a "1/ifc" of Ihc great Cor.-ican, and the (act that there wrr 790 live, of Napoleon extant did not dele;* Lord Uoscbery from giving us another. Nor is there any reason why it should have been done: it is surely better that tlir v.orld :-hotild sjo Napoleon from a thousand standpoints than from only one, and the worst of all biographies c'tn liardly he without an element of good. The "Lives" of Napoleon, numerous ;;= I hey are, do not by any means complete tic l Napoleon library, which embraces another 500 critical woiks, ono of them addressed to the "Infamous Wretch, if there 1)5 one. who dares to talk of or even hope-. to find Mercy in the breast of lite f'orsican Bonaparte," I he 133 liver, of Julius f.V-ar seem modest enough afler we have stood before Hie .Shakespeare and Nanoleon shelves in the world's great library, but ii is ready a vrm.'irkabl" list when we bear in mind the at>e in which C;psar lived. It is. necessary (ft coinc down to our own times to find a great Kn?lishmau who has a librarv all to himself which approaches those of Shakespeare or Napoleon. There are something like 100 binaranhies of Oliver Cromwell-" ihe unparalleled monarch. as one of theni calls him—t'lioi of tliern purely personal.—St. James's fiazelle.