A biographical memoir of the late Dr. Joseph Thackeray, of Bedford.

Date:
[1832?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A biographical memoir of the late Dr. Joseph Thackeray, of Bedford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. Few species of literary composition excite so deep or so general an interest as biography. It is not difficult to trace to its source this prevalent feeling. The in¬ terest felt in any literary work must depend on the nature and number of the mental faculties to which it is addressed, and to the gratification of which it minis¬ ters. Now, biography, being the record of human life in its ordinary and entire course, necessarily exhibits all the mental powers, whether intellectual, moral, or animal, in their combined activity and natural results. It is the nature of all the higher faculties of the mind that each sympathises with its like; and barren of incident, indeed, must that life be, the memorial of which does not find, in every reader, some kindred feeling or talent which it can pleasurably affect. If this view be correct, it follows that, though a biographical memoir may gratify many, it is not exactly the same pleasure which it yields to all. Each is impressed precisely according to the faculties of his mind, which are aroused to sympathetic exercise. If intellectual powers be pourtrayed, it is the corres¬ ponding intellect that will be most incited, and this precisely in the degree in which each reader himself posesses it. Kindness of heart most impresses those who are endued with a high degree of benevolence; and just actions afford pleasure in proportion as the mind of the person contemplating them is itself con¬ scientious. These few illustrations suffice to explain