MANY mortals, in the empty quest of earthly glory, have looked to win what they thought would be enduring remembrance for their own names by penning the lives of men of eminence. By so doing, they certainly gathered in, if nothing enduring, at least a little of the fruit for which they hoped, for they perpetuated their own memory, however uselessly; and their readers, too, were stirred to nO little emulation by the pictures of great men thus set before them.