MEMOIR OF EDWARD QUILLINAN. BY WILLIAM JOHNSTON. It was the opinion of the accomplished and amiable man of whom a brief memoir is now to be written, that the task of a biographer is a much more difficult and delicate one than is generally supposedthat there is on the part of candid biographers a danger that they may tell the public more than the public have any right to know, and that in the biography of authors especially, there is no more reason to acquaint the public with their private weaknesses, than with their private or pecuniary affairs. "I have sometimes felt," he said, "that the epitaph to Gray's elegy rather marred than improved it, yet the last stanza suggests a good rule for biographies of students : "No farther seek his merits to disclose; Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God." Whatever may be thought of the soundness of this critical canon, no one had less occasion to desire the practical application of it than himself. Possessed of a keen and critical judgment, and of a temperament constitutionally irritable, he was yet the general friend. His prudence was trusted, his integrity was relied on; and every one who knew him felt that whatever demand they might make upon his courtesy and kindness would be willingly and cordially responded to. Had he indeed been as active for his own advantage as he was in promoting the wishes of his friends, he might have achieved more fame as a literary man, and better fortune as a man of the world; but let us not regret that he sacrificed these things, or rather the better chance of them, for the sake of being what he was. Let us regret rather that he was not longer spared in a world wherein men of his unselfish character are not too abundant. By profession a soldier, the passion of his life was literature. One of the probable reasons why he did not obtain a place in the world of authorship commensurate with his abilities has just been hinted at; others are pointed out in a letter addressed to himself by Mr. Wordsworth, long before any family connection subsisted between them. "This very day," writes the great poet in 1827, "Dora has read to me your poem again: it convinces me, along with your * * The poem here referred to is supposed to be that written at Oporto in 1837. See p. 75. other writings, that it is in your power to attain a permanent place among the poets of England. Your thoughts, feelings, knowledge, and judgment in style, and skill in metre, entitle you to it, and if you have not yet succeeded in gaining it, the cause appears to me merely to lie in the subjects which you have chosen. It is worthy of note how much of Gray's popularity is owing to the happiness with which his subject is selected in three places, his Hymn to Adversity,' his 'Ode on a distant Prospect of Eton College,' and his 'Elegy.' I ought however, in justice to you, to add that one cause of your failure appears to have been thinking too humbly of yourself, so that you have not reckoned it worth while to look sufficiently round you for the best subjects, or to employ as much time in reflecting, condensing, bringing out, and placing your thoughts and feelings in the best point of view, as is necessary." In order to give its fair value to this testimony, we should bear in mind that Mr. Wordsworth was, as he admitted of himself, 'slow to admire,' and by no means forward to express approbation even when he felt it. Not that he morosely withheld praise which he believed to be deserved, but he was scrupulous in the expression of his judgment, and he would scarcely condescend to the language of mere compliment. In the paper of the "Quarterly Review" upon the |