Excerpt from The Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Vol. 1 The first half volume of the Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge is now offered to the Public. A Biographical Dictionary must be viewed both as a whole and in its parts. Viewed as a whole, it must not be compared with a selection of Biographies, such, for instance, as the Lives of Plutarch, whose object was to inculcate moral lessons rather than simply to tell the events of a man's life. Viewed in its parts, a Biographical Dictionary must not be compared with special Biography, which has always a particular object, and also a completeness unattainable in a work which professes to give, within reasonable limits, some account of all persons who have lived and have done anything for which they ought to be remembered. A Biographical Dictionary is consulted as a ready means of getting sufficient information for the time, and as indicating the sources of further information. Any attempt, then, to produce in any given instance a perfect Biography, would be inconsistent both with the object and the limits of such a work. It would also interfere with that unity in the mode of treating the subjects which should characterise a Biographical Dictionary, in which little more ought to be attempted than to give a plain statement of the main events of a person's life, in simple language, and, in the case of a writer, a brief criticism on his principal works. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.