story; and the same principle guided me in the selection of the other subjects.
I think, therefore, that the reader will, at least, find this an interesting volume, and, I hope, not less instructive on that account. Not one of the lives recorded here but what contains matter to cheer, or warn, or enlighten.
Following the bent of my own taste, I have dwelt little upon the destroyers, nor have often chosen even the armed defenders of their kind. I have preferred to relate the benignant actions of philanthropists, discoverers, inventors, and philosophers, to whom the progress of man, in every age, has been chiefly due, and to whom the homage of our veneration and gratitude most justly belongs.