Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Freemasons' Magazine, Or General And Complete Library.
THE FREEMASONS' MAGAZINE, OR GENERAL AND COMPLETE LIBRARY .
FOR MARCH 1795 . MEMOIRS '
OF THE LATE . WILLIAM STRAHAN , ESQ * .
WITH A PORTRAIT . THE advantages and use of Biography have of late been so often mendotiec ., ° uid are new so nniversaify allowed , that it is need- . less for any modern author to set them forth . That department of writing , " however , has been of late years so much cultivated , that
it has fared with biography as with every other art ; it has Jost much of its dignity in its commonness , and many lives have been presented to the public , from which little instruction or amusement could be drawn . Individuals have been traced in minute and ordinary actions , from which no consequences could arise , but to the private circle of . their own families and friends , and in the detail of wliich we saw no passion excited , no character developed , nothing that should distin ,-guish them from those common occurrences ,
" Which dully took their course , and were forgotten . " Yet there are few-even of those comparatively insignificant lives , Tn which men of a serious and thinking cast do not feel a certain degiee of interest . A pensive mind can trace , in seeming ) }' trivial incidents and common situations , something to feed reflection , and to foster thought ; as the solitary naturalist culls the- trodden weeds , and discovers in their form and texture the principles of . vegetative
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Freemasons' Magazine, Or General And Complete Library.
THE FREEMASONS' MAGAZINE, OR GENERAL AND COMPLETE LIBRARY .
FOR MARCH 1795 . MEMOIRS '
OF THE LATE . WILLIAM STRAHAN , ESQ * .
WITH A PORTRAIT . THE advantages and use of Biography have of late been so often mendotiec ., ° uid are new so nniversaify allowed , that it is need- . less for any modern author to set them forth . That department of writing , " however , has been of late years so much cultivated , that
it has fared with biography as with every other art ; it has Jost much of its dignity in its commonness , and many lives have been presented to the public , from which little instruction or amusement could be drawn . Individuals have been traced in minute and ordinary actions , from which no consequences could arise , but to the private circle of . their own families and friends , and in the detail of wliich we saw no passion excited , no character developed , nothing that should distin ,-guish them from those common occurrences ,
" Which dully took their course , and were forgotten . " Yet there are few-even of those comparatively insignificant lives , Tn which men of a serious and thinking cast do not feel a certain degiee of interest . A pensive mind can trace , in seeming ) }' trivial incidents and common situations , something to feed reflection , and to foster thought ; as the solitary naturalist culls the- trodden weeds , and discovers in their form and texture the principles of . vegetative