COMMITTEE. Chairman - The Rt. Hon. LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S., Mem. of the Nat. Inst. of France. W. Allen, Esq., F.R. and R.A.S. Peter S. Carey, Esq., A.M. John Conolly, M.D. William Coulson, Esq. The Rt. Rev. the Bishop of St. David's, D.D. J. F. Davis, Esq., F.R.S. Sir Henry De la Beche, F.R.S. The Right Hon. Lord Denman. The Rt. Rev. the Bishop of Durham, D.D. T. F. Ellis, Esq., A.M., F.R.A.S. John Elliotson, M.D., F.R.S. John Forbes, M.D. and F.R.S. Sir I. L. Goldsmid, Bart., F.R. and R.A.S. B. Gompertz, Esq., F.R. and R.A.S. G. B. Greenough, Esq., F.R. and L.S. Sir Edmund Head, Bart., A.M. M. D. Hill, Esq., Q.C. Rowland Hill, Esq., F.R.A.S. The Rt. Hon. Sir J. C. Hobhouse, Bart., M.P. Thomas Hodgkin, M.D. David Jardine, Esq., A.M. Henry B. Ker, Esq. Thomas Hewitt Key, Esq., A.M. R. I. Murchison, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S. P. M. Roget, M.D., Sec. R.S., F.R.A.S. R. W. Rothman, Esq., A.M. Sir Martin A. Shee, P.R.A., F.R.S. Sir G. T. Staunton, Bart., M.P. A. T. Thomson, M.D. Jacob Waley, Esq., B.A. James Walker, Esq., F.R.S., Pr. Inst. Civ. Eng. Henry Waymouth, Esq. Thomas Webster, Esq., A.M. Right Hon. Lord Wrottesley, A.M., F.R.A.S. J. A. Yates, Esq. THOMAS COATES, Esq., Secretary, 59, Lincoln's Inn Fields. THE BIOGRAPHICAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. VOLUME I. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1842. PREFACE. 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. The completeness which a Biographical Dictionary should aim at, consists in comprising the names of all persons who deserve a notice, and not in containing only elaborate lives of distinguished persons, and omitting those of little importance. There are, indeed, many names so conspicuous, that, though they are among the most familiar of all names, they still require a very particular notice. There are other names which also require to be treated at some length, though within narrower limits; but there is a large class of names of persons obscurely known, of whom a short notice is sufficient. This last class consists chiefly of writers or persons not engaged in public affairs; and these are the names about which it is the most difficult to obtain any information. If a man would obtain the little that can be known, or that he may wish to know, of such persons, he must often obtain it at a cost of time and labour disproportionate to the value of the information. Such |