To all this many writers of biography add another fault, which is almost a fatal one. They treat their subject _de haut en bas_, preferring to look down upon him rather than to look up to him. They occupy themselves in criticising his faults and pointing out his deficiencies, till they forget to mention what he has accomplished to make him worthy of having his life written at all. We lately saw a life of Pope treated in this style. One unacquainted with Pope, after reading it, would say, "If he was such a contemptible fellow, and his writings so insignificant, why should we have to read his biography?" Thomas Carlyle has the great merit of leading the way in the opposite direction, and of thus initiating a new style of biography. The old method was for the writer to regard himself as a judge on the bench, and the subject of his biography as a prisoner at the bar. Carlyle, in his "Life of Schiller," showed himself a loving disciple, sitting at the feet of his master. We recollect that when this work first appeared there were only a few copies known to be in this country. One was in the possession of an eminent professor in Harvard College, of whom the present writer borrowed it. On returning it, he was asked what he thought of it, and replied that he considered it written with much enthusiasm. "Yes," responded the professor, "I myself thought it rather extravagant." Enthusiasm in a biographer was then considered to be the same as extravagance. But this hero-worship, which is the charm in Plutarch, Xenophon, and Boswell, inspired a like interest in Carlyle's portraits of Schiller, Goethe, Richter, Burns, and the actors in the French Revolution. So true is his own warning: "Friend, if you wish me to take an interest in what you say, be so kind as to take some interest in it yourself"--a golden maxim, to be kept in mind by all historians, writers of travels, biographers, preachers, and teachers. A social success may sometimes be accomplished by assuming the _blasé_ air of the Roman emperor who said, "Omnia fui, nihil expedit;" but this tone is ruinous for one who wishes the ear of the public. Since the days of Carlyle, others have written in the same spirit, allowing themselves to take more or less interest in the man whose life they were relating. So Macaulay, in his sketches of Clive, Hastings, Chatham, Pym, and Hampden; so Lewes, in his "Life of Goethe;" and so Parton, in his various biographies.