Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1853-07-22
American Biography.

We commence To-day the publication oil another
extract from ''Thirty years in the United State
senate by Thomas H. Benton, and shall conclude
II 10 morrow. The extract will be read with inte-
rest by ALL as the pure and distinguished character
of the ubiect, Nathaniel Macon, will commend
it at once to the pubic.
It's much to be regretted that American author
shin has not oftener produced creditab'e biogra-
phles of the numerous and distinguished Ameri-
cans of whum our history can boast. True, there
are extant lives of many of our prominent men,
md many of these lives are creditable to the wri
ters to the literature OF country, and valuable
in many respects; still there n:e but few biogra-
pbies such as we woaldlike 10 see in the hands of
alI, and the size. cost, and diffuse character OF
these works place them entirely above the,each of
"the million" MarshalPs Life of Washington,
and Luken's life of Jefferson, with other of the
same cl ass, are hardly TO be regarded as bogra-
plies but rather as histories oil the times in which
the subjects lived, ant! even then sufficiently diff
fuse TO render their perusal a task 10 most who
read them. Few countries have afforded more
prominent and striking subjects for the pen of the
bicgrapher than our own, and tho track along
which these materials lie, in the richest profusIon,
IS as yet almost wholly un raveled. True, mod
ern catch-penny effort under the auspices Of Mr..
Jonn Livingston Of New York, has promised TO
afford us something of the kind, far as the biog-
ruphy of the present oge S concerned, but most Of
his Biographies are poorly written, many of the
subjects men HON the public never heard Of be-
fore, having but little prominence even where
known, and wholly uncalcdlated to make them
acceptable or Profitable to the reader. Not that
the present age in our own country has not fit
subjects for biography, but the system pursued by
him Of first writing to gentlemen to favor him with
their biography and portrait, and then, after get
ting them and their friends committed to the work,
or fixed upon them the cost Of the engraving
&C., not unfrequently drives from his pages biOs-
raphies which might else be of general interest.
The field OF American biography, then, is almost
entirely open, and affords itch promise to some
competent author, who will undertake to bring
down TO our age the individuals who acted III the
past, and to hand down to posterity the men Of
the present age in manner worthy Of the age, the
country, and the illusirious Americans who have
preceded us.
PIutarch's lives will be read while antiquity
has an admirer ahl heroism a champion; Gilfllan's
Literary Portraits will always be read and sdmned,
and why cannot some American add to these aud
other like works, volume which shall p=rpetuate
through all time the birth, character, and iIlustr
Gus actions of the statesman, civilians and distiu-
guished citizens of our country2 We expect much
in this department from the work from which we
to-day extract but of course it will he partial in
its characters, being confined, We presume. 10 po-
liticaI character. Ifimpartial, as we hope it may
be- itmust be intensely interesting, and in connec-
ton with the work ofthe Adsmses, Story's life and
letters, the Madison and Hamilton State Papers;
and other works of Marshall, Tucker and others,
will at any rate furnish at some future day, the
materials from which tie writer of American BiOg-
raphy may draw much that is eminently important
torso necessary work.