grandfather", but the result of the publication gave proof of the incapacity of the grandson. There is not a line of Franklin's writings which could not have seen the light in 1817 with as little injury to his reputation as in 1917.
An earlier and the earliest printed autobiography after the War for Independence appeared in 1798. Major-General William Heath took us into his confidence in the form of a journal of events compiled after his active service was past, and published, it has been charged, before its intended time, to promote an election to office. Fully acquainted by his studies, as he believed, "with the theory of war in all its branches and duties, from the private soldier to the Commander in Chief", he wrote sometimes as a private and sometimes as generalissimo. He was the preacher of preparedness from 1770, and like most such preachers was lacking in action. A trusted lieutenant, he attained rank without distinction, and grew corpulent in inaction and performance. "Our General", as he pleases to call himself, a term reported to have been applied to him by Bernard in one of his prophetic moments, printed his book, which was greeted by smiles on all sides. It was impossible to misinterpret such a delightful piece of vanity. Its historical value shrinks before its personal quality.
Gradually an interest in personal history was awakened. In biography Marshall's Life of Washington was easily first to challenge attention. It was based upon original documents; it appeared at a time when the power of the Federalists had been shattered, and their shrewdest opponent was in full possession of the executive. Did Marshall intend to raise a monument to Washington or to the Federalist Party? It was good history, good politics, and good biography for the time, yet the neglect into which it has fallen is due more to the writer than to what he used of the subject. Fourteen years later, in 1818, Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, necessarily largely based on tradition, carried into biography the oratorical flowers of Independence Day, and succeeded so far as to make its transplanted garden a desert place in comparison to a later and saner cultivation. It is something to have manufactured a good book, yet an example that is to be avoided—otherwise the sense of relation would be weakened. Virginia still held the field for a period. In 1825 the life and correspondence of Richard Henry Lee and in 1829 that of Arthur Lee were given out by a grandson of the former. They were defensive, colored by deliberate but mistaken purpose. Both compilations showed how good material could be wasted in an effort to prepare a brief in a cause of secondary importance.
