I cannot, perhaps, more fitly begin this short biography than with some words in which its subject has expressed his ownfeelings as to the spirit in which such a task should be approached. "Silence,says Wordsworth, "is a privilege of the grave, a right of the departed: let him, therefore, who infringes that right by speaking publicly of, for, or against, those who cannot speak for themselves, take heed that he opens not his mouth without a sufficient sanction.