Читать книгу The Lieutenant-Governors of Upper Canada and Ontario 1792-1899 - David Breakenridge Read - Страница 4

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The translator of Suetonius's "Lives of the Twelve Cæsars" says in the preface to his work: "Of the several sorts of history, biography is perhaps most adapted to perform the double service of administering at once delight and profit. For, though the general history of a nation, being more extended, and necessarily comprehending in it a far greater number and variety of events, may promise a higher pleasure and more diversified entertainment to the reader, yet biography, being restrained within a narrower limit, has this particular advantage, that the series of the action is embraced by the understanding with greater ease, and the instructions which arise from the most remarkable occurrences in the life of a single person are more directly and naturally applied than when the attention is dispersed through the affairs of a whole people."

These words, written in 1727, have more force now than when first published, since the vastly increased number of events happening every day makes it necessary to have recourse to biography to engage the attention of readers, which in a general history would be distracted by the very number of historical occurrences.

In the "Lives of the Lieutenant-Governors of Upper Canada and Ontario" I have endeavored to steer a middle course, giving to each governor so much of his political history as it is necessary to know without trespassing on the domain of biography in its essential feature of individual character. Without presuming to say I have hit the happy mean, I launch my bark upon the waters trusting to an indulgent public to give it protection in its hazardous voyage.

The more one makes himself familiar with the history of the governors of a state or country, the more he will become acquainted with the country itself.

Ontario, which, under the name of Upper Canada, is the author's native province, has reason to take a pride in having had as lieutenant-governors men of sterling integrity and worth, fit representatives of the constitutional government under which they lived. That it may be always so must be the ardent wish of every lover of his country.

D. B. Read.