PREFACE.

A GENTLEMAN to whom the manuscript following work was shown, said, "The wr it methinks must have felt as if he were the Day of Judgment, summoning befor the great ones of the earth, and making confess their crimes."

And in truth, the remark, though som cavil at it, does not seem to be without a essence of truth. No such book has, pro ever come before the public. Here and in out-of-the-way places, we may find sk of this or that illustrious person; but work that the writer knows of are the grouped as here, and shown in their true co