The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

PROPOSALS

FOR PUBLISHING THE LIFE OF

CHARLES B. BROWN:

TO WHICH WILL BE ADDED,

ORIGINAL LETTERS,

AND SELECTIONS FROM HIS PRIVATE

MANUSCRIPTS.

IN TWO VOLUMES, OCTAVO

It is a principle virtually admitted, if not explicitly avowed, that, when the page of an author obtains celebrity, his life becomes likewise an object of inquiry. We desire an acquaintance more familiar than his book is capable of affording, to converse with him by his hearth and his fire-side and, when all restraint is laid aside, to discover how his private and publick opinions harmonize together. Researches of this kind have been variously rewarded. An author's page is not unfrequently the severest satire on his life. While the writer recommends, with all the eloquence of his pen, habits of self-denial little short of monastic, the man is immolating his health, his honour, and tranquillity on the shrine of criminal indulgence. Imagination can scarcely form a spectacle more painfully interesting than that of a man whose struggles to resist temptation are incompetent whose life exhibits a gloomy variety of distress, criminal indulgences, shame and reproach, resolutions of amendment made to be violated and repented of again. On the other hand, how does the character on our esteem when our admired writer, great as it is, sinks into comparative insignificance in our contemplations of the man; when we find that the high and generous sentiments of his page but feebly reflect the lustre of his life. The man who framed, in early life, the resolution of making the happiness of a friend an integral part of his own, whose whole existence was a practical illustration of that principle, is a character too precious for Biography to overlook. All this was CHARLES B. BROWN. His merits as a writer require no comment. The admiration of his own countrymen has already received the sanction of those European judges, whose frowns have so often intimidated American genius. Still the brighter and lovelier parts of the character remain to be seen: We wish to draw aside the veil of domestick retirement, and to disclose those beautiful traits which the scrupulous modesty of their possessor reserved for the eyes of those who shared his private confidence. We wish to show the man who raised the domestick and unostentatious virtues to the rank of the heroick, and whose ambition found its boundary in his benevolence. In the prosecution of so delicate a subject, the writer dares aspire to nothing more than to promise a faithful and undivided appropriation of his time to the subject, with whatever patient industry and humble talents are competent to accomplish.

It is therefore proposed to publish the life and posthumous works of the late Charles Brockden Brown, in two volumes. The first volume will comprise a full biography of the deceased, and the rest of the work will consist of extracts from his private manuscripts, and of original letters, never before published. The volumes will contain 500 pages, at the price of three dollars each, in boards. The work will be printed on a fine paper, and with a handsome type, and the profits will exclusively belong to the family of the deceased. A list of the subscribers' names will be published.

Philadelphia, June 7, 1811.