Biography, in its purer form, confined to the ended lives of the true andbrave, may be held the fairest meed of human virtue—one given andreceived in entire disinterestedness—since neither can the biographerhope for acknowledgment from the subject, nor the subject at all avail himselfof the biographical distinction conferred.
Israel Potter well merits the present tribute—a private of Bunker Hill,who for his faithful services was years ago promoted to a still deeper privacyunder the ground, with a posthumous pension, in default of any during life,annually paid him by the spring in ever-new mosses and sward.
I am the more encouraged to lay this performance at the feet of your Highness,because, with a change in the grammatical person, it preserves, almost as in areprint, Israel Potter’s autobiographical story. Shortly after his returnin infirm old age to his native land, a little narrative of his adventures,forlornly published on sleazy gray paper, appeared among the peddlers, written,probably, not by himself, but taken down from his lips by another. But like thecrutch-marks of the cripple by the Beautiful Gate, this blurred record is nowout of print. From a tattered copy, rescued by the merest chance from therag-pickers, the present account has been drawn, which, with the exception ofsome expansions, and additions of historic and personal details, and one or twoshiftings of scene, may, perhaps, be not unfitly regarded something in thelight of a dilapidated old tombstone retouched.
Well aware that in your Highness’ eyes the merit of the story must be inits general fidelity to the main drift of the original narrative, I forboreanywhere to mitigate the hard fortunes of my hero; and particularly towards theend, though sorely tempted, durst not substitute for the allotment ofProvidence any artistic recompense of poetical justice; so that no one cancomplain of the gloom of my closing chapters more profoundly than myself.
Such is the work, and such, the man, that I have the honor to present to yourHighness. That the name here noted should not have appeared in the volumes ofSparks, may or may not be a matter for astonishment; but Israel Potter seemspurposely to have waited to make his, popular advent under the present exaltedpatronage, seeing that your Highness, according to the definition above, may,in the loftiest sense, be deemed the Great Biographer: the nationalcommemorator of such of the anonymous privates of June 17, 1775, who may neverhave received other requital than the solid reward of your granite.
Your Highness will pardon me, if, with the warmest ascriptions on thisauspicious occasion, I take the liberty to mingle my hearty congratulations onthe recurrence of the anniversary day we celebrate, wishing your Highness(though indeed your Highness be somewhat prematurely gray) many returns of thesame, and that each of its summer’s suns may shine as brightly on yourbrow as each winter snow shall lightly rest on the grave of Israel Potter.
Your Highness’
Most devoted and obsequious,
THE EDITOR.
JUNE 17th, 1854.