Editorial note: Due to limitations in rendering some print characters, the following abbreviations are used in this text to represent the original printer's symbols: "4^to" for "quarto" "12^o" for "duodecimo" "f^o" for "folio"

LITERARY CHARACTER OF MEN OF GENIUS

Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions

by

ISAAC DISRAELI

A New EditionEdited by His SonTHE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 

London:Frederick Warne and Co. , Bedford Street, Strand. London:Bradbury, Agnew, & Co. , Printers, Whitefriars. 

1850

PREFACE. 

The following Preface is of interest for the expression of the author'sown view of these works. 

This volume comprises my writings on subjects chiefly of our vernacularliterature. Now collected together, they offer an unity of design, andafford to the general reader and to the student of classical antiquitysome initiation into our national Literature. It is presumed also, thatthey present materials for thinking not solely on literary topics; authorsand books are not alone here treated of, --a comprehensive view of humannature necessarily enters into the subject from the diversity of thecharacters portrayed, through the gradations of their faculties, theinfluence of their tastes, and those incidents of their lives prompted bytheir fortunes or their passions. This present volume, with its brother"CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE, " now constitute a body of reading which mayawaken knowledge in minds only seeking amusement, and refresh the deeperstudies of the learned by matters not unworthy of their curiosity. 

The LITERARY CHARACTER has been an old favourite with many of mycontemporaries departed or now living, who have found it respond to theirown emotions. 

THE MISCELLANIES are literary amenities, should they be found to deservethe title, constructed on that principle early adopted by me, ofinterspersing facts with speculation. 

THE INQUIRY INTO THE LITERARY AND POLITICAL CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRSThas surely corrected some general misconceptions, and thrown light on someobscure points in the history of that anomalous personage. It is asatisfaction to me to observe, since the publication of this tract, thatwhile some competent judges have considered the "evidence irresistible, " amaterial change has occurred in the tone of most writers. The subjectpresented an occasion to exhibit a minute picture of that age oftransition in our national history. 

The titles of CALAMITIES OF AUTHORS and QUARRELS OF AUTHORS do not whollydesignate the works, which include a considerable portion of literaryhistory. 

Public favour has encouraged the republication of these various works, which often referred to, have long been difficult to procure. It has beendeferred from time to time with the intention of giving the subjects amore enlarged investigation; but I have delayed the task till it cannot beperformed. One of the Calamities of Authors falls to my lot, the delicateorgan of vision with me has suffered a singular disorder, [A]--a disorderwhich no oculist by his touch can heal, and no physician by his experiencecan expound; so much remains concerning the frame of man unrevealed toman!

In the midst of my library I am as it were distant from it. My unfinishedlabours, frustrated designs, remain paralysed. In a joyous heat I wanderno longer through the wide circuit before me. The "strucken deer" has thesad privilege to weep when he lies down, perhaps no more to course amidthose far-distant woods where once he sought to range. 

[Footnote A: I record my literary calamity as a warning to my sedentarybrothers. When my eyes dwell on any object, or whenever they are closed, there appear on a bluish film a number of mathematical squares, which arethe reflection of the fine network of the retina, succeeded by blotcheswhich subside into printed characters, apparently forming distinct words, arranged in straight lines as in a printed book; the monosyllables areoften legible. This is the process of a few seconds. It is remarkable thatthe usual power of the eye is not injured or diminished for distantobjects, while those near are clouded over. ]

Although thus compelled to refrain in a great measure from all mentallabour, and incapacitated from the use of the pen and the book, theseworks, notwithstanding, have received many important corrections, havingbeen read over to me with critical precision. 

Amid this partial darkness I am not left without a distant hope, nor apresent consolation; and to HER who has so often lent to me the light ofher eyes, the intelligence of her voice, and the careful work of her hand, the author must ever owe "the debt immense" of paternal gratitude. 

CONTENTS. PAGE

INTRODUCTION 3

CHAPTER I. 

Of literary characters, and of the lovers of literature and art. 11

CHAPTER II. 

Of the adversaries of literary men among themselves. --Matter-of-factmen, and men of wit. --The political economists. --Of those whoabandon their studies. --Men in office. --The arbiters of publicopinion. --Those who treat the pursuits of literature with levity. 14

CHAPTER III. 

Of artists, in the history of men of literary genius. --Their habitsand pursuits analogous. --The nature of their genius is similar intheir distinct works. --Shown by their parallel areas, and by acommon end pursued by both. 20

CHAPTER IV. 

Of natural genius. --Minds constitutionally different cannot have anequal aptitude. --Genius not the result of habit and education. --Originates in peculiar qualities of the mind. --The predispositionof genius. --A substitution for the white paper of Locke. 24

CHAPTER V. 

Youth of genius. --Its first impulses may be illustrated by itssubsequent actions. --Parents have another association of the manof genius than we. --Of genius, its first habits. --Its melancholy. --Its reveries. --Its love of solitude. --Its disposition to repose. --Of a youth distinguished by his equals. --Feebleness of its firstattempts. --Of genius not discoverable even in manhood. --Theeducation of the youth may not be that of his genius. --An unsettledimpulse, querulous till it finds its true occupation. --With some, curiosity as intense a faculty as invention. --What the youth firstapplies to is commonly his delight afterwards. --Facts of thedecisive character of genius. 31

CHAPTER VI. 

The first studies. --The self-educated are marked by stubbornpeculiarities. --Their errors. --Their improvement from the neglector contempt they incur. --The history of self-education in MosesMendelssohn. --Friends usually prejudicial in the youth of genius. --A remarkable interview between Petrarch in his first studies, and his literary adviser. --Exhortation. 55

CHAPTER VII. 

Of the irritability of genius. --Genius in society often in a stateof suffering. --Equality of temper more prevalent among men ofletters. --Of the occupation of making a great name. --Anxieties ofthe most successful. --Of the inventors. --Writers of learning. --Writers of taste. --Artists. 69

CHAPTER VIII. 

The spirit of literature and the spirit of society. --The inventors. --Society offers seduction and not reward to men of genius. --Thenotions of persons of fashion of men of genius. --The habitudes ofthe man of genius distinct from those of the man of society. --Study, meditation, and enthusiasm, the progress of genius. --Thedisagreement between the men of the world and the literarycharacter. 89

CHAPTER IX. 

Conversations of men of genius. --Their deficient agreeableness mayresult from qualities which conduce to their greatness. --Slow-mindedmen not the dullest. --The conversationists not the ablest writers. --Their true excellence in conversation consists of associationswith their pursuits. 99

CHAPTER X. 

Literary solitude. --Its necessity. --Its pleasures. --Of visitorsby profession. --Its inconveniences. 109

CHAPTER XI. 

The meditations of Genius. --A work on the Art of Meditation not yetproduced. --Predisposing the mind. --Imagination awakens imagination. --Generating feelings by music. --Slight habits. --Darkness andsilence, by suspending the exercise of our senses, increase thevivacity of our conceptions. --The arts of memory. --Memory thefoundation of genius. --Inventions by several to preserve their ownmoral and literary character. --And to assist their studies. --Themeditations of genius depend on habit. --Of the night-time. --Aday of meditation should precede a day of composition. --Works ofmagnitude from slight conceptions. --Of thoughts never written. --Theart of meditation exercised at all hours and places. --Continuity ofattention the source of philosophical discoveries. --Stillness ofmeditation the first state of existence in genius. 116

CHAPTER XII. 

The enthusiasm of genius. --A state of mind resembling a wakingdream distinct from reverie. --The ideal presence distinguishedfrom the real presence. --The senses are really affected in theideal world, proved by a variety of instances. --Of the raptureor sensation of deep study in art, science, and literature. --Of perturbed feelings, in delirium. --In extreme enduranceof attention. --And in visionary illusions. --Enthusiasts inliterature and art. --Of their self-immolations. 136

CHAPTER XIII. 

Of the jealousy of genius. --Jealousy often proportioned to thedegree of genius. --A perpetual fever among authors and artists. --Instances of its incredible excess among brothers andbenefactors. --Of a peculiar species, where the fever consumesthe sufferer without its malignancy. 154

CHAPTER XIV. 

Want of mutual esteem among men of genius often originates ina deficiency of analogous ideas. --It is not always envy orjealousy which induces men of genius to undervalue each other. 159

CHAPTER XV. 

Self-praise of genius. --The love of praise instinctive in thenature of genius. --A high opinion of themselves necessary fortheir great designs. --The ancients openly claimed their ownpraise. --And several moderns. --An author knows more of his meritsthan his readers. --And less of his defects. --Authors versatilein their admiration and their malignity. 162

CHAPTER XVI. 

The domestic life of genius. --Defects of great compositionsattributed to domestic infelicities. --The home of the literarycharacter should be the abode of repose and silence. --Of thefather. --Of the mother. --Of family genius. --Men of genius notmore respected than other men in their domestic circle. --Thecultivators of science and art do not meet on equal terms withothers, in domestic life. --Their neglect of those around them. --Often accused of imaginary crimes. 173

CHAPTER XVII. 

The poverty of literary men. --Poverty, a relative quality. --Ofthe poverty of literary men in what degree desirable. --Extremepoverty. --Task-work. --Of gratuitous works. --A project to provideagainst the worst state of poverty among literary men. 186

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The matrimonial state of literature. --Matrimony said not to bewell-suited to the domestic life of genius. --Celibacy a concealedcause of the early querulousness of men of genius. --Of unhappyunions. --Not absolutely necessary that the wife should be aliterary woman. --Of the docility and susceptibility of the higherfemale character. --A picture of a literary wife. 198

CHAPTER XIX. 

Literary friendships. --In early life. --Different from those ofmen of the world. --They suffer in unrestrained communication oftheir ideas, and bear reprimands and exhortations. --Unity offeelings. --A sympathy not of manners but of feelings. --Admit ofdissimilar characters. --Their peculiar glory. --Their sorrow. 209

CHAPTER XX. 

The literary and the personal character. --The personaldispositions of an author may be the reverse of those whichappear in his writings. --Erroneous conceptions of the characterof distant authors. --Paradoxical appearances in the history ofgenius. --Why the character of the man may be opposite to thatof his writings. 217

CHAPTER XXI. 

The man of letters. --Occupies an intermediate station betweenauthors and readers. --His solitude described. --Often the fatherof genius. --Atticus, a man of letters of antiquity. --The perfectcharacter of a modern man of letters exhibited in Peiresc. --Their utility to authors and artists. 226

CHAPTER XXII. 

Literary old age still learning. --Influence of late studies inlife. --Occupations in advanced age of the literary character. --Of literary men who have died at their studies. 238

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Universality of genius. --Limited notion of genius entertainedby the ancients. --Opposite faculties act with diminished force. --Men of genius excel only in a single art. 244

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Literature an avenue to glory. --An intellectual nobility notchimerical, but created by public opinion. --Literary honoursof various nations. --Local associations with the memory of theman of genius. 248

CHAPTER XXV. 

Influence of authors on society, and of society on authors. --National tastes a source of literary prejudices. --Truegenius always the organ of its nation. --Master-writers preservethe distinct national character. --Genius the organ of the stateof the age. --Causes of its suppression in a people. --Ofteninvented, but neglected. --The natural gradations of genius. --Menof genius produce their usefulness in privacy--The public mindis now the creation of the public writer. --Politicians affect todeny this principle. --Authors stand between the governors andthe governed. --A view of the solitary author in his study. --Theycreate an epoch in history. --Influence of popular authors. --Theimmortality of thought. --The family of genius illustrated bytheir genealogy. 258

LITERARY MISCELLANIES. 

Miscellanists 281

Prefaces 286

Style 291

Goldsmith and Johnson 294

Self-characters 295

On reading 298

On habituating ourselves to an individual pursuit 302

On novelty in literature 305

Vers de Société 308

The genius of Molière 310

The sensibility of Racine 325

Of Sterne 332

Hume, Robertson, and Birch 340

Of voluminous works incomplete by the deaths of the authors 350

Of domestic novelties at first condemned 355

Domesticity; or a dissertation on servants 364

Printed letters in the vernacular idiom 375

CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 

Advertisement 383

Of the first modern assailants of the character ofJames I. , Burnet, Bolingbroke and Pope, Harris, Macaulay, and Walpole 386

His pedantry 388

His polemical studies 389

--how these were political 392

The Hampton Court conference 393

Of some of his writings 398

Popular superstitions of the age 400

The King's habits of life those of a man of letters 402

Of the facility and copiousness of his composition 404

Of his eloquence 405

Of his wit 406

Specimens of his humour, and observations on human life 407

Some evidences of his sagacity in the discovery of truth 410

Of his "Basilicon Doron" 413

Of his idea of a tyrant and a king 414

Advice to Prince Henry in the choice of his servantsand associates 415

Describes the Revolutionists of his time 416

Of the nobility of Scotland 417

Of colonising _ib. _

Of merchants 418

Regulations for the prince's manners and habits _ib. _

Of his idea of the royal prerogative 421

The lawyers' idea of the same _ib. _

Of his elevated conception of the kingly character 425

His design in issuing "The Book of Sports" for the Sabbath-day 426

The Sabbatarian controversy 428

The motives of his aversion to war 430

James acknowledges his dependence on the Commons; their conduct 431

Of certain scandalous chronicles 434

A picture of the age from a manuscript of the times 437

Anecdotes of the manners of the age 441

James I. Discovers the disorders and discontents of a peaceof more than twenty years 449

The King's private life in his occasional retirements 450

A detection of the discrepancies of opinion among thedecriers of James I 451

Summary of his character 455

TO

ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL. D. , &c. &c. &c. 

In dedicating this Work to one of the most eminent literary characters ofthe age, I am experiencing a peculiar gratification, in which few, perhapsnone, of my contemporaries can participate; for I am addressing him, whoseearliest effusions attracted my regard, near half a century past; andduring that awful interval of time--for fifty years is a trial of life ofwhatever may be good in us--you have multiplied your talents, and havenever lost a virtue. 

When I turn from the uninterrupted studies of your domestic solitude toour metropolitan authors, the contrast, if not encouraging, is at leastextraordinary. You are not unaware that the revolutions of Society haveoperated on our literature, and that new classes of readers have calledforth new classes of writers. The causes and the consequences of thepresent state of this fugitive literature might form an inquiry whichwould include some of the important topics which concern the PUBLIC MIND, --but an inquiry which might be invidious shall not disturb a pageconsecrated to the record of excellence. They who draw their inspirationfrom the hour must not, however, complain if with that hour they passaway. 

I. DISRAELI. 

INTRODUCTION. 

For the fifth time I revise a subject which has occupied my inquiries fromearly life, with feelings still delightful, and an enthusiasm not whollydiminished. 

Had not the principle upon which this work is constructed occurred to mein my youth, the materials which illustrate the literary character couldnever have been brought together. It was in early life that I conceivedthe idea of pursuing the history of genius by the similar events which hadoccurred to men of genius. Searching into literary history for theliterary character formed a course of experimental philosophy in whichevery new essay verified a former trial, and confirmed a former truth. Bythe great philosophical principle of induction, inferences were deducedand results established, which, however vague and doubtful in speculation, are irresistible when the appeal is made to facts as they relate toothers, and to feelings which must be decided on as they are passing inour own breast. 

It is not to be inferred from what I have here stated that I conceive thatany single man of genius will resemble every man of genius; for not onlyman differs from man, but varies from himself in the different stages ofhuman life. All that I assert is, that every man of genius will discover, sooner or later, that he belongs to the brotherhood of his class, and thathe cannot escape from certain habits, and feelings, and disorders, whicharise from the same temperament and sympathies, and are the necessaryconsequence of occupying the same position, and passing through the samemoral existence. Whenever we compare men of genius with each other, thehistory of those who are no more will serve as a perpetual commentary onour contemporaries. There are, indeed, secret feelings which theirprudence conceals, or their fears obscure, or their modesty shrinks from, or their pride rejects; but I have sometimes imagined that I have heldthe clue as they have lost themselves in their own labyrinth. I knowthat many, and some of great celebrity, have sympathised with thefeelings which inspired these volumes; nor, while I have elucidated theidiosyncrasy of genius, have I less studied the habits and characteristicsof the lovers of literature. 

It has been considered that the subject of this work might have beentreated with more depth of metaphysical disquisition; and there has sinceappeared an attempt to combine with this investigation the medicalscience. A work, however, should be judged by its design and itsexecution, and not by any preconceived notion of what it ought to beaccording to the critic, rather than the author. The nature of this workis dramatic rather than metaphysical. It offers a narration or adescription; a conversation or a monologue; an incident or a scene. 

Perhaps I have sometimes too warmly apologised for the infirmities of menof genius. From others we may hourly learn to treat with levity the man ofgenius because he is _only_ such. Perhaps also I may have been too fond ofthe subject, which has been for me an old and a favourite one--I may haveexalted the literary character beyond the scale by which society iswilling to fix it. Yet what is this Society, so omnipotent, so alljudicial? The society of to-day was not the society of yesterday. Itsfeelings, its thoughts, its manners, its rights, its wishes, and itswants, are different and are changed: alike changed or alike created bythose very literary characters whom it rarely comprehends and often woulddespise. Let us no longer look upon this retired and peculiar class asuseless members of our busy race. There are mental as well as materiallabourers. The first are not less necessary; and as they are much rarer, so are they more precious. These are they whose "published labours" havebenefited mankind--these are they whose thoughts can alone rear thatbeautiful fabric of social life, which it is the object of all good men toelevate or to support. To discover truth and to maintain it, --to developethe powers, to regulate the passions, to ascertain the privileges of man, --such have ever been, and such ever ought to be, the labours of AUTHORS!Whatever we enjoy of political and private happiness, our most necessaryknowledge as well as our most refined pleasures, are alike owing to thisclass of men; and of these, some for glory, and often from benevolence, have shut themselves out from the very beings whom they love, and for whomthey labour. 

Upwards of forty years have elapsed since, composed in a distant county, and printed at a provincial press, I published "An Essay on the Mannersand Genius of the Literary Character. " To my own habitual and inherentdefects were superadded those of my youth. The crude production was, however, not ill received, for the edition disappeared, and the subjectwas found more interesting than the writer. 

During a long interval of twenty years, this little work was oftenrecalled to my recollection by several, and by some who have sinceobtained celebrity. They imagined that their attachment to literarypursuits had been strengthened even by so weak an effort. An extraordinarycircumstance concurred with these opinions. A copy accidentally fell intomy hands which had formerly belonged to the great poetical genius of ourtimes; and the singular fact, that it had been more than once read by him, and twice in two subsequent years at Athens, in 1810 and 1811, instantlyconvinced me that the volume deserved my renewed attention. 

It was with these feelings that I was again strongly attracted to asubject from which, indeed, during the course of a studious life, ithad never been long diverted. The consequence of my labours was thepublication, in 1818, of an octavo volume, under the title of "TheLiterary Character, illustrated by the History of Men of Genius, drawnfrom their own feelings and confessions. "

In the preface to this edition, in mentioning the fact respecting LordByron, which had been the immediate cause of its publication, I addedthese words: "I tell this fact assuredly not from any little vanity whichit may appear to betray;--for the truth is, were I not as liberal and ascandid in respect to my own productions, as I hope I am to others, I couldnot have been gratified by the present circumstance; for the marginalnotes of the noble author convey no flattery;--but amidst their pungency, and sometimes their truth, the circumstance that a man of genius couldreperuse this slight effusion at two different periods of his life, was asufficient authority, at least for an author, to return it once more tothe anvil. "

Some time after the publication of this edition of "The LiteraryCharacter, " which was in fact a new work, I was shown, through thekindness of an English gentleman lately returned from Italy, a copy of it, which had been given to him by Lord Byron, and which again containedmarginal notes by the noble author. These were peculiarly interesting, andwere chiefly occasioned by observations on his character, which appearedin the work. 

In 1822 I published a new edition of this work, greatly enlarged, and intwo volumes. I took this opportunity of inserting the manuscript Notes ofLord Byron, with the exception of one, which, however characteristic ofthe amiable feelings of the noble poet, and however gratifying to my own, I had no wish to obtrude on the notice of the public. [A]

[Footnote A: As everything connected with the reading of a mind like LordBYRON'S interesting to the philosophical inquirer, this note may now bepreserved. On that passage of the Preface of the second Edition which Ihave already quoted, his Lordship was thus pleased to write:

"I was wrong, but I was young and petulant, and probably wrote downanything, little thinking that those observations would be betrayed to theauthor, whose abilities I have always respected, and whose works ingeneral I have read oftener than perhaps those of any English authorwhatever, except such as treat of Turkey. "]

Soon after the publication of this third edition, I receivedthe following letter from his lordship:--

_"Montenero, Villa Dupuy, near Leghorn, June 10, 1822. _

"DEAR SIR, --If you will permit me to call you so, --I had some time agotaken up my pen at Pisa, to thank you for the present of your new editionof the 'Literary Character, ' which has often been to me a consolation, andalways a pleasure. I was interrupted, however, partly by business, andpartly by vexation of different kinds, --for I have not very long ago losta child by fever, and I have had a good deal of petty trouble with thelaws of this lawless country, on account of the prosecution of a servantfor an attack upon a cowardly scoundrel of a dragoon, who drew his swordupon some unarmed Englishmen, and whom I had done the honour to mistakefor an officer, and to treat like a gentleman. He turned out to beneither, --like many other with medals, and in uniform; but he paid for hisbrutality with a severe and dangerous wound, inflicted by nobody knowswhom, for, of three suspected, and two arrested, they have been able toidentify neither; which is strange, since he was wounded in the presenceof thousands, in a public street, during a feast-day and full promenade. --But to return to things more analogous to the 'Literary Character, ' Iwish to say, that had I known that the book was to fall into your hands, or that the MS. Notes you have thought worthy of publication would haveattracted your attention, I would have made them more copious, and perhapsnot so careless. 

"I really cannot know whether I am, or am not, the genius you are pleasedto call me, --but I am very willing to put up with the mistake, if it beone. It is a title dearly enough bought by most men, to render itendurable, even when not quite clearly made out, which it never _can_ be, till the Posterity, whose decisions are merely dreams to ourselves, havesanctioned or denied it, while it can touch us no further. 

"Mr. Murray is in possession of a MS. Memoir of mine (not to be publishedtill I am in my grave), which, strange as it may seem, I never read oversince it was written, and have no desire to read over again. In it I havetold what, as far as I know, is the _truth_--_not the whole_ truth--for ifI had done so, I must have involved much private, and some dissipatedhistory: but, nevertheless, nothing but truth, as far as regard for otherspermitted it to appear. 

"I do not know whether you have seen those MSS. ; but, as you are curiousin such things as relate to the human mind, I should feel gratified if youhad. I also sent him (Murray), a few days since, a Common-place Book, bymy friend Lord Clare, containing a few things, which may perhaps aid hispublication in case of his surviving me. If there are any questions whichyou would like to ask me, as connected with your philosophy of theliterary mind (_if_ mine be a literary mind), I will answer them fairly, or give a reason for _not_, good--bad--or indifferent. At present, I ampaying the penalty of having helped to spoil the public taste; for, aslong as I wrote in the false exaggerated style of youth and the times inwhich we live, they applauded me to the very echo; and within these fewyears, when I have endeavoured at better things, and written what Isuspect to have the principle of duration in it: the Church, theChancellor, and all men, even to my grand patron, Francis Jeffrey, Esq. , of the _Edinburgh Review_, have risen up against me, and my laterpublications. Such is Truth! men dare not look her in the face, except bydegrees; they mistake her for a Gorgon, instead of knowing her to beMinerva. I do not mean to apply this mythological simile to my ownendeavours, but I have only to turn over a few pages of your volumes tofind innumerable and far more illustrious instances. It is lucky that I amof a temper not to be easily turned aside, though by no means difficult toirritate. But I am making a dissertation, instead of writing a letter. Iwrite to you from the Villa Dupuy, near Leghorn, with the islands of Elbaand Corsica visible from my balcony, and my old friend the Mediterraneanrolling blue at my feet. As long as I retain my feeling and my passion forNature, I can partly soften or subdue my other passions, and resist orendure those of others. 

"I have the honour to be, truly, "Your obliged and faithful servant, "NOEL BYRON. 

"To I. D'Israeli, Esq. "

The ill-starred expedition to Greece followed this letter. 

 * * * * *

This work, conceived in youth, executed by the research of manhood, andassociated with the noblest feelings of our nature, is an humble butfervent tribute, offered to the memory of those Master Spirits from whoselabours, as BURKE eloquently describes, "their country receives permanentservice: those who know how to make the silence of their closets morebeneficial to the world than all the noise and bustle of courts, senates, and camps. "

LITERARY CHARACTER. 

CHAPTER I. 

Of Literary Characters, and of the Lovers of Literature and Art. 

Diffused over enlightened Europe, an order of men has arisen, who, uninfluenced by the interests or the passions which give an impulse to theother classes of society, are connected by the secret links of congenialpursuits, and, insensibly to themselves, are combining in the same commonlabours, and participating in the same divided glory. In the metropolitancities of Europe the same authors are now read, and the same opinionsbecome established: the Englishman is familiar with Machiavel andMontesquieu; the Italian and the Frenchman with Bacon and Locke; and thesame smiles and tears are awakened on the banks of the Thames, of theSeine, or of the Guadalquivir, by Shakspeare, Molière, and Cervantes--

 Contemporains de tous les hommes, Et citoyens de tous les lieux. 

A khan of Tartary admired the wit of Molière, and discovered the Tartuffein the Crimea; and had this ingenious sovereign survived the translationwhich he ordered, the immortal labour of the comic satirist of Francemight have laid the foundation of good taste even among the Turks and theTartars. We see the Italian Pignotti referring to the opinion of anEnglish critic, Lord Bolingbroke, for decisive authority on the peculiarcharacteristics of the historian Guicciardini: the German Schlegel writeson our Shakspeare like a patriot; and while the Italians admire the noblescenes which our Flaxman has drawn from their great poet, they haverejected the feeble attempts of their native artists. Such is the wide andthe perpetual influence of this living intercourse of literary minds. 

Scarcely have two centuries elapsed since the literature of every nationwas limited to its fatherland, and men of genius long could only hope forthe spread of their fame in the single language of ancient Rome; which forthem had ceased to be natural, and could never be popular. It was in theintercourse of the wealth, the power, and the novel arts of the nations ofEurope, that they learned each other's languages; and they discoveredthat, however their manners varied as they arose from their differentcustoms, they participated in the same intellectual faculties, sufferedfrom the same wants, and were alive to the same pleasures; they perceivedthat there were no conventional fashions, nor national distinctions, inabstract truths and fundamental knowledge. A new spirit seems to bringthem nearer to each other: and, as if literary Europe were intent to formbut one people out of the populace of mankind, they offer their reciprocallabours; they pledge to each other the same opinions; and that knowledgewhich, like a small river, takes its source from one spot, at lengthmingles with the ocean-stream common to them all. 

But those who stand connected with this literary community are not alwayssensible of the kindred alliance; even a genius of the first order has notalways been aware that he is the founder of a society, and that there willever be a brotherhood where there is a father-genius. 

These literary characters are partially, and with a melancholy colouring, exhibited by JOHNSON. "To talk in private, to think in solitude, toinquire or to answer inquiries, is the business of a scholar. He wandersabout the world without pomp or terror; and is neither known nor valuedbut by men like himself. " Thus thought this great writer during those sadprobationary years of genius when

 Slow rises worth, by _poverty_ depress'd;

not yet conscious that he himself was devoting his days to cast the mindsof his contemporaries and of the succeeding age in the mighty mould of hisown; JOHNSON was of that order of men whose individual genius becomes thatof a people. A prouder conception rose in the majestic mind of MILTON, of"that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise which God and good men haveconsented shall be the reward of those whose PUBLISHED LABOURS advancedthe good of mankind. "

The LITERARY CHARACTER is a denomination which, however vague, defines thepursuits of the individual, and separates him from other professions, although it frequently occurs that he is himself a member of one. Professional characters are modified by the change of manners, and areusually national; while the literary character, from the objects in whichit concerns itself, retains a more permanent, and necessarily a moreindependent nature. 

Formed by the same habits, and influenced by the same motives, notwithstanding the contrast of talents and tempers, and the remoteness oftimes and places, the literary character has ever preserved among itsfollowers the most striking family resemblance. The passion for study, thedelight in books, the desire of solitude and celebrity, the obstructionsof human life, the character of their pursuits, the uniformity of theirhabits, the triumphs and the disappointments of literary glory, were astruly described by CICERO and the younger PLINY as by PETRARCH andERASMUS, and as they have been by HUME and GIBBON. And this similarity, too, may equally be remarked with respect to that noble passion of thelovers of literature and of art for collecting together their mingledtreasures; a thirst which was as insatiable in ATTICUS and PEIRESC as inour CRACHERODE and TOWNLEY. [A] We trace the feelings of our literarycontemporaries in all ages, and among every people who have ranked withnations far advanced in civilization; for among these may be equallyobserved both the great artificers of knowledge and those who preserveunbroken the vast chain of human acquisitions. The one have stamped theimages of their minds on their works, and the others have preserved thecirculation of this intellectual coinage, this

 --Gold of the dead, Which Time does still disperse, but not devour. 

[Footnote A: The Rev. C. M. Cracherode bequeathed at his death, in 1799, tothe British Museum, the large collection of literature, art, and virtu hehad employed an industrious life in collecting. His books numbered nearly4500 volumes, many of great rarity and value. His drawings, many by earlyItalian masters, and all rare or curious, were deposited in the print-roomof the same establishment; his antiquities, &c. Were in a similar wayadded to the other departments. The "Townley Gallery" of classic sculpturewas purchased of his executors by Government for 28, 200_l_. It had beencollected with singular taste and judgment, as well as some amount of goodfortune also; Townley resided at Rome during the researches on the site ofHadrian's Villa at Tivoli; and he had for aids and advisers Sir WilliamHamilton, Gavin Hamilton, and other active collectors; and was the friendand correspondent of D'Haucarville and Winckelmann. --ED. ]

CHAPTER II. 

Of the Adversaries of Literary Men among themselves. --Matter-of-factMen, and Men of Wit. --The Political Economist. --Of those who abandontheir studies. --Men in office. --The arbiters of public opinion. --Thosewho treat the pursuits of literature with levity. 

The pursuits of literature have been openly or insidiously lowered bythose literary men who, from motives not always difficult to penetrate, are eager to confound the ranks in the republic of letters, maliciouslyconferring the honours of authorship on that "Ten Thousand" whose recentlist is not so much a muster-roll of heroes as a table of population. [A]

Matter-of-fact men, or men of knowledge, and men of wit and taste, werelong inimical to each other's pursuits. [B] The Royal Society in its origincould hardly support itself against the ludicrous attacks of literarymen, [C] and the Antiquarian Society has afforded them amusement. [D] Suchpartial views have ceased to contract the understanding. Science yields anew substance to literature; literature combines new associations for thevotaries of knowledge. There is no subject in nature, and in the historyof man, which will not associate with our feelings and our curiosity, whenever genius extends its awakening hand. The antiquary, the naturalist, the architect, the chemist, and even writers on medical topics, have inour days asserted their claims, and discovered their long-interruptedrelationship with the great family of genius and literature. 

[Footnote A: We have a Dictionary of "Ten Thousand living Authors" of ourown nation. The alphabet is fatal by its juxtapositions. In France, beforethe Revolution, they counted about twenty thousand writers. When Davidwould have his people numbered, Joab asked, "Why doth my lord delight inthis?" In political economy, the population returns may be useful, provided they be correct; but in the literary republic, its numericalforce diminishes the strength of the empire. "There you are numbered, wehad rather you were weighed. " Put aside the puling infants of literature, of whom such a mortality occurs in its nurseries; such as the writers ofthe single sermon, the single law-tract, the single medical dissertation, &c. ; all writers whose subject is single, without being singular; countfor nothing the inefficient mob of mediocrists; and strike out ourliterary _charlatans_; and then our alphabet of men of genius will notconsist, as it now does, of the four-and-twenty letters. ]

[Footnote B: The cause is developed in the chapter on "Want of MutualEsteem. "]

[Footnote C: See BUTLER, in his "Elephant in the Moon. " SOUTH, in hisoration at the opening of the theatre at Oxford, passed this bittersarcasm on the naturalists, --"_Mirantur nihil nisi pulices, pediculos--etse ipsos_;"--nothing they admire but fleas, lice, and themselves! Theillustrious SLOANE endured a long persecution from the bantering humour ofDr. KING. One of the most amusing declaimers against what he calls _lesSciences des faux Sçavans_ is Father MALEBRANCHE; he is far more severethan Cornelius Agrippa, and he long preceded ROUSSEAU, so famous for hisinvective against the sciences. The seventh chapter of his fourth book isan inimitable satire. "The principal excuse, " says he, "which engages menin _false studies_, is, that they have attached the _idea of learned_where they should not. " Astronomy, antiquarianism, history, ancientpoetry, and natural history, are all mowed down by his metaphysicalscythe. When we become acquainted with the _idea_ Father Malebrancheattaches to the term _learned_, we understand him--and we smile. ]

[Footnote D: See the chapter on "Puck the Commentator, " in the"Curiosities of Literature, " vol. Iii. ; also p. 304 of the same volume. ]

A new race of jargonists, the barbarous metaphysicians of politicaleconomy, have struck at the essential existence of the productions ofgenius in literature and art; for, appreciating them by their ownstandard, they have miserably degraded the professors. Absorbed in thecontemplation of material objects, and rejecting whatever does not enterinto their own restricted notion of "utility, " these cold arithmeticalseers, with nothing but millions in their imagination; and whose choicestworks of art are spinning-jennies, have valued the intellectual tasks ofthe library and the studio by "the demand and the supply. " They have sunkthese pursuits into the class of what they term "unproductive labour;" andby another result of their line and level system, men of letters, withsome other important characters, are forced down into the class "ofbuffoons, singers, opera-dancers, &c. " In a system of political economy ithas been discovered that "that _unprosperous race_ of men, called _men ofletters_, must _necessarily_ occupy their present _forlorn state_ insociety much as formerly, when a scholar and a beggar seem to have beenterms very nearly synonymous. "[A] In their commercial, agricultural, andmanufacturing view of human nature, addressing society by its mostpressing wants and its coarsest feelings, these theorists limit the moraland physical existence of man by speculative tables of population, planingand levelling society down in their carpentry of human nature. They wouldyoke and harness the loftier spirits to one common and vulgar destination. Man is considered only as he wheels on the wharf, or as he spins in thefactory; but man, as a recluse being of meditation, or impelled to actionby more generous passions, has been struck out of the system of ourpolitical economists. It is, however, only among their "unproductivelabourers" that we shall find those men of leisure, whose habitualpursuits are consumed in the development of thought and the gradualaccessions of knowledge; those men of whom the sage of Judea declares, that "It is he who hath little business who shall become wise: how can heget wisdom that holdeth the plough, and whose talk is of bullocks? ButTHEY, "--the men of leisure and study, --"WILL MAINTAIN THE STATE OF THEWORLD!" The prosperity and the happiness of a people include somethingmore evident and more permanent than "the Wealth of a Nation. "[B]

[Footnote A: "Wealth of Nations, " i. 182. ]

[Footnote B: Since this murmur has been uttered against the degradingviews of some of those theorists, it afforded me pleasure to observe thatMr. Malthus has fully sanctioned its justness. On this head, at least, Mr. Malthus has amply confuted his stubborn and tasteless brothers. Alludingto the productions of genius, this writer observes, that, "to estimate thevalue of NEWTON'S discoveries, or the delight communicated by SHAKSPEAKEand MILTON, by the _price_ at which their works have sold, would be but apoor measure of the degree in which they have elevated and enchanted theircountry. "--_Principles of Pol. Econ. _ p. 48. And hence he acknowledges, that "_some unproductive labour is of much more use and importance_ thanproductive labour, but is incapable of being the subject of the grosscalculations which relate to national wealth; contributing to _othersources of happiness_ besides those which are derived from matter. "Political economists would have smiled with contempt on the querulousPORSON, who once observed, that "it seemed to him very hard, that with allhis critical knowledge of Greek, he could not get a hundred pounds. " Theywould have demonstrated to the learned Grecian, that this was just as itought to be; the same occurrence had even happened to HOMER in his owncountry, where Greek ought to have fetched a higher price than in England;but, that both might have obtained this hundred pounds, had the Grecianbard and the Greek professor been employed at the same stocking-frametogether, instead of the "Iliad. "]

There is a more formidable class of men of genius who are heartless to theinterests of literature. Like CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, who wrote on "the vanityof the arts and sciences, " many of these are only tracing in the artswhich they have abandoned their own inconstant tempers, their feebletastes, and their disordered judgments. But, with others of this class, study has usually served as the instrument, not as the object, of theirascent; it was the ladder which they once climbed, but it was not theeastern star which guided and inspired. Such literary characters wereWARBURTON, [A] WATSON, and WILKES, who abandoned their studies when theirstudies had served a purpose. 

[Footnote A: For a full disquisition of the character and career ofWarburton, see the essay in "Quarrels of Authors. "]

WATSON gave up his pursuits in chemistry the instant he obtained theirlimited reward, and the laboratory closed when the professorship wasinstituted. Such was the penurious love he bore for the science which hehad adopted, that the extraordinary discoveries of thirty years subsequentto his own first essays could never excite even an idle inquiry. He tellsus that he preferred "his larches to his laurels:" the wretched jingleexpressed the mere worldliness that dictated it. In the same spirit ofcalculation with which he had at first embraced science and literature, heabandoned them; and his ingenuous confession is a memorable example ofthat egotistic pride which betrayed in the literary character the creatureof selfism and political ambition. 

We are accustomed to consider WILKES merely as a political adventurer, andit may surprise to find this "city chamberlain" ranked among professedliterary characters: yet in his variable life there was a period when hecherished the aspirations of a votary. Once he desired Lloyd to announcethe edition of Churchill, which he designed to enrich by a commentary; andhis correspondence on this subject, which has never appeared, would, as hehimself tells us, afford a variety of hints and communications. Wilkes wasthen warmed by literary glory; for on his retirement into Italy, hedeclared, "I mean to give myself entirely to our friend's work, and to myHistory of England. I wish to equal the dignity of Livy: I am sure thegreatness and majesty of our nation demand an historian equal to him. "They who have only heard of the intriguing demagogue, and witnessed thelast days of the used voluptuary, may hardly imagine that Wilkes had evercherished such elevated projects; but mob-politics made this adventurer'sfortune, which fell to the lot of an epicurean: and the literary glory heonce sought he lived to ridicule, in the immortal diligence of LordChatham and of Gibbon. Dissolving life away, and consuming all hisfeelings on himself, Wilkes left his nearest relatives what he left theworld--the memory of an anti-social being! This wit, who has bequeathed tous no wit; this man of genius, who has formed no work of genius; thisbold advocate for popular freedom, who sunk his patriotism in thechamberlainship; was indeed desirous of leaving behind him some trace ofthe life of an _escroc_ in a piece of autobiography, which, for thebenefit of the world, has been thrown to the flames. 

Men who have ascended into office through its gradations, or have beenthrown upwards by accident, are apt to view others in a cloud of passionsand politics. They who once commanded us by their eloquence, come atlength to suspect the eloquent; and in their "pride of office" would nowdrive us by that single force of despotism which is the corruption ofpolitical power. Our late great Minister, Pitt, has been reproached evenby his friends for the contemptuous indifference with which he treatedliterary men. Perhaps BURKE himself, long a literary character, mightincur some portion of this censure, by involving the character itself inthe odium of a monstrous political sect. These political charactersresemble Adrian VI. , who, obtaining the tiara as the reward of hisstudies, afterwards persecuted literary men, and, say the Italians, dreaded lest his brothers might shake the Pontificate itself. [A]

Worst fares it with authors when minds of this cast become the arbiters ofpublic opinion; for the greatest of writers may unquestionably be forcedinto ridiculous attitudes by the well-known artifices practised by moderncriticism. The elephant, no longer in his forest struggling with hishunters, but falling entrapped by a paltry snare, comes at length, in theheight of ill-fortune, to dance on heated iron at the bidding of thepantaloon of a fair. Whatever such critics may plead to mortify thevanity of authors, at least it requires as much vanity to give effect totheir own polished effrontery. [B] Scorn, sarcasm, and invective, theegotism of the vain, and the irascibility of the petulant, where theysucceed in debilitating genius of the consciousness of its powers, arepractising the witchery of that ancient superstition of "tying the knot, "which threw the youthful bridegroom into utter despair by its idealforcefulness. [C]

[Footnote A: It has been suspected that Adrian VI. Has been calumniated, for that this pontiff was only too sudden to begin the reform hemeditated. But Adrian VI. Was a scholastic whose austerity turned awaywith contempt from all ancient art, and was no brother to contemporarygenius. He was one of the _cui bono_ race, a branch of our politicaleconomists. When they showed him the Laocoön, Adrian silenced theirraptures by the frigid observation, that all such things were _idolaantiquorum_: and ridiculed the _amena letteratura_ till every man ofgenius retreated from his court. Had Adrian's reign extended beyond itsbrief period, men of taste in their panic imagined that in his zeal thePontiff would have calcined the fine statues of ancient art, to expeditethe edifice of St. Peter. ]

[Footnote B: Listen to a confession and a recantation of an illustrioussinner; the Coryphæus of the amusing and new-found art, or artifice, ofmodern criticism. In the character of BURNS, the Edinburgh Reviewer, withhis peculiar felicity of manner, attacked the character of the man ofgenius; but when Mr. Campbell vindicated his immortal brother with all theinspiration of the family feeling, our critic, who is one of those greatartists who acquire at length the utmost indifference even for their ownworks, generously avowed that, "a certain tone of exaggeration isincidental _we fear to the sort of writing in which we are engaged_. Reckoning a little too much on the dulness of our readers, we are oftenled to _overstate our sentiments_: when a little _controversial warmth_ isadded to a little _love of effect_, an excess of colouring steals over thecanvas, which ultimately offends no eye so much as our own. " But what ifthis _love of effect_ in the critic has been too often obtained at theentire cost of the literary characters, the fruits of whose studious daysat this moment lie withering in oblivion, or whose genius the critic hasdeterred from pursuing the career it had opened for itself! To havesilenced the learned, and to have terrified the modest, is the barbaroustriumph of a Hun or a Vandal; and the vaunted freedom of the literaryrepublic departed from us when the vacillating public blindly consecratedthe edicts of the demagogues of literature, whoever they may be. 

A reaction appears in the burlesque or bantering spirit. While one factiondrives out another, the abuse of extraordinary powers is equally fatal. Thus we are consoled while we are afflicted, and we are protected while weare degraded. ]

[Footnote C: _Nouer l'aiguillette_, of which the extraordinary effect isdescribed by Montaigne, is an Oriental custom still practised. --_Mr. Hobhouse's Journey through Albania_, p. 528. ]

That spirit of levity which would shake the columns of society, bydetracting from or burlesquing the elevating principles which haveproduced so many illustrious men, has recently attempted to reduce thelabours of literature to a mere curious amusement: a finished compositionis likened to a skilful game of billiards, or a piece of music finelyexecuted; and curious researches, to charades and other insignificantpuzzles. With such, an author is an idler who will not be idle, amusing orfatiguing others who are completely so. The result of a work of geniusis contracted to the art of writing; but this art is only its lastperfection. Inspiration is drawn from a deeper source; enthusiasm isdiffused through contagious pages; and without these movements of thesoul, how poor and artificial a thing is that sparkling composition whichflashes with the cold vibrations of mere art or artifice! We have beenrecently told, on critical authority, that "a great genius should neverallow himself to be sensible to his own celebrity, nor deem his pursuitsof much consequence, however important or successful. " A sort of catholicdoctrine, to mortify an author into a saint, extinguishing the gloriousappetite of fame by one Lent all the year, and self-flagellation everyday! BUFFON and GIBBON, VOLTAIRE and POPE, [A] who gave to literatureall the cares, the industry, and the glory of their lives, assuredlywere too "sensible to their celebrity, and deemed their pursuits ofmuch consequence, " particularly when "important and successful. " Theself-possession of great authors sustains their own genius by a sense oftheir own glory. 

Such, then, are some of the domestic treasons of the literary characteragainst literature--"Et tu, Brute!" But the hero of literature outliveshis assassins, and might address them in that language of poetryand affection with which a Mexican king reproached his traitorouscounsellors:--"You were the feathers of my wings, and the eyelids of myeyes. "

[Footnote A: The claims of Pope to the title of a great poet were deniedin the days of Byron; and occasioned a warm and noble defence of him bythat poet. It has since been found necessary to do the same for Byron, whom some transcendentalists have attacked. --ED. ]

CHAPTER III. 

Of artists, in the history of men of literary genius. --Their habits andpursuits analogous. --The nature of their genius is similar in theirdistinct works. --Shown by their parallel eras, and by a common end pursuedby both. 

Artists and literary men, alike insulated in their studies, pass throughthe same permanent discipline; and thus it has happened that the samehabits and feelings, and the same fortunes, have accompanied men who havesometimes unhappily imagined their pursuits not to be analogous. 

 Let the artist shareThe palm; he shares the peril, and dejectedFaints o'er the labour unapproved--alas!Despair and genius!--

The congenial histories of literature and art describe the same periodicalrevolutions and parallel eras. After the golden age of Latinity, wegradually slide into the silver, and at length precipitately descend intothe iron. In the history of painting, after the splendid epoch of Raphael, Titian, and Correggio, we meet with pleasure the Oarraccis, Domenichino, Guido, and Albano; as we read Paterculus, Quintilian, Seneca, Juvenal, andSilius Italicus, after their immortal masters, Cicero, Livy, Virgil, andHorace. 

It is evident that MILTON, MICHAEL ANGELO, and HANDEL, belong to the sameorder of minds; the same imaginative powers, and the same sensibility, areonly operating with different materials. LANZI, the delightful historianof the _Storia Pittorica_, is prodigal of his comparisons of the painterswith the poets; his delicacy of perception discerned the refined analogieswhich for ever unite the two sisters, and he fondly dwelt on thetransplanted flowers of the two arts: "_Chi sente che sia Tibullo nelpoetare sente chi sia Andrea (del Sarto) nel dipingere_;" he who feelswhat TIBULLUS is in poetry, feels what ANDREA is in painting. MICHAELANGELO, from his profound conception of the terrible and the difficult inart, was called its DANTE; from the Italian poet the Italian sculptorderived the grandeur of his ideas; and indeed the visions of the bard haddeeply nourished the artist's imagination; for once he had poured aboutthe margins of his own copy their ethereal inventions, in the rapiddesigns of his pen. And so Bellori informs us of a very curious volume inmanuscript, composed by RUBENS, which contained, among other topicsconcerning art, descriptions of the passions and actions of men, drawnfrom the poets, and demonstrated to the eye by the painters. Here werebattles, shipwrecks, sports, groups, and other incidents, which weretranscribed from Virgil and other poets, and by their side RUBENS hadcopied what he had met with on those subjects from Raphael and theantique. [A]

The poet and the painter are only truly great by the mutual influences oftheir studies, and the jealousy of glory has only produced an idlecontest. This old family-quarrel for precedence was renewed by ourestimable President, in his brilliant "Rhymes on Art;" where he maintainsthat "the narrative of an action is not comparable to the action itselfbefore the eyes;" while the enthusiast BARRY considers painting "as poetryrealised. "[B] This error of genius, perhaps first caught from Richardson'sbewildering pages, was strengthened by the extravagant principle adoptedby Darwin, who, to exalt his solitary talent of descriptive poetry, asserted that "the essence of poetry was picture. " The philosophicalcritic will find no difficulty in assigning to each, sister-art herdistinct province; and it is only a pleasing delirium, in the enthusiasmof artists, which has confused the boundaries of these arts. The dreadpathetic story of Dante's "Ugolino, " under the plastic hand of MichaelAngelo, formed the subject of a basso-relievo; and Reynolds, with hishighest effort, embodied the terrific conception of the poet as much ashis art permitted: but assuredly both these great artists would never haveclaimed the precedence of the Dantesc genius, and might have hesitated atthe rivalry. 

[Footnote A: Rubens was an ardent collector of works of antique art; andin the "Curiosities of Literature, " vol. Iii. P. 398, will be found aninteresting account of his museum at Antwerp. --ED. ]

[Footnote B: The late Sir Martin Archer Shee, P. R. A. This accomplishedartist, who possessed a large amount of poetical and literary power, asks, "What is there of _intellectual_ in the operations of the poet which thepainter does not equal? What is there of _mechanical_ which he does notsurpass? The advantage which poetry possesses over painting in continuednarration and successive impression, cannot be advanced as a peculiarmerit of the poet, since it results from the nature of language, and iscommon to prose. " Poetry he values as the earliest of arts, painting asthe latest and most refined. --ED. ]

Who has not heard of that one common principle which unites theintellectual arts, and who has not felt that the nature of their genius issimilar in their distinct works? Hence curious inquiries could neverdecide whether the group of the Laocoön in sculpture preceded or wasborrowed from that in poetry. Lessing conjectures that the sculptor copiedthe poet. It is evident that the agony of Laocoön was the common end wherethe sculptor and the poet were to meet; and we may observe that theartists in marble and in verse skilfully adapted their variations to theirrespective art: the one having to prefer the _nude_, rejected the veilingfillet from the forehead, that he might not conceal its deep expression, and the drapery of the sacrificial robe, that he might display the humanform in visible agony; but the other, by the charm of verse, could investthe priest with the pomp of the pontifical robe without hiding from us theinterior sufferings of the human victim. We see they obtained by differentmeans, adapted to their respective arts, that common end which eachdesigned; but who will decide which invention preceded the other, or whowas the greater artist?

This approximation of men apparently of opposite pursuits is so natural, that when Gesner, in his inspiring letter on landscape-painting, [A]recommends to the young painter a constant study of poetry and literature, the impatient artist is made to exclaim, "Must we combine with so manyother studies those which belong to literary men? Must we read as well aspaint?" "It is useless to reply to this question; for some importanttruths must be instinctively felt, perhaps the fundamental ones in thearts. " A truly imaginative artist, whose enthusiasm was never absent whenhe meditated on the art he loved, BARRY, thus vehemently broke forth: "Gohome from the academy, light up your lamps, and exercise yourselves in thecreative part of your art, with Homer, with Livy, and all the greatcharacters, ancient and modern, for your companions and counsellors. " Thisgenial intercourse of literature with art may be proved by painters whohave suggested subjects to poets, and poets who have selected them forpainters. GOLDSMITH suggested the subject of the tragic and patheticpicture of Ugolino to the pencil of REYNOLDS. 

All the classes of men in society have their peculiar sorrows andenjoyments, as they have their peculiar habits and characteristics. Inthe history of men of genius we may often open the secret story of theirminds, for they have above others the privilege of communicating theirown feelings; and every life of a man of genius, composed by himself, presents us with the experimental philosophy of the mind. By living withtheir brothers, and contemplating their masters, they will judge fromconsciousness less erroneously than from discussion; and in formingcomparative views and parallel situations, they will discover certainhabits and feelings, and find these reflected in themselves. 

SYDENHAM has beautifully said, "Whoever describes a violet exactly as toits colour, taste, smell, form, and other properties, will find thedescription agree in most particulars with all the violets in theuniverse. "

[Footnote A: Few writers were so competent to instruct in art as Gesner, who was not only an author and a poet, but an artist who decorated hispoems by designs as graceful as their subject. --ED. ]

CHAPTER IV. 

Of natural genius. --Minds constitutionally different cannot have an equalaptitude. --Genius not the result of habit and education. --Originates inpeculiar qualities of the mind. --The predisposition of genius. --Asubstitution for the white paper of Locke. [A]

[Footnote A: In the second edition of this work in 1818, I touched on somepoints of this inquiry in the second chapter: I almost despaired to findany philosopher sympathise with the subject, so invulnerable, theyimagine, are the entrenchments of their theories. I was agreeablysurprised to find these ideas taken up in the _Edinburgh Review_ forAugust, 1820, in an entertaining article on Reynolds. I have, no doubt, profited by the perusal, though this chapter was prepared before I metwith that spirited vindication of "an inherent difference in the organs orfaculties to receive impressions of any kind. "]

That faculty in art which individualises the artist, belonging to him andto no other, and which in a work forms that creative part whose likenessis not found in any other work--is it inherent in the constitutionaldispositions of the Creator, or can it be formed by patient acquisition?

Astonished at their own silent and obscure progress, some have imaginedthat they have formed their genius solely by their own studies; when theygenerated, they conceived that they had acquired; and, losing thedistinction between nature and habit, with fatal temerity the idolatry ofphilosophy substituted something visible and palpable, yet shaped by themost opposite fancies, called a Theory, for Nature herself! Men of genius, whose great occupation is to be conversant with the inspirations ofNature, made up a factitious one among themselves, and assumed that theycould operate without the intervention of the occult original. But Naturewould not be mocked; and whenever this race of idolaters have workedwithout her agency, she has afflicted them with the most stubbornsterility. 

Theories of genius are the peculiar constructions of our own philosophicaltimes; ages of genius had passed away, and they left no other record thantheir works; no preconcerted theory described the workings of theimagination to be without imagination, nor did they venture to teach howto invent invention. 

The character of genius, viewed as the effect of habit and education, onthe principle of the equality of the human mind, infers that men have anequal aptitude for the work of genius: a paradox which, with a more fatalone, came from the French school, and arose probably from an equivocalexpression. 

Locke employed the well-known comparison of the mind with "white papervoid of all characters, " to free his famous "Inquiry" from that powerfulobstacle to his system, the absurd belief of "innate ideas, " of notions ofobjects before objects were presented to observation. Our philosopherconsidered that this simple analogy sufficiently described the manner inwhich he conceived the impressions of the senses write themselves on themind. His French pupils, the amusing Helvetius, or Diderot, for theywere equally concerned in the paradoxical "L'Esprit, " inferred that thisblank paper served also as an evidence that men had _an equal aptitude forgenius_, just as the blank paper reflects to us whatever characters wetrace on it. This _equality of minds_ gave rise to the same monstrousdoctrine in the science of metaphysics which that of another verbalmisconception, _the equality of men_, did in that of politics. TheScottish metaphysicians powerfully combined to illustrate the mechanism ofthe mind, --an important and a curious truth; for as rules and principlesexist in the nature of things, and when discovered are only thence drawnout, genius unconsciously conducts itself by a uniform process; andwhen this process had been traced, they inferred that what was done bysome men, under the influence of fundamental laws which regulate themarch of the intellect, must also be in the reach of others, who, in thesame circumstances, apply themselves to the same study. But thesemetaphysicians resemble anatomists, under whose knife all men are alike. They know the structure of the bones, the movement of the muscles, andwhere the connecting ligaments lie! but the invisible principle of lifeflies from their touch. It is the practitioner on the living body whostudies in every individual that peculiarity of constitution which formsthe idiosyncrasy. 

Under the influence of such novel theories of genius, JOHNSON defined itas "A Mind of large general powers ACCIDENTALLY determined by some_particular direction_. " On this principle we must infer that thereasoning LOCKE, or the arithmetical DE MOIVRE, could have been themusical and fairy SPENSER. [A] This conception of the nature of geniusbecame prevalent. It induced the philosophical BECCARIA to assert thatevery individual had an equal degree of genius for poetry and eloquence;it runs through the philosophy of the elegant Dugald Stewart; andREYNOLDS, the pupil of Johnson in literature, adopting the paradox, constructed his automatic system on this principle of _equal aptitude_. Hesays, "this excellence, however expressed by genius, taste, or the gift ofHeaven, I am confident may be _acquired_. " Reynolds had the modesty tofancy that so many rivals, unendowed by nature, might have equalled themagic of his own pencil: but his theory of industry, so essential togenius, yet so useless without it, too long stimulated the drudges of art, and left us without a Correggio or a Raphael! Another man of genius caughtthe fever of the new system. CURRIE, in his eloquent "Life of Burns, "swells out the scene of genius to a startling magnificence; for he assertsthat, "the talents necessary to the construction of an 'Iliad, ' underdifferent discipline and application, might have led armies to victory orkingdoms to prosperity; might have wielded the thunder of eloquence, ordiscovered and enlarged the sciences. " All this we find in the _text_; butin the clear intellect of this man of genius a vast number of interveningdifficulties started up, and in a copious _note_ the numerous exceptionsshow that the assumed theory requires no other refutation than what thetheorist has himself so abundantly and so judiciously supplied. There issomething ludicrous in the result of a theory of genius which wouldplace HOBBES and ERASMUS, those timid and learned recluses, to open acampaign with the military invention and physical intrepidity of aMarlborough; or conclude that the romantic bard of the "Fairy Queen, "amidst the quickly-shifting scenes of his visionary reveries, could havededuced, by slow and patient watchings of the mind, the system and thedemonstrations of Newton. 

[Footnote A: It is more dangerous to define than to describe: a drydefinition excludes so much, an ardent description at once appeals to oursympathies. How much more comprehensible our great critic becomes when henobly describes genius, "as the power of mind that collects, combines, amplifies, and animates; the energy without which judgment is cold, andknowledge is inert!" And it is this POWER OF MIND, this primary facultyand native aptitude, which we deem may exist separately from education andhabit, since these are often found unaccompanied by genius. ]

Such theorists deduce the faculty called genius from a variety of exterioror secondary causes: zealously rejecting the notion that genius mayoriginate in constitutional dispositions, and be only a mode of theindividual's existence, they deny that minds are differently constituted. Habit and education, being more palpable and visible in their operations, and progressive in the development of the intellectual faculties, havebeen imagined fully sufficient to make the creative faculty a subject ofacquirement. 

But when these theorists had discovered the curious fact, that we haveowed to _accident_ several men of genius, and when they laid open somesources which influenced genius in its progress, they did not go one stepfurther, they did not inquire whether such sources and such accidents hadever supplied the _want of genius_ in the individual. Effects were hereagain mistaken for causes. Could Spenser have kindled a poet in Cowley, Richardson a painter in Reynolds, and Descartes a metaphysician inMalebranche, if those master-minds, pointed out as having been such from_accident_, had not first received the indelible mint-stamp struck by thehand of Nature, and which, to give it a name, we may be allowed to callthe _predisposition_ of genius? The _accidents_ so triumphantly heldforth, which are imagined to have created the genius of these men, haveoccurred to a thousand who have run the same career; but how does ithappen that the multitude remain a multitude, and the man of geniusarrives alone at the goal?

This theory, which long dazzled its beholders, was in time found to standin contradiction with itself, and perpetually with their own experience. Reynolds pared down his decision in the progress of his lectures, oftenwavered, often altered, and grew more confused as he lived longer to lookabout him. [A] The infirm votaries of the new philosophy, with all theirsources of genius open before them, went on multiplying mediocrity, whileinherent genius, true to nature, still continued rare in its solitaryindependence. 

[Footnote A: I transcribe the last opinions of Mr. Edgeworth. "As tooriginal genius, and the effect of education in forming taste or directingtalent, the last revisal of his opinions was given by himself, in theintroduction to the second edition of 'Professional Education. ' He wasstrengthened in his belief, that many of the great differences ofintellect which appear in men, depend more upon the early cultivating thehabit of attention than upon any disparity between the powers of oneindividual and another. Perhaps, he latterly allowed that there is moredifference than he had formerly admitted between the _natural powers_ ofdifferent persons; but not so great as is generally supposed. "--_Edgeworth's Memoirs_, ii. 388. ]

Others have strenuously denied that we are born with any peculiar speciesof mind, and resolve the mysterious problem into _capacity_, of which menonly differ in the degree. They can perceive no distinction between thepoetical and the mathematical genius; and they conclude that a man ofgenius, possessing a general capacity, may become whatever he chooses, butis determined by his first acquired habit to be what he is. [A]

In substituting the term _capacity_ for that of _genius_, the origin ornature remains equally occult. How is it acquired, or how is it inherent?To assert that any man of genius may become what he wills, those mostfervently protest against who feel that the character of genius is suchthat it cannot be other than it is; that there is an identity of minds, and that there exists an interior conformity as marked and as perfect asthe exterior physiognomy. A Scotch metaphysician has recently declaredthat "Locke or Newton might have been as eminent poets as Homer or Milton, had they given themselves early to the study of poetry. " It is well toknow how far this taste will go. We believe that had these philosophersobstinately, against nature, persisted in the attempt, as some haveunluckily for themselves, we should have lost two great philosophers, andhave obtained two supernumerary poets. [B]

It would be more useful to discover another source of genius forphilosophers and poets, less fallible than the gratuitous assumptions ofthese theorists. An adequate origin for peculiar qualities in the mind maybe found in that constitutional or secret propensity which adapts some forparticular pursuits, and forms the _predisposition_ of genius. 

[Footnote A: Johnson once asserted, that "the supposition of one manhaving more imagination, another more judgment, is not true; it is onlyone man has _more mind_ than another. He who has vigour may walk to theeast as well as the west, if he happens to turn his head that way. " Godwinwas persuaded that all genius is a mere _acquisition_, for he hints at"infusing it, " and making it a thing "heritable. " A reversion which hasbeen missed by the many respectable dunces who have been sons of men ofgenius. ]

[Footnote B: This very Scotch metaphysician, at the instant he lays downthis postulate, acknowledges that "Dr. Beattie had talents for a _poet_, but apparently not for a _philosopher_. " It is amusing to learn anotherresult of his ungenial metaphysics. This sage demonstrates and concludesin these words, "It will therefore be found, with little exception, that_a great poet is but an ordinary genius_. " Let this sturdy Scotchmetaphysician never approach Pegasus--he has to fear, not his wings, buthis heels. If some have written on genius with a great deal too much, others have written without any. ]

Not that we are bound to demonstrate what our adversaries have failedin proving; we may still remain ignorant of the nature of genius, andyet be convinced that they have not revealed it. The phenomena of_predisposition_ in the mind are not more obscure and ambiguous thanthose which have been assigned as the sources of genius in certainindividuals. For is it more difficult to conceive that a person bears inhis constitutional disposition a germ of native aptitude which isdeveloping itself to a predominant character of genius, which breaks forthin the temperament and moulds the habits, than to conjecture that thesemen of genius could not have been such but from _accident_, or that theydiffer only in their _capacity_?

Every class of men of genius has distinct habits; all poets resemble oneanother, as all painters and all mathematicians. There is a conformity inthe cast of their minds, and the quality of each is distinct from theother, and the very faculty which fits them for one particular pursuit, isjust the reverse required for another. If these are truisms, as they mayappear, we need not demonstrate that from which we only wish to draw ourconclusion. Why does this remarkable similarity prevail through theclasses of genius? Because each, in their favourite production, is workingwith the same appropriate organ. The poetical eye is early busied withimagery; as early will the reveries of the poetical mind be busied withthe passions; as early will the painter's hand be copying forms andcolours; as early will the young musician's ear wander in the creation ofsounds, and the philosopher's head mature its meditations. It is then theaptitude of the appropriate organ, however it varies in its character, inwhich genius seems most concerned, and which is connatural and connatewith the individual, and, as it was expressed in old days, is _born_ withhim. There seems no other source of genius; for whenever this has beenrefused by nature, as it is so often, no theory of genius, neither habitnor education, have ever supplied its want. To discriminate between the_habit_ and the _predisposition_ is quite impossible; because whenevergreat genius discovers itself, as it can only do by continuity, it hasbecome a habit with the individual; it is the fatal notion of habit havingthe power of generating genius, which has so long served to delude thenumerous votaries of mediocrity. Natural or native power is enlarged byart; but the most perfect art has but narrow limits, deprived of naturaldisposition. 

A curious decision on this obscure subject may be drawn from an admirablejudge of the nature of genius. AKENSIDE, in that fine poem which forms itshistory, tracing its source, sang, From Heaven my strains begin, from Heaven descends The flame of genius to _the human breast_. 

But in the final revision of that poem, which he left many years after, the bard has vindicated the solitary and independent origin of genius, bythe mysterious epithet, THE CHOSEN BREAST. 

The veteran poet was, perhaps, schooled by the vicissitudes of his ownpoetical life, and those of some of his brothers. 

Metaphors are but imperfect illustrations in metaphysical inquiries:usually they include too little or take in too much. Yet fancifulanalogies are not willingly abandoned. The iconologists describe Genius asa winged child with a flame above its head; the wings and the flameexpress more than some metaphysical conclusions. Let me substitutefor "the white paper" of Locke, which served the philosopher in hisdescription of the operations of the senses on the mind, a less artificialsubstance. In the soils of the earth we may discover that variety ofprimary qualities which we believe to exist in human minds. The botanistand the geologist always find the nature of the strata indicative of itsproductions; the meagre light herbage announces the poverty of the soil itcovers, while the luxuriant growth of plants betrays the richness of thematrix in which the roots are fixed. It is scarcely reasoning by analogyto apply this operating principle of nature to the faculties of men. 

But while the origin and nature of that faculty which we understand by theterm Genius remain still wrapt up in its mysterious bud, may we not traceits history in its votaries? If Nature overshadow with her wings her firstcauses, still the effects lie open before us, and experience andobservation will often deduce from consciousness what we cannot fromdemonstration. If Nature, in some of her great operations, has kept backher last secrets; if Newton, even in the result of his reasonings, hasreligiously abstained from penetrating into her occult connexions, is itnothing to be her historian, although we cannot be her legislator?

CHAPTER V. 

Youth of genius. --Its first impulses may be illustrated by its subsequentactions. --Parents have another association of the man of genius thanwe. --Of genius, its first habits. --Its melancholy. --Its reveries. --Itslove of solitude. --Its disposition to repose. --Of a youth distinguishedby his equals. --Feebleness of its first attempts. --Of genius notdiscoverable even in manhood. --The education of the youth may not bethat of his genius. --An unsettled impulse, querulous till it finds itstrue occupation. --With some, curiosity as intense a faculty as invention. --What the youth first applies to is commonly his delight afterwards. --Facts of the decisive character of genius. 

We are entering into a fairy land, touching only shadows, and chasing themost changeable lights; many stories we shall hear, and many scenes willopen on us; yet though realities are but dimly to be traced in thistwilight of imagination and tradition, we think that the first impulses ofgenius may be often illustrated by the subsequent actions of theindividual; and whenever we find these in perfect harmony, it will bedifficult to convince us that there does not exist a secret connexionbetween those first impulses and these last actions. 

Can we then trace in the faint lines of his youth an unsteady outline ofthe man? In the temperament of genius may we not reasonably look forcertain indications or predispositions, announcing the permanentcharacter? Is not great sensibility born with its irritable fibres? Willnot the deep retired character cling to its musings? And the unalterablebeing of intrepidity and fortitude, will he not, commanding even amidsthis sports, lead on his equals? The boyhood of Cato was marked by thesternness of the man, observable in his speech, his countenance, and hispuerile amusements; and BACON, DESCARTES, HOBBES, GRAY, and others, betrayed the same early appearance of their intellectual vigour andprecocity of character. 

The virtuous and contemplative BOYLE imagined that he had discovered inchildhood that disposition of mind which indicated an instinctiveingenuousness. An incident which he relates, evinced, as he thought, thateven then he preferred to aggravate his fault rather than consent tosuppress any part of the truth, an effort which had been unnatural to hismind. His fanciful, yet striking illustration may open our inquiry. "Thistrivial passage, " the little story alluded to, "I have mentioned now, notthat I think that in itself it deserves a relation, but because as the sunis seen best at his rising and his setting, so men's native dispositionsare clearliest perceived whilst they are children, and when they aredying. These little sudden actions are the greatest discoverers of men'strue humours. "

ALFIERI, that historian of the literary mind, was conscious that even inhis childhood the peculiarity and the melancholy of his characterprevailed: a boyhood passed in domestic solitude fed the interior feelingsof his impassioned character; and in noticing some incidents of a childishnature, this man of genius observes, "Whoever will reflect on these ineptcircumstances, and explore into the seeds of the passions of man, possiblymay find these neither so laughable nor so puerile as they may appear. "His native genius, or by whatever other term we may describe it, betrayedthe wayward predispositions of some of his poetical brothers: "Taciturnand placid for the most part, but at times loquacious and most vivacious, and usually in the most opposite extremes; stubborn and impatient againstforce, but most open to kindness, more restrained by the dread ofreprimand than by anything else, susceptible of shame to excess, butinflexible if violently opposed. " Such is the portrait of a child of sevenyears old, a portrait which induced the great tragic bard to deduce thisresult from his own self-experience, that "_man_ is a continuation of the_child_. "[A]

[Footnote A: See in his Life, chap. Iv. , entitled _Sviluppo dell' indoleindicato da vari fattarelli_. "Development of genius, or naturalinclination, indicated by various little matters. "]

That the dispositions of genius in early life presage its futurecharacter, was long the feeling of antiquity. CICERO, in his "Dialogue onOld Age, " employs a beautiful analogy drawn from Nature, marking hersecret conformity in all things which have life and come from her hands;and the human mind is one of her plants. "Youth is the vernal season oflife, and the blossoms it then puts forth are indications of those futurefruits which are to be gathered in the succeeding periods. " One of themasters of the human mind, after much previous observation of those whoattended his lectures, would advise one to engage in political studies, then exhorted another to compose history, elected these to be poets, andthose to be orators; for ISOCRATES believed that Nature had some concernin forming a man of genius, and endeavoured to guess at her secret bydetecting the first energetic inclination of the mind. This also was theprinciple which guided the Jesuits, those other great masters in the artof education. They studied the characteristics of their pupils with suchsingular care, as to keep a secret register in their colleges, descriptiveof their talents, and the natural turn of their dispositions. In somecases they guessed with remarkable felicity. They described Fontenelle, _adolescens omnibus numeris absolutus et inter discipulos princeps_, "ayouth accomplished in every respect, and the model for his companions;"but when they describe the elder Crébillon, _puer ingeniosus sed insignisnebulo_, "a shrewd boy, but a great rascal, " they might not have erred somuch as they appear to have done; for an impetuous boyhood showed thedecision of a character which might not have merely and misanthropicallysettled in imaginary scenes of horror, and the invention of characters ofunparalleled atrocity. 

In the old romance of King Arthur, when a cowherd comes to the king torequest he would make his son a knight--"It is a great thing thou askest, "said Arthur, who inquired whether this entreaty proceeded from him or hisson. The old man's answer is remarkable--"Of my son, not of me; for I havethirteen sons, and all these will fall to that labour I put them; but thischild will not labour for me, for anything that I and my wife will do; butalways he will be shooting and casting darts, and glad for to see battles, and to behold knights, and always day and night he desireth of me to bemade a knight. " The king commanded the cowherd to fetch all his sons;"they were all shapen much like the poor man; but Tor was not like none ofthem in shape and in countenance, for he was much more than any of them. And so Arthur knighted him. " This simple tale is the history of genius--the cowherd's twelve sons were like himself, but the unhappy genius in thefamily, who perplexed and plagued the cowherd and his wife and his twelvebrothers, was the youth averse to the common labour, and dreaming ofchivalry amidst a herd of cows. 

A man of genius is thus dropped among the people, and has first toencounter the difficulties of ordinary men, unassisted by that feebleductility which adapts itself to the common destination. Parents are toooften the victims of the decided propensity of a son to a Virgil or aEuclid; and the first step into life of a man of genius is disobedienceand grief. LILLY, our famous astrologer, has described the frequentsituation of such a youth, like the cowherd's son who would be a knight. Lilly proposed to his father that he should try his fortune in themetropolis, where he expected that his learning and his talents wouldprove serviceable to him; the father, quite incapable of discovering thelatent genius of his son in his studious disposition, very willinglyconsented to get rid of him, for, as Lilly proceeds, "I could not work, drive the plough, or endure any country labour; my father oft would say Iwas _good for nothing_, "--words which the fathers of so many men of geniushave repeated. [A]

[Footnote A: The father of Sir Joshua Reynolds reproached him frequentlyin his boyish days for his constant attention to drawing, and wrote on theback of one of his sketches the condemnatory words, "Done by Joshua out ofpure idleness. " Mignard distressed his father the surgeon, by sketchingthe expressive faces of his patients instead of attending to theirdiseases; and our own Opie, when a boy, and working with his father at hisbusiness as a carpenter, used frequently to excite his anger by drawingwith red chalk on the deal boards he had carefully planed for his trade. --ED. ]

In reading the memoirs of a man of genius, we often reprobate the domesticpersecutions of those who opposed his inclinations. No poet but is movedwith indignation at the recollection of the tutor at the Port Royal thriceburning the romance which RACINE at length got by heart; no geometricianbut bitterly inveighs against the father of PASCAL for not suffering himto study Euclid, which he at length understood without studying. Thefather of PETRARCH cast to the flames the poetical library of his son, amidst the shrieks, the groans, and the tears of the youth. Yet thisburnt-offering neither converted Petrarch into a sober lawyer, nordeprived him of the Roman laurel. The uncle of ALFIERI for more thantwenty years suppressed the poetical character of this noble bard; he wasa poet without knowing how to write a verse, and Nature, like a hardcreditor, exacted, with redoubled interest, all the genius which the unclehad so long kept from her. These are the men whose inherent impulse nohuman opposition, and even no adverse education, can deter from provingthem to be great men. 

Let us, however, be just to the parents of a man of genius; they haveanother association of ideas respecting him than ourselves. We see a greatman, they a disobedient child; we track him through his glory, they arewearied by the sullen resistance of one who is obscure and seems useless. The career of genius is rarely that of fortune or happiness; and thefather, who himself may not be insensible to glory, dreads lest hisson be found among that obscure multitude, that populace of mean artists, self-deluded yet self-dissatisfied, who must expire at the barriers ofmediocrity. 

If the youth of genius be struggling with a concealed impulse, he willoften be thrown into a train of secret instruction which no master canimpart. Hippocrates profoundly observed, that "our _natures_ have not beentaught us by any master. " The faculty which the youth of genius displaysin after-life may exist long ere it is perceived; and it will only makeits own what is homogeneous with itself. We may often observe how the mindof this youth stubbornly rejects whatever is contrary to its habits, andalien to its affections. Of a solitary character, for solitariness is thewild nurse of his contemplations, he is fancifully described by one of therace--and here fancies are facts:

 He is retired as noon-tide dew, Or fountain in a noon-day grove. 

The romantic SIDNEY exclaimed, "Eagles fly alone, and they are but sheepwhich always herd together. "

As yet this being, in the first rudiments of his sensations, is touched byrapid emotions, and disturbed by a vague restlessness; for him the imagesof nature are yet dim, and he feels before he thinks; for imaginationprecedes reflection. One truly inspired unfolds the secret story--

 Endow'd with all that Nature can bestow, The child of fancy oft in silence bends O'er the mixt treasures of his pregnant breast With conscious pride. From thence he oft resolves To frame he knows not what excelling things; And win he knows not what sublime reward Of praise and wonder!

But the solitude of the youth of genius has a local influence; it is fullof his own creations, of his unmarked passions, and his uncertainthoughts. The titles which he gives his favourite haunts often intimatethe bent of his mind--its employment, or its purpose; as PETRARCH calledhis retreat _Linternum_, after that of his hero Scipio; and a young poet, from some favourite description in Cowley, called a spot he loved to musein, "Cowley's Walk. "

A temperament of this kind has been often mistaken for melancholy. [A]"When the intermission of my studies allowed me leisure for recreation, "says BOYLE of his early life, "I would very often steal away from allcompany, and spend four or five hours alone in the fields, and think atrandom; making my delighted imagination the busy scene where some romanceor other was daily acted. " This circumstance alarmed his friends, whoconcluded that he was overcome with a growing melancholy. ALFIERI foundhimself in this precise situation, and experienced these undefinableemotions, when, in his first travels at Marseilles, his lonely spirit onlyhaunted the theatre and the seashore: the tragic drama was then castingits influences over his unconscious genius. Almost every evening, afterbathing in the sea, it delighted him to retreat to a little recess wherethe land jutted out; there would he sit, leaning his hack against a highrock, which he tells us, "concealed from my sight every part of the landbehind me, while before and around me I beheld nothing but the sea and theheavens: the sun, sinking into the waves, was lighting up and embellishingthese two immensities; there would I pass a delicious hour of fantasticruminations, and there I should have composed many a poem, had I thenknown to write either in verse or prose in any language whatever. "

[Footnote A: This solemnity of manner was aped in the days of Elizabethand James I. By such as affected scholar-like habits, and is frequentlyalluded to by the satirists of the time. BEN JONSON, in his "Every Man inhis Humour, " delineates the "country gull, " Master Stephen, as affecting"to be mightily given to melancholy, " and receiving the assurance, "It'syour only fine humour, sir; your true melancholy breeds your perfect finewit, sir. "--ED. ]

An incident of this nature is revealed to us by the other noble and mightyspirit of our times, who could most truly exhibit the history of the youthof genius, and he has painted forth the enthusiasm of the boy TASSO:--

 --From my very birth My soul was drunk with love, which did pervade And mingle with whate'er I saw on earth; Of objects all inanimate I made Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers And rocks whereby they grew, a paradise, Where I did lay me down within the shade Of waving trees, and dream'd uncounted hours, Though I was chid for wandering. 

The youth of genius will be apt to retire from the active sports of hismates. BEATTIE paints himself in his own Minstrel:

 Concourse, and noise, and toil he ever fled, Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous fray Of squabbling imps; but to the forest sped. 

BOSSUET would not join his young companions, and flew to his solitarytask, while the classical boys avenged themselves by a schoolboy'svillanous pun: stigmatising the studious application of Bossuet by the_bos suetus aratro_ which frequent flogging had made them classical enoughto quote. 

The learned HUET has given an amusing detail of the inventive persecutionsof his schoolmates, to divert him from his obstinate love of study. "Atlength, in order to indulge my own taste, I would rise with the sun, whilethey were buried in sleep, and hide myself in the woods, that I might readand study in quiet;" but they beat the bushes, and started in his burrowthe future man of erudition. Sir WILLIAM JONES was rarely a partaker inthe active sports of Harrow; it was said of GRAY that he was never a boy;the unhappy CHATTERTON and BURNS were singularly serious in youth;[A] aswere HOBBES and BACON. MILTON has preserved for us, in solemn numbers, hisschool-life--

 When I was yet a child, no childish play To me was pleasing: all my mind was set Serious to learn and know, and thence to do What might be public good: myself I thought Born to that end, born to promote all truth, All righteous things. 

[Footnote A: Dr. Gregory says of Chatterton, "Instead of the thoughtlesslevity of childhood, he possessed the pensiveness, gravity, and melancholyof maturer life. He was frequently so lost in contemplation, that for manydays together he would say but very little, and that apparently byconstraint. His intimates in the school were few, and those of the mostserious cast. " Of Burns, his schoolmaster, Mr. Murdoch, says--"Robert'scountenance was generally grave, and expressive of a serious, contemplative, and thoughtful mind:"--Ed. ]

It is remarkable that this love of repose and musing is retainedthroughout life. A man of fine genius is rarely enamoured of commonamusements or of robust exercises; and he is usually unadroit wheredexterity of hand or eye, or trivial elegances, are required. Thischaracteristic of genius was discovered by HORACE in that Ode whichschoolboys often versify. BEATTIE has expressly told us of his Minstrel, The exploit of strength, dexterity or speed To him nor vanity nor joy could bring. 

ALFIERI said he could never be taught by a French dancing-master, whoseart made him at once shudder and laugh. HORACE, by his own confession, wasa very awkward rider, and the poet could not always secure a seat on hismule: METASTASIO humorously complains of his gun; the poetical sportsmancould only frighten the hares and partridges; the, truth was, as an elderpoet sings, Instead of hounds that make the wooded hills Talk in a hundred voices to the rills, I, like the pleasing cadence of a line, Struck by the concert of the sacred Nine. 

And we discover the true "humour" of the indolent contemplative race intheir great representatives VIRGIL and HORACE. When they accompaniedMecænas into the country, while the minister amused himself at tennis, the two bards reposed on a vernal bank amidst the freshness of the shade. The younger Pliny, who was so perfect a literary character, was charmed bythe Roman mode of hunting, or rather fowling by nets, which admitted himto sit a whole day with his tablets and stylus; so, says he, "should Ireturn with empty nets, my tablets may at least be full. " THOMSON was thehero of his own "Castle of Indolence;" and the elegant WALLER infuses intohis luxurious verses the true feeling:

 Oh, low I long my careless limbs to lay Under the plantane shade, and all the day Invoke the Muses and improve my vein. 

The youth of genius, whom Beattie has drawn after himself, and I afterobservation, a poet of great genius, as I understand, has declared to be"too effeminate and timid, and too much troubled with delicate nerves. The_greatest poets_ of all countries, " he continues, "have been men eminentlyendowed with _bodily powers_, and rejoiced and excelled in all _manlyexercises_. " May not our critic of northern habits have often mistakenthe art of the great poets in _describing_ such "manly exercises or bodilypowers, " for the proof of their "rejoicing and excelling in them?" Poetsand artists, from their habits, are not usually muscular and robust. [A]Continuity of thought, absorbing reverie, and sedentary habits, will notcombine with corporeal skill and activity. There is also a constitutionaldelicacy which is too often the accompaniment of a fine intellect. The inconveniences attached to the inferior sedentary labourers areparticipated in by men of genius; the analogy is obvious, and their fateis common. Literary men may be included in Ramazzini's "Treatise on theDiseases of Artizans. " ROSSEAU has described the labours of the closet asenervating men, and weakening the constitution, while study wears thewhole machinery of man, exhausts the spirits, destroys his strength, andrenders him pusillanimous. [B] But there is a higher principle which guidesus to declare, that men of genius should not _excel_ in "all manlyexercises. " SENECA, whose habits were completely literary, admonishes theman of letters that "Whatever amusement he chooses, he should not slowlyreturn from those of the body to the mind, while he should be exercisingthe latter night and day. " Seneca was aware that "to rejoice and excel inall manly exercises, " would in some cases intrude into the habits of aliterary man, and sometimes be even ridiculous. MORTIMER, once acelebrated artist, was tempted by his athletic frame to indulge infrequent violent exercises; and it is not without reason suspected, thathabits so unfavourable to thought and study precluded that promisinggenius from attaining to the maturity of his talents, however he mighthave succeeded in invigorating his physical powers. 

[Footnote A: Dr. Currie, in his "Life of Burns, " has a passage which maybe quoted here: "Though by nature of an athletic form, Burns had in hisconstitution the peculiarities and the delicacies that belong to thetemperament of genius. He was liable, from a very early period of life, tothat interruption in the process of digestion which arises from deep andanxious thought, and which is sometimes the effect, and sometimes thecause, of depression of spirits. "--ED. ]

[Footnote B: In the Preface to the "Narcisse. "]

But to our solitude. So true is it that this love of loneliness is anearly passion, that two men of genius of very opposite characters, the onea French wit and the other a French philosopher, have acknowledged thatthey have felt its influence, and even imagined that they had discoveredits cause. The Abbé DE ST. PIERRE, in his political annals, tells us, "Iremember to have heard old SEGRAIS remark, that most young people of bothsexes had at one time of their lives, generally about seventeen oreighteen years of age, an inclination to retire from the world. Hemaintained this to be a species of melancholy, and humorously called itthe small-pox of the mind, because scarce one in a thousand escaped theattack. I myself have had this distemper, but am not much marked with it. "

But if the youth of genius be apt to retire from the ordinary sports ofhis mates, he will often substitute for them others, which are thereflections of those favourite studies which are haunting his youngimagination, as men in their dreams repeat the conceptions which havehabitually interested them. The amusements of such an idler have oftenbeen analogous to his later pursuits. ARIOSTO, while yet a schoolboy, seems to have been very susceptible of poetry, for he composed a sort oftragedy from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, to be represented by hisbrothers and sisters, and at this time also delighted himself intranslating the old French and Spanish romances. Sir WILLIAM JONES, atHarrow, divided the fields according to a map of Greece, and to eachschoolfellow portioned out a dominion; and when wanting a copy of the_Tempest_ to act from, he supplied it from his memory; we must confessthat the boy Jones was reflecting in his amusements the cast of mind hedisplayed in his after-life, and evincing that felicity of memory andtaste so prevalent in his literary character. FLORIAN'S earliest yearswere passed in shooting birds all day, and reading every evening an oldtranslation of the Iliad: whenever he got a bird remarkable for its sizeor its plumage, he personified it by one of the names of his heroes, andraising a funeral pyre, consumed the body: collecting the ashes in anurn, he presented them to his grandfather, with a narrative of hisPatroclus or Sarpedon. We seem here to detect, reflected in his boyishsports, the pleasing genius of the author of Numa Pompilius, Gonsalvo ofCordova, and William Tell. BACON, when a child, was so remarkable forthoughtful observation, that Queen Elizabeth used to call him "the younglord-keeper. " The boy made a remarkable reply, when her Majesty, inquiring of him his age, he said, that "He was two years younger thanher Majesty's happy reign. " The boy may have been tutored; but thismixture of gravity, and ingenuity, and political courtiership, undoubtedly caught from his father's habits, afterwards characterisedLord Bacon's manhood. I once read the letter of a contemporary of HOBBES, where I found that this great philosopher, when a lad, used to ride onpacks of skins to market, to sell them for his father, who was afellmonger; and that in the market-place he thus early began to vent hisprivate opinions, which long afterwards so fully appeared in hiswritings. 

For a youth to be distinguished by his equals is perhaps a criterion oftalent. At that moment of life, with no flattery on the one side, and noartifice on the other, all emotion and no reflection, the boy who hasobtained a predominance has acquired this merely by native powers. Theboyhood of NELSON was characterised by events congenial with those of hisafter-days; and his father understood his character when he declared that, "in whatever station he might be placed, he would climb, if possible, tothe top of the tree. " Some puerile anecdotes which FRANKLIN remembered ofhimself, betray the invention and the firm intrepidity of his character, and even perhaps his carelessness of means to obtain a purpose. In boyhoodhe felt a desire for adventure; but as his father would not consent to asea life, he made the river near him represent the ocean: he lived on thewater, and was the daring Columbus of a schoolboy's boat. A part where heand his mates stood to angle, in time became a quagmire: in the course ofone day, the infant projector thought of a wharf for them to stand on, andraised it with a heap of stones deposited there for the building of ahouse. With that sort of practical wisdom, or Ulyssean cunning, whichmarked his mature character, Franklin raised his wharf at the expense ofanother's house. His contrivances to aid his puny labourers, with hisresolution not to quit the great work till it was effected, seem to strikeout to us the invention and decision of his future character. But thequalities which would attract the companions of a schoolboy may not bethose which are essential to fine genius. The captain or leader of hisschoolmates is not to be disregarded; but it is the sequestered boy whomay chance to be the artist or the literary character. Some facts whichhave been recorded of men of genius at this period are remarkable. We aretold by Miss Stewart that JOHNSON, when a boy at the free-school, appeared"a huge overgrown, misshapen stripling;" but was considered as astupendous stripling: "for even at that early period of life, Johnsonmaintained his opinions with the same sturdy, dogmatical, and arrogantfierceness. " The puerile characters of Lord BOLINGBROKE and Sir ROBERTWALPOLE, schoolfellows and rivals, were observed to prevail through theirafter-life; the liveliness and brilliancy of Bolingbroke appeared in hisattacks on Walpole, whose solid and industrious qualities triumphed byresistance. A parallel instance might be pointed out in two greatstatesmen of our own days; in the wisdom of the one, and the wit of theother--men whom nature made rivals, and time made friends or enemies, asit happened. A curious observer, in looking over a collection of theCambridge poems, which were formerly composed by its students, hasremarked that "Cowley from the first was quaint, Milton sublime, andBarrow copious. " If then the characteristic disposition may reveal itselfthus early, it affords a principle which ought not to be neglected at thisobscure period of youth. 

Is there then a period in youth which yields decisive marks of thecharacter of genius? The natures of men are as various as their fortunes. Some, like diamonds, must wait to receive their splendour from the slowtouches of the polisher, while others, resembling pearls, appear at onceborn with their beauteous lustre. 

Among the inauspicious circumstances is the feebleness of the firstattempts; and we must not decide on the talents of a young man by hisfirst works. DRYDEN and SWIFT might have been deterred from authorship hadtheir earliest pieces decided their fate. SMOLLETT, before he knew whichway his genius would conduct him, had early conceived a high notion of histalents for dramatic poetry: his tragedy of the _Regicide_ was refused byGarrick, whom for a long time he could not forgive, but continued to abuseour Roscius, through his works of genius, for having discountenanced hisfirst work, which had none. RACINE'S earliest composition, as we may judgeby some fragments his son has preserved, remarkably contrasts with hiswritings; for these fragments abound with those points and conceits whichhe afterwards abhorred. The tender author of "Andromache" could not havebeen discovered while exhausting himself in running after _concetti_ assurprising as the worst parts of Cowley, in whose spirit alone he couldhave hit on this perplexing _concetto_, descriptive of Aurora: "Fille duJour, qui nais devant ton père!"--"Daughter of Day, but born before thyfather!" GIBBON betrayed none of the force and magnitude of his powers inhis "Essay on Literature, " or his attempted "History of Switzerland, "JOHNSON'S cadenced prose is not recognisable in the humbler simplicity ofhis earliest years. Many authors have begun unsuccessfully the walk theyafterwards excelled in. RAPHAEL, when he first drew his meagre forms underPerugino, had not yet conceived one line of that ideal beauty which oneday he of all men could alone execute. Who could have imagined, inexamining the _Dream_ of Raphael, that the same pencil could hereafterhave poured out the miraculous _Transfiguration?_ Or that, in theimitative pupil of Hudson, our country was at length to pride herself onanother Raphael?[A]

[Footnote A: Hudson was the fashionable portrait-painter who succeededKneller, and made a great reputation and fortune; but he was a very meanartist, who merely copied the peculiarities of his predecessor without hisgenius. His stiff hard style was formality itself; but was approved in anage of formalism; the earlier half of the last century. --ED. ]

Even the manhood of genius may pass unobserved by his companions, and, like. Æneas, he may be hidden in a cloud amidst his associates. Thecelebrated FABIUS MAXIMUS in his boyhood was called in derision "thelittle sheep, " from the meekness and gravity of his disposition. Hissedateness and taciturnity, his indifference to juvenile amusements, hisslowness and difficulty in learning, and his ready submission to hisequals, induced them to consider him as one irrecoverably stupid. Thegreatness of mind, unalterable courage, and invincible character, whichFabius afterwards displayed, they then imagined had lain concealed underthe apparent contrary qualities. The boy of genius may indeed seem slowand dull even to the phlegmatic; for thoughtful and observing dispositionsconceal themselves in timorous silent characters, who have not yetexperienced their strength; and that assiduous love, which cannot tearitself away from the secret instruction it is perpetually imbibing, cannotbe easily distinguished from the pertinacity of the mere plodder. We oftenhear, from the early companions of a man of genius, that at school heappeared heavy and unpromising. Rousseau imagined that the childhood ofsome men is accompanied by this seeming and deceitful dulness, which isthe sign of a profound genius; and Roger Ascham has placed among "the bestnatures for learning, the sad-natured and hard-witted child;" that is, thethoughtful, or the melancholic, and the slow. The young painters, toridicule the persevering labours of DOMENICHINO, which were at first heavyand unpromising, called him "the great ox;" and Passeri, while he hashappily expressed the still labours of his concealed genius, _suataciturna lentezza_, his silent slowness, expresses his surprise at theaccounts he received of the early life of this great artist. "It isdifficult to believe, what many assert, that, from the beginning, thisgreat painter had a ruggedness about him which entirely incapacitated himfrom learning his profession; and they have heard from himself that hequite despaired of success. Yet I cannot comprehend how such vivacioustalents, with a mind so finely organised, and accompanied with suchfavourable dispositions for the art, would show such signs of utterincapacity; I rather think that it is a mistake in the proper knowledge ofgenius, which some imagine indicates itself most decisively by its suddenvehemence, showing itself like lightning, and like lightning passingaway. "

A parallel case we find in GOLDSMITH, who passed through an unpromisingyouth; he declared that he was never attached to literature till hewas thirty; that poetry had no peculiar charms for him till that age;[A]and, indeed, to his latest hour he was surprising his friends byproductions which they had imagined he was incapable of composing. HUMEwas considered, for his sobriety and assiduity, as competent to become asteady merchant; and it was said of BOILEAU that he had no greatunderstanding, but would speak ill of no one. This circumstance of thecharacter in youth being entirely mistaken, or entirely opposite to thesubsequent one of maturer life, has been noticed of many. Even adiscerning parent or master has entirely failed to develope the genius ofthe youth, who has afterwards ranked among eminent men; we ought as littleto decide from early unfavourable appearances, as from inequality oftalent. The great ISAAC BARROW'S father used to say, that if it pleasedGod to take from him any of his children, he hoped it might be Isaac, asthe least promising; and during the three years Barrow passed at theCharter-house, he was remarkable only for the utter negligence of hisstudies and of his person. The mother of SHERIDAN, herself a literaryfemale, pronounced early that he was the dullest and most hopeless of hersons. BODMER, at the head of the literary class in Switzerland, who had sofrequently discovered and animated the literary youths of his country, could never detect the latent genius of GESNER: after a repeatedexamination of the young man, he put his parents in despair with thehopeless award that a mind of so ordinary a cast must confine itself tomere writing and accompts. One fact, however, Bodmer had overlooked whenhe pronounced the fate of our poet and artist--the dull youth, who couldnot retain barren words, discovered an active fancy in the image ofthings. While at his grammar lessons, as it happened to Lucian, he wasemploying tedious hours in modelling in wax, groups of men, animals, andother figures, the rod of the pedagogue often interrupted the fingers ofour infant moulder, who never ceased working to amuse his little sisterswith his waxen creatures, which constituted all his happiness. Those artsof imitation were already possessing the soul of the boy Gesner, to whichafterwards it became so entirely devoted. 

[Footnote A: This is a remarkable expression from Goldsmith: but it ismuch more so when we hear it from Lord Byron. See a note in the followingchapter, on "The First Studies, " p. 56. ]

Thus it happens that in the first years of life the education of the youthmay not be the education of his genius; he lives unknown to himself andothers. In all these cases nature had dropped the seeds in the soil: buteven a happy disposition must be concealed amidst adverse circumstances: Irepeat, that genius can only make that its own which is homogeneous withits nature. It has happened to some men of genius during a long period oftheir lives, that an unsettled impulse, unable to discover the object ofits aptitude, a thirst and fever in the temperament of too sentient abeing, which cannot find the occupation to which only it can attachitself, has sunk into a melancholy and querulous spirit, weary with theburthen of existence; but the instant the latent talent had declareditself, his first work, the eager offspring of desire and love, hasastonished the world at once with the birth and the maturity of genius. 

We are told that PELEGRINO TIBALDI, who afterwards obtained the glorioustitle of "the reformed Michael Angelo, " long felt the strongest internaldissatisfaction at his own proficiency, and that one day, in melancholyand despair, he had retired from the city, resolved to starve himself todeath: his friend discovered him, and having persuaded him to change hispursuits from painting to architecture, he soon rose to eminence. Thisstory D'Argenville throws some doubt over; but as Tibaldi during twentyyears abstained from his pencil, a singular circumstance seems explainedby an extraordinary occurrence. TASSO, with feverish anxiety pondered onfive different subjects before he could decide in the choice of his epic;the same embarrassment was long the fate of GIBBON on the subject of hishistory. Some have sunk into a deplorable state of utter languishment, from the circumstance of being deprived of the means of pursuing theirbeloved study, as in the case of the chemist BERGMAN. His friends, to gainhim over to the more lucrative professions, deprived him of his books ofnatural history; a plan which nearly proved fatal to the youth, who withdeclining health quitted the university. At length ceasing to strugglewith the conflicting desire within him, his renewed enthusiasm for hisfavourite science restored the health he had lost in abandoning it. 

It was the view of the tomb of Virgil which so powerfully influenced theinnate genius of BOCCACCIO, and fixed his instant decision. As yet young, and in the neighbourhood of Naples, wandering for recreation, he reachedthe tomb of the Mantuan. Pausing before it, his youthful mind began tomeditate. Struck by the universal glory of that great name, he lamentedhis own fortune to be occupied by the obscure details of merchandise;already he sighed to emulate the fame of the Roman, and as Villani tellsus, from that day he abandoned for ever the occupations of commerce, dedicating himself to literature. PROCTOR, the lost Phidias of ourcountry, would often say, that he should never have quitted his mercantilesituation, but for the accidental sight of Barry's picture of "Venusrising from the Sea;" a picture which produced so immediate an effect onhis mind, that it determined him to quit a lucrative occupation. Surely wecannot account for such sudden effusions of the mind, and such instantdecisions, but by the principle of that predisposition which only waitsfor an occasion to declare itself. 

Abundant facts exhibit genius unequivocally discovering itself in youth. In general, perhaps, a master-mind exhibits precocity. "Whatever a youngman at first applies himself to, is commonly his delight afterwards. " Thisremark was made by HARTLEY, who has related an anecdote of the infancy ofhis genius, which indicated the manhood. He declared to his daughter thatthe intention of writing a book upon the nature of man, was conceived inhis mind when he was a very little boy--when swinging backwards andforwards upon a gate, not more than nine or ten years old; he was thenmeditating upon the nature of his own mind, how man was made, and for whatfuture end. Such was the true origin, in a boy of ten years old, of hiscelebrated book on "The Frame, the Duty, and the Expectation of Man. " JOHNHUNTER conceived his notion of the principle of life, which to his lastday formed the subject of his inquiries and experiments, when he was veryyoung; for at that period of life, Mr. Abernethy tells us, he began hisobservations on the incubated egg, which suggested or corroborated hisopinions. 

A learned friend, and an observer of men of science, has supplied me witha remark highly deserving notice. It is an observation that will generallyhold good, that the most important systems of theory, however late theymay be published, have been formed at a very early period of life. Thisimportant observation may be verified by some striking facts. A mostcurious one will be found in Lord BACON'S letter to Father Fulgentio, where he gives an account of his projecting his philosophy thirty yearsbefore, during his youth. MILTON from early youth mused on the compositionof an epic. DE THOU has himself told us, that from his tender youth hismind was full of the idea of composing a history of his own times; and hiswhole life was passed in preparation, and in a continued accession ofmaterials for a future period. From the age of twenty, MONTESQUIEU waspreparing the materials of _L'Esprit des Loix_, by extracts from theimmense volumes of civil law. TILLEMONT'S vast labours were traced out inhis mind at the early age of nineteen, on reading Baronius; and some ofthe finest passages in RACINE'S tragedies were composed while a pupil, wandering in the woods of the Port-Royal. So true is it that the seeds ofmany of our great literary and scientific works were lying, for many yearsantecedent to their being given to the world, in a latent state ofgermination. [A]

[Footnote A: I need not to be reminded, that I am not worth mentioningamong the illustrious men who have long formed the familiar subjects of mydelightful researches. But with the middling as well as with the great, the same habits must operate. Early in life, I was struck by the inductivephilosophy of Bacon, and sought after a Moral Experimental Philosophy; andI had then in my mind an observation of Lord Bolingbroke's, for I see Iquoted it thirty years ago, that "Abstract or general propositions, thoughnever so true, appear obscure or doubtful to us very often till they areexplained by examples. " So far back as in 1793 I published "A Dissertationon Anecdotes, " with the simplicity of a young votary; there I deducedresults, and threw out a magnificent project not very practicable. Fromthat time to the hour I am now writing, my metal has been running in thismould, and I still keep casting philosophy into anecdotes, and anecdotesinto philosophy. As I began I fear I shall end. ]

The predisposition of genius has declared itself in painters and poets, who were such before they understood the nature of colours and the arts ofverse; and this vehement propensity, so mysteriously constitutional, maybe traced in other intellectual characters besides those which belong tothe class of imagination. It was said that PITT was _born_ a minister; thelate Dr. SHAW I always considered as one _born_ a naturalist, and I know agreat literary antiquary who seems to me to have been also _born_ such;for the passion of _curiosity_ is as intense a faculty, or instinct, withsome casts of mind, as is that of _invention_ with poets and painters: Iconfess that to me it is _genius_ in a form in which genius has not yetbeen suspected to appear. One of the biographers of Sir HANS SLOANEexpresses himself in this manner:--"Our author's _thirst_ for knowledgeseems to have been _born_ with him, so that his _Cabinet of Rarities_ maybe said to have commenced with _his being_. " This strange metaphoricalstyle has only confused an obscure truth. SLOANE, early in life, felt anirresistible impulse which inspired him with the most enlarged views ofthe productions of nature, and he exulted in their accomplishment; for inhis will he has solemnly recorded, that his collections were the fruits ofhis early devotion, _having had from my youth a strong inclination to thestudy of plants and all other productions of nature_. The vehement passionof PEIRESC for knowledge, according to accounts which Gassendi receivedfrom old men who had known him as a child, broke out as soon as he hadbeen taught his alphabet; for then his delight was to be handling booksand papers, and his perpetual inquiries after their contents obligedthem to invent something to quiet the child's insatiable curiosity, who was hurt when told that he had not the capacity to understand them. Hedid not study as an ordinary scholar, for he never read but withperpetual researches. At ten years of age, his passion for the studies ofantiquity was kindled at the sight of some ancient coins dug up in hisneighbourhood; then that vehement passion for knowledge "began to burnlike fire in a forest, " as Gassendi happily describes the fervour andamplitude of the mind of this man of vast learning. Bayle, who was anexperienced judge in the history of genius, observes on two friars, one ofwhom was haunted by a strong disposition to _genealogical_, and the otherto _geographical_ pursuits, that, "let a man do what he will, if natureincline us to certain things, there is no preventing the gratification ofour desire, though it lies hid under a monk's frock. " It is not, therefore, as the world is apt to imagine, only poets and painters forwhom is reserved this restless and impetuous propensity for theirparticular pursuits; I claim it for the man of science as well as for theman of imagination. And I confess that I consider this strong bent of themind in men eminent in pursuits in which imagination is little concerned, and whom men of genius have chosen to remove so far from their class, asanother gifted aptitude. They, too, share in the glorious fever of genius, and we feel how just was the expression formerly used, of "their _thirst_for knowledge. "

But to return to the men of genius who answer more strictly to the popularnotion of inventors. We have BOCCACCIO'S own words for a proof of hisearly natural tendency to tale-writing, in a passage of his genealogy ofthe gods:--"Before seven years of age, when as yet I had met with nostories, was without a master, and hardly knew my letters, I had a naturaltalent for fiction, and produced some little tales. " Thus the "Decamerone"was appearing much earlier than we suppose. DESCARTES, while yet a boy, indulged such habits of deep meditation, that he was nicknamed by hiscompanions "The Philosopher, " always questioning, and ever settling thecause and the effect. He was twenty-five years of age before he left thearmy, but the propensity for meditation had been early formed; and he hashimself given an account of the pursuits which occupied his youth, and ofthe progress of his genius; of the secret struggle which he so longmaintained with his own mind, wandering in concealment over the world formore than twenty years, and, as he says of himself, like the statuarylabouring to draw out a Minerva from the marble block. MICHAEL ANGELO, asyet a child, wherever he went, busied himself in drawing; and when hisnoble parents, hurt that a man of genius was disturbing the line of theirancestry, forced him to relinquish the pencil, the infant artist flew tothe chisel: the art which was in his soul would not allow of idle hands. LOPE DE VEGA, VELASQUEZ, ARIOSTO, and TASSO, are all said to have betrayedat their school-tasks the most marked indications of their subsequentcharacteristics. 

This decision of the impulse of genius is apparent in MURILLO. This youngartist was undistinguished at the place of his birth. A brother artistreturning home from London, where he had studied under Van Dyk, surprisedMURILLO by a chaste, and to him hitherto unknown, manner. Instantly heconceived the project of quitting his native Seville and flying to Italy--the fever of genius broke forth with all its restlessness. But he wasdestitute of the most ordinary means to pursue a journey, and forced to anexpedient, he purchased a piece of canvas, which dividing into parts, hepainted on each figures of saints, landscapes, and flowers--an humblemerchandise of art adapted to the taste and devout feelings of the times, and which were readily sold to the adventurers to the Indies. With thesesmall means he departed, having communicated his project to no one exceptto a beloved sister, whose tears could not prevail to keep the lad athome; the impetuous impulse had blinded him to the perils and theimpracticability of his wild project. He reached Madrid, where the greatVELASQUEZ, his countryman, was struck by the ingenuous simplicity of theyouth, who urgently requested letters for Rome; but when that noble geniusunderstood the purport of this romantic journey, VELASQUEZ assured himthat he need not proceed to Italy to learn the art he loved. The greatmaster opened the royal galleries to the youth, and cherished his studies. MURILLO returned to his native city, where, from his obscurity, he hadnever been missed, having ever lived a retired life of silent labour; butthis painter of nature returned to make the city which had not noticed hisabsence the theatre of his glory. 

The same imperious impulse drove CALLOT, at the age of twelve years, fromhis father's roof. His parents, from prejudices of birth, had conceivedthat the art of engraving was one beneath the studies of their son; butthe boy had listened to stories of the miracles of Italian art, and with acuriosity predominant over any self-consideration, one morning the geniusflew away. Many days had not elapsed, when finding himself in the utmostdistress, with a gang of gipsies he arrived at Florence. A merchant ofNancy discovered him, and returned the reluctant boy of genius to hishome. Again he flies to Italy, and again his brother discovers him, andreconducts him to his parents. The father, whose patience and forgivenesswere now exhausted, permitted his son to become the most original geniusof French art--one who, in his vivacious groups, the touch of his graver, and the natural expression of his figures, anticipated the creations ofHogarth. 

Facts of this decisive character are abundant. See the boy NANTEUIL bidinghimself in a tree to pursue the delightful exercise of his pencil, whilehis parents are averse to their son practising his young art! SeeHANDEL, intended for a doctor of the civil laws, and whom no parentaldiscouragement could deprive of his enthusiasm, for ever touchingharpsichords, and having secretly conveyed a musical instrument to aretired apartment, listen to him when, sitting through the night, heawakens his harmonious spirit! Observe FERGUSON, the child of a peasant, acquiring the art of reading without any one suspecting it, by listeningto his father teaching his brother; observe him making a wooden watchwithout the slightest knowledge of mechanism; and while a shepherd, studying, like an ancient Chaldean, the phenomena of the heavens, on acelestial globe formed by his own hand. That great mechanic, SMEATON, whena child, disdained the ordinary playthings of his age; he collected thetools of workmen, observed them at their work, and asked questions till hecould work himself. One day, having watched some millwrights, the childwas shortly after, to the distress of the family, discovered in asituation of extreme danger, fixing up at the top of a barn a rudewindmill. Many circumstances of this nature occurred before his sixthyear. His father, an attorney, sent him up to London to be brought up tothe same profession; but he declared that "the study of the law did notsuit the _bent of his genius_"--a term he frequently used. He addressed astrong memorial to his father, to show his utter incompetency to studylaw; and the good sense of the father abandoned Smeaton "to the bent ofhis genius in his own way. " Such is the history of the man who raised theEddystone Lighthouse, in the midst of the waves, like the rock on which itstands. 

Can we hesitate to believe that in such minds there was a resistless andmysterious propensity, "growing with the growth" of these youths, who seemto have been placed out of the influence of that casual excitement, or anyother of those sources of genius, so frequently assigned for itsproduction?

Yet these cases are not more striking than one related of the Abbé LACAILLE, who ranked among the first astronomers of the age. La Caille wasthe son of the parish clerk of a village. At the age of ten years hisfather sent him every evening to ring the church bell, but the boy alwaysreturned home late: his father was angry, and beat him, and still the boyreturned an hour after he had rung the bell. The father, suspectingsomething mysterious in his conduct, one evening watched him. He saw hisson ascend the steeple, ring the bell as usual, and remain there during anhour. When the unlucky boy descended, he trembled like one caught in thefact, and on his knees confessed that the pleasure he took in watching thestars from the steeple was the real cause which detained him from home. Asthe father was not born to be an astronomer, he flogged his son severely. The youth was found weeping in the streets by a man of science, who, whenhe discovered in a boy of ten years of age a passion for contemplatingthe stars at night, and one, too, who had discovered an observatoryin a steeple, decided that the seal of Nature had impressed itselfon the genius of that boy. Relieving the parent from the son, and the sonfrom the parent, he assisted the young LA CAILLE in his passionatepursuit, and the event completely justified the prediction. How childrenfeel a predisposition for the studies of astronomy, or mechanics, orarchitecture, or natural history, is that secret in nature we have notguessed. There may be a virgin thought as well as a virgin habit--naturebefore education--which first opens the mind, and ever afterwards isshaping its tender folds. Accidents may occur to call it forth, butthousands of youths have found themselves in parallel situations withSMEATON, FERGUSON, and LA CAILLE, without experiencing their energies. 

The case of CLAIRON, the great French tragic actress, who seems to havebeen an actress before she saw a theatre, deserves attention. This female, destined to be a sublime tragedian, was of the lowest extraction; thedaughter of a violent and illiterate woman, who, with blows and menaces, was driving about the child all day to manual labour. "I know not, " saysClairon, "whence I derive my disgust, but I could not bear the idea to bea mere workwoman, or to remain inactive in a corner. " In her eleventhyear, being locked up in a room as a punishment, with the windowsfastened, she climbed upon a chair to look about her. A new objectinstantly absorbed her attention. In the house opposite she observed acelebrated actress amidst her family; her daughter was performing herdancing lesson: the girl Clairon, the future Melpomene, was struck by theinfluence of this graceful and affectionate scene. "All my little beingcollected itself into my eyes; I lost not a single motion; as soon as thelesson ended, all the family applauded, and the mother embraced thedaughter. The difference of her fate and mine filled me with profoundgrief; my tears hindered me from seeing any longer, and when thepalpitations of my heart allowed me to re-ascend the chair, all haddisappeared. " This scene was a discovery; from that moment Clairon knew norest, and rejoiced when she could get her mother to confine her in thatroom. The happy girl was a divinity to the unhappy one, whose susceptiblegenius imitated her in every gesture and every motion; and Clairon soonshowed the effect of her ardent studies. She betrayed in the commonintercourse of life, all the graces she had taught herself; she charmedher friends, and even softened her barbarous mother; in a word, theenthusiastic girl was an actress without knowing what an actress was. 

In this case of the youth of genius, are we to conclude that theaccidental view of a young actress practising her studies imparted thecharacter of Clairon? Could a mere chance occurrence have given birth tothose faculties which produced a sublime tragedian? In all arts there aretalents which may be acquired by imitation and reflection, --and thus farmay genius be educated; but there are others which are entirely the resultof native sensibility, which often secretly torment the possessor, andwhich may even be lost from the want of development, dissolved into astate of languor from which many have not recovered. Clairon, before shesaw the young actress, and having yet no conception of a theatre--for shehad never entered one--had in her soul that latent faculty which creates adramatic genius. "Had I not felt like Dido, " she once exclaimed, "I couldnot have thus personified her!"

The force of impressions received in the warm susceptibility of thechildhood of genius, is probably little known to us; but we may perceivethem also working in the _moral character_, which frequently discoversitself in childhood, and which manhood cannot always conceal, however itmay alter. The intellectual and the moral character are unquestionablyclosely allied. ERASMUS acquaints us, that Sir THOMAS MORE had somethingludicrous in his aspect, tending to a smile, --a feature which hisportraits preserve; and that he was more inclined to pleasantry andjesting, than to the gravity of the chancellor. This circumstance heimputes to Sir Thomas More "being from a child so delighted with humour, that he seemed to be even born for it. " And we know that he died as he hadlived, with a jest on his lips. The hero, who came at length to regretthat he had but one world to conquer, betrayed the majesty of his restlessgenius when but a youth. Had Aristotle been nigh when, solicited to joinin the course, the princely boy replied, that "He would run in no careerwhere kings were not the competitors, " the prescient tutor might haverecognised in his pupil the future and successful rival of Darius andPorus. 

A narrative of the earliest years of Prince Henry, by one of hisattendants, forms an authentic collection of juvenile anecdotes, whichmade me feel very forcibly that there are some children who deserve tohave a biographer at their side; but anecdotes of children are the rarestof biographies, and I deemed it a singular piece of good fortune to haverecovered such a remarkable evidence of the precocity of character. [A]Professor Dugald Stewart has noticed a fact in ARNAULD'S infancy, which, considered in connexion with his subsequent life, affords a goodillustration of the force of impressions received in the first dawn ofreason. ARNAULD, who, to his eightieth year, passed through a life oftheological controversy, when a child, amusing himself in the library ofthe Cardinal Du Perron, requested to have a pen given to him. "For whatpurpose?" inquired the cardinal. "To write books, like you, against theHuguenots. " The cardinal, then aged and infirm, could not conceal his joyat the prospect of so hopeful a successor; and placing the pen in hishand, said, "I give it you as the dying shepherd, Damcetas, bequeathed hispipe to the little Corydon. " Other children might have asked for a pen--but to write against the Huguenots evinced a deeper feeling and a widerassociation of ideas, indicating the future polemic. 

[Footnote A: I have preserved this manuscript narrative in "Curiosities ofLiterature, " vol. Ii. ]

Some of these facts, we conceive, afford decisive evidence of thatinstinct in genius, that primary quality of mind, sometimes calledorganization, which has inflamed a war of words by an equivocal term. Werepeat that this faculty of genius can exist independent of education, andwhere it is wanting, education can never confer it: it is an impulse, aninstinct always working in the character of "the chosen mind;"

 One with our feelings and our powers, And rather part of us, than ours. 

In the history of genius there are unquestionably many secondary causes ofconsiderable influence in developing, or even crushing the germ--thesehave been of late often detected, and sometimes carried to a ridiculousextreme; but among them none seem more remarkable than the first studiesand the first habits. 

CHAPTER VI. 

The first studies. --The self-educated are marked by stubbornpeculiarities. --Their errors. --Their improvement from the neglect orcontempt they incur. --The history of self-education in Moses Mendelssohn. --Friends usually prejudicial in the youth of genius. --A remarkableinterview between Petrarch in his first studies, and his literaryadviser. --Exhortation. 

The first studies form an epoch in the history of genius, andunquestionably have sensibly influenced its productions. Often have thefirst impressions stamped a character on the mind adapted to receive one, as the first step into life has often determined its walk. But this, forourselves, is a far distant period in our existence, which is lost in thehorizon of our own recollections, and is usually unobserved by others. Many of those peculiarities of men of genius which are not fortunate, andsome which have hardened the character in its mould, may, however, betraced to this period. Physicians tell us that there is a certain point inyouth at which the constitution is formed, and on which the sanity of liferevolves; the character of genius experiences a similar dangerous period. Early bad tastes, early peculiar habits, early defective instructions, allthe egotistical pride of an untamed intellect, are those evil spiritswhich will dog genius to its grave. An early attachment to the works ofSir Thomas Browne produced in JOHNSON an excessive admiration of thatLatinised English, which violated the native graces of the language; andthe peculiar style of Gibbon is traced by himself "to the constant habitof speaking one language, and writing another. " The first studies ofREMBRANDT affected his after-labours. The peculiarity of shadow whichmarks all his pictures, originated in the circumstance of his father'smill receiving light from an aperture at the top, which habituated theartist afterwards to view all objects as if seen in that magical light. The intellectual POUSSIN, as Nicholas has been called, could never, froman early devotion to the fine statues of antiquity, extricate his geniuson the canvas from the hard forms of marble: he sculptured with hispencil; and that cold austerity of tone, still more remarkable in his lastpictures, as it became mannered, chills the spectator on a first glance. When POPE was a child, he found in his mother's closet a small library ofmystical devotion; but it was not suspected, till the fact was discovered, that the effusions of love and religion poured forth in his "Eloisa" werecaught from the seraphic raptures of those erotic mystics, who to the lastretained a place in his library among the classical bards of antiquity. The accidental perusal of Quintus Curtius first made BOYLE, to use his ownwords, "in love with other than pedantic books, and conjured up in him anunsatisfied appetite of knowledge; so that he thought he owed more toQuintus Curtius than did Alexander. " From the perusal of Rycaut's folio ofTurkish history in childhood, the noble and impassioned bard of our timesretained those indelible impressions which gave life and motion to the"Giaour, " "the Corsair, " and "Alp. " A voyage to the country produced thescenery. Rycaut only communicated the impulse to a mind susceptible of thepoetical character; and without this Turkish history we should still havehad the poet. [A]

[Footnote A: The following manuscript note by Lord Byron on this passage, cannot fail to interest the lovers of poetry, as well as the inquirersinto the history of the human mind. His lordship's recollections of hisfirst readings will not alter the tendency of my conjecture; it onlyproves that he had read much more of Eastern history and manners thanRycaut's folio, which probably led to this class of books:

"Knolles--Cantemir--De Tott--Lady M. W. Montagu--Hawkins's translation fromMignot's History of the Turks--the Arabian Nights--all travels orhistories or books upon the East I could meet with, I had read, as well asRycaut, before I was _ten years old_. I think the Arabian Nights first. After these I preferred the history of naval actions, Don Quixote, andSmollett's novels, particularly Roderick Random, and I was passionate forthe Roman History. 

"When a boy I could never bear to read any poetry whatever withoutdisgust and reluctance. "--_MS. Note by Lord Byron. _ Latterly Lord Byronacknowledged in a conversation held in Greece with Count Gamba, not longbefore he died, "The Turkish History was one of the first books that gaveme pleasure when a child; and I believe it had much influence on mysubsequent wishes to visit the Levant; and gave perhaps the Orientalcolouring which is observed in my poetry. "

I omitted the following note in my last edition, but I shall now preserveit, as it may enter into the history of his lordship's character:

"When I was in Turkey I was oftener tempted to turn Mussulman than poet, and have often regretted since that I did not. 1818. "]

The influence of first studies in the formation of the character of geniusis a moral phenomenon which has not sufficiently attracted our notice. FRANKLIN acquaints us that, when young and wanting books, he accidentallyfound De Foe's "Essay on Projects, " from which work impressions werederived which afterwards influenced some of the principal events of hislife. The lectures of REYNOLDS probably originated in the essays ofRichardson. It is acknowledged that these first made him a painter, andnot long afterwards an author; and it is said that many of the principlesin his lectures may be traced in those first studies. Many were theindelible and glowing impressions caught by the ardent Reynolds from thosebewildering pages of enthusiasm! Sir WALTER RAWLEIGH, according to afamily tradition, when a young man, was perpetually reading and conversingon the discoveries of Columbus, and the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro. His character, as well as the great events of his life, seem to have beeninspired by his favourite histories; to pass beyond the discoveries of theSpaniards became a passion, and the vision of his life. It is formallytestified that, from a copy of Vegetius _de Re Militari_, in the schoollibrary of St. Paul's, MARLBOROUGH imbibed his passion for a militarylife. If he could not understand the text, the prints were, in such amind, sufficient to awaken the passion for military glory. ROUSSEAU inearly youth, full of his Plutarch, while he was also devouring the trashof romances, could only conceive human nature in the colossal forms, or beaffected by the infirm sensibility of an imagination mastering all hisfaculties; thinking like a Roman, and feeling like a Sybarite. The samecircumstance happened to CATHERINE MACAULEY, who herself has told us howshe owed the bent of her character to the early reading of the Romanhistorians; but combining Roman admiration with English faction, sheviolated truth in English characters, and exaggerated romance in herRoman. But the permanent effect of a solitary bias in the youth of genius, impelling the whole current of his after-life, is strikingly displayed inthe remarkable character of Archdeacon BLACKBURNE, the author of thefamous "Confessional, " and the curious "Memoirs of Hollis, " written withsuch a republican fierceness. 

I had long considered the character of our archdeacon as a _lususpoliticus et theologicus_. Having subscribed to the Articles, and enjoyingthe archdeaconry, he was writing against subscription and the wholehierarchy, with a spirit so irascible and caustic, that one would havesuspected that, like Prynne and Bastwick, the archdeacon had already lostboth his ears; while his antipathy to monarchy might have done honour to aRoundhead of the Rota Club. The secret of these volcanic explosions wasonly revealed in a letter accidentally preserved. In the youth of ourspirited archdeacon, when fox-hunting was his deepest study, it happenedat the house of a relation, that on a rainy day he fell, among othergarret lumber, on some worm-eaten volumes which had once been the carefulcollections of his great-grandfather, an Oliverian justice. "These, " sayshe, "I conveyed to my lodging-room, and there became acquainted with themanners and principles of many excellent old Puritans, and then laid thefoundation of my own. " The enigma is now solved! Archdeacon BLACKBURNE, inhis seclusion in Yorkshire amidst the Oliverian justice's library, showsthat we are in want of a Cervantes but not of a Quixote, and Yorkshiremight yet be as renowned a country as La Mancha; for political romances, it is presumed, may be as fertile of ridicule as any of the folios ofchivalry. 

We may thus mark the influence through life of those first unobservedimpressions on the character of genius, which every author has notrecorded. 

Education, however indispensable in a cultivated age, produces nothing onthe side of genius. Where education ends, genius often begins. GRAY wasasked if he recollected when he first felt the strong predilection topoetry; he replied that, "he believed it was when he began to read Virgilfor his own amusement, and not in school hours as a task. " Such is theforce of self-education in genius, that the celebrated physiologist, JOHNHUNTER, who was entirely self-educated, evinced such penetration in hisanatomical discoveries, that he has brought into notice passages fromwriters he was unable to read, and which had been overlooked by profoundscholars. [A]

[Footnote A: Life of John Hunter, by Dr. Adams, p. 59, where the case iscuriously illustrated. [The writer therein defends Hunter from a charge ofplagiarism from the Greek writers, who had studied accurately certainphases of disease, which had afterwards been "overlooked by the mostprofound scholars for nearly two thousand years, " until John Hunter by hisown close observation had assumed similar conclusions. ]]

That the education of genius must be its own work, we may appeal to everyone of the family. It is not always fortunate, for many die amidst a wasteof talents and the wreck of mind. 

 Many a soul sublime Has felt the influence of malignant star. 

An unfavourable position in society is a usual obstruction in thecourse of this self-education; and a man of genius, through half hislife, has held a contest with a bad, or with no education. There is a raceof the late-taught, who, with a capacity of leading in the firstrank, are mortified to discover themselves only on a level with theircontemporaries. WINCKELMANN, who passed his youth in obscure misery as avillage schoolmaster, paints feelings which strikingly contrast with hisavocations. "I formerly filled the office of a schoolmaster with thegreatest punctuality; and I taught the A, B, C, to children with filthyheads, at the moment I was aspiring after the knowledge of the beautiful, and meditating, low to myself, on the similes of Homer; then I said tomyself, as I still say, 'Peace, my soul, thy strength shall surmount thycares. '" The obstructions of so unhappy a self-education essentiallyinjured his ardent genius, and long he secretly sorrowed at this want ofearly patronage, and these habits of life so discordant with the habits ofhis mind. "I am unfortunately one of those whom the Greeks named [Greek:opsimatheis], _sero sapientes_, the late-learned, for I have appeared toolate in the world and in Italy. To have done something, it was necessarythat I should have had an education analogous to my pursuits, and at yourage. " This class of the _late-learned_ is a useful distinction. It is sowith a sister-art; one of the greatest musicians of our country assuresme that the ear is as latent with many; there are the late-learned evenin the musical world. BUDÆUS declared that he was both "self-taught andlate-taught. "

The SELF-EDUCATED are marked by stubborn peculiarities. Often aboundingwith talent, but rarely with talent in its place, their native prodigalityhas to dread a plethora of genius and a delirium of wit: or else, hard butirregular students rich in acquisition, they find how their huddledknowledge, like corn heaped in a granary, for want of ventilation andstirring, perishes in its own masses. Not having attended to the processof their own minds, and little acquainted with that of other men, theycannot throw out their intractable knowledge, nor with sympathy awaken byits softening touches the thoughts of others. To conduct their nativeimpulse, which had all along driven them, is a secret not alwaysdiscovered, or else discovered late in life. Hence it has happened withsome of this race, that their first work has not announced genius, andtheir last is stamped with it. Some are often judged by their firstwork, and when they have surpassed themselves, it is long ere it isacknowledged. They have improved themselves by the very neglect or evencontempt which their unfortunate efforts were doomed to meet; and whenonce they have learned what is beautiful, they discover a living butunsuspected source in their own wild but unregarded originality. Gloryingin their strength at the time that they are betraying their weakness, yetare they still mighty in that enthusiasm which is only disciplined by itsown fierce habits. Never can the native faculty of genius with itscreative warmth be crushed out of the human soul; it will work itself outbeneath the encumbrance of the most uncultivated minds, even amidst thedeep perplexed feelings and the tumultuous thoughts of the most visionaryenthusiast, who is often only a man of genius misplaced. [A] We may find awhole race of these self-taught among the unknown writers of the oldromances, and the ancient ballads of European nations; there sleep many aHomer and Virgil--legitimate heirs of their genius, though possessors ofdecayed estates. BUNYAN is the Spenser of the people. The fire burnedtowards Heaven, although the altar was rude and rustic. 

[Footnote A: "One assertion I will venture to make, as suggested by my ownexperience, that there exist folios on the human understanding and thenature of man which would have a far juster claim to their high rank andcelebrity, if in the whole huge volume there could be found as muchfulness of heart and intellect as burst forth in many a simple page ofGeorge Fox and Jacob Behmen. "--_Mr. Coleridge's Biographia Litteraria_, i. 143. ]

BARRY, the painter, has left behind him works not to be turned over bythe connoisseur by rote, nor the artist who dares not be just. Thatenthusiast, with a temper of mind resembling Rousseau's, but with coarserfeelings, was the same creature of untamed imagination consumed bythe same passions, with the same fine intellect disordered, and thesame fortitude of soul; but he found his self-taught pen, like hispencil, betray his genius. [B] A vehement enthusiasm breaks through hisill-composed works, throwing the sparks of his bold conceptions into thesoul of the youth of genius. When, in his character of professor, hedelivered his lectures at the academy, at every pause his auditors rose ina tumult, and at every close their hands returned to him the proudfeelings he adored. This gifted but self-educated man, once listening tothe children of genius whom he had created about him, exclaimed, "Go it, go it, my boys! they did so at Athens. " This self-formed genius couldthrow up his native mud into the very heaven of his invention!

[Footnote B: Like Hogarth, when he attempted to engrave his own works, hisoriginality of style made them differ from the tamer and more mechanicallabours of the professional engraver. They have consequently less beauty, but greater vigour. --ED. ]

But even such pages as those of BARRY'S are the aliment of young genius. Before we can discern the beautiful, must we not be endowed with thesusceptibility of love? Must not the disposition be formed before even theobject appears? I have witnessed the young artist of genius glow and startover the reveries of the uneducated BARRY, but pause and meditate, andinquire over the mature elegance of REYNOLDS; in the one he caught thepassion for beauty, and in the other he discovered the beautiful; with theone he was warm and restless, and with the other calm and satisfied. 

Of the difficulties overcome in the self-education of genius, we have aremarkable instance in the character of MOSES MENDELSSOHN, on whomliterary Germany has bestowed the honourable title of "the JewishSocrates. "[A] So great apparently were the invincible obstructions whichbarred out Mendelssohn from the world of literature and philosophy, that, in the history of men of genius, it is something like taking in thehistory of man the savage of Aveyron from his woods--who, destitute of ahuman language, should at length create a model of eloquence; who, withoutthe faculty of conceiving a figure, should at length be capable of addingto the demonstrations of Euclid; and who, without a complex idea and withfew sensations, should at length, in the sublimest strain of metaphysics, open to the world a new view of the immortality of the soul!

[Footnote A: I composed the life of MENDELSSOHN so far back as in 1798, ina periodical publication, whence our late biographers have drawn theirnotices; a juvenile production, which happened to excite the attention ofthe late BARRY, then not personally known to me; and he gave all theimmortality his poetical pencil could bestow on this man of genius, byimmediately placing in his Elysium of Genius MENDELSSOHN shaking handswith ADDISON, who wrote on the truth of the Christian religion, and nearLOCKE, the English master of MENDELSSOHN'S mind. ]

Mendelssohn, the son of a poor rabbin, in a village in Germany, receivedan education completely rabbinical, and its nature must be comprehended, or the term of _education_ would be misunderstood. The Israelites inPoland and Germany live with all the restrictions of their ceremonial lawin an insulated state, and are not always instructed in the language ofthe country of their birth. They employ for their common intercourse abarbarous or _patois_ Hebrew; while the sole studies of the young rabbinsare strictly confined to the Talmud, of which the fundamental principle, like the Sonna of the Turks, is a pious rejection of every species ofprofane learning. This ancient jealous spirit, which walls in theunderstanding and the faith of man, was to shut out what the imitativeCatholics afterwards called heresy. It is, then, these numerous folios ofthe Talmud which the true Hebraic student contemplates through all theseasons of life, as the Patuecos in their low valley imagine theirsurrounding mountains to be the confines of the universe. 

Of such a nature was the plan of Mendelssohn's first studies; but even inhis boyhood this conflict of study occasioned an agitation of his spirits, which affected his life ever after. Rejecting the Talmudical dreamers, hecaught a nobler spirit from the celebrated Maimonides; and his nativesagacity was already clearing up the surrounding darkness. An enemy notless hostile to the enlargement of mind than voluminous legends, presenteditself in the indigence of his father, who was compelled to send away theyouth on foot to Berlin, to find labour and bread. 

At Berlin, Mendelssohn becomes an amanuensis to another poor rabbin, whocould only still initiate him into the theology, the jurisprudence, andthe scholastic philosophy of his people. Thus, he was as yet no fartheradvanced in that philosophy of the mind in which he was one day to be therival of Plato and Locke, nor in that knowledge of literature which wasfinally to place him among the first polished critics of Germany. 

Some unexpected event occurs which gives the first great impulse to themind of genius. Mendelssohn received this from the companion of his miseryand his studies, a man of congenial but maturer powers. He was a PolishJew, expelled from the communion of the orthodox, and the calumniatedstudent was now a vagrant, with more sensibility than fortitude. But thisvagrant was a philosopher, a poet, a naturalist, and a mathematician. Mendelssohn, at a distant day, never alluded to him without tears. Throwntogether into the same situation, they approached each other by the samesympathies, and communicating in the only language which Mendelssohn couldspeak, the Polander voluntarily undertook his literary education. 

Then was seen one of the most extraordinary spectacles in the history ofmodern literature. Two houseless Hebrew youths might be discovered, in themoonlit streets of Berlin, sitting in retired corners, or on the steps ofsome porch, the one instructing the other, with a Euclid in his hand; butwhat is more extraordinary, it was a Hebrew version, composed by themaster for a pupil who knew no other language. Who could then haveimagined that the future Plato of Germany was sitting on those steps!

The Polander, whose deep melancholy had settled on his heart, died--yet hehad not lived in vain, since the electric spark that lighted up the soulof Mendelssohn had fallen from his own. 

Mendelssohn was now left alone; his mind teeming with its chaos, and stillmaster of no other language than that barren idiom which was incapable ofexpressing the ideas he was meditating on. He had scarcely made a stepinto the philosophy of his age, and the genius of Mendelssohn had probablybeen lost to Germany, had not the singularity of his studies and the castof his mind been detected by the sagacity of Dr. Kisch. The aid of thisphysician was momentous; for he devoted several hours every day to theinstruction of a poor youth, whose strong capacity he had the discernmentto perceive, and the generous temper to aid. Mendelssohn was soon enabledto read Locke in a Latin version; but with such extreme pain, that, compelled to search for every word, and to arrange their Latin order, andat the same time to combine metaphysical ideas, it was observed that hedid not so much translate, as guess by the force of meditation. 

This prodigious effort of his intellect retarded his progress, butinvigorated his habit, as the racer, by running against the hill, atlength courses with facility. 

A succeeding effort was to master the living languages, and chiefly theEnglish, that he might read his favourite Locke in his own idiom. Thus agreat genius for metaphysics and languages was forming itself alone, without aid. 

It is curious to detect, in the character of genius, the effects of localand moral influences. There resulted from Mendelssohn's early situationcertain defects in his Jewish education, and numerous impediments in hisstudies. Inheriting but one language, too obsolete and naked to serve thepurposes of modern philosophy, he perhaps overvalued his new acquisitions, and in his delight of knowing many languages, he with difficulty escapedfrom remaining a mere philologist; while in his philosophy, having adoptedthe prevailing principles of Wolf and Baumgarten, his genius was longwithout the courage or the skill to emancipate itself from their rustychains. It was more than a step which had brought him into their circle, but a step was yet wanting to escape from it. 

At length the mind of Mendelssohn enlarged in literary intercourse: hebecame a great and original thinker in many beautiful speculations inmoral and critical philosophy; while he had gradually been creating astyle which the critics of Germany have declared to be their firstluminous model of precision and elegance. Thus a Hebrew vagrant, firstperplexed in the voluminous labyrinth of Judaical learning, in his middleage oppressed by indigence and malady, and in his mature life wrestlingwith that commercial station whence he derived his humble independence, became one of the master-writers in the literature of his country. Thehistory of the mind of Mendelssohn is one of the noblest pictures of theself-education of genius. 

Friends, whose prudential counsels in the business of life are valuable inour youth, are usually prejudicial in the youth of genius. The multitudeof authors and artists originates in the ignorant admiration of theirearly friends; while the real genius has often been disconcerted andthrown into despair by the false judgments of his domestic circle. Theproductions of taste are more unfortunate than those which depend on achain of reasoning, or the detail of facts; these are more palpable to thecommon judgments of men; but taste is of such rarity, that a long life maybe passed by some without once obtaining a familiar acquaintance with amind so cultivated by knowledge, so tried by experience, and so practisedby converse with the literary world, that its prophetic feeling cananticipate the public opinion. When a young writer's first essay is shown, some, through mere inability of censure, see nothing but beauties; others, from mere imbecility, can see none; and others, out of pure malice, seenothing but faults. "I was soon disgusted, " says Gibbon, "with the modestpractice of reading the manuscript to my friends. Of such friends somewill praise for politeness, and some will criticise for vanity. " Hadseveral of our first writers set their fortunes on the cast of theirfriends' opinions, we might have lost some precious compositions. The friends of Thompson discovered nothing but faults in his earlyproductions, one of which happened to be his noblest, the "Winter;" theyjust could discern that these abounded with luxuriances, without beingaware that, they were the luxuriances of a poet. He had created a newschool in art--and appealed from his circle to the public. From amanuscript letter of our poet's, written when employed on his "Summer, " Itranscribe his sentiments on his former literary friends in Scotland--heis writing to Mallet: "Far from defending these two lines, I damn them tothe lowest depth of the poetical Tophet, prepared of old for Mitchell, Morrice, Rook, Cook, Beckingham, and a long &c. Wherever I have evidence, or think I have evidence, which is the same thing, I'll be as obstinate asall the mules in Persia. " This poet of warm affections felt so irritablythe perverse criticisms of his learned friends, that they were to sharealike a poetic Hell--probably a sort of _Dunciad_, or lampoons. One ofthese "blasts" broke out in a vindictive epigram on Mitchell, whom hedescribes with a "blasted eye;" but this critic literally having one, thepoet, to avoid a personal reflection, could only consent to make theblemish more active--

 Why all not faults, injurious Mitchell! why Appears one beauty to thy _blasting_ eye?

He again calls him "the planet-blasted Mitchell. " Of another of thesecritical friends he speaks with more sedateness, but with a strongconviction that the critic, a very sensible man, had no sympathy with thepoet. "Aikman's reflections on my writings are very good, but he does notin them regard the turn of my genius enough; should I alter my way, Iwould write poorly. I must choose what appears to me the most significantepithet, or I cannot with any heart proceed. " The "Mirror, "[A] whenperiodically published in Edinburgh, was "fastidiously" received, as all"home-productions" are: but London avenged the cause of the author. WhenSWIFT introduced PARNELL to Lord Bolingbroke, and to the world, heobserves, in his Journal, "it is pleasant to see one who hardly passed foranything in Ireland, make his way here with a little friendly forwarding. "MONTAIGNE has honestly told us that in his own province they consideredthat for him to attempt to become an author was perfectly ludicrous: athome, says he, "I am compelled to purchase printers; while at a distance, printers purchase me. " There is nothing more trying to the judgment of thefriends of a young man of genius than the invention of a new manner:without a standard to appeal to, without bladders to swim, the ordinarycritic sinks into irretrievable distress; but usually pronounces againstnovelty. When REYNOLDS returned from Italy, warm with all the excellenceof his art, and painted a portrait, his old master, Hudson, viewing it, and perceiving no trace of his own manner, exclaimed that he did not paintso well as when he left England; while another, who conceived no higherexcellence than Kneller, treated with signal contempt the future Raphaelof England. 

[Footnote A: This weekly journal was chiefly supported by the abilities ofthe rising young men of the Scottish Bar. Henry Mackenzie, the author ofthe "Man of Feeling, " was the principal contributor. The publication wascommenced in January, 1779, and concluded May, 1790. --ED. ]

If it be dangerous for a young writer to resign himself to the opinions ofhis friends, he also incurs some peril in passing them with inattention. He wants a Quintilian. One mode to obtain such an invaluable critic is thecultivation of his own judgment in a round of reading and meditation. Lethim at once supply the marble and be himself the sculptor: let thegreat authors of the world be his gospels, and the best critics theirexpounders; from the one he will draw inspiration, and from the others hewill supply those tardy discoveries in art which he who solely depends onhis own experience may obtain too late. Those who do not read criticismwill rarely merit to be criticised; their progress is like those whotravel without a map of the country. The more extensive an author'sknowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his powers in knowingwhat to do. To obtain originality, and effect discovery, sometimesrequires but a single step, if we only know from what point to setforwards. This important event in the life of genius has too oftendepended on chance and good fortune, and many have gone down to theirgraves without having discovered their unsuspected talent. CURRAN'Spredominant faculty was an exuberance of imagination when excited bypassion; but when young he gave no evidence of this peculiar faculty, norfor several years, while a candidate for public distinction, was he awareof his particular powers, so slowly his imagination had developed itself. It was when assured of the secret of his strength that his confidence, hisambition, and his industry were excited. 

Let the youth preserve his juvenile compositions, whatever these may be;they are the spontaneous growth, and like the plants of the Alps, notalways found in other soils; they are his virgin fancies. By contemplatingthem, he may detect some of his predominant habits, resume a former mannermore happily, invent novelty from an old subject he had rudely designed, and often may steal from himself some inventive touches, which, throwninto his most finished compositions, may seem a happiness rather than anart. It was in contemplating on some of their earliest and unfinishedproductions, that more than one artist discovered with WEST that "therewere inventive touches of art in his first and juvenile essay, which, withall his subsequent knowledge and experience, he had not been able tosurpass. " A young writer, in the progress of his studies, should oftenrecollect a fanciful simile of Dryden--

 As those who unripe veins in mines explore On the rich bed again the warm turf lay, Till time digests the yet imperfect ore; And know it will be gold another day. 

The youth of genius is that "age of admiration" as sings the poet of"Human Life, " when the spell breathed into our ear by our genius, fortunate or unfortunate, is--"Aspire!" Then we adore art and the artists. It was RICHARDSON'S enthusiasm which gave REYNOLDS the raptures he caughtin meditating on the description of a great painter; and REYNOLDS thoughtRAPHAEL the most extraordinary man the world had ever produced. WEST, whena youth, exclaimed that "A painter is a companion for kings and emperors!"This was the feeling which rendered the thoughts of obscurity painful andinsupportable to their young minds. 

But this sunshine of rapture is not always spread over the spring of theyouthful year. There is a season of self-contest, a period of tremors, anddoubts, and darkness. These frequent returns of melancholy, sometimes ofdespondence, which is the lot of inexperienced genius, is a secret historyof the heart, which has been finely conveyed to us by Petrarch, in aconversation with John of Florence, to whom the young poet often resortedwhen dejected, to reanimate his failing powers, to confess his faults, andto confide to him his dark and wavering resolves. It was a question withPetrarch, whether he should not turn away from the pursuit of literaryfame, by giving another direction to his life. 

"I went one day to John of Florence in one of those ague-fits offaint-heartedness which often happened to me; he received me with hisaccustomed kindness. 'What ails you?' said he, 'you seem oppressed withthought: if I am not deceived, something has happened to you. ' 'You do notdeceive yourself, my father (for thus I used to call him), and yet nothingnewly has happened to me; but I come to confide to you that my oldmelancholy torments me more than usual. You know its nature, for my hearthas always been opened to you; you know all which I have done to drawmyself out of the crowd, and to acquire a name; and surely not withoutsome success, since I have your testimony in my favour. Are you not thetruest man, and the best of critics, who have never ceased to bestow on meyour praise--and what need I more? Have you not often told me that I amanswerable to God for the talents he has endowed me with, if I neglectedto cultivate them? Your praises were to me as a sharp spur: I appliedmyself to study with more ardour, insatiable even of my moments. Disdaining the beaten paths, I opened a new road; and I flattered myselfthat assiduous labour would lead to something great; but I know not how, when I thought myself highest, I feel myself fallen; the spring of my mindhas dried up; what seemed easy once, now appears to me above my strength;I stumble at every step, and am ready to sink for ever into despair. Ireturn to you to teach me, or at least advise me. Shall I for ever quit mystudies? Shall I strike into some new course of life? My father, have pityon me! draw me out of the frightful state in which I am lost. ' I couldproceed no farther without shedding tears. 'Cease to afflict yourself, myson, ' said that good man; 'your condition is not so bad as you think: thetruth is, you knew little at the time you imagined you knew much. Thediscovery of your ignorance is the first great step you have made towardstrue knowledge. The veil is lifted up, and you now view those deep shadesof the soul which were concealed from you by excessive presumption. Inascending an elevated spot, we gradually discover many things whoseexistence before was not suspected by us. Persevere in the career whichyou entered with my advice; feel confident that God will not abandon you:there are maladies which the patient does not perceive; but to be aware ofthe disease, is the first step towards the cure. '"

This remarkable literary interview is here given, that it may perchancemeet the eye of some kindred youth at one of those lonely moments when aShakspeare may have thought himself no poet, and a Raphael believedhimself no painter. Then may the tender wisdom of a John of Florence, inthe cloudy despondency of art, lighten up the vision of its glory!

INGENUOUS YOUTH! if, in a constant perusal of the master-writers, you seeyour own sentiments anticipated--if, in the tumult of your mind, as itcomes in contact with theirs, new sentiments arise--if, sometimes, lookingon the public favourite of the hour, you feel that within which promptsyou to imagine that you could rival or surpass him--if, in meditatingon the confessions of every man of genius, for they all have theirconfessions, you find you have experienced the same sensations from thesame circumstances, encountered the same difficulties and overcome them bythe same means; then let not your courage be lost in your admiration, butlisten to that "still small voice" in your heart which cries withCORREGGIO and with MONTESQUIEU, "Ed io anche son pittore!"

CHAPTER VII. 

Of the irritability of genius. --Genius in society often in a state ofsuffering. --Equality of temper more prevalent among men of letters. --Ofthe occupation of making a great name. --Anxieties of the most successful. --Of the inventors. --Writers of learning. --Writers of taste. --Artists. 

The modes of life of a man of genius, often tinctured by eccentricity andenthusiasm, maintain an eternal conflict with the monotonous and imitativehabits of society, as society is carried on in a great metropolis, wheremen are necessarily alike, and where, in perpetual intercourse, they shapethemselves to one another. 

The occupations, the amusements, and the ardour of the man of genius areat discord with the artificial habits of life: in the vortexes ofbusiness, or the world of pleasure, crowds of human beings are onlytreading in one another's steps. The pleasures and the sorrows of thisactive multitude are not his, while his are not obvious to them; and hisfavourite occupations strengthen his peculiarities, and increase hissensibility. Genius in society is often in a state of suffering. Professional characters, who are themselves so often literary, yielding totheir predominant interests, conform to that assumed urbanity which levelsthem with ordinary minds; but the man of genius cannot leave himselfbehind in the cabinet he quits; the train of his thoughts is not stoppedat will, and in the range of conversation the habits of his mind willprevail: the poet will sometimes muse till he modulates a verse; theartist is sketching what a moment presents, and a moment changes; thephilosophical historian is suddenly absorbed by a new combination ofthought, and, placing his hands over his eyes, is thrown back into theMiddle Ages. Thus it happens that an excited imagination, a high-tonedfeeling, a wandering reverie, a restlessness of temper, are perpetuallycarrying the man of genius out of the processional line of the mereconversationists. Like all solitary beings, he is much too sentient, andprepares for defence even at a random touch or a chance hit. Hisgeneralising views take things only in masses, while in his rapid emotionshe interrogates, and doubts, and is caustic; in a word, he thinks heconverses while he is at his studies. Sometimes, apparently a complacentlistener, we are mortified by detecting the absent man: now he appearshumbled and spiritless, ruminating over some failure which probably may beonly known to himself; and now haughty and hardy for a triumph he hasobtained, which yet remains a secret to the world. No man is so apt toindulge the extremes of the most opposite feelings: he is sometimesinsolent, and sometimes querulous; now the soul of tenderness andtranquillity, --then stung by jealousy, or writhing in aversion! A fevershakes his spirit; a fever which has sometimes generated a disease, andhas even produced a slight perturbation of the faculties. [A] In one ofthose manuscript notes by Lord BYRON on this work, which I have wished topreserve, I find his lordship observing on the feelings of genius, that"the depreciation of the lowest of mankind is more painful than theapplause of the highest is pleasing. " Such is the confession of genius, and such its liability to hourly pain. 

[Footnote A: I have given a history of _literary quarrels from personalmotives_, in "Quarrels of Authors, " p. 529. There we find how manycontroversies, in which the public get involved, have sprung from somesudden squabbles, some neglect of petty civility, some unlucky epithet, orsome casual observation dropped without much consideration, whichmortified or enraged the _genus irritabile_; a title which from ancientdays has been assigned to every description of authors. The late Dr. WELLS, who had some experience in his intercourse with many literarycharacters, observed, that "in whatever regards the fruits of their mentallabours, this is universally acknowledged to be true. Some of themalevolent passions indeed frequently become in learned men more thanordinarily strong, from want of that restraint upon their excitement whichsociety imposes. " A puerile critic has reproached me for having drawn mydescription entirely from my own fancy:--I have taken it from life!See further symptoms of this disease at the close of the chapter on_Self-praise_ in the present work. ]

Once we were nearly receiving from the hand of genius the most curioussketches of the temper, the irascible humours, the delicacy of soul, evento its shadowiness, from the warm _sbozzos_ of BURNS, when he began adiary of the heart, --a narrative of characters and events, and achronology of his emotions. It was natural for such a creature ofsensation and passion to project such a regular task, but quite impossiblefor him to get through it. The paper-book that he conceived would haverecorded all these things turns out, therefore, but a very imperfectdocument. Imperfect as it was, it has been thought proper not to give itentire. Yet there we view a warm original mind, when he first steppedinto the polished circles of society, discovering that he could nolonger "pour out his bosom, his every thought and floating fancy, his veryinmost soul, with unreserved confidence to another, without hazard oflosing part of that respect which man deserves from man; or, from theunavoidable imperfections attending human nature, of one day repenting hisconfidence. " This was the first lesson he learned at Edinburgh, and it wasas a substitute for such a human being that he bought a paper-book to keepunder lock and key: "a security at least equal, " says he, "to the bosom ofany friend whatever. " Let the man of genius pause over the fragments ofthis "paper-book;"--it will instruct as much as any open confession of acriminal at the moment he is about to suffer. No man was more afflictedwith that miserable pride, the infirmity of men of imagination, which isso jealously alive, even among their best friends, as to exact a perpetualacknowledgment of their powers. Our poet, with all his gratitude andveneration for "the noble Glencairn, " was "wounded to the soul" becausehis lordship showed "so much attention, engrossing attention, to the onlyblockhead at table; the whole company consisted of his lordship, Dunderpate, and myself. " This Dunderpate, who dined with Lord Glencairn, might have been a useful citizen, who in some points is of more value thanan irritable bard. Burns was equally offended with another patron, who wasalso a literary brother, Dr. Blair. At the moment, he too appeared to beneglecting the irritable poet "for the mere carcass of greatness, or whenhis eye measured the difference of their point of elevation; I say tomyself, with scarcely any emotion, " (he might have added, except a gooddeal of painful contempt, ) "what do I care for him or his pomp either?"--"Dr. Blair's vanity is proverbially known among his acquaintance, " addsBurns, at the moment that the solitary haughtiness of his own genius hadentirely escaped his self-observation. 

This character of genius is not singular. Grimm tells of MARIVAUX, thatthough a good man, there was something dark and suspicious in hischaracter, which made it difficult to keep on terms with him; the mostinnocent word would wound him, and he was always inclined to think thatthere was an intention to mortify him; this disposition made him unhappy, and rendered his acquaintance too painful to endure. 

What a moral paradox, but what an unquestionable fact, is the waywardirritability of some of the finest geniuses, which is often weak toeffeminacy, and capricious to childishness! while minds of a less delicatetexture are not frayed and fretted by casual frictions; and plain sensewith a coarser grain, is sufficient to keep down these aberrations oftheir feelings. How mortifying is the list of--

 Fears of the brave and follies of the wise!

Many have been sore and implacable on an allusion to some personal defect--on the obscurity of their birth--on some peculiarity of habit; and havesuffered themselves to be governed in life by nervous whims and chimeras, equally fantastic and trivial. This morbid sensibility lurks in thetemperament of genius, and the infection is often discovered where it isnot always suspected. Cumberland declared that the sensibility of some menof genius is so quick and captious, that you must first consider whom theycan be happy with, before you can promise yourself any happiness withthem: if you bring uncongenial humours into contact with each other, allthe objects of society will be frustrated by inattention to the propergrouping of the guests. Look round on our contemporaries; every dayfurnishes facts which confirm our principle. Among the vexations of POPEwas the libel of "the pictured shape;"[A] and even the robust mind ofJOHNSON could not suffer to be exhibited as "blinking Sam. "[B] MILTON musthave delighted in contemplating his own person; and the engraver nothaving reached our sublime bard's ideal grace, he has pointed hisindignation in four iambics. The praise of a skipping ape raised thefeeling of envy in that child of nature and genius, GOLDSMITH. VOITURE, the son of a vintner, like our PRIOR, was so mortified whenever remindedof his original occupation, that it was bitterly said, that wine, whichcheered the hearts of all men, sickened the heart of Voiture. AKENSIDEever considered his lameness as an unsupportable misfortune, for itcontinually reminded him of the fall of the cleaver from one of hisfather's blocks. BECCARIA, invited to Paris by the literati, arrivedmelancholy and silent, and abruptly returned home. At that moment thisgreat man was most miserable from a fit of jealousy: a young female hadextinguished all his philosophy. The poet ROUSSEAU was the son of acobbler; and when his honest parent waited at the door of the theatre toembrace his son on the success of his first piece, genius, whosesensibility is not always virtuous, repulsed the venerable father withinsult and contempt. But I will no longer proceed from folly to crime. 

[Footnote A: He was represented as an ill-made monkey in the frontispieceto a satire noted in "Quarrels of Authors, " p. 286 (last edition). --ED. ]

[Footnote B: Johnson was displeased at the portrait Reynolds painted ofhim which dwelt on his nearsightedness; declaring that "a man's defectsshould never be painted. " The same defect was made the subject of acaricature particularly allusive to critical prejudices in his "Lives ofthe Poets, " in which he is pictured as an owl "blinking at the stars. "--ED. ]

Those who give so many sensations to others must themselves possess anexcess and a variety of feelings. We find, indeed, that they are censuredfor their extreme irritability; and that happy equality of temper soprevalent among MEN OF LETTERS, and which is conveniently acquired by menof the world, has been usually refused to great mental powers, or tofervid dispositions--authors and artists. The man of wit becomes petulant, the profound thinker morose, and the vivacious ridiculously thoughtless. 

When ROUSSEAU once retired to a village, he had to learn to endure itsconversation; for this purpose he was compelled to invent an expedient toget rid of his uneasy sensations. "Alone, I have never known ennui, even when perfectly unoccupied: my imagination, filling the void, wassufficient to busy me. It is only the inactive chit-chat of the room, whenevery one is seated face to face, and only moving their tongues, which Inever could support. There to be a fixture, nailed with one hand on theother, to settle the state of the weather, or watch the flies aboutone, or, what is worse, to be bandying compliments, this to me is notbearable. " He hit on the expedient of making lace-strings, carrying hisworking cushion in his visits, to keep the peace with the country gossips. 

Is the occupation of making a great name less anxious and precarious thanthat of making a great fortune? the progress of a man's capital isunequivocal to him, but that of the fame of authors and artists is for thegreater part of their lives of an ambiguous nature. They become whateverthe minds or knowledge of others make them; they are the creatures of theprejudices and the predispositions of others, and must suffer from thoseprecipitate judgments which are the result of such prejudices and suchpredispositions. Time only is the certain friend of literary worth, fortime makes the world disagree among themselves; and when those who condemndiscover that there are others who approve, the weaker party loses itselfin the stronger, and at length they learn that the author was far morereasonable than their prejudices had allowed them to conceive. It is thus, however, that the regard which men of genius find in one place they losein another. We may often smile at the local gradations of genius; thefervid esteem in which an author is held here, and the cold indifference, if not contempt, he encounters in another place; here the man of learningis condemned as a heavy drone, and there the man of wit annoys the unwittylistener. 

And are not the anxieties of even the most successful men of geniusrenewed at every work--often quitted in despair, often returned to withrapture? the same agitation of the spirits, the same poignant delight, thesame weariness, the same dissatisfaction, the same querulous languishmentafter excellence? Is the man of genius an INVENTOR? the discovery iscontested, or it is not comprehended for ten years after, perhaps notduring his whole life; even men of science are as children before him. SirThomas Bodley wrote to Lord Bacon, remonstrating with him on his _new modeof philosophising_. It seems the fate of all originality of thinking to beimmediately opposed; a contemporary is not prepared for its comprehension, and too often cautiously avoids it, from the prudential motive which turnsaway from a new and solitary path. BACON was not at all understood at homein his own day; his reputation--for it was not celebrity--was confined tohis history of Henry VII. , and his Essays; it was long after his deathbefore English writers ventured to quote Bacon as an authority; and withequal simplicity and grandeur, BACON called himself "the servant ofposterity. " MONTESQUIEU gave his _Esprit des Loix_ to be read by that manin France, whom he conceived to be the best judge, and in return receivedthe most mortifying remarks. The great philosopher exclaimed in despair, "I see my own age is not ripe enough to understand my work; however, itshall be published!" When KEPLER published the first rational work oncomets, it was condemned, even by the learned, as a wild dream. COPERNICUSso much dreaded the prejudice of mankind against his treatise on "TheRevolutions of the Heavenly Bodies, " that, by a species of continence ofall others most difficult to a philosopher, says Adam Smith, he detainedit in his closet for thirty years together. LINNÆUS once in despairabandoned his beloved studies, from a too irritable feeling of theridicule in which, as it appeared to him, a professor Siegesbeck hadinvolved his famous system. Penury, neglect, and labour LINNÆUS couldendure, but that his botany should become the object of ridicule for allStockholm, shook the nerves of this great inventor in his science. Let himspeak for himself. "No one cared how many sleepless nights and toilsomehours I had passed, while all with one voice declared, that Siegesbeck hadannihilated me. I took my leave of Flora, who bestows on me nothing butSiegesbecks; and condemned my too numerous observations a thousand timesover to eternal oblivion. What a fool have I been to waste so much time, to spend my days in a study which yields no better fruit, and makes me thelaughing stock of the world. " Such are the cries of the irritability ofgenius, and such are often the causes. The world was in danger of losing anew science, had not LINNÆUS returned to the discoveries which he hadforsaken in the madness of the mind! The great SYDENHAM, who, like ourHARVEY and our HUNTER, effected a revolution in the science of medicine, and led on alone by the independence of his genius, attacked the mostprevailing prejudices, so highly provoked the malignant emulation of hisrivals, that a conspiracy was raised against the father of our modernpractice to banish him out of the college, as "guilty of medical heresy. "JOHN HUNTER was a great discoverer in his own science; but one who wellknew him has told us, that few of his contemporaries perceived theultimate object of his pursuits; and his strong and solitary geniuslaboured to perfect his designs without the solace of sympathy, withoutone cheering approbation. "We bees do not provide honey for ourselves, "exclaimed VAN HELMONT, when worn out by the toils of chemistry, and stillcontemplating, amidst tribulation and persecution, and approaching death, his "Tree of Life, " which he imagined he had discovered in the cedar. Butwith a sublime melancholy his spirit breaks out; "My mind breathes someunheard-of thing within; though I, as unprofitable for this life, shall beburied!" Such were the mighty but indistinct anticipations of thisvisionary inventor, the father of modern chemistry!

I cannot quit this short record of the fates of the inventors in science, without adverting to another cause of that irritability of genius which isso closely connected with their pursuits. If we look into the history oftheories, we shall be surprised at the vast number which have "not left arack behind. " And do we suppose that the inventors themselves were not attimes alarmed by secret doubts of their soundness and stability? Theyfelt, too often for their repose, that the noble architecture which theyhad raised might be built on moveable sands, and be found only in the dustof libraries; a cloudy day, or a fit of indigestion, would deprive aninventor of his theory all at once; and as one of them said, "afterdinner, all that I have written in the morning appears to me dark, incongruous, nonsensical. " At such moments we should find this man ofgenius in no pleasant mood. The true cause of this nervous state cannot, nay, must not, be confided to the world: the honour of his darling theorywill always be dearer to his pride than the confession of even slightdoubts which may shake its truth. It is a curious fact which we havebut recently discovered, that ROUSSEAU was disturbed by a terror heexperienced, and which we well know was not unfounded, that his theoriesof education were false and absurd. He could not endure to read a page inhis own "Emile"[A] without disgust after the work had been published! Heacknowledged that there were more suffrages against his notions than forthem. "I am not displeased, " says he, "with myself on the style andeloquence, but I still dread that my writings are good for nothing at thebottom, and that all my theories are full of extravagance. " [_Je crainstoujours que je pèche par le fond, et que tous mes systèmes ne sont quedes extravagances. _] HARTLEY with his "Vibrations and Vibrationeles, "LEIBNITZ with his "Monads, " CUDWORTH with his "Plastic Natures, "MALEBRANCHE with his paradoxical doctrine of "Seeing all things in God, "and BURNET with his heretical "Theory of the Earth, " must unquestionablyat times have betrayed an irritability which those about them may haveattributed to temper, rather than to genius. 

[Footnote A: In a letter by Hume to Blair, written in 1766, apparentlyfirst published in the _Literary Gazette_, Nov. 17, 1821. ]

Is our man of genius--not the victim of fancy, but the slave of truth--alearned author? Of the living waters of human knowledge it cannot be saidthat "If a man drink thereof, he shall never thirst again. " What volumesremain to open! what manuscript but makes his heart palpitate! There is noterm in researches which new facts may not alter, and a single date maynot dissolve. Truth! thou fascinating, but severe mistress, thy adorersare often broken down in thy servitude, performing a thousand unregardedtask-works! Now winding thee through thy labyrinth with a single thread, often unravelling--now feeling their way in darkness, doubtful if it bethyself they are touching. How much of the real labour of genius anderudition must remain concealed from the world, and never be reached bytheir penetration! MONTESQUIEU has described this feeling after its agony:"I thought I should have killed myself these three months to finish a_morceau_ (for his great work), which I wished to insert, on the originand revolutions of the civil laws in France. You will read it in threehours; but I do assure you that it cost me so much labour that it haswhitened my hair. " Mr. Hallam, stopping to admire the genius of GIBBON, exclaims, "In this, as in many other places, the masterly boldness andprecision of his outline, which astonish those who have trodden parts ofthe same field, is apt to escape an uninformed reader. " Thrice has mylearned friend, SHARON TURNER, recomposed, with renewed researches, thehistory of our ancestors, of which Milton and Hume had despaired--thrice, amidst the self-contests of ill-health and professional duties!

The man of erudition in closing his elaborate work is still exposed to thefatal omissions of wearied vigilance, or the accidental knowledge of someinferior mind, and always to the reigning taste, whatever it chance to be, of the public. Burnet criticised VARILLAS unsparingly;[A] but when hewrote history himself, Harmer's "Specimen of Errors in Burnet's History, "returned Burnet the pangs which he had inflicted on another. NEWTON'Sfavourite work was his "Chronology, " which he had written over fifteentimes, yet he desisted from its publication during his life-time, from theill-usage of which he complained. Even the "Optics" of Newton had nocharacter at home till noticed in France. The calm temper of our greatphilosopher was of so fearful a nature in regard to criticism, thatWhiston declares that he would not publish his attack on the "Chronology, "lest it might have killed our philosopher; and thus Bishop STILLINGFLEET'Send was hastened by LOCKE's confutation of his metaphysics. The feelingsof Sir JOHN MARSHAM could hardly be less irritable when he found his greatwork tainted by an accusation that it was not friendly to revelation. [B]When the learned POCOCK published a specimen of his translation ofAbulpharagias, an Arabian historian, in 1649, it excited great interest;but in 1663, when he gave the world the complete version, it met with noencouragement: in the course of those thirteen years, the genius of thetimes had changed, and Oriental studies were no longer in request. 

[Footnote A: For an account of this work, and Burnet's _exposé_ of it, see"Curiosities of Literature, " vol. I. P. 132. --ED. ]

[Footnote B: This great work the _Canon Chronicus_, was published in 1672, and was the first attempt to make the Egyptian chronology clear andintelligible, and to reconcile the whole to the Scripture chronology; alabour he had commenced in _Diatriba Chronologica_, published in 1649. --ED. ]

The great VERULAM profoundly felt the retardment of his fame; for he haspathetically expressed this sentiment in his testament, where he bequeathshis name to posterity, AFTER SOME GENERATIONS SHALL BE past. BRUCE sunkinto his grave defrauded of that just fame which his pride and vivacityperhaps too keenly prized, at least for his happiness, and which heauthoritatively exacted from an unwilling public. Mortified and indignantat the reception of his great labour by the cold-hearted scepticism oflittle minds, and the maliciousness of idling wits, he, whose fortitudehad toiled through a life of difficulty and danger, could not endure thelaugh and scorn of public opinion; for BRUCE there was a simoon moredreadful than the Arabian, and from which genius cannot hide its head. YetBRUCE only met with the fate which MARCO POLO had before encountered;whose faithful narrative had been contemned by his contemporaries, and whowas long thrown aside among legendary writers. [A]

[Footnote A: His stories of the wealth and population of China, which hedescribed as consisting of _millions_ obtained for him the nickname of_Marco Milione_ among the Venetians and other small Italian states, whowere unable to comprehend the greatness of his truthful narratives ofEastern travel. Upon his death-bed he was adjured by his friends toretract his statements, which he indignantly refused. It was long afterere his truthfulness was established by other travellers; the Venetianpopulace gave his house the name _La Corte di Milioni_: and a vulgarcaricature of the great traveller was always introduced in theircarnivals, who was termed _Marco Milione_; and delighted them with themost absurd stories, in, which everything was computed by millions. --ED. ]

HARVEY, though his life was prolonged to his eightieth year, hardly livedto see his great discovery of the circulation of the blood established: nophysician adopted it; and when at length it was received, one partyattempted to rob Harvey of the honour of the discovery, while anotherasserted that it was so obvious, that they could only express theirastonishment that it had ever escaped observation. Incredulity and envyare the evil spirits which have often dogged great inventors to theirtomb, and there only have vanished. --But I seem writing the "calamities ofauthors, " and have only begun the catalogue. 

The reputation of a writer of taste is subject to more difficulties thanany other. Similar was the fate of the finest ode-writers in our poetry. On their publication, the odes of COLLINS could find no readers; and thoseof GRAY, though ushered into the reading world by the fashionable press ofWalpole, were condemned as failures. When RACINE produced his "Athalie, "it was not at all relished: Boileau indeed declared that he understoodthese matters better than the public, and prophesied that the public wouldreturn to it: they did so; but it was sixty years afterwards; and Racinedied without suspecting that "Athalie" was his masterpiece. I have heardone of our great poets regret that he had devoted so much of his life tothe cultivation of his art, which arose from a project made in the goldenvision of his youth: "at a time, " said he, "when I thought that thefountain could never be dried up. "--"Your baggage will reach posterity, "was observed. --"There is much to spare, " was the answer. 

Every day we may observe, of a work of genius, that those parts which haveall the raciness of the soil, and as such are most liked by its admirers, are those which are the most criticised. Modest critics shelter themselvesunder that general amnesty too freely granted, that tastes are allowed todiffer; but we should approximate much nearer to the truth, if we were tosay, that but few of mankind are prepared to relish the beautiful withthat enlarged taste which comprehends all the forms of feeling whichgenius may assume; forms which may be necessarily associated with defects. A man of genius composes in a state of intellectual emotion, and the magicof his style consists in the movements of his soul; but the art ofconveying those movements is far separated from the feeling which inspiresthem. The idea in the mind is not always found under the pen, any morethan the artist's conception can always breathe in his pencil. LikeFIAMINGO'S image, which he kept polishing till his friend exclaimed, "Whatperfection would you have?"--"Alas!" exclaimed the sculptor, "the originalI am labouring to come up to is in my head, but not yet in my hand. "

The writer toils, and repeatedly toils, to throw into our minds thatsympathy with which we hang over the illusion of his pages, and becomehimself. ARIOSTO wrote sixteen different ways the celebrated stanzadescriptive of a tempest, as appears by his MSS. At Ferrara; and theversion he preferred was the last of the sixteen. We know that PETRARCHmade forty-four alterations of a single verse: "whether for the thought, the expression, or the harmony, it is evident that as many operations inthe heart, the head, or the ear of the poet occurred, " observes a man ofgenius, Ugo Foscolo. Quintilian and Horace dread the over-fondness of anauthor for his compositions: alteration is not always improvement. Apicture over-finished fails in its effect. If the hand of the artistcannot leave it, how much beauty may it undo! yet still he is lingering, still strengthening the weak, still subduing the daring, still searchingfor that single idea which awakens so many in the minds of others, whileoften, as it once happened, the dash of despair hangs the foam on thehorse's nostrils. I have known a great sculptor, who for twenty yearsdelighted himself with forming in his mind the nymph his hand was alwayscreating. How rapturously he beheld her! what inspiration! what illusion!Alas! the last five years spoiled the beautiful which he had once reached, and could not stop and finish!

The art of composition, indeed, is of such slow attainment, that a man ofgenius, late in life, may discover how its secret conceals itself in thehabit; how discipline consists in exercise, how perfection comes fromexperience, and how unity is the last effort of judgment. When Foxmeditated on a history which should last with the language, he met hisevil genius in this new province. The rapidity and the fire of hiselocution were extinguished by a pen unconsecrated by long and previousstudy; he saw that he could not class with the great historians of everygreat people; he complained, while he mourned over the fragment of geniuswhich, after such zealous preparation, he dared not complete. CURRAN, anorator of vehement eloquence, often strikingly original, when late in lifehe was desirous of cultivating literary composition, unaccustomed to itsmore gradual march, found a pen cold, and destitute of every grace. ROUSSEAU has glowingly described the ceaseless inquietude by which heobtained the seductive eloquence of his style; and has said, that withwhatever talent a man may be born, the art of writing is not easilyobtained. The existing manuscripts of ROUSSEAU display as many erasures asthose of Ariosto or Petrarch; they show his eagerness to dash down hisfirst thoughts, and the art by which he raised them to the impassionedstyle of his imagination. The memoir of GIBBON was composed seven or ninetimes, and, after all, was left unfinished; and BUFFON tells us that hewrote his "Epoques de la Nature" eighteen times before it satisfied histaste. BURNS'S anxiety in finishing his poems was great; "all my poetry, "said he, "is the effect of easy composition, but of laborious correction. "

POPE, when employed on the _Iliad_, found it not only occupy his thoughtsby day, but haunting his dreams by night, and once wished himself hanged, to get rid of Homer: and that he experienced often such literary agonies, witness his description of the depressions and elevations of genius:

 Who pants for glory, finds but short repose; A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows!

When ROMNEY undertook to commence the first subject for the ShakspeareGallery, in the rapture of enthusiasm, amidst the sublime and patheticlabouring in his whole mind, arose the terror of failure. The subjectchosen was "The Tempest;" and, as Hayley truly observes, it created many atempest in the fluctuating spirits of Romney. The vehement desire of thatperfection which genius conceives, and cannot always execute, held aperpetual contest with that dejection of spirits which degrades theunhappy sufferer, and casts him, grovelling among the mean of his class. In a national work, a man of genius pledges his honour to the world forits performance; but to redeem that pledge, there is a darkness in theuncertain issue, and he is risking his honour for ever. By that work hewill always be judged, for public failures are never forgotten, and it isnot then a party, but the public itself, who become his adversaries. WithROMNEY it was "a fever of the mad;" and his friends could scarcely inspirehim with sufficient courage to proceed with his arduous picture, whichexercised his imagination and his pencil for several years. I have heardthat he built a painting-room purposely for this picture; and never did ananchorite pour fourth a more fervent orison to Heaven, than Romney whenthis labour was complete. He had a fine genius, with all its solitaryfeelings, but he was uneducated, and incompetent even to write a letter;yet on this occasion, relieved from his intense anxiety under so long awork, he wrote one of the most eloquent. It is a document in the historyof genius, and reveals all those feelings which are here too faintlydescribed. [A] I once heard an amiable author, whose literary career hasperhaps not answered the fond hopes of his youth, half in anger and inlove, declare that he would retire to some solitude, where, if anyone would follow him, he would found a new order--the order of THEDISAPPOINTED. 

[Footnote A: "My DEAR FRIEND, --Your kindness in rejoicing so heartily atthe birth of my picture has given me great satisfaction. 

"There has been an anxiety labouring in my mind the greater part of thelast twelvemonth. At times it had nearly overwhelmed me. I thought Ishould absolutely have sunk into despair. O! what a kind friend is inthose times! I thank God, whatever my picture may be, I can say thus much, I am a greater philosopher and a better Christian. "]

Thus the days of a man of genius are passed in labours as unremitting andexhausting as those of the artisan. The world is not always aware, that tosome, meditation, composition, and even conversation, may inflict painsundetected by the eye and the tenderness of friendship. Whenever ROUSSEAUpassed a morning in society, it was observed, that in the evening he wasdissatisfied and distressed; and JOHN HUNTER, in a mixed company, foundthat conversation fatigued, instead of amusing him. HAWKESWORTH, in thesecond paper of the "Adventurer, " has drawn, from his own feelings, aneloquent comparative estimate of intellectual with corporeal labour; itmay console the humble mechanic; and Plato, in his work on "Laws, " seemsto have been aware of this analogy, for he consecrates all working men orartisans to Vulcan and Minerva, because both those deities alike are hardlabourers. Yet with genius all does not terminate, even with the mostskilful labour. What the toiling Vulcan and the thoughtful Minerva maywant, will too often be absent--the presence of the Graces. In theallegorical picture of the School of Design, by Carlo Maratti, where thestudents are led through their various studies, in the opening cloudsabove the academy are seen the Graces, hovering over their pupils, with aninscription they must often recollect--_Senza di noi ogni fatica è vana_. 

The anxious uncertainty of an author for his compositions resembles theanxiety of a lover when he has written to a mistress who has not yetdecided on his claims; he repents his labour, for he thinks he has writtentoo much, while he is mortified at recollecting that he had omitted somethings which he imagines would have secured the object of his wishes. Madame DE STAEL, who has often entered into feelings familiar to aliterary and political family, in a parallel between ambition and genius, has distinguished them in this; that while "ambition _perseveres_ in thedesire of acquiring power, genius _flags_ of itself. Genius in the midstof society is a pain, an internal fever which would require to be treatedas a real disease, if the records of glory did not soften the sufferingsit produces. "--"Athenians! what troubles have you not cost me, " exclaimedDEMOSTHENES, "that I may be talked of by you!"

These moments of anxiety often darken the brightest hours of genius. RACINE had extreme sensibility; the pain inflicted by a severe criticismoutweighed all the applause he received. He seems to have felt, what hewas often reproached with, that his Greeks, his Jews, and his Turks, wereall inmates of Versailles. He had two critics, who, like our Dennis withPope and Addison, regularly dogged his pieces as they appeared[A]. Corneille's objections he would attribute to jealousy--at his pieces whenburlesqued at the Italian theatre[B] he would smile outwardly, though sickat heart; but his son informs us, that a stroke of raillery from his wittyfriend Chapelle, whose pleasantry hardly sheathed its bitterness, sunkmore deeply into his heart than the burlesques at the Italian theatre, theprotest of Corneille, and the iteration of the two Dennises. More thanonce MOLIERE and Racine, in vexation of spirit, resolved to abandon theirdramatic career; it was BOILEAU who ceaselessly animated their languor:"Posterity, " he cried, "will avenge the injustice of our age!" AndCONGREVE'S comedies met with such moderate success, that it appears theauthor was extremely mortified, and on the ill reception of _The Way ofthe World_, determined to write no more for the stage. When he toldVoltaire, on the French wit's visit, that Voltaire must consider him as aprivate gentleman, and not as an author, --which apparent affectationcalled down on Congreve the sarcastic severity of the French author, [C]--more of mortification and humility might have been in Congreve'slanguage than of affectation or pride. 

[Footnote A: See the article "On the Influence of a bad temper inCriticism" in "Calamities of Authors, " for a notice of Dennis and hiscareer. --ED. ]

[Footnote B: See the article on "The Sensibility of Racine" in "LiteraryMiscellanies, " (in the present volume) and that on "Parody, " in"Curiosities of Literature, " vol. Ii. P. 459. --ED. ]

[Footnote C: Voltaire quietly said he should not have troubled himself tovisit him if he had been merely a private gentleman. --ED. ]

The life of TASSO abounds with pictures of a complete exhaustion of thiskind. His contradictory critics had perplexed him with the most intricateliterary discussions, and either occasioned or increased a mentalalienation. In one of his letters, we find that he repents the compositionof his great poem, for although his own taste approved of that marvellous, which still forms a noble part of its creation, yet he confesses that hiscold reasoning critics have decided that the history of his hero, Godfrey, required another species of conduct. "Hence, " cries the unhappy bard, "doubts torment me; but for the past, and what is done, I know of noremedy;" and he longs to precipitate the publication, that "he may bedelivered from misery and agony. " He solemnly swears--"Did not thecircumstances of my situation compel me, I would not print it, evenperhaps during my life, I so much doubt of its success. " Such was thepainful state of fear and doubt experienced by the author of the"Jerusalem Delivered, " when he gave it to the world; a state of suspense, among the children of imagination, in which none are more liable toparticipate than the true sensitive artist. We may now inspect the severecorrection of Tasso's muse, in the fac-simile of a page of his manuscriptsin Mr. Dibdin's late "Tour. " She seems to have inflicted tortures on hispen, surpassing even those which may be seen in the fac-simile page which, thirty years ago, I gave of Pope's Homer. [A] At Florence may still beviewed the many works begun and abandoned by the genius of MICHAEL ANGELO;they are preserved inviolate--"so sacred is the terror of Michael Angelo'sgenius!" exclaims Forsyth. These works are not always to be considered asfailures of the chisel; they appear rather to have been rejected forcoming short of the artist's first conceptions: yet, in a strainof sublime poetry, he has preserved his sentiments on the force ofintellectual labour; he thought that there was nothing which theimagination conceived, that could not be made visible in marble, if thehand were made to obey the mind:--

 Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto, Ch' un marmo solo in se non circoseriva Col suo soverchio, e solo a quello arriva La man che obbedisce all' intelletto. 

 IMITATED. 

 The sculptor never yet conceived a thought That yielding marble has refused to aid; But never with a mastery he wrought-- Save when the hand the intellect obeyed. 

[Footnote A: It now forms the frontispiece to vol. Ii. Of the last editionof the "Curiosities of Literature. "--ED. ]

An interesting domestic story has been preserved of GESNER, who sozealously devoted his graver and his pencil to the arts. His sensibilitywas ever struggling after that ideal excellence which he could not attain. Often he sunk into fits of melancholy, and, gentle as he was, thetenderness of his wife and friends could not soothe his distemperedfeelings; it was necessary to abandon him to his own thoughts, till, aftera long abstinence from his neglected works, in a lucid moment, someaccident occasioned him to return to them. In one of these hypochondria ofgenius, after a long interval of despair, one morning at breakfast withhis wife, his eye fixed on one of his pictures: it was a group of faunswith young shepherds dancing at the entrance of a cavern shaded withvines; his eye appeared at length to glisten; and a sudden returnto good humour broke out in this lively apostrophe--"Ah! see thoseplayful children, they always dance!" This was the moment of gaiety andinspiration, and he flew to his forsaken easel. 

La Harpe, an author by profession, observes, that as it has been shownthat there are some maladies peculiar to artisans[A]--there are also somesorrows peculiar to them, and which the world can neither pity nor soften, because they do not enter into their experience. The querulous language ofso many men of genius has been sometimes attributed to causes verydifferent from the real ones--the most fortunate live to see their talentscontested and their best works decried. Assuredly many an author has sunkinto his grave without the consciousness of having obtained that fame forwhich he had sacrificed an arduous life. The too feeling SMOLLETT has leftthis testimony to posterity:--"Had some of those, who are pleased to callthemselves my friends, been at any pains to deserve the character, andtold me ingenuously what I had to expect in the capacity of an _author_, Ishould, in all probability, have spared myself the _incredible labour_ and_chagrin_ I have since undergone. " And Smollett was a popular writer!POPE'S solemn declaration in the preface to his collected works comes byno means short of Smollett's avowal. HUME'S philosophical indifferencecould often suppress that irritability which Pope and Smollett fullyindulged. 

[Footnote A: See Ramazini, "De Morbis Artificium Diatriba, " which Dr. James translated in 1750. It is a sad reflection, resulting from thiscurious treatise, that the arts entail no small mischief upon theirrespective workmen; so that the means by which they live are too often theoccasion of their being hurried out of the world. ]

But were the feelings of HUME more obtuse, or did his temper, gentle as itwas by constitution, bear, with a saintly patience, the mortifications hisliterary life so long endured? After recomposing two of his works, whichincurred the same neglect in their altered form, he raised the mostsanguine hopes of his History, but he tells us, "miserable was mydisappointment!" Although he never deigned to reply to his opponents, yetthey haunted him; and an eye-witness has thus described the irritatedauthor discovering in conversation his suppressed resentment--"Hisforcible mode of expression, the brilliant quick movements of his eyes, and the gestures of his body, " these betrayed the pangs of contempt, or ofaversion! HOGARTH, in a fit of the spleen, advertised that he haddetermined not to give the world any more original works, and intended topass the rest of his days in painting portraits. The same advertisement ismarked by farther irritability. He contemptuously offers the purchasers ofhis "Analysis of Beauty, " to present them _gratis_ with "an eighteenpennypamphlet, " published by Ramsay the painter, written in opposition toHogarth's principles. So untameable was the irritability of this greatinventor in art, that he attempts to conceal his irritation by offering todispose gratuitously of the criticism which had disturbed his nights. [A]

[Footnote A: Hogarth was not without reason for exasperation. He wasseverely attacked for his theories about the curved line of beauty, whichwas branded as a foolish attempt to prove crookedness elegant, and himselfvulgarly caricatured. It was even asserted that the theory was stolen fromLomazzo. ED. ]

Parties confederate against a man of genius, --as happened to Corneille, toD'Avenant, [A] and Milton; and a Pradon and a Settle carry away the meed ofa Racine and a Dryden. It was to support the drooping spirit of his friendRacine on the opposition raised against Phædra, that Boileau addressed tohim an epistle "On the Utility to be drawn from the Jealousy of theEnvious. " The calm dignity of the historian DE THOU, amidst the passionsof his times, confidently expected that justice from posterity which hisown age refused to his early and his late labour. That great man was, however, compelled by his injured feelings, to compose a poem under thename of another, to serve as his apology against the intolerant court ofRome, and the factious politicians of France; it was a noble subterfuge towhich a great genius was forced. The acquaintances of the poet COLLINSprobably complained of his wayward humours and irritability; but how couldthey sympathise with the secret mortification of the poet, who imaginedthat he had composed his Pastorals on wrong principles, or when, in theagony of his soul, he consigned to the flames with his own hands hisunsold, but immortal odes? Can we forget the dignified complaint of theRambler, with which he awfully closes his work, appealing to posterity?

[Footnote A: See "Quarrels of Authors, " p. 403, on the confederacy ofseveral wits against D'Avenant, a great genius; where I discovered that avolume of poems, said "to be written by the author's friends, " which hadhitherto been referred to as a volume of panegyrics, contains nothing butirony and satire, which had escaped the discovery of so many transcribersof title-pages, frequently miscalled literary historians. ]

Genius contracts those peculiarities of which it is so loudly accusedin its solitary occupations--that loftiness of spirit, those quickjealousies, those excessive affections and aversions which view everythingas it passes in its own ideal world, and rarely as it exists in themediocrity of reality. If this irritability of genius be a malady whichhas raged even among philosophers, we must not be surprised at thetemperament of poets. These last have abandoned their country; they havechanged their name; they have punished themselves with exile in the rageof their disorder. No! not poets only. DESCARTES sought in vain, even inhis secreted life, for a refuge for his genius; he thought himselfpersecuted in France, he thought himself calumniated among strangers, andhe went and died in Sweden; and little did that man of genius think thathis countrymen would beg to have his ashes restored to them. Even thereasoning HUME once proposed to change his name and his country; and Ibelieve did. The great poetical genius of our own times has openlyalienated himself from the land of his brothers. He becomes immortal inthe language of a people whom he would contemn. [A] Does he accept withingratitude the fame he loves more than life?

[Footnote A: I shall preserve a manuscript note of Lord BYRON on thispassage; not without a hope that we shall never receive from him thegenius of Italian poetry, otherwise than in the language of his "_fatherland_"; an expressive term, which I adopted from the Dutch language someyears past, and which I have seen since sanctioned by the pens of LordByron and of Mr. Southey. 

His lordship has here observed, "It is not my fault that I am obliged towrite in English. If I understood my present language equally well, Iwould write in it; but this will require ten years at least to form astyle: no tongue so easy to acquire a little of, or so difficult to masterthoroughly, as Italian. " On the same page I find the following note: "Whatwas rumoured of me in that language? If true, I was unfit for England: iffalse, England was unfit for me:--'There is a world elsewhere. ' I havenever regretted for a moment that country, but often that I ever returnedto it at all. "]

Such, then, is that state of irritability in which men of geniusparticipate, whether they be inventors, men of learning, fine writers, orartists. It is a state not friendly to equality of temper. In the varioushumours incidental to it, when they are often deeply affected, the causeescapes all perception of sympathy. The intellectual malady eludes eventhe tenderness of friendship. At those moments, the lightest injury to thefeelings, which at another time would make no impression, may produce aperturbed state of feeling in the warm temper, or the corroding chagrin ofa self-wounded spirit. These are moments which claim the encouragements ofa friendship animated by a high esteem for the intellectual excellence ofthe man of genius; not the general intercourse of society; not theinsensibility of the dull, nor the levity of the volatile. 

Men of genius are often reverenced only where they are known by theirwritings--intellectual beings in the romance of life; in its history, theyare men! ERASMUS compared them to the great figures in tapestry-work, which lose their effect when not seen at a distance. Their foibles andtheir infirmities are obvious to their associates, often only capable ofdiscerning these qualities. The defects of great men are the consolationof the dunces. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The spirit of literature and the spirit of society. --The Inventors. --Society offers seduction and not reward to men of genius. --The notionsof persons of fashion of men of genius. --The habitudes of the man ofgenius distinct from those of the man of society. --Study, meditation, andenthusiasm, the progress of genius. --The disagreement between the men ofthe world and the literary character. 

The Inventors, who inherited little or nothing from their predecessors, appear to have pursued their insulated studies in the full independence oftheir mind and development of their inventive faculty; they stood apart, in seclusion, the solitary lights of their age. Such were the founders ofour literature--Bacon and Hobbes, Newton and Milton. Even so late as thedays of Dryden, Addison, and Pope, the man of genius drew his circle roundhis intimates; his day was uniform, his habits unbroken; and he was nevertoo far removed, nor too long estranged from meditation and reverie: hisworks were the sources of his pleasure ere they became the labours of hispride. 

But when a more uniform light of knowledge illuminates from all sides, thegenius of society, made up of so many sorts of genius, becomes greaterthan the genius of the individual who has entirely yielded himself upto his solitary art. Hence the character of a man of genius becomessubordinate. A conversation age succeeds a studious one; and the family ofgenius, the poet, the painter, and the student, are no longer recluses. They mix with their rivals, who are jealous of equality, or with otherswho, incapable of valuing them for themselves alone, rate them but asparts of an integral. 

The man of genius is now trammelled with the artificial and mechanicalforms of life; and in too close an intercourse with society, theloneliness and raciness of thinking is modified away in its seductiveconventions. An excessive indulgence in the pleasures of social lifeconstitutes the great interests of a luxuriant and opulent age; but oflate, while the arts of assembling in large societies have been practised, varied by all forms, and pushed on to all excesses, it may become aquestion whether by them our happiness is as much improved, or ourindividual character as well formed as in a society not so heterogeneousand unsocial as that crowd termed, with the sort of modesty peculiar toour times, "a small party:" the simplicity of parade, the humility ofpride engendered by the egotism which multiplies itself in proportion tothe numbers it assembles. 

It may, too, be a question whether the literary man and the artist are notimmolating their genius to society when, in the shadowiness of assumedtalents--that counterfeiting of all shapes--they lose their real form, with the mockery of Proteus. But nets of roses catch their feet, and apath, where all the senses are flattered, is now opened to win anEpictetus from his hut. The art of multiplying the enjoyments of societyis discovered in the morning lounge, the evening dinner, and the midnightcoterie. In frivolous fatigues, and vigils without meditation, perish theunvalued hours which, true genius knows, are always too brief for art, andtoo rare to catch its inspirations. Hence so many of our contemporaries, whose card-racks are crowded, have produced only flashy fragments. Efforts, but not works--they seem to be effects without causes; and as agreat author, who is not one of them, once observed to me, "They waste abarrel of gunpowder in squibs. "

And yet it is seduction, and not reward, which mere fashionable societyoffers the man of true genius. He will be sought for with enthusiasm, buthe cannot escape from his certain fate--that of becoming tiresome to hispretended admirers. 

At first the idol--shortly he is changed into a victim. He forms, indeed, a figure in their little pageant, and is invited as a sort of_improvisatore_; but the esteem they concede to him is only a part of thesystem of politeness; and should he be dull in discovering the favouritequality of their self-love, or in participating in their volatile tastes, he will find frequent opportunities of observing, with the sage at thecourt of Cyprus, that "what he knows is not proper for this place, andwhat is proper for this place he knows not. " This society takes littlepersonal interest in the literary character. HORACE WALPOLE lets us intothis secret when writing to another man of fashion, on such a man ofgenius as GRAY--"I agree with you most absolutely in your opinion aboutGray; he is the worst company in the world. From a melancholy turn, fromliving reclusely, and from a little too much dignity, he never converseseasily; all his words are measured and chosen, and formed into sentences:his writings are admirable--he himself is not agreeable. " This volatilebeing in himself personified the quintessence of that society which iscalled "the world, " and could not endure that equality of intellect whichgenius exacts. He rejected Chatterton, and quarrelled with every literaryman and every artist whom he first invited to familiarity--and then hated. Witness the fates of Bentley, of Muntz, of Gray, of Cole, and others. Sucha mind was incapable of appreciating the literary glory on which themighty mind of BURKE was meditating. WALPOLE knew BURKE at a criticalmoment of his life, and he has recorded his own feelings:--"There was ayoung Mr. BURKE who wrote a book, in the style of Lord Bolingbroke, thatwas much admired. He is a sensible man, but has not _worn off hisauthorism yet_, and thinks there is nothing so charming as writers, and tobe one: _he will know better one of these days_" GRAY and BURKE! Whatmighty men must be submitted to the petrifying sneer--that indifference ofselfism for great sympathies--of this volatile and heartless man ofliterature and rank!

 That thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk!

The confidential confession of RACINE to his son is remarkable:--"Do notthink that I am sought after by the great for my dramas; Corneillecomposes nobler verses than mine, but no one notices him, and he onlypleases by the mouth of the actors. I never allude to my works when withmen of the world, but I amuse them about matters they like to hear. Mytalent with them consists, not in making them feel that I have any, but inshowing them that they have. " Racine treated the great like the childrenof society; CORNEILLE would not compromise for the tribute he exacted, buthe consoled himself when, at his entrance into the theatre, the audienceusually rose to salute him. The great comic genius of France, who indeedwas a very thoughtful and serious man, addressed a poem to the painterMIONARD, expressing his conviction that "the court, " by which a Frenchmanof the court of Louis XIV. Meant the society we call "fashionable, " isfatal to the perfection of art--

 Qui se donne à la cour se dérobe à son art; Un esprit partagé rarement se consomme, Et les emplois de feu demandent tout l'homme. 

Has not the fate in society of our reigning literary favourites beenuniform? Their mayoralty hardly exceeds the year: they are pushed aside toput in their place another, who, in his turn, must descend. Such is thehistory of the literary character encountering the perpetual difficulty ofappearing what he really is not, while he sacrifices to a few, in acertain corner of the metropolis, who have long fantastically styledthemselves "the world, " that more dignified celebrity which makes anauthor's name more familiar than his person. To one who appearedastonished at the extensive celebrity of BUFFON, the modern Pliny replied, "I have passed fifty years at my desk. " HAYDN would not yield up tosociety more than those hours which were not devoted to study. These wereindeed but few: and such were the uniformity and retiredness of his life, that "He was for a long time the only musical man in Europe who wasignorant of the celebrity of Joseph Haydn. " And has not one, the mostsublime of the race, sung, --che seggendo in piuma, In Fama non si vien, nè sotto coltre; Sanza la qual chi sua vita consuma Cotal vestigio in terra di se lascia Qual fummo in aere, ed in acqua la schiuma

 For not on downy plumes, nor under shade Of canopy reposing, Fame is won: Without which, whosoe'er consumes his days, Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth As smoke in air, or foam upon the wave. [A]

[Footnote A: Cary's Dante, Canto xxiv. ]

But men of genius, in their intercourse with persons of fashion, have asecret inducement to court that circle. They feel a perpetual want ofhaving the reality of their talents confirmed to themselves, and theyoften step into society to observe in what degree they are objects ofattention; for, though ever accused of vanity, the greater part of men ofgenius feel that their existence, as such, must depend on the opinion ofothers. This standard is in truth always problematical and variable; yetthey cannot hope to find a more certain one among their rivals, who at alltimes are adroitly depreciating their brothers, and "dusking" theirlustre. They discover among those cultivators of literature and the artswho have recourse to them for their pleasure, impassioned admirers, ratherthan unmerciful judges--judges who have only time to acquire that degreeof illumination which is just sufficient to set at ease the fears of theseclaimants of genius. 

When literary men assemble together, what mimetic friendships, in theirmutual corruption! Creatures of intrigue, they borrow other men's eyes, and act by feelings often even contrary to their own: they wear a mask ontheir face, and only sing a tune they have caught. Some hierophant intheir mysteries proclaims their elect whom they have to initiate, andtheir profane who are to stand apart under their ban. They bend to thespirit of the age, but they do not elevate the public to them; they carenot for truth, but only study to produce effect, and they do nothing forfame but what obtains an instant purpose. Yet their fame is not thereforethe more real, for everything connected with fashion becomes obsolete. Herear has a great susceptibility of weariness, and her eye rolls forincessant novelty. Never was she earnest for anything. Men's minds withher become tarnished and old-fashioned as furniture. But the steams ofrich dinners, the eye which sparkles with the wines of France, theluxurious night which flames with more heat and brilliancy than God hasmade the day, this is the world the man of coterie-celebrity has chosen;and the Epicurean, as long as his senses do not cease to act, laughs atthe few who retire to the solitary midnight lamp. Posthumous fame is--anothing! Such men live like unbelievers in a future state, and theirnarrow calculating spirit coldly dies in their artificial world: but truegenius looks at a nobler source of its existence; it catches inspirationin its insulated studies; and to the great genius, who feels how hispresent is necessarily connected with his future celebrity, posthumousfame is a reality, for the sense acts upon him!

The habitudes of genius, before genius loses its freshness in thissociety, are the mould in which the character is cast; and these, in spiteof all the disguise of the man, will make him a distinct being from theman of society. Those who have assumed the literary character often forpurposes very distinct from literary ones, imagine that their circle isthe public; but in this factitious public all their interests, theiropinions, and even their passions, are temporary, and the admirers withthe admired pass away with their season. "It is not sufficient that wespeak the same language, " says a witty philosopher, "but we must learntheir dialect; we must think as they think, and we must echo theiropinions, as we act by imitation. " Let the man of genius then dread tolevel himself to the mediocrity of feeling and talent required in suchcircles of society, lest he become one of themselves; he will soon findthat to think like them will in time become to act like them. But he whoin solitude adopts no transient feelings, and reflects no artificiallights, who is only himself, possesses an immense advantage: he has notattached importance to what is merely local and fugitive, but listens tointerior truths, and fixes on the immutable nature of things. He is theman of every age. Malebranche has observed, that "It is not indeed thoughtto be charitable to disturb common opinions, because it is not truth whichunites society as it exists so much as opinion and custom:" a principlewhich the world would not, I think, disagree with; but which tends torender folly wisdom itself, and to make error immortal. 

Ridicule is the light scourge of society, and the terror of genius. Ridicule surrounds him with her chimeras, which, like the shadowy monstersopposing æneas, are impalpable to his strokes: but remember when the sibylbade the hero proceed without noticing them, he found these airy nothingsas harmless as they were unreal. The habits of the literary characterwill, however, be tried by the men and women of the world by their ownstandard: they have no other; the salt of ridicule gives a poignancy totheir deficient comprehension, and their perfect ignorance, of the personsor things which are the subjects of their ingenious animadversions. Thehabits of the literary character seem inevitably repulsive to persons ofthe world. VOLTAIRE, and his companion, the scientific Madame DE CHATELET, she who introduced Newton to the French nation, lived entirely devoted toliterary pursuits, and their habits were strictly literary. It happenedonce that this learned pair dropped unexpectedly into a fashionable circlein the _château_ of a French nobleman. A Madame de Staël, the _persifleur_in office of Madame Du Deffand, has copiously narrated the whole affair. They arrived at midnight like two famished spectres, and there was sometrouble to put them to supper and bed. They are called apparitions, because they were never visible by day, only at ten at night; for the oneis busied in describing great deeds, and the other in commenting onNewton. Like other apparitions, they are uneasy companions: they willneither play nor walk; they will not dissipate their mornings with thecharming circle about them, nor allow the charming circle to break intotheir studies. Voltaire and Madame de Chatelet would have suffered thesame pain in being forced to an abstinence of their regular studies, asthis circle of "agréables" would have at the loss of their meals and theirairings. However, the _persifleur_ declares they were ciphers "ensociété, " adding no value to the number, and to which their learnedwritings bear no reference. 

But if this literary couple would not play, what was worse, Voltairepoured out a vehement declamation against a fashionable species ofgambling, which appears to have made them all stare. But Madame deChatelet is the more frequent victim of our _persifleur_. The learned ladywould change her apartment--for it was too noisy, and it had smoke withoutfire--which last was her emblem. "She is reviewing her _Principia_; anexercise she repeats every year, without which precaution they mightescape from her, and get so far away that she might never find them again. I believe that her head in respect to them is a house of imprisonmentrather than the place of their birth; so that she is right to watch themclosely; and she prefers the fresh air of this occupation to ouramusements, and persists in her invisibility till night-time. She has sixor seven tables in her apartments, for she wants them of all sizes;immense ones to spread out her papers, solid ones to hold her instruments, lighter ones, &c. Yet with all this she could not escape from the accidentwhich happened to Philip II. , after passing the night in writing, when abottle of ink fell over the despatches; but the lady did not imitate themoderation of the prince; indeed, she had not written on State affairs, and what was spoilt in her room was algebra, much more difficult tocopy out. " Here is a pair of portraits of a great poet and a greatmathematician, whose habits were discordant with the fashionable circle inwhich they resided--the representation is just, for it is by one of thecoterie itself. 

Study, meditation, and enthusiasm, --this is the progress of genius, andthese cannot be the habits of him who lingers till he can only live amongpolished crowds; who, if he bear about him the consciousness of genius, will still be acting under their influences. And perhaps there never wasone of this class of men who had not either first entirely formed himselfin solitude, or who amidst society will not be often breaking out to seekfor himself. WILKES, no longer touched by the fervours of literary andpatriotic glory, suffered life to melt away as a domestic voluptuary; andthen it was that he observed with some surprise of the great Earl ofCHATHAM, that he sacrificed every pleasure of social life, even in youth, to his great pursuit of eloquence. That ardent character studied Barrow'sSermons so often as to repeat them from memory, and could even read twicefrom beginning to end Bailey's Dictionary; these are little facts whichbelong only to great minds! The earl himself acknowledged an artifice hepractised in his intercourse with society, for he said, "when he wasyoung, he always came late into company, and left it early. " VITTORIOALFIERI, and a brother-spirit, our own noble poet, were rarely seen amidstthe brilliant circle in which they were born. The workings of theirimagination were perpetually emancipating them, and one deep loneliness offeeling proudly insulated them among the unimpassioned triflers of theirrank. They preserved unbroken the unity of their character, in constantlyescaping from the processional _spectacle_ of society. [A] It is no trivialobservation of another noble writer, Lord SHAFTESBURY, that "it may happenthat a person may be so much the worse author, for being the finergentleman. "

[Footnote A: In a note which Lord BYRON has written in a copy of this workhis lordship says, "I fear this was not the case; I have been but too muchin that circle, especially in 1812-13-14. "

To the expression of "one deep loneliness of feeling, " his lordship hasmarked in the margin "True. " I am gratified to confirm the theory of myideas of the man of genius, by the practical experience of the greatest ofour age. ]

An extraordinary instance of this disagreement between the man of theworld and the literary character, we find in a philosopher seated on athrone. The celebrated JULIAN stained the imperial purple with an author'sink; and when he resided among the Antiochians, his unalterable charactershocked that volatile and luxurious race. He slighted the plaudits oftheir theatre, he abhorred their dances and their horse-races, he wasabstinent even at a festival, and incorrupt himself, perpetuallyadmonished the dissipated citizens of their impious abandonment of thelaws of their country. The Antiochians libelled their emperor, andpetulantly lampooned his beard, which the philosopher carelessly woreneither perfumed nor curled. Julian, scorning to inflict a sharperpunishment, pointed at them his satire of "the Misopogon, or theAntiochian; the Enemy of the Beard, " where, amidst irony and invective, the literary monarch bestows on himself many exquisite and characteristictouches. All that the persons of fashion alleged against the literarycharacter, Julian unreservedly confesses--his undressed beard andawkwardness, his obstinacy, his unsociable habits, his deficient tastes, while at the same time he represents his good qualities as so manyextravagances. But, in this Cervantic pleasantry of self-reprehension, theimperial philosopher has not failed to show this light and corrupt peoplethat the reason he could not possibly resemble them, existed in theunhappy circumstance of having been subject to too strict an educationunder a family tutor, who had never suffered him to swerve from the oneright way, and who (additional misfortune!) had inspired him with such asilly reverence for Plato and Socrates, Aristotle and Theophrastus, thathe had been induced to make them his models. "Whatever manners, " says theemperor, "I may have previously contracted, whether gentle or boorish, itis impossible for me now to alter or unlearn. Habit is said to be a secondnature; to oppose it is irksome, but to counteract _the study of more thanthirty years_ is extremely difficult, especially when it has been imbibedwith so much attention. "

And what if men of genius, relinquishing their habits, could do thisviolence to their nature, should we not lose the original for a factitiousgenius, and spoil one race without improving the other? If nature andhabit, that second nature which prevails even over the first, have createdtwo beings distinctly different, what mode of existence shall everassimilate them? Antipathies and sympathies, those still occult causes, however concealed, will break forth at an unguarded moment. Clip the wingsof an eagle that he may roost among domestic fowls, --at some unforeseenmoment his pinions will overshadow and terrify his tiny associates, for"the feathered king" will be still musing on the rock and the cloud. 

The man of genius will be restive even in his trammelled paces. Tooimpatient amidst the heartless courtesies of society, and little practisedin the minuter attentions, he has rarely sacrificed to the unlaughinggraces of Lord Chesterfield. Plato ingeniously compares Socrates to thegallipots of the Athenian apothecaries; the grotesque figures of owls andapes were painted on their exterior, but they contained within preciousbalsams. The man of genius amidst many a circle may exclaim withThemistocles, "I cannot fiddle, but I can make a little village a greatcity;" and with Corneille, he may be allowed to smile at his owndeficiencies, and even disdain to please in certain conventional manners, asserting that "wanting all these things, he was not the less Corneille. "

But with the great thinkers and students, their character is still moreobdurate. ADAM SMITH could never free himself from the embarrassed mannersof a recluse; he was often absent, and his grave and formal conversationmade him seem distant and reserved, when in fact no man had warmerfeelings for his intimates. One who knew Sir ISAAC NEWTON tells us, that"he would sometimes be silent and thoughtful, and look all the while as ifhe were saying his prayers. " A French princess, desirous of seeing thegreat moralist NICOLLE, experienced an inconceivable disappointment whenthe moral instructor, entering with the most perplexing bow imaginable, silently sank into his chair. The interview promoted no conversation, andthe retired student, whose elevated spirit might have endured martyrdom, shrunk with timidity in the unaccustomed honour of conversing with aprincess and having nothing to say. Observe Hume thrown into a mostridiculous attitude by a woman of talents and coterie celebrity. Ourphilosopher was called on to perform his part in one of those inventionsof the hour to which the fashionable, like children in society, havesometimes resorted to attract their world by the rumour of some newextravagance. In the present, poor HUME was to represent a sultan on asofa, sitting between two slaves, who were the prettiest and mostvivacious of Parisians. Much was anticipated from this literaryexhibition. The two slaves were ready at repartee, but the uttersimplicity of the sultan displayed a blockishness which blunted all edge. The phlegmatic metaphysician and historian only gave a sign of life byrepeating the same awkward gesture, and the same ridiculous exclamation, without end. One of the fair slaves soon discovered the unchangeablenature of the forlorn philosopher, impatiently exclaiming, "I guessed asmuch, never was there such a calf of a man!"--"Since this affair, " addsMadame d'Epinay, "Hume is at present banished to the class of spectators. "The philosopher, indeed, had formed a more correct conception of his owncharacter than the volatile sylphs of the Parisian circle, for in writingto the Countess de Boufflers, on an invitation to Paris, he said, "I haverusted on amid books and study; have been little engaged in the active, and not much in the pleasurable, scenes of life; and am more accustomed toa select society than to general companies. " If Hume made a ridiculousfigure in these circles, the error did not lie on the side of thatcheerful and profound philosopher. --This subject leads our inquiries tothe nature of _the conversations of men of genius_. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Conversations of men of genius. --Their deficient agreeableness may resultfrom qualities which conduce to their greatness. --Slow-minded men not thedullest. --The conversationists not the ablest writers. --Their trueexcellence in conversation consists of associations with their pursuits. 

In conversation the sublime DANTE was taciturn or satirical; BUTLER sullenor caustic; GRAY and ALFIERI seldom talked or smiled; DESCARTES, whosehabits had formed him for solitude and meditation, was silent; ROUSSEAUwas remarkably trite in conversation, not an idea, not a word of fancy oreloquence warmed him; ADDISON and MOLIERE in society were only observers;and DRYDEN has very honestly told us, "My conversation is slow and dull, my humour saturnine and reserved; in short, I am none of those whoendeavour to break jests in company, or make repartees. " POPE had livedamong "the great, " not only in rank but in intellect, the most delightfulconversationists; but the poet felt that he could not contribute to theseseductive pleasures, and at last confessed that he could amuse andinstruct himself much more by another means: "As much company as I havekept, and as much as I love it, I love reading better, and would rather beemployed in reading, than in the most agreeable conversation. " Pope'sconversation, as preserved by Spence, was sensible; and it would seem thathe had never said but one witty thing in his whole life, for only one hasbeen recorded. It was ingeniously said of VAUCANSON, that he was as muchan automaton as any which he made. HOGARTH and SWIFT, who looked on thecircles of society with eyes of inspiration, were absent in company; buttheir grossness and asperity did not prevent the one from being thegreatest of comic painters, nor the other as much a creator of manners inhis way. Genius, even in society, is pursuing its own operations, and itwould cease to be itself were it always to act like others. 

Men of genius who are habitually eloquent, who have practised conversationas an art, for some, even sacrifice their higher pursuits to thisperishable art of acting, have indeed excelled, and in the most oppositemanner. HORNE TOOKE finely discriminates the wit in conversation ofSHERIDAN and CURRAN, after having passed an evening in their company. "Sheridan's wit was like steel highly polished and sharpened for displayand use; Curran's was a mine of virgin gold, incessantly crumbling awayfrom its own richness. " CHARLES BUTLER, whose reminiscences of hisillustrious contemporaries are derived from personal intercourse, hascorrectly described the familiar conversations of PITT, FOX, and BURKE:"The most intimate friends of Mr. Fox complained of his too frequentruminating silence. Mr. Pitt talked, and his talk was fascinating. Mr. Burke's conversation was rambling, but splendid and instructive beyondcomparison. " Let me add, that the finest genius of our times, is also themost delightful man; he is that rarest among the rare of human beings, whom to have known is nearly to adore; whom to have seen, to have heard, forms an era in our life; whom youth remembers with enthusiasm, and whosepresence the men and women of "the world" feel like a dream from whichthey would not awaken. His _bonhomie_ attaches our hearts to him by itssimplicity; his legendary conversation makes us, for a moment, poets likehimself. [A]

[Footnote A: This was written under the inspiration of a night'sconversation, or rather listening to Sir WALTER SCOTT. --I cannot bringmyself to erase what now, alas! has closed in the silence of a swifttermination of his glorious existence. ]

But that deficient agreeableness in social life with which men of geniushave been often reproached, may really result from the nature of thosequalities which conduce to the greatness of their public character. Athinker whose mind is saturated with knowledge on a particular subject, will be apt to deliver himself authoritatively; but he will then pass fora dogmatist: should he hesitate, that he may correct an equivocalexpression, or bring nearer a remote idea, he is in danger of sinkinginto pedantry or rising into genius. Even the fulness of knowledgehas its tediousness. "It is rare, " said MALEBRANCHE, "that those whomeditate profoundly can explain well the objects they have meditated on;for they hesitate when they have to speak; they are scrupulous to conveyfalse ideas or use inaccurate terms. They do not choose to speak, likeothers, merely for the sake of talking. " A vivid and sudden perception oftruth, or a severe scrutiny after it, may elevate the voice, and burstwith an irruptive heat on the subdued tone of conversation. These men aretoo much in earnest for the weak or the vain. Such seriousness kills theirfeeble animal spirits. SMEATON, a creative genius of his class, had awarmth of expression which seemed repulsive to many: it arose from anintense application of mind, which impelled him to break out hastily whenanything was said that did not accord with his ideas. Persons who areobstinate till they can give up their notions with a safe conscience, aretroublesome intimates. Often too the cold tardiness of decision is onlythe strict balancing of scepticism or candour, while obscurity asfrequently may arise from the deficiency of previous knowledge in thelistener. It was said that NEWTON in conversation did not seem tounderstand his own writings, and it was supposed that his memory haddecayed. The fact, however, was not so; and Pemberton makes a curiousdistinction, which accounts for Newton _not always being ready to speak_on subjects of which he was the sole master. "Inventors seem to treasureup in their own minds what they have found out, after another manner thanthose do the same things that have not this inventive faculty. The former, when they have occasion to produce their knowledge, in some means areobliged immediately to investigate part of what they want. For this theyare not equally fit at all times; and thus it has often happened, thatsuch as retain things chiefly by means of a very strong memory, haveappeared off-hand more expert than the discoverers themselves. "

A peculiar characteristic in the conversations of men of genius, which hasoften injured them when the listeners were not intimately acquainted withthe men, are those sports of a vacant mind, those sudden impulses to throwout paradoxical opinions, and to take unexpected views of things in somehumour of the moment. These fanciful and capricious ideas are thegrotesque images of a playful mind, and are at least as frequentlymisrepresented as they are misunderstood. But thus the cunning Philistinesare enabled to triumph over the strong and gifted man, because in the hourof confidence, and in the abandonment of the mind, he had laid his head inthe lap of wantonness, and taught them how he might be shorn of hisstrength. Dr. JOHNSON appears often to have indulged this amusement, bothin good and ill humour. Even such a calm philosopher as ADAM SMITH, aswell as such a child of imagination as BURNS, were remarked for thisordinary habit of men of genius; which, perhaps, as often originates in agentle feeling of contempt for their auditors, as from any other cause. Many years after having written the above, I discovered two recentconfessions which confirm the principle. A literary character, the lateDr. LEYDEN, acknowledged, that "in conversation I often verge so nearly onabsurdity, that I know it is perfectly easy to misconceive me, as well asto misrepresent me. " And Miss Edgeworth, in describing her father'sconversation, observes that, "his openness went too far, almost toimprudence; exposing him not only to be misrepresented, but to bemisunderstood. Those who did not know him intimately, often took literallywhat was either said in sport, or spoken with the intention of making astrong impression for some good purpose. " CUMBERLAND, whose conversationwas delightful, happily describes the species I have noticed. "Nonsensetalked by men of wit and understanding in the hour of relaxation is of thevery finest essence of conviviality, and a treat delicious to those whohave the sense to comprehend it; but it implies a trust in the company notalways to be risked. " The truth is, that many, eminent for their genius, have been remarkable in society for a simplicity and playfulness almostinfantine. Such was the gaiety of Hume, such the _bonhomie_ of Fox; andone who had long lived in a circle of men of genius in the last age, wasdisposed to consider this infantine simplicity as characteristic ofgenius. It is a solitary grace, which can never lend its charm to a man ofthe world, whose purity of mind has long been lost in a hackniedintercourse with everything exterior to himself. 

But above all, what most offends, is that freedom of opinion which a manof genius can no more divest himself of, than of the features of his face. But what if this intractable obstinacy be only resistance of character?Burns never could account to himself why, "though when he had a mind hewas pretty generally beloved, he could never get the art of commandingrespect, " and imagined it was owing to his deficiency in what Sterne calls"that understrapping virtue of discretion;" "I am so apt to a _lapsuslinguæ_" says this honest sinner. Amidst the stupidity of a formalcircle, and the inanity of triflers, however such men may conceal theirimpatience, one of them has forcibly described the reaction of thissuppressed feeling: "The force with which it burst out when the pressurewas taken off, gave the measure of the constraint which had been endured. "Erasmus, that learned and charming writer, who was blessed with the geniuswhich could enliven a folio, has well described himself, _sum naturâpropensior ad jocos quam fortasse deceat_:--more constitutionally inclinedto pleasantry than, as he is pleased to add, perhaps became him. We knowin his intimacy with Sir Thomas More, that Erasmus was a most exhilaratingcompanion; yet in his intercourse with the great he was not fortunate. Atthe first glance he saw through affectation and parade, his praise offolly was too ironical, and his freedom carried with it no pleasantry forthose who knew not to prize a laughing sage. 

In conversation the operations of the intellect with some are habituallyslow, but there will be found no difference between the result oftheir perceptions and those of a quicker nature; and hence it is thatslow-minded men are not, as men of the world imagine, always the dullest. NICOLLE said of a scintillant wit, "He vanquishes me in the drawing-room, but surrenders to me at discretion on the stairs. " Many a great wit hasthought the wit it was too late to speak, and many a great reasoner hasonly reasoned when his opponent has disappeared. Conversation with suchmen is a losing game; and it is often lamentable to observe how men ofgenius are reduced to a state of helplessness from not commanding theirattention, while inferior intellects habitually are found to possess whatis called "a ready mind. " For this reason some, as it were in despair, have shut themselves up in silence. A lively Frenchman, in describing thedistinct sorts of conversation of his literary friends, among whom was Dr. Franklin, energetically hits off that close observer and thinker, wary, even in society, by noting down "the silence of the celebrated Franklin. "We learn from Cumberland that Lord Mansfield did not promote thatconversation which gave him any pains to carry on. He resorted tosociety for simple relaxation, and could even find a pleasure in dulnesswhen accompanied with placidity. "It was a kind of cushion to hisunderstanding, " observes the wit. CHAUCER, like LA FONTAINE, was morefacetious in his tales than in his conversation; for the Countess ofPembroke used to rally him, observing that his silence was more agreeableto her than his talk. TASSO'S conversation, which his friend Manso hasattempted to preserve for us, was not agreeable. In company he satabsorbed in thought, with a melancholy air; and it was on one of theseoccasions that a person present observing that this conduct was indicativeof madness, that TASSO, who had heard him, looking on him without emotion, asked whether he was ever acquainted with a madman who knew when to holdhis tongue! Malebranche tells us that one of these mere men of learning, who can only venture to praise antiquity, once said, "I have seenDESCARTES; I knew him, and frequently have conversed with him; he was agood sort of man, and was not wanting in sense, but he had nothingextraordinary in him. " Had Aristotle spoken French instead of Greek, andhad this man frequently conversed with him, unquestionably he would nothave discovered, even in this idol of antiquity, anything extraordinary. Two thousand years would have been wanting for our learned critic'sperceptions. 

It is remarkable that the conversationists have rarely proved to be theabler writers. He whose fancy is susceptible of excitement in the presenceof his auditors, making the minds of men run with his own, seizing on thefirst impressions, and touching the shadows and outlines of things--with amemory where all lies ready at hand, quickened by habitual associations, and varying with all those extemporary changes and fugitive colours whichmelt away in the rainbow of conversation; with that wit, which is only witin one place, and for a time; with that vivacity of animal spirits whichoften exists separately from the more retired intellectual powers--thisman can strike out wit by habit, and pour forth a stream of phrase whichhas sometimes been imagined to require only to be written down to be readwith the same delight with which it was heard; but he cannot print histone, nor his air and manner, nor the contagion of his hardihood. All thewhile we were not sensible of the flutter of his ideas, the incoherence ofhis transitions, his vague notions, his doubtful assertions, and hismeagre knowledge. A pen is the extinguisher of this luminary. 

A curious contrast occurred between BUFFON and his friend MONTBELLIARD, who was associated in his great work. The one possessed the reversequalities of the other: BUFFON, whose style in his composition iselaborate and declamatory, was in conversation coarse and careless. Pleading that conversation with him was only a relaxation, he rathersought than avoided the idiom and slang of the mob, when these seemedexpressive and facetious; while MONTBELLIARD threw every charm ofanimation over his delightful talk: but when he took his seat at the rivaldesk of Buffon, an immense interval separated them; he whose tonguedropped the honey and the music of the bee, handled a pen of iron; whileBuffon's was the soft pencil of the philosophical painter of nature. COWLEY and KILLEGREW furnish another instance. COWLEY was embarrassed inconversation, and had no quickness in argument or reply: a mind pensiveand elegant could not be struck at to catch fire: while with KILLEGREW thesparkling bubbles of his fancy rose and dropped. [A] When the delightfulconversationist wrote, the deception ceased. Denham, who knew them both, hit off the difference between them:

 Had Cowley ne'er spoke, Killegrew ne'er writ, Combined in one they had made a matchless wit. 

[Footnote A: Killegrew's eight plays, upon which his character as anauthor rests, have not been republished with one exception--_the Parson'sWedding_--which is given in Dodsley's collection; and which is sufficientto satisfy curiosity. He was a favourite with Charles the Second, and hadgreat influence with him. Some of his witty court jests are preserved, butare too much imbued with the spirit of the age to be quoted here. He wassometimes useful by devoting his satiric sallies to urge the king to hisduties. --ED. ]

Not, however, that a man of genius does not throw out many things inconversation which have only been found admirable when the publicpossessed them. The public often widely differ from the individual, and acentury's opinion may intervene between them. The fate of genius issometimes that of the Athenian sculptor, who submitted his colossalMinerva to a private party for inspection. Before the artist they trembledfor his daring chisel, and the man of genius smiled; behind him theycalumniated, and the man of genius forgave. Once fixed in a public place, in the eyes of the whole city, the statue was the Divinity! There is acertain distance at which opinions, as well as statues, must be viewed. 

But enough of those defects of men of genius which often attend theirconversations. Must we then bow to authorial dignity, and kiss hands, because they are inked? Must we bend to the artist, who considers us asnothing unless we are canvas or marble under his hands? Are there not menof genius the grace of society and the charm of their circle? Fortunatemen! more blest than their brothers; but for this, they are not the moremen of genius, nor the others less. To how many of the ordinary intimatesof a superior genius who complain of his defects might one say, "Do hisproductions not delight and sometimes surprise you?--You are silent! I begyour pardon; the _public_ has informed you of a great name; you would nototherwise have perceived the precious talent of your neighbour: you knowlittle of your friend but his _name_. " The personal familiarity ofordinary minds with a man of genius has often produced a ludicrousprejudice. A Scotchman, to whom the name of _a_ Dr. Robertson hadtravelled down, was curious to know who he was. --"Your neighbour!"--But hecould not persuade himself that the man whom he conversed with was thegreat historian of his country. Even a good man could not believe in theannouncement of the Messiah, from the same sort of prejudice: "Can thereanything good come out of Nazareth?"

Suffer a man of genius to be such as nature and habit have formed him, andhe will then be the most interesting companion; then will you see nothingbut his character. AKENSIDE, in conversation with select friends, oftentouched by a romantic enthusiasm, would pass in review those eminentancients whom he loved; he imbued with his poetic faculty even the detailsof their lives; and seemed another Plato while he poured libations totheir memory in the language of Plato, among those whose studies andfeelings were congenial with his own. ROMNEY, with a fancy entirely hisown, would give vent to his effusions, uttered in a hurried accent andelevated tone, and often accompanied by tears, to which by constitution hewas prone; thus Cumberland, from personal intimacy, describes theconversation of this man of genius. Even the temperate sensibilityof HUME was touched by the bursts of feeling of ROUSSEAU; who, he says, "in conversation kindles often to a degree of heat which looks likeinspiration. " BARRY, that unhappy genius! was the most repulsive of men inhis exterior. The vehemence of his language, the wildness of his glance, his habit of introducing vulgar oaths, which, by some unlucky associationof habit, served him as expletives and interjections, communicated even ahorror to some. A pious and a learned lady, who had felt intolerableuneasiness in his presence, did not, however, leave this man of geniusthat very evening without an impression that she had never heard so divinea man in her life. The conversation happening to turn on that principle ofbenevolence which pervades Christianity, and on the meekness of theFounder, it gave BARRY an opportunity of opening on the character of Jesuswith that copiousness of heart and mind which, once heard, could never beforgotten. That artist indeed had long in his meditations an ideal head ofChrist, which he was always talking of executing: "It is here!" he wouldcry, striking his head. That which baffled the invention, as we are told, of Leonardo da Vinci, who left his Christ headless, having exhausted hiscreative faculty among the apostles, this imaginative picture of themysterious union of a divine and human nature, never ceased, even whenconversing, to haunt the reveries of BARRY. 

There are few authors and artists who are not eloquently instructive onthat class of knowledge or that department of art which reveals themastery of their life. Their conversations of this nature affect the mindto a distant period of life. Who, having listened to such, has forgottenwhat a man of genius has said at such moments? Who dwells not on thesingle thought or the glowing expression, stamped in the heat of themoment, which came from its source? Then the mind of genius rises as themelody of the Æolian harp, when the winds suddenly sweep over the strings--it comes and goes--and leaves a sweetness beyond the harmonies of art. 

The _Miscellanea_ of POLITIAN are not only the result of his studies inthe rich library of Lorenzo de' Medici, but of conversations which hadpassed in those rides which Lorenzo, accompanied by Politian, preferred tothe pomp of cavalcades. When the Cardinal de Cabassolle strayed withPETRARCH about his valley in many a wandering discourse, they sometimesextended their walks to such a distance, that the servant sought them invain to announce the dinner-hour, and found them returning in the evening. When HELVETIUS enjoyed the social conversation of a literary friend, hedescribed it as "a chase of ideas. " Such are the literary conversationswhich HORNE TOOKE alluded to, when he said "I assure you, we find moredifficulty to finish than to begin our conversations. "

The natural and congenial conversations of men of letters and of artistsmust then be those which are associated with their pursuits, and these areof a different complexion with the talk of men of the world, the objectsof which are drawn from the temporary passions of party-men, or thevariable _on dits_ of triflers--topics studiously rejected from these moretranquillising conversations. Diamonds can only be polished by their owndust, and are only shaped by the friction of other diamonds; and so ithappens with literary men and artists. 

A meeting of this nature has been recorded by CICERO, which himself andATTICUS had with VARRO in the country. Varro arriving from Rome in theirneighbourhood somewhat fatigued, had sent a messenger to his friends. "Assoon as we had heard these tidings, " says Cicero, "we could not delayhastening to see one who was attached to us by the same pursuits and byformer friendship. " They set off, but found Varro half way, urged by thesame eager desire to join them. They conducted him to Cicero's villa. Here, while Cicero was inquiring after the news of Rome, Atticusinterrupted the political rival of Cæsar, observing, "Let us leave offinquiring after things which cannot be heard without pain. Rather askabout what we know, for Varro's muses are longer silent than they used tobe, yet surely he has not forsaken them, but rather conceals what hewrites. "--"By no means!" replied Varro, "for I deem him to be a whimsicalman to write what he wishes to suppress. I have indeed a great work inhand (on the Latin language), long designed for Cicero. " The conversationthen took its natural turn by Atticus having got rid of the politicalanxiety of Cicero. Such, too, were the conversations which passed at theliterary residence of the Medici family, which was described, with asmuch truth as fancy, as "the Lyceum of philosophy, the Arcadia of poets, and the Academy of painters. " We have a pleasing instance of such ameeting of literary friends in those conversations which passed in POPE'Sgarden, where there was often a remarkable union of nobility and literarymen. There Thomson, Mallet, Gay, Hooke, and Glover met Cobham, Bathurst, Chesterfield, Lyttleton, and other lords; there some of these poets foundpatrons, and POPE himself discovered critics. The contracted views ofSpence have unfortunately not preserved these literary conversations, buta curious passage has dropped from the pen of Lord BOLINGBROKE, in whathis lordship calls "a letter to Pope, " often probably passed over amonghis political tracts. It breathes the spirit of those delightfulconversations. "My thoughts, " writes his lordship, "in what order soeverthey flow, shall be communicated to you just _as they pass through mymind_--just as they used to be when _we conversed together_ on these orany other subject; when _we sauntered alone_, or as we have often donewith good Arbuthnot, and the jocose Dean of St. Patrick, among the_multiplied scenes of your little garden. _ The theatre is large enough formy ambition. " Such a scene opens a beautiful subject for a curiousportrait-painter. These literary groups in the garden of Pope, sauntering, or divided in confidential intercourse, would furnish a scene of literaryrepose and enjoyment among some of the most illustrious names in ourliterature. 

CHAPTER X. 

Literary solitude. --Its necessity. --Its pleasures. --Of visitors byprofession. --Its inconveniences. 

The literary character is reproached with an extreme passion forretirement, cultivating those insulating habits, which, while they aregreat interruptions, and even weakeners, of domestic happiness, induce atthe same time in public life to a secession from its cares, and anavoidance of its active duties. Yet the vacancies of retired men areeagerly filled by the many unemployed men of the world happily framed forits business. We do not hear these accusations raised against the painterwho wears away his days by his easel, or the musician by the side of hisinstrument; and much less should we against the legal and the commercialcharacter; yet all these are as much withdrawn from public and privatelife as the literary character. The desk is as insulating as the library. Yet the man who is working for his individual interest is more highlyestimated than the retired student, whose disinterested pursuits are atleast more profitable to the world than to himself. La Bruyère discoveredthe world's erroneous estimate of literary labour: "There requires abetter name, " he says, "to be bestowed on the leisure (the idleness hecalls it) of the literary character, --to meditate, to compose, to read andto be tranquil, should be called _working_. " But so invisible is theprogress of intellectual pursuits and so rarely are the objects palpableto the observers, that the literary character appears to be denied for hispursuits, what cannot be refused to every other. That unremittingapplication and unbroken series of their thoughts, admired in everyprofession, is only complained of in that one whose professors with somuch sincerity mourn over the brevity of life, which has often closed onthem while sketching their works. 

It is, however, only in solitude that the genius of eminent men has beenformed. There their first thoughts sprang, and there it will become themto find their last: for the solitude of old age--and old age must be oftenin solitude--may be found the happiest with the literary character. Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the true parent ofgenius. In all ages solitude has been called for--has been flown to. Noconsiderable work was ever composed till its author, like an ancientmagician, first retired to the grove, or to the closet, to invocate. Whengenius languishes in an irksome solitude among crowds, that is the momentto fly into seclusion and meditation. There is a society in the deepestsolitude; in all the men of genius of the past

 First of your kind, Society divine!

and in themselves; for there only can they indulge in the romances oftheir soul, and there only can they occupy themselves in their dreams andtheir vigils, and, with the morning, fly without interruption to thelabour they had reluctantly quitted. If there be not periods when theyshall allow their days to melt harmoniously into each other, if they donot pass whole weeks together in their study, without interveningabsences, they will not be admitted into the last recess of the Muses. Whether their glory come from researches, or from enthusiasm, time, withnot a feather ruffled on his wings, time alone opens discoveries andkindles meditation. This desert of solitude, so vast and so dreary to theman of the world, to the man of genius is the magical garden of Armida, whose enchantments arose amidst solitude, while solitude was everywhereamong those enchantments. 

Whenever MICHAEL ANGELO, that "divine madman, " as Richardson once wrote onthe back of one of his drawings, was meditating on some great design, heclosed himself up from the world, "Why do you lead so solitary a life?"asked a friend. "Art, " replied the sublime artist, "Art is a jealous god;it requires the whole and entire man. " During his mighty labour in theSistine Chapel, he refused to have any communication with any person evenat his own house. Such undisturbed and solitary attention is demanded evenby undoubted genius as the price of performance. How then shall we deem ofthat feebler race who exult in occasional excellence, and who so oftendeceive themselves by mistaking the evanescent flashes of genius for thatholier flame which burns on its altar, because the fuel is incessantlysupplied?

We observe men of genius, in public situations, sighing for this solitude. Amidst the impediments of the world, they are doomed to view theirintellectual banquet often rising before them, like some fairy delusion, never to taste it. The great VERULAM often complained of the disturbancesof his public life, and rejoiced in the occasional retirement he stolefrom public affairs. "And now, because I am in the country, I will sendyou some of my country fruits, which with me are good meditations; when Iam in the city, they are choked with business. " Lord CLARENDON, whose lifeso happily combined the contemplative with the active powers of man, dwells on three periods of retirement which he enjoyed; he always tookpleasure in relating the great tranquillity of spirit experienced duringhis solitude at Jersey, where for more than two years, employed on hishistory, he daily wrote "one sheet of large paper with his own hand. " Atthe close of his life, his literary labours in his other retirements aredetailed with a proud satisfaction. Each of his solitudes occasioned a newacquisition; to one he owed the Spanish, to another the French, and to athird the Italian literature. The public are not yet acquainted with thefertility of Lord Clarendon's literary labours. It was not vanity thatinduced Scipio to declare of solitude, that it had no loneliness for him, since he voluntarily retired amidst a glorious life to his Linternum. CICERO was uneasy amid applauding Rome, and has distinguished his numerousworks by the titles of his various villas. AULUS GELLIUS marked hissolitude by his "Attic Nights. " The "Golden Grove" of JEREMY TAYLOR is theproduce of his retreat at the Earl of Carberry's seat in Wales; and the"Diversions of Purley" preserved a man of genius for posterity. VOLTAIREhad talents well adapted for society; but at one period of his life hepassed five years in the most secret seclusion, and indeed usually livedin retirement. MONTESQUIEU quitted the brilliant circles of Paris for hisbooks and his meditations, and was ridiculed by the gay triflers hedeserted; "but my great work, " he observes in triumph, "avance à pas degéant. " Harrington, to compose his "Oceana, " severed himself from thesociety of his friends. DESCARTES, inflamed by genius, hires an obscurehouse in an unfrequented quarter at Paris, and there he passes two years, unknown to his acquaintance. ADAM SMITH, after the publication of hisfirst work, withdrew into a retirement that lasted ten years: even Humerallies him for separating himself from the world; but by this means thegreat political inquirer satisfied the world by his great work. And thusit was with men of genius long ere Petrarch withdrew to his Val chiusa. 

The interruption of visitors by profession has been feelingly lamented bymen of letters. The mind, maturing its speculations, feels the unexpectedconversation of cold ceremony chilling as March winds over the blossoms ofthe Spring. Those unhappy beings who wander from house to house, privileged by the charter of society to obstruct the knowledge they cannotimpart, to weary because they are wearied, or to seek amusement at thecost of others, belong to that class of society which have affixed noother idea to time than that of getting rid of it. These are judges notthe best qualified to comprehend the nature and evil of their depredationsin the silent apartment of the studious, who may be often driven toexclaim, in the words of the Psalmist, "Verily I have cleansed my heart invain, and washed my hands in innocency: _for all the day long have I beenplagued, and chastened every morning. _"

When Montesquieu was deeply engaged in his great work, he writes to afriend:--"The favour which your friend Mr. Hein, often does me to pass hismornings with me, occasions great damage to my work as well by his impureFrench as the length of his details. "--"We are afraid, " said some of thosevisitors to BAXTER, "that we break in upon your time. "--"To be sure youdo, " replied the disturbed and blunt scholar. To hint as gently as hecould to his friends that he was avaricious of time, one of the learnedItalians had a prominent inscription over the door of his study, intimating that whoever remained there must join in his labours. Theamiable MELANCTHON, incapable of a harsh expression, when he receivedthese idle visits, only noted down the time he had expended, that he mightreanimate his industry, and not lose a day. EVELYN, continually importunedby morning visitors, or "taken up by other impertinencies of my life inthe country, " stole his hours from his night rest "to redeem his losses. "The literary character has been driven to the most inventive shifts toescape the irruption of a formidable party at a single rush, who enter, without "besieging or beseeching, " as Milton has it. The late Mr. Ellis, aman of elegant tastes and poetical temperament, on one of these occasions, at his country-house, assured a literary friend, that when driven to thelast, he usually made his escape by a leap out of the window; and Boileauhas noticed a similar dilemma when at the villa of the PresidentLamoignon, while they were holding their delightful conversations in hisgrounds. 

 Quelquefois de fâcheux arrivent trois volées, Que du parc à l'instant assiègent les allées; Alors sauve qui peut, et quatre fois heureux Qui sait s'échapper, à quelque autre ignoré d'eux. 

BRAND HOLLIS endeavoured to hold out "the idea of singularity as ashield;" and the great ROBERT BOYLE was compelled to advertise in anewspaper that he must decline visits on certain days, that he might haveleisure to finish some of his works. [A]

[Footnote A: This curious advertisement is preserved in Dr. Birch's "Lifeof Boyle, " p. 272. Boyle's labours were so exhausting to his naturallyweak frame, and so continuous from his eager desire for investigation, that this advertisement was concocted by the advice of his physician, "todesire to be excused from receiving visits (unless upon occasions veryextraordinary) two days in the week, namely, on the forenoon of Tuesdaysand Fridays (both foreign post days), and on Wednesdays and Saturdays inthe afternoons, that he may have some time, both to recruit his spirits, to range his papers, and fill up the _lacunæ_ of them, and to take somecare of his affairs in Ireland, which are very much disordered and havetheir face often changed by the public calamities there. " He orderedlikewise a board to be placed over his door, with an inscriptionsignifying when he did, and when he did not receive visits. --ED. ]

BOCCACCIO has given an interesting account of the mode of life of thestudious Petrarch, for on a visit he found that Petrarch would not sufferhis hours of study to be broken into even, by the person whom of all menhe loved most, and did not quit his morning studies for his guest, whoduring that time occupied himself by reading or transcribing the works ofhis master. At the decline of day, Petrarch quitted his study for hisgarden, where he delighted to open his heart in mutual confidence. 

But this solitude, at first a necessity, and then a pleasure, at length isnot borne without repining. To tame the fervid wildness of youth to thestrict regularities of study, is a sacrifice performed by the votary; buteven MILTON appears to have felt this irksome period of life; for in thepreface to "Smectymnuus" he says:--"It is but justice not to defraud ofdue esteem the _wearisome labours_ and _studious watchings_ wherein I havespent and _tired out_ almost a whole youth. " COWLEY, that enthusiast forseclusion, in his retirement calls himself "the Melancholy Cowley. " I haveseen an original letter of this poet to Evelyn, where he expresses hiseagerness to see Sir George Mackenzie's "Essay on Solitude;" for a copy ofwhich he had sent over the town, without obtaining one, being "either allbought up, or burnt in the fire of London. "[A]--"I am the more desirous, "he says, "because it is a subject in which I am most deeply interested. "Thus Cowley was requiring a book to confirm his predilection, and we knowhe made the experiment, which did not prove a happy one. We find evenGIBBON, with all his fame about him, anticipating the dread he entertainedof solitude in advanced life. "I feel, and shall continue to feel, thatdomestic solitude, however it may be alleviated by the world, by study, and even by friendship, is a comfortless state, which will grow morepainful as I descend in the vale of years. " And again:--"Your visit hasonly served to remind me that man, however amused or occupied in hiscloset, was not made to live alone. "

[Footnote A: This event happening when London was the chief emporium ofbooks, occasioned many printed just before the time to be excessivelyrare. The booksellers of Paternoster-row had removed their stock to thevaults below St. Paul's for safety as the fire approached them. Among thestock was Prynne's records, vol. Iii. , which were all burnt, except a fewcopies which had been sent into the country, a perfect set has been valuedin consequence at one hundred pounds. The rarity of all books publishedabout the era of the great fire of London induced one curious collector, Dr. Bliss, of Oxford, to especially devote himself to gathering such inhis library. --ED. ]

Had the mistaken notions of Sprat not deprived us of Cowley'scorrespondence, we doubtless had viewed the picture of lonely geniustouched by a tender pencil. [A] But we have SHENSTONE, and GRAY, andSWIFT. The heart of Shenstone bleeds in the dead oblivion of solitude:--"Now I am come from a visit, every little uneasiness is sufficient tointroduce my whole train of melancholy considerations, and to make meutterly dissatisfied with the life I now lead, and the life I foresee Ishall lead. I am angry, and envious, and dejected, and frantic, anddisregard all present things, as becomes a madman to do. I am infinitelypleased, though it is a gloomy joy, with the application of Dr. Swift'scomplaint, that he is forced to die in a rage, like a rat in a poisonedhole. " Let the lover of solitude muse on its picture throughout the year, in this stanza, by the same amiable but suffering poet:--

 Tedious again to curse the drizzling day, Again to trace the wintry tracks of snow, Or, soothed by vernal airs, again survey The self-same hawthorns bud, and cowslips blow. 

Swift's letters paint with terrifying colours a picture of solitude;and at length his despair closed with idiotism. Even the playful museof GRESSET throws a sombre querulousness over the solitude of men ofgenius:--

 --Je les vois, victimes du génie, Au foible prix d'un éclat passager, Vivre isolés, sans jouir de la vie! Vingt ans d'ennuis pour quelques jours de gloire. 

Such are the necessity, the pleasures, and the inconveniences of solitude!It ceases to be a question whether men of genius should blend with themasses of society; for whether in solitude, or in the world, of all othersthey must learn to live with themselves. It is in the world that theyborrow the sparks of thought that fly upwards and perish but the flame ofgenius can only be lighted in their own solitary breast. 

[Footnote A: See the article on Cowley in "Calamities of Authors. "]

CHAPTER XI. 

The meditations of genius. --A work on the art of meditation not yetproduced. --Predisposing the mind. --Imagination awakens imagination. --Generating feelings by music. --Slight habits. --Darkness and silence, bysuspending the exercise of our senses, increase the vivacity of ourconceptions. --The arts of memory. --Memory the foundation of genius. --Inventions by several to preserve their own moral and literarycharacter. --And to assist their studies. --The meditations of genius dependon habit. --Of the night-time. --A day of meditation should precede a day ofcomposition. --Works of magnitude from slight conceptions. --Of thoughtsnever written. --The art of meditation exercised at all hours and places. --Continuity of attention the source of philosophical discoveries. --Stillness of meditation the first state of existence in genius. 

A continuity of attention, a patient quietness of mind, forms one of thecharacteristics of genius. To think, and to feel, constitute the twogrand divisions of men of genius--the men of reasoning and the men ofimagination. There is a thread in our thoughts, as there is a pulse in ourhearts; he who can hold the one, knows how to think; and he who can movethe other, knows how to feel. 

A work on the art of meditation has not yet been produced; yet such a workmight prove of immense advantage to him who never happened to have morethan one solitary idea. The pursuit of a single principle has produced agreat system. Thus probably we owe ADAM SMITH to the French economists. And a loose hint has conducted to a new discovery. Thus GIRARD, takingadvantage of an idea first started by Fenelon, produced his "Synonymes. "But while, in every manual art, every great workman improves on hispredecessor, of the art of the mind, notwithstanding the facility ofpractice, and our incessant experience, millions are yet ignorant of thefirst rudiments; and men of genius themselves are rarely acquainted withthe materials they are working on. Certain constituent principles of themind itself, which the study of metaphysics curiously developes, offermany important regulations in this desirable art. We may even suspect, since men of genius in the present age have confided to us the secrets oftheir studies, that this art may be carried on by more obvious means thanat first would appear, and even by mechanical contrivances and practicalhabits. A mind well organised may be regulated by a single contrivance, asby a bit of lead we govern the fine machinery by which we track the flightof time. Many secrets in this art of the mind yet remain as insulatedfacts, which may hereafter enter into an experimental history. 

Johnson has a curious observation on the Mind itself. He thinks it obtainsa stationary point, from whence it can never advance, occurring before themiddle of life. "When the powers of nature have attained their intendedenergy, they can be no more advanced. The shrub can never become a tree. Nothing then remains but _practice_ and _experience_; and perhaps _whythey do so little may be worth inquiry_. "[A] The result of this inquirywould probably lay a broader foundation for this art of the mind than wehave hitherto possessed, ADAM FERGUSON has expressed himself withsublimity:--"The lustre which man casts around him, like the flameof a meteor, shines only while his motion continues; the moments of restand of obscurity are the same. " What is this art of meditation, but thepower of withdrawing ourselves from the world, to view that world movingwithin ourselves, while we are in repose? As the artist, by an opticalinstrument, reflects and concentrates the boundless landscape around him, and patiently traces all nature in that small space. 

[Footnote A: I recommend the reader to turn to the whole passage, inJohnson's "Betters to Mrs. Thrale, " vol. I. P. 296. ]

There is a government of our thoughts. The mind of genius can be made totake a particular disposition or train of ideas. It is a remarkablecircumstance in the studies of men of genius, that previous to compositionthey have often awakened their imagination by the imagination of theirfavourite masters. By touching a magnet, they become a magnet. Acircumstance has been, recorded of GRAY, by Mr. Mathias, "as worthy of allacceptation among the higher votaries of the divine art, when they areassured that Mr. Gray never sate down to compose any poetry withoutpreviously, and for a considerable time, reading the works of Spenser. "But the circumstance was not unusual with Malherbe, Corneille, and Racine;and the most fervid verses of Homer, and the most tender of Euripides, were often repeated by Milton. Even antiquity exhibits the same excitingintercourse of the mind of genius. Cicero informs us how his eloquencecaught inspiration from a constant study of the Latin and Grecian poetry;and it has been recorded of Pompey, who was great even in his youth, thathe never undertook any considerable enterprise without animating hisgenius by having read to him the character of Achilles in the first_Iliad_; although he acknowledged that the enthusiasm he caught camerather from the poet than the hero. When BOSSUET had to compose a funeraloration, he was accustomed to retire for several days to his study, toruminate over the pages of Homer; and when asked the reason of this habit, he exclaimed, in these lines--

 --magnam mihi mentem, animumque Delius inspiret Vates. 

It is on the same principle of predisposing the mind, that many have firstgenerated their feelings by the symphonies of music. ALFIERI often beforehe wrote prepared his mind by listening to music: "Almost all my tragedieswere sketched in my mind either in the act of hearing music, or a fewhours after"--a circumstance which has been recorded of many others. LordBACON had music often played in the room adjoining his study: MILTONlistened to his organ for his solemn inspiration, and music was evennecessary to WARBURTON. The symphonies which awoke in the poet sublimeemotions, might have composed the inventive mind of the great critic inthe visions of his theoretical mysteries. A celebrated French preacher, Bourdaloue or Massillon, was once found playing on a violin, to screw hismind up to the pitch, preparatory for his sermon, which within a shortinterval he was to preach before the court. CURRAN'S favourite mode ofmeditation was with his violin in his hand; for hours together wouldhe forget himself, running voluntaries over the strings, while hisimagination in collecting its tones was opening all his faculties for thecoming emergency at the bar. When LEONARDO DA VINCI was painting his"Lisa, " commonly called _La Joconde_, he had musicians constantly inwaiting, whose light harmonies, by their associations, inspired feelingsof

 Tipsy dance and revelry. 

There are slight habits which may be contracted by genius, which assistthe action of the mind; but these are of a nature so trivial, that theyseem ridiculous when they have not been experienced: but the imaginativerace exist by the acts of imagination. HAYDN would never sit down tocompose without being in full dress, with his great diamond ring, and thefinest paper to write down his musical compositions. ROUSSEAU has toldus, when occupied by his celebrated romance, of the influence of therose-coloured knots of ribbon which tied his portfolio, his fine paper, his brilliant ink, and his gold sand. Similar facts are related of many. Whenever APOSTOLO ZENO, the predecessor of Metastasio, prepared himself tocompose a new drama, he used to say to himself, "_Apostolo! recordati chequesta è la prima opera che dai in luce. _"--"Apostolo! remember that thisis the first opera you are presenting to the public. " We are scarcelyaware how we may govern our thoughts by means of our sensations: DE LUCwas subject to violent bursts of passion; but he calmed the interiortumult by the artifice of filling his mouth with sweets and comfits. WhenGOLDONI found his sleep disturbed by the obtrusive ideas still floatingfrom the studies of the day, he contrived to lull himself to rest byconning in his mind a vocabulary of the Venetian dialect, translating someword into Tuscan and French; which being a very uninteresting occupation, at the third or fourth version this recipe never failed. This was an artof withdrawing attention from the greater to the less emotion; by which, as the interest weakened, the excitement ceased. MENDELSSOHN, whose feebleand too sensitive frame was often reduced to the last stage of sufferingby intellectual exertion, when engaged in any point of difficulty, wouldin an instant contrive a perfect cessation from thinking, by mechanicallygoing to the window, and counting the tiles upon the roof of hisneighbour's house. Such facts show how much art may be concerned in thegovernment of our thoughts. 

It is an unquestionable fact that some profound thinkers cannot pursuetheir intellectual operations amidst the distractions of light and noise. With them, attention to what is passing within is interrupted by thediscordant impressions from objects pressing and obtruding on theexternal senses. There are indeed instances, as in the case of Priestleyand others, of authors who have pursued their literary works amidstconversation and their family; but such minds are not the most originalthinkers, and the most refined writers; or their subjects are of a naturewhich requires little more than judgment and diligence. It is the mindonly in its fulness which can brood over thoughts till the incubationproduces vitality. Such is the feeling in this act of study. In Plutarch'stime they showed a subterraneous place of study built by Demosthenes, andwhere he often continued for two or three months together. Malebranche, Hobbes, Corneille, and others, darkened their apartment when they wrote, to concentrate their thoughts, as Milton says of the mind, "in thespacious circuits of her musing. " It is in proportion as we can suspendthe exercise of all our other senses that the liveliness of our conceptionincreases--this is the observation of the most elegant metaphysician ofour times; and when Lord Chesterfield advised that his pupil--whoseattention wandered on every passing object, which unfitted him for study--should be instructed in a darkened apartment, he was aware of thisprinciple; the boy would learn, and retain what he learned, ten times aswell. We close our eyes whenever we would collect our mind together, ortrace more distinctly an object which seems to have faded away in ourrecollection. The study of an author or an artist would be ill placed inthe midst of a beautiful landscape; the "Penseroso" of Milton, "hid fromday's garish eye, " is the man of genius. A secluded and naked apartment, with nothing but a desk, a chair, and a single sheet of paper, was forfifty years the study of BUFFON; the single ornament was a print of Newtonplaced before his eyes--nothing broke into the unity of his reveries. Cumberland's liveliest comedy, _The West Indian_, was written in anunfurnished apartment, close in front of an Irish turf-stack; and ourcomic writer was fully aware of the advantages of the situation. "In allmy hours of study, " says that elegant writer, "it has been through life myobject so to locate myself as to have little or nothing to distract myattention, and therefore brilliant rooms or pleasant prospects I have everavoided. A dead wall, or, as in the present case, an Irish turf-stack, arenot attractions that can call off the fancy from its pursuits; and whilstin these pursuits it can find interest and occupation, it wants no outwardaid to cheer it. My father, I believe, rather wondered at my choice. " Theprinciple ascertained, the consequences are obvious. 

The arts of memory have at all times excited the attention of thestudious; they open a world of undivulged mysteries, where every one seemsto form some discovery of his own, rather exciting his astonishment thanenlarging his comprehension. LE SAGE, a modern philosopher, had a memorysingularly defective. Incapable of acquiring languages, and deficient inall those studies which depend on the exercise of the memory, it becamethe object of his subsequent exertions to supply this deficiency by theorder and method he observed in arranging every new fact or idea heobtained; so that in reality with a very bad memory, it appears that hewas still enabled to recall at will any idea or any knowledge which he hadstored up. JOHN HUNTER happily illustrated the advantages which every onederives from putting his thoughts in writing, "it resembles a tradesmantaking stock; without which he never knows either what he possesses, or inwhat he is deficient. " The late WILLIAM HUTTON, a man of an original castof mind, as an experiment in memory, opened a book which he had dividedinto 365 columns, according to the days of the year: he resolved to try torecollect an anecdote, for every column, as insignificant and remote as hewas able, rejecting all under ten years of age; and to his surprise, hefilled those spaces for small reminiscences, within ten columns; but tillthis experiment had been made, he never conceived the extent of hisfaculty. WOLF, the German metaphysician, relates of himself that he had, by the most persevering habit, in bed and amidst darkness, resolved hisalgebraic problems, and geometrically composed all his methods merely bythe aid of his imagination and memory; and when in the daytime he verifiedthe one and the other of these operations, he had always found themtrue. Unquestionably, such astonishing instances of a well-regulatedmemory depend on the practice of its art gradually formed by frequentassociations. When we reflect that whatever we know, and whatever we feel, are the very smallest portions of all the knowledge we have beenacquiring, and all the feelings we have experienced through life, howdesirable would be that art which should again open the scenes which havevanished, and revivify the emotions which other impressions have effaced?But the faculty of memory, although perhaps the most manageable of allothers, is considered a subordinate one; it seems only a grasping andaccumulating power, and in the work of genius is imagined to producenothing of itself; yet is memory the foundation of Genius, whenever thisfaculty is associated with imagination and passion; with men of genius itis a chronology not merely of events, but of emotions; hence they remembernothing that is not interesting to their feelings. Persons of inferiorcapacity have imperfect recollections from feeble impressions. Are not theincidents of the great novelist often founded on the common ones of life?and the personages so admirably alive in his fictions, were they notdiscovered among the crowd? The ancients have described the Muses as thedaughters of Memory; an elegant fiction, indicating the natural andintimate connexion between imagination and reminiscence. 

The arts of memory will form a saving-bank of genius, to which it may haverecourse, as a wealth which it can accumulate imperceptibly amidst theordinary expenditure. LOCKE taught us the first rudiments of this art, when he showed us how he stored his thoughts and his facts, by anartificial arrangement; and Addison, before he commenced his "Spectators, "had amassed three folios of materials. But the higher step will be thevolume which shall give an account of a man to himself, in which a singleobservation immediately becomes a clue of past knowledge, restoring to himhis lost studies, and his evanescent existence. Self-contemplation makesthe man more nearly entire: and to preserve the past, is half ofimmortality. 

The worth of the diary must depend on the diarist; but "Of the thingswhich concern himself, " as MARCUS ANTONINUS entitles his celebrated work--this volume, reserved for solitary contemplation, should be consideredas a future relic of ourselves. The late Sir SAMUEL ROMILLY commenced, even in the most occupied period of his life, a diary of his last twelveyears; which he declares in his will, "I bequeath to my children, as itmay be serviceable to them. " Perhaps in this Romilly bore in mind theexample of another eminent lawyer, the celebrated WHITELOCKE, whohad drawn up a great work, entitled "Remembrances of the Labours ofWhitelocke, in the Annals of his Life, for the Instruction of hisChildren. " That neither of these family books has appeared, is our commonloss. Such legacies from such men ought to become the inheritance of theircountrymen. 

To register the transactions of the day, with observations on what, and onwhom, he had seen, was the advice of Lord KAIMES to the late Mr. CURWEN;and for years his head never reached its pillow without performing a taskwhich habit had made easy. "Our best and surest road to knowledge, " saidLord Kaimes, "is by profiting from the labours of others, and making theirexperience our own. " In this manner Curwen tells us he acquired by habit_the art of thinking_; and he is an able testimony of the practicabilityand success of the plan, for he candidly tells us, "Though many wouldsicken at the idea of imposing such a task upon themselves, yet theattempt, persevered in for a short time, would soon become a custom moreirksome to omit than it was difficult to commence. "

Could we look into the libraries of authors, the studios of artists, andthe laboratories of chemists, and view what they have only sketched, orwhat lie scattered in fragments, and could we trace their first and lastthoughts, we might discover that we have lost more than we possess. Therewe might view foundations without superstructures, once the monuments oftheir hopes! A living architect recently exhibited to the public anextraordinary picture of his mind, in his "Architectural Visions of EarlyFancy in the Gay Morning of Youth, " and which now were "dreams in theevening of life. " In this picture he had thrown together all thearchitectural designs his imagination had conceived, but which remainedunexecuted. The feeling is true, however whimsical such unaccomplishedfancies might appear when thrown together into one picture. In literaryhistory such instances have occurred but too frequently: the imaginationof youth, measuring neither time nor ability, creates what neither timenor ability can execute. ADAM SMITH, in the preface to the first editionof his "Theory of Sentiments, " announced a large work on law andgovernment; and in a late edition he still repeated the promise, observingthat "Thirty years ago I entertained no doubt of being able to executeeverything which it announced. " The "Wealth of Nations" was but a fragmentof this greater work. Surely men of genius, of all others, may mourn overthe length of art and the brevity of life!

Yet many glorious efforts, and even artificial inventions, have beencontrived to assist and save its moral and literary existence in thatperpetual race which genius holds with time. We trace its triumph in thestudious days of such men as GIBBON, Sir WILLIAM JONES, and PRIESTLEY. Aninvention by which the moral qualities and the acquisitions of theliterary character were combined and advanced together, is what SirWILLIAM JONES ingeniously calls his "Andrometer. " In that scale of humanattainments and enjoyments which ought to accompany the eras of humanlife, it reminds us of what was to be learned, and what to be practised, assigning to stated periods their appropriate pursuits. An occasionalrecurrence, even to so fanciful a standard, would be like looking on aclock to remind the student how he loiters, or how he advances in thegreat day's work. Such romantic plans have been often invented by theardour of genius. There was no communication between Sir WILLIAM JONES andDr. FRANKLIN; yet, when young, the self-taught philosopher of Americapursued the same genial and generous devotion to his own moral andliterary excellence. 

"It was about this time I conceived, " says Franklin, "the bold and arduousproject of arriving at moral perfection, " &c. He began a daily journal, inwhich against thirteen virtues accompanied by seven columns to mark thedays of the week, he dotted down what he considered to be his failures; hefound himself fuller of faults than he had imagined, but at length hisblots diminished. This self-examination, or this "Faultbook, " as LordShaftesbury would have called it, was always carried about him. Thesebooks still exist. An additional contrivance was that of journalising histwenty-four hours, of which he has furnished us both with descriptions andspecimens of the method; and he closes with a solemn assurance, that "Itmay be well my posterity should be informed, that to this _littleartifice_ their ancestor owes the constant felicity of his life. " Thus wesee the fancy of Jones and the sense of Franklin, unconnected either bycharacter or communication, but acted on by the same glorious feeling tocreate their own moral and literary character, inventing similar althoughextraordinary methods. 

The memorials of Gibbon and Priestley present us with the experience andthe habits of the literary character. "What I have known, " says Dr. Priestley, "with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen both myadmiration and my contempt of others. Could we have entered into the mindof Sir Isaac Newton, and have traced all the steps by which he producedhis great works, we might see nothing very extraordinary in the process. "Our student, with an ingenuous simplicity, opens to us that "variety ofmechanical expedients by which he secured and arranged his thoughts, " andthat discipline of the mind, by means of a peculiar arrangement of hisstudies for the day and for the year, in which he rivalled the calm andunalterable system pursued by Gibbon, Buffon, and Voltaire, who often onlycombined the knowledge they obtained by humble methods. They knew what toask for; and where what is wanted may be found: they made use of anintelligent secretary; aware, as Lord Bacon has expressed it, that somebooks "may be read by deputy. "

Buffon laid down an excellent rule to obtain originality, when he advisedthe writer first to exhaust his own thoughts, before he attempted toconsult other writers; and Gibbon, the most experienced reader of all ourwriters, offers the same important advice to an author. When engaged on aparticular subject, he tells us, "I suspended my perusal of any new bookon the subject, till I had reviewed all that I knew, or believed, or hadthought on it, that I might be qualified to discern how much the authorsadded to my original stock. " The advice of Lord Bacon, that we shouldpursue our studies in whatever disposition the mind may be, is excellent. If happily disposed, we shall gain a great step; and if indisposed, we"shall work out the knots and strands of the mind, and make the middletimes the more pleasant. " Some active lives have passed away in incessantcompetition, like those of Mozart, Cicero, and Voltaire, who wererestless, perhaps unhappy, when their genius was quiescent. To such mindsthe constant zeal they bring to their labour supplies the absence of thatinspiration which cannot always be the same, nor always at its height. 

Industry is the feature by which the ancients so frequently describe aneminent character; such phrases as "_incredibili industria; diligentiasingulars_" are usual. We of these days cannot conceive the industry ofCicero; but he has himself told us that he suffered no moments of hisleisure to escape from him. Not only his spare hours were consecrated tohis books; but even on days of business he would take a few turns in hiswalk, to meditate or to dictate; many of his letters are dated beforedaylight, some from the senate, at his meals, and amid his morning levées. The dawn of day was the summons of study to Sir William Jones. JohnHunter, who was constantly engaged in the search and consideration ofnew facts, described what was passing in his mind by a remarkableillustration:--he said to Abernethy, "My mind is like a bee-hive. " Asimile which was singularly correct; "for, " observes Abernethy, "in themidst of buzz and apparent confusion there was great order, regularity ofstructure, and abundant food, collected with incessant industry from thechoicest stores of nature. " Thus one man of genius is the ablestcommentator on the thoughts and feelings of another. When we reflect onthe magnitude of the labours of Cicero and the elder Pliny, on those ofErasmus, Petrarch, Baronius, Lord Bacon, Usher, and Bayle, we seem at thebase of these monuments of study, we seem scarcely awake to admire. Thesewere the laborious instructors of mankind; their age has closed. 

Yet let not those other artists of the mind, who work in the airy looms offancy and wit, imagine that they are weaving their webs, without thedirection of a principle, and without a secret habit which they haveacquired, and which some have imagined, by its quickness and facility, tobe an instinct. "Habit, " says Reid, "differs from instinct, not in itsnature, but in its origin; the last being natural, the first acquired. "What we are accustomed to do, gives a facility and proneness to do on likeoccasions; and there may be even an art, unperceived by themselves, inopening and pursuing a scene of pure invention, and even in the happiestturns of wit. One who had all the experience of such an artist hasemployed the very terms we have used, of "mechanical" and "habitual. " "Beassured, " says Goldsmith, "that wit is in some measure mechanical; andthat a man long habituated to catch at even its resemblance, will at lastbe happy enough to possess the substance. By a long habit of writing heacquires a justness of thinking, and a mastery of manner which holidaywriters, even with ten times his genius, may vainly attempt to equal. " Thewit of BUTLER was not extemporaneous, but painfully elaborated from noteswhich he incessantly accumulated; and the familiar _rime_ of BERNT, theburlesque poet, his existing manuscripts will prove, were produced byperpetual re-touches. Even in the sublime efforts of imagination, thisart of meditation may be practised; and ALFIERI has shown us, that inthose energetic tragic dramas which were often produced in a state ofenthusiasm, he pursued a regulated process. "All my tragedies have beencomposed three times;" and he describes the three stages of conception, development, and versifying. "After these three operations, I proceed, like other authors, to publish, correct, or amend. "

"All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself!" exclaimed METASTASIO;and we may add, even the meditations of genius. Some of its boldestconceptions, are indeed fortuitous, starting up and vanishing almost inthe perception; like that giant form, sometimes seen amidst the glaciers, afar from the opposite traveller, moving as he moves, stopping as hestops, yet, in a moment lost, and perhaps never more seen, although buthis own reflection! Often in the still obscurity of the night, the ideas, the studies, the whole history of the day, is acted over again. There areprobably few mathematicians who have not dreamed of an interestingproblem, observes Professor Dugald Stewart. In these vivid scenes we areoften so completely converted into spectators, that a great poeticalcontemporary of our country thinks that even his dreams should not passaway unnoticed, and keeps what he calls a register of nocturnals. TASSOhas recorded some of his poetical dreams, which were often disturbed bywaking himself in repeating a verse aloud. "This night I awaked with thisverse in my mouth--

 "_E i duo che manda il nero adusto suolo_. The two, the _dark_ and burning soil has sent. "

He discovered that the epithet _black_ was not suitable; "I again fellasleep, and in a dream I read in Strabo that the sand of Ethiopia andArabia is extremely _white_, and this morning I have found the place. Yousee what learned dreams I have. "

But incidents of this nature are not peculiar to this great bard. The_improvvisatori_ poets, we are told, cannot sleep after an evening'seffusion; the rhymes are still ringing in their ears, and imagination, ifthey have any, will still haunt them. Their previous state of excitementbreaks into the calm of sleep; for, like the ocean, when its swell issubsiding, the waves still heave and beat. A poet, whether a Milton or aBlackmore, will ever find that his muse will visit his "slumbers nightly. "His fate is much harder than that of the great minister, Sir RobertWalpole, who on retiring to rest could throw aside his political intrigueswith his clothes; but Sir Robert, to judge by his portrait and anecdotesof him, had a sleekiness and good-humour, and an unalterable equanimity ofcountenance, not the portion of men of genius: indeed one of these hasregretted that his sleep was so profound as not to be interrupted bydreams; from a throng of fantastic ideas he imagined that he could havedrawn new sources of poetic imagery. The historian DE THOU was one ofthose great literary characters who, all his life, was preparing to writethe history which he afterwards composed; omitting nothing in his travelsand his embassies, which went to the formation of a great man. DE THOU hasgiven a very curious account of his dreams. Such was his passion forstudy, and his ardent admiration of the great men whom he conversed with, that he often imagined in his sleep that he was travelling in Italy, Germany, and in England, where he saw and consulted the learned, andexamined their curious libraries. He had all his lifetime these literarydreams, but more particularly in his travels they reflected these imagesof the day. 

If memory do not chain down these hurrying fading children of theimagination, and

 Snatch the faithless fugitives to light

with the beams of the morning, the mind suddenly finds itself forsaken andsolitary. [A] ROUSSEAU has uttered a complaint on this occasion. Full ofenthusiasm, he devoted to the subject of his thoughts, as was his custom, the long sleepless intervals of his nights. Meditating in bed with hiseyes closed, he turned over his periods in a tumult of ideas; but when herose and had dressed, all was vanished; and when he sat down to hisbreakfast he had nothing to write. Thus genius has its vespers and itsvigils, as well as its matins, which we have been so often told are thetrue hours of its inspiration; but every hour may be full of inspirationfor him who knows to meditate. No man was more practised in this art ofthe mind than POPE, and even the night was not an unregarded portion ofhis poetical existence, not less than with LEONARDO DA VINCI, who tells ushow often he found the use of recollecting the ideas of what he hadconsidered in the day after he had retired to bed, encompassed by thesilence and obscurity of the night. Sleepless nights are the portion ofgenius when engaged in its work; the train of reasoning is still pursued;the images of fancy catch a fresh illumination; and even a happyexpression shall linger in the ear of him who turns about for the softcomposure to which his troubled spirit cannot settle. 

[Footnote A: One of the most extraordinary instances of inspiration indreams is told of Tartini, the Italian musician, whose "Devil's Sonata" iswell known to musicians. He dreamed that the father of evil played thispiece to him, and upon waking he put it on paper. It is a strange wildperformance, possessing great originality and vigour. --ED. ]

But while with genius so much seems fortuitous, in its great operationsthe march of the mind appears regular, and requires preparation. Theintellectual faculties are not always co-existent, or do not always actsimultaneously. Whenever any particular faculty is highly active, whilethe others are languid, the work, as a work of genius, may be verydeficient. Hence the faculties, in whatever degree they exist, areunquestionably enlarged by _meditation_. It seems trivial to observe thatmeditation should precede composition, but we are not always aware of itsimportance; the truth is, that it is a difficulty unless it be a habit. Wewrite, and we find we have written ill; we re-write, and feel we havewritten well: in the second act of composition we have acquired thenecessary meditation. Still we rarely carry on our meditation so far asits practice would enable us. Many works of mediocrity might haveapproached to excellence, had this art of the mind been exercised. Manyvolatile writers might have reached even to deep thinking, had theybestowed a day of meditation before a day of composition, and thusengendered their thoughts. Many productions of genius have originally beenenveloped in feebleness and obscurity, which have only been brought toperfection by repeated acts of the mind. There is a maxim of Confucius, which in the translation seems quaint, but which is pregnant with sense--

 Labour, but slight not meditation; Meditate, but slight not labour. 

Few works of magnitude presented themselves at once, in their extentand with their associations, to their authors. Two or three strikingcircumstances, unobserved before, are perhaps all which the man of geniusperceives. It is in revolving the subject that the whole mind becomesgradually agitated; as a summer landscape, at the break of day, is wrappedin mist: at first, the sun strikes on a single object, but the light andwarmth increasing, the whole scene glows in the noonday of imagination. How beautifully this state of the mind, in the progress of composition, is described by DRYDEN, alluding to his work, "when it was only a confusedmass of thoughts, tumbling over one another in the dark; when the fancywas yet in its first work, moving the sleeping images of things towardsthe light, there to be distinguished, and then either to be chosen orrejected by the judgment!" At that moment, he adds, "I was in thateagerness of imagination which, by over-pleasing fanciful men, flattersthem into the danger of writing. " GIBBON tells us of his history, "At theonset all was dark and doubtful; even the title of the work, the true eraof the decline and fall of the empire, &c. I was often tempted to castaway the labour of seven years. " WINCKELMANN was long lost in composinghis "History of Art;" a hundred fruitless attempts were made, before hecould discover a plan amidst the labyrinth. Slight conceptions kindlefinished works. A lady asking for a few verses on rural topics of the Abbéde Lille, his specimens pleased, and sketches heaped on sketches produced"Les Jardins. " In writing the "Pleasures of Memory, " as it happened with"The Rape of the Lock, " the poet at first proposed a simple description ina few lines, till conducted by meditation the perfect composition ofseveral years closed in that fine poem. That still valuable work, _L'Artde Penser_ of the Port-Royal, was originally projected to teach a youngnobleman all that was practically useful in the art of logic in a fewdays, and was intended to have been written in one morning by the greatARNAULD; but to that profound thinker so many new ideas crowded in thatslight task, that he was compelled to call in his friend NICOLLE; and thusa few projected pages closed in a volume so excellent, that our elegantmetaphysician has recently declared, that "it is hardly possible toestimate the merits too highly. " Pemberton, who knew NEWTON intimately, informs us that his Treatise on Natural Philosophy, full of a variety ofprofound inventions, was composed by him from scarcely any other materialsthan the _few propositions he had set down several years before_, andwhich having resumed, occupied him in writing one year and a half. Acurious circumstance has been preserved in the life of the other immortalman in philosophy, Lord BACON. When young, he wrote a letter to FatherFulgentio concerning an Essay of his, to which he gave the title of "TheGreatest Birth of Time, " a title which he censures as too pompous. TheEssay itself is lost, but it was the first outline of that great designwhich he afterwards pursued and finished in his "Instauration of theSciences. " LOCKE himself has informed us, that his great work on "TheHuman Understanding, " when he first put pen to paper, he thought "wouldhave been contained in one sheet, but that the farther he went on, thelarger prospect he had. " In this manner it would be beautiful to trace thehistory of the human mind, and observe how a NEWTON and a BACON and aLOCKE were proceeding for thirty years together, in accumulating truthupon truth, and finally building up these fabrics of their invention. 

Were it possible to collect some thoughts of great thinkers, which werenever written, we should discover vivid conceptions, and an originalitythey never dared to pursue in their works! Artists have this advantageover authors, that their virgin fancies, their chance felicities, whichlabour cannot afterwards produce, are constantly perpetuated; and those"studies, " as they are called, are as precious to posterity as their morecomplete designs. In literature we possess one remarkable evidence ofthese fortuitous thoughts of genius. POPE and SWIFT, being in the countrytogether, observed, that if contemplative men were to notice "the thoughtswhich suddenly present themselves to their minds when walking in thefields, &c. , they might find many as well worth preserving as some oftheir more deliberate reflections. " They made a trial, and agreed to writedown such involuntary thoughts as occurred during their stay there. Thesefurnished out the "Thoughts" in Pope's and Swift's Miscellanies. [A] AmongLord Bacon's Remains, we find a paper entitled "_Sudden Thoughts, _ setdown for Profit. " At all hours, by the side of VOLTAIRE'S bed, or on histable, stood his pen and ink with slips of paper. The margins of his bookswere covered with his "sudden thoughts. " CICERO, in reading, constantlytook notes and made comments. There is an art of reading, as well as anart of thinking, and an art of writing. 

[Footnote A: This anecdote is found in Ruffhead's "Life of Pope, "evidently given by Warburton, as was everything of personal knowledge inthat tasteless volume of a mere lawyer, who presumed to write the life ofa poet. ]

The art of meditation may be exercised at all hours, and in all places;and men of genius, in their walks, at table, and amidst assemblies, turning the eye of the mind inwards, can form an artificial solitude;retired amidst a crowd, calm amidst distraction, and wise amidst folly. When DOMENICHINO was reproached for his dilatory habits, in not finishinga great picture for which he had contracted, his reply described thismethod of study: _Eh! lo la sto continuamente dipingendo entro di me_--Iam continually painting it within myself. HOGARTH, with an eye alwaysawake to the ridiculous, would catch a character on his thumb-nail. LEONARDO DA VINCI has left a great number of little books which lieusually carried in his girdle, that he might instantly sketch whatever hewished to recal to his recollection; and Amoretti discovered, that, inthese light sketches, this fine genius was forming a system of physiognomywhich he frequently inculcated to his pupils. [A] HAYDN carefully noteddown in a pocket-book the passages and ideas which came to him in hiswalks or amid company. Some of the great actions of men of this habit ofmind were first meditated on amidst the noise of a convivial party, or themusic of a concert. The victory of Waterloo might have been organized inthe ball-room at Brussels: and thus RODNEY, at the table of Lord Sandwich, while the bottle was briskly circulating, being observed arranging bits ofcork, and his solitary amusement having excited inquiry, said that he waspractising a plan to annihilate an enemy's fleet. This proved to be thatdiscovery of breaking the line, which the happy audacity of the heroafterwards executed. What situation is more common than a sea-voyage, where nothing presents itself to the reflections of most men than irksomeobservations on the desert of waters? But the constant exercise of themind by habitual practice is the privilege of a commanding genius, and, ina similar situation, we discover CICERO and Sir WILLIAM JONES actingalike. Amidst the Oriental seas, in a voyage of 12, 000 miles, the mind ofJONES kindled with delightful enthusiasm, and he has perpetuated thoseelevating feelings in his discourse to the Asiatic Society; so CICERO onboard a ship, sailing slowly along the coast, passing by a town where hisfriend Trebatius resided, wrote a work which the other had expressed awish to possess, and of which wish the view of the town had reminded him. 

[Footnote A: A collection of sixty-four of these sketches were publishedat Paris in 1730. They are remarkable as delineations of mental characterin feature as strongly felt as if done under the direction of Laraterhimself. --ED. ]

To this habit of continuity of attention, tracing the first simple idea toits remoter consequences, the philosophical genius owes many of itsdiscoveries. It was one evening in the cathedral of Pisa that GALILEOobserved the vibrations of a brass lustre pendent from the vaulted roof, which had been left swinging by one of the vergers. The habitualmeditation of genius combined with an ordinary accident a new idea ofscience, and hence conceived the invention of measuring time by the mediumof a pendulum. Who but a genius of this order, sitting in his orchard, and observing the descent of an apple, could have discovered a new qualityin matter, and have ascertained the laws of attraction, by perceivingthat the same causes might perpetuate the regular motions of the planetarysystem; who but a genius of this order, while viewing boys blowingsoap-bladders, could have discovered the properties of light and colours, and then anatomised a ray? FRANKLIN, on board a ship, observing a partialstillness in the waves when they threw down water which had been used forculinary purposes, by the same principle of meditation was led to thediscovery of the wonderful property in oil of calming the agitated ocean;and many a ship has been preserved in tempestuous weather, or a landingfacilitated on a dangerous surf, by this solitary meditation of genius. 

Thus meditation draws out of the most simple truths the strictnessof philosophical demonstration, converting even the amusements ofschool-boys, or the most ordinary domestic occurrences, into the principleof a new science. The phenomenon of galvanism was familiar to students;yet was there but one man of genius who could take advantage of anaccident, give it his name, and fix it as a science. It was while lying inhis bath, but still meditating on the means to detect the fraud of thegoldsmith who had made Hiero's crown, that the most extraordinaryphilosopher of antiquity was led to the investigation of a series ofpropositions demonstrated in the two books of ARCHIMEDES, _De insidentibusin fluido, _ still extant; and which a great mathematician admires both forthe strictness and elegance of the demonstrations. To as minute a domesticoccurrence as GALVANI'S we owe the steam-engine. When the Marquis ofWORCESTER was a State prisoner in the Tower, he one day observed, whilehis meal was preparing in his apartment, that the cover of the vesselbeing tight, was, by the expansion of the steam, suddenly forced off, anddriven up the chimney. His inventive mind was led on in a train of thoughtwith reference to the practical application of steam as a first mover. Hisobservations, obscurely exhibited in his "Century of Inventions, " weresuccessively wrought out by the meditations of others, and an incident, towhich one can hardly make a formal reference without a risible emotion, terminated in the noblest instance of mechanical power. 

Into the stillness of meditation the mind of genius must be frequentlythrown; it is a kind of darkness which hides from us all surroundingobjects, even in the light of day. This is the first state of existence ingenius. In Cicero's "Treatise on Old Age, " we find Cato admiring CaiusSulpitius Gallus, who, when he sat down to write in the morning, wassurprised by the evening; and when he took up his pen in the evening, wassurprised by the appearance of the morning. SOCRATES sometimes remained awhole day in immovable meditation, his eyes and countenance directed toone spot, as if in the stillness of death. LA FONTAINE, when writing hiscomic tales, has been observed early in the morning and late in theevening in the same recumbent posture under the same tree. This quiescentstate is a sort of enthusiasm, and renders everything that surrounds us asdistant as if an immense interval separated us from the scene. Poggius hastold us of DANTE, that he indulged his meditations more strongly than anyman he knew; for when deeply busied in reading, he seemed to live only inhis ideas. Once the poet went to view a public procession; having entereda bookseller's shop, and taken up a book, he sunk into a reverie; on hisreturn he declared that he had neither seen nor heard a single occurrencein the public exhibition, which had passed unobserved before him. It hasbeen told of a modern astronomer, that one summer night, when he waswithdrawing to his chamber, the brightness of the heavens showed aphenomenon: he passed the whole night in observing it; and when they cameto him early in the morning, and found him in the same attitude, he said, like one who had been recollecting his thoughts for a few moments, "Itmust be thus; but I'll go to bed before it is late. " He had gazed theentire night in meditation, and was not aware of it. Abernethy has finelypainted the situation of NEWTON in this state of mind. I will not changehis words, for his words are his feelings. "It was this power of mind--which can contemplate the greatest number of facts or propositions withaccuracy--that so eminently distinguished Newton from other men. It wasthis power that enabled him to arrange the whole of a treatise in histhoughts before he committed a single idea to paper. In the exercise ofthis power, he was known occasionally to have passed a whole night or day, entirely inattentive to surrounding objects. "

There is nothing incredible in the stories related of some who haveexperienced this entranced state in study, where the mind, deliciouslyinebriated with the object it contemplates, feels nothing, from the excessof feeling, as a philosopher well describes it. The impressions from ourexterior sensations are often suspended by great mental excitement. ARCHIMEDES, involved in the investigation of mathematical truth, and thepainters PROTOGENES and PARMEGIANO, found their senses locked up as itwere in meditation, so as to be incapable of withdrawing themselves fromtheir work, even in the midst of the terrors and storming of the place bythe enemy. MARINO was so absorbed in the composition of his "Adonis, " thathe suffered his leg to be burned before the painful sensation grewstronger than the intellectual pleasure of his imagination. MonsieurTHOMAS, a modern French writer, and an intense thinker, would sit forhours against a hedge, composing with a low voice, taking the same pinchof snuff for half an hour together without being aware that it had longdisappeared. When he quitted his apartment, after prolonging his studiesthere, a visible alteration was observed in his person, and the agitationof his recent thoughts was still traced in his air and manner. Witheloquent truth BUFFON described those reveries of the student, whichcompress his day, and mark the hours by the sensations of minutes!"Invention depends on patience: contemplate your subject long; it willgradually unfold till a sort of electric spark convulses for a moment thebrain, and spreads down to the very heart a glow of irritation. Then comethe luxuries of genius, the true hours for production and composition--hours so delightful, that I have spent twelve or fourteen successivelyat my writing-desk, and still been in a state of pleasure. " Bishop HORNE, whose literary feelings were of the most delicate and lively kind, hasbeautifully recorded them in his progress through a favourite andlengthened work--his Commentary on the Psalms. He alludes to himself inthe third person; yet who but the self-painter could have caught thosedelicious emotions which are so evanescent in the deep occupation ofpleasant studies? "He arose fresh in the morning to his task; the silenceof the night invited him to pursue it; and he can truly say, that food andrest were not preferred before it. Every part improved infinitely upon hisacquaintance with it, and no one gave him uneasiness but the last, forthen he grieved that his work was done. "

This eager delight of pursuing study, this impatience of interruption, andthis exultation in progress, are alike finely described by MILTON in aletter to his friend Diodati. 

"Such is the character of my mind, that no delay, none of the ordinarycessations for rest or otherwise, I had nearly said care or thinking ofthe very subject, can hold me back from being hurried on to the destinedpoint, and from completing the great circuit, as it were, of the study inwhich I am engaged. "

Such is the picture of genius viewed in the stillness of MEDITATION; butthere is yet a more excited state, when, as if consciousness were mixingwith its reveries, in the allusion of a scene, of a person, of a passion, the emotions of the soul affect even the organs of sense. This excitementis experienced when the poet in the excellence of invention, and thephilosopher in the force of intellect, alike share in the hours ofinspiration and the ENTHUSIASM of genius. 

CHAPTER XII. 

The enthusiasm of genius. --A state of mind resembling a waking dreamdistinct from reverie. --The ideal presence distinguished from the realpresence. --The senses are really affected in the ideal world, proved by avariety of instances. --Of the rapture or sensation of deep study in art, in science, and literature. --Of perturbed feelings in delirium. --Inextreme endurance of attention. --And in visionary illusions. --Enthusiastsin literature and art--of their self-immolations. 

We left the man of genius in the stillness of meditation. We have nowto pursue his history through that more excited state which occurs inthe most active operations of genius, and which the term _reverie_inadequately indicates. Metaphysical distinctions but ill describe it, andpopular language affords no terms for those faculties and feelings whichescape the observation of the multitude not affected by the phenomenon. 

The illusion produced by a drama on persons of great sensibility, when allthe senses are awakened by a mixture of reality with imagination, is theeffect experienced by men of genius in their own vivified ideal world. Real emotions are raised by fiction. In a scene, apparently passing intheir presence, where the whole train of circumstances succeeds in all thecontinuity of nature, and where a sort of real existences appear to riseup before them, they themselves become spectators or actors. Theirsympathies are excited, and the exterior organs of sense are visiblyaffected--they even break out into speech, and often accompany theirspeech with gestures. 

In this equivocal state the enthusiast of genius produces hismasterpieces. This waking dream is distinct from reverie, where, ourthoughts wandering without connexion, the faint impressions are soevanescent as to occur without even being recollected. A day of _reverie_is beautifully painted by ROUSSEAU as distinct from a day of _thinking_:"J'ai des journées délicieuses, errant sans souci, sans projet, sansaffaire, de bois en bois, et de rocher en rocher, _rêvant toujours et nepensant point. "_ Far different, however, is one closely-pursued act ofmeditation, carrying the enthusiast of genius beyond the precinct ofactual existence. The act of contemplation then creates the thingcontemplated. He is now the busy actor in a world which he himself onlyviews; alone, he hears, he sees, he touches, he laughs, he weeps; hisbrows and lips, and his very limbs move. 

Poets and even painters, who, as Lord Bacon describes witches, "areimaginative, " have often involuntarily betrayed, in the act ofcomposition, those gestures which accompany this enthusiasm. WitnessDOMENICHINO enraging himself that he might portray anger. Nor were thesecreative gestures quite unknown to QUINTILIAN, who has nobly compared themto the lashings of the lion's tail, rousing him to combat. Actors ofgenius have accustomed themselves to walk on the stage for an hour beforethe curtain was drawn, that they might fill their minds with all thephantoms of the drama, and so suspend all communion with the externalworld. The great actress of our age, during representation, always had thedoor of her dressing-room open, that she might listen to, and if possiblewatch the whole performance, with the same attention as was experienced bythe spectators. By this means she possessed herself of all the illusion ofthe scene; and when she herself entered on the stage, her dreamingthoughts then brightened into a vision, where the perceptions of the soulwere as firm and clear as if she were really the Constance or theKatherine whom she only represented. [A]

[Footnote A: The late Mrs. SIDDONS. She herself communicated this strikingcircumstance to me. ]

Aware of this peculiar faculty, so prevalent in the more vivid exercise ofgenius, Lord KAIMES seems to have been the first who, in a work oncriticism, attempted to name _the ideal presence_, to distinguish it fromthe _real presence_ of things. It has been called the representativefaculty, the imaginative state, and many other states and faculties. Callit what we will, no term opens to us the invisible mode of its operations, no metaphysical definition expresses its variable nature. Conscious of theexistence of such a faculty, our critic perceived that the conception ofit is by no means clear when described in words. 

Has not the difference between an actual thing, and its image in a glass, perplexed some philosophers? and it is well known how far the idealphilosophy has been carried by so fine a genius as Bishop BERKELEY. "Allare pictures, alike painted on the retina, or optical sensorium!"exclaimed the enthusiast BARRY, who only saw pictures in nature, andnature in pictures. This faculty has had a strange influence over thepassionate lovers of statues. We find unquestionable evidence of thevividness of the representative faculty, or the ideal presence, vying withthat of reality. EVELYN has described one of this cast of mind, in thelibrarian of the Vatican, who haunted one of the finest collections atRome. To these statues he would frequently talk as if they were livingpersons, often kissing and embracing them. A similar circumstance might berecorded of a man of distinguished talent and literature among ourselves. Wondrous stories are told of the amatorial passion for marble statues; butthe wonder ceases, and the truth is established, when the irresistibleideal presence is comprehended; the visions which now bless these loversof statues, in the modern land of sculpture, Italy, had acted with equalforce in ancient Greece. "The Last Judgment, " the stupendous idealpresence of MICHAEL ANGELO, seems to have communicated itself to some ofhis beholders: "As I stood before this picture, " a late traveller tellsus, "my blood chilled as if the reality were before me, and the very soundof the trumpet seemed to pierce my ears. "

Cold and barren tempers without imagination, whose impressions of objectsnever rise beyond those of memory and reflection, which know only tocompare, and not to excite, will smile at this equivocal state of theideal presence; yet it is a real one to the enthusiast of genius, and itis his happiest and peculiar condition. Destitute of this faculty, nometaphysical aid, no art to be taught him, no mastery of talent willavail him: unblest with it, the votary will find each sacrifice lying coldon the altar, for no accepting flame from heaven shall kindle it. 

This enthusiasm indeed can only be discovered by men of genius themselves;yet when most under its influence, they can least perceive it, as the eyewhich sees all things cannot view itself; or, rather, such an attemptwould be like searching for the principle of life, which were it foundwould cease to be life. From an enchanted man we must not expect anarrative of his enchantment; for if he could speak to us reasonably, andlike one of ourselves, in that case he would be a man in a state ofdisenchantment, and then would perhaps yield us no better account than wemay trace by our own observations. 

There is, however, something of reality in this state of the idealpresence; for the most familiar instances will show how the nerves of eachexternal sense are put in motion by the idea of the object, as if the realobject had been presented to it. The difference is only in the degree. Thesenses are more concerned in the ideal world than at first appears. Theidea of a thing will make us shudder; and the bare imagination of it willoften produce a real pain. A curious consequence may be deduced from thisprinciple; MILTON, lingering amid the freshness of nature in Eden, feltall the delights of those elements which he was creating; his nerves movedwith the images which excited them. The fierce and wild DANTE, amidst theabysses of his "Inferno, " must often have been startled by its horrors, and often left his bitter and gloomy spirit in the stings he inflicted onthe great criminal. The moveable nerves, then, of the man of genius are areality, he sees, he hears, he feels, by each. How mysterious to us is theoperation of this faculty!

A HOMER and a RICHARDSON, [A] like nature, open a volume large as lifeitself--embracing a circuit of human existence! This state of the mind haseven a reality in it for the generality of persons. In a romance or adrama, tears are often seen in the eyes of the reader or the spectator, who, before they have time to recollect that the whole is fictitious, havebeen surprised for a moment by a strong conception of a present andexisting scene. 

[Footnote A: Richardson assembles a family about him, writing down whatthey said, seeing their very manner of saying, living with them as oftenand as long as he wills--with such a personal unity, that an ingeniouslawyer once told me that he required no stronger evidence of a fact in anycourt of law than a circumstantial scene in Richardson. ]

Can we doubt of the reality of this faculty, when the visible and outwardframe of the man of genius bears witness to its presence? When FIELDINGsaid, "I do not doubt but the most pathetic and affecting scenes have beenwrit with tears, " he probably drew that discovery from an inverse feelingto his own. Fielding would have been gratified to have confirmed theobservation by facts which never reached him. Metastasio, in writing theninth scene of the second act of his _Olympiad_, found himself suddenlymoved--shedding tears. The imagined sorrows had inspired real tears; andthey afterwards proved contagious. Had our poet not perpetuated hissurprise by an interesting sonnet, the circumstance had passed away withthe emotion, as many such have. Pope could never read Priam's speech forthe loss of his son without tears, and frequently has been observed toweep over tender and melancholy passages. ALFIERI, the most energetic poetof modern times, having composed, without a pause, the whole of an act, noted in the margin--"Written under a paroxysm of enthusiasm, and whileshedding a flood of tears. " The impressions which the frame experiences inthis state, leave deeper traces behind them than those of reverie. Acircumstance accidentally preserved has informed us of the tremors ofDRYDEN after having written that ode, [A] which, as he confessed, he hadpursued without the power of quitting it; but these tremors were notunusual with him--for in the preface to his "Tales, " he tells us, that "intranslating Homer he found greater pleasure than in Virgil; but it was nota pleasure without pain; the continual agitation of the spirits must needsbe a weakener to any constitution, especially in age, and many pauses arerequired for refreshment betwixt the heats. "

[Footnote A: This famous and unparalleled ode was probably afterwardsretouched; but Joseph Warton discovered in it the rapidity of thethoughts, and the glow and the expressiveness of the images; which are thecertain marks of the _first sketch_ of a master. ]

We find Metastasio, like others of the brotherhood, susceptible of thisstate, complaining of his sufferings during the poetical æstus. "When Iapply with attention, the nerves of my sensorium are put into a violenttumult; I grow as red as a drunkard, and am obliged to quit my work. " WhenBUFFON was absorbed on a subject which presented great objections to hisopinions, he felt his head burn, and saw his countenance flushed; and thiswas a warning for him to suspend his attention. GRAY could never composevoluntarily: his genius resembled the armed apparition in Shakspeare'smaster-tragedy. "He would not be commanded. " When he wished to compose theInstallation Ode, for a considerable time he felt himself without thepower to begin it: a friend calling on him, GRAY flung open his doorhastily, and in a hurried voice and tone, exclaiming in the first verse ofthat ode--

 Hence, avaunt! 'tis holy ground!--

his friend started at the disordered appearance of the bard, whose orgasm had disturbed his very air and countenance. 

Listen to one labouring with all the magic of the spell. Madame ROLAND hasthus powerfully described the ideal presence in her first readings ofTelemachus and Tassot:--"My respiration rose, I felt a rapid firecolouring my face, and my voice changing had betrayed my agitation. I wasEucharis for Telemachus, and Erminia for Tancred. However, during thisperfect transformation, I did not yet think that I myself was anything, for any one: the whole had no connexion with myself. I sought for nothingaround me; I was they; I saw only the objects which existed for them; itwas a dream, without being awakened. "

The description which so calm and exquisite an investigator of taste andphilosophy as our sweet and polished REYNOLDS has given of himself at oneof these moments, is too rare not to be recorded in his own words. Alluding to the famous "Transfiguration, " our own RAFFAELLE says--"When Ihave stood looking at that picture from figure to figure, the eagerness, the spirit, the close unaffected attention of each figure to the principalaction, my thoughts have carried me away, that I have forgot myself; andfor that time might be looked upon as an enthusiastic madman; for I couldreally fancy the whole action was passing before my eyes. "

The effect which the study of Plutarch's Illustrious Men produced on themighty mind of ALFIERI, during a whole winter, while he lived as it wereamong the heroes of antiquity, he has himself described. Alfieri wept andraved with grief and indignation that he was born under a government whichfavoured no Roman heroes and sages. As often as he was struck with thegreat deeds of these great men, in his extreme agitation he rose from hisseat as one possessed. The feeling of genius in Alfieri was suppressed formore than twenty years, by the discouragement of his uncle: but as thenatural temperament cannot be crushed out of the soul of genius, he was apoet without writing a single verse; and as a great poet, the idealpresence at times became ungovernable, verging to madness. In traversingthe wilds of Arragon, his emotions would certainly have given birth topoetry, could he have expressed himself in verse. It was a complete stateof the imaginative existence, or this ideal presence; for he proceededalong the wilds of Arragon in a reverie, weeping and laughing by turns. Heconsidered this as a folly, because it ended in nothing but in laughterand tears. He was not aware that he was then yielding to a demonstration, could he have judged of himself, that he possessed those dispositions ofmind and that energy of passion which form the poetical character. 

Genius creates by a single conception; the statuary conceives the statueat once, which he afterwards executes by the slow process of art; and thearchitect contrives a whole palace in an instant. In a single principle, opening as it were on a sudden to genius, a great and new system of thingsis discovered. It has happened, sometimes, that this single conception, rushing over the whole concentrated spirit, has agitated the frameconvulsively. It comes like a whispered secret from Nature. WhenMALEBRANCHE first took up Descartes's Treatise on Man, the germ of his ownsubsequent philosophic system, such was his intense feeling, that aviolent palpitation of the heart, more than once, obliged him to lay downthe volume. When the first idea of the "Essay on the Arts and Sciences"rushed on the mind of ROUSSEAU, a feverish symptom in his nervous systemapproached to a slight delirium. Stopping under an oak, he wrote with apencil the Proso-popeia of Fabricius. "I still remember my solitarytransport at the discovery of a philosophical argument against thedoctrine of transubstantiation, " exclaimed GIBBON in his Memoirs. 

This quick sensibility of genius has suppressed the voice of poets inreciting their most pathetic passages. THOMSON was so oppressed by apassage in Virgil or Milton when he attempted to read, that "his voicesunk in ill-articulated sounds from the bottom of his breast. " Thetremulous figures of the ancient Sibyl appear to have been viewed in theland of the Muses, by the energetic description which Paulus Jovius givesus of the impetus and afflatus of one of the Italian improvvisatori, someof whom, I have heard from one present at a similar exhibition, have notdegenerated in poetic inspiration, nor in its corporeal excitement. "Hiseyes fixed downwards, kindle as he gives utterance to his effusions, themoist drops flow down his cheeks, the veins of his forehead swell, andwonderfully his learned ear, as it were, abstracted and intent, moderateseach impulse of his flowing numbers. "[A]

[Footnote A: The passage is curious:--"Canenti defixi exardent oculi, sudores manant, frontis venæ contumescunt, et quod mirum est, eruditæaures, tanquam alienæ et intentæ, omnem impetum profluentium numerorumexactissimâ ratione moderantur. "]

This enthusiasm throws the man of genius amid Nature into absorbingreveries when the senses of other men are overcome at the appearance ofdestruction; he continues to view only Nature herself. The mind of PLINY, to add one more chapter to his mighty scroll, sought Nature amidst thevolcano in which he perished. VERNET was on board a ship in a ragingtempest where all hope was given up. The astonished captain beheld theartist of genius, his pencil in his hand, in calm enthusiasm sketching theterrible world of waters--studying the wave that was rising to devourhim. [A]

[Footnote A: Vernet was the artist whose sea-ports of France stilldecorate the Louvre. He was marine painter to Louis XV. And grandfather ofthe celebrated Horace Vernet, whose recent death has deprived France ofher best painter of battle-scenes. --ED. ]

There is a tender enthusiasm in the elevated studies of antiquity. Thenthe ideal presence or the imaginative existence prevails, by its perpetualassociations, or as the late Dr. Brown has, perhaps, more distinctlytermed them, _suggestions. _ "In contemplating antiquity, the mind itselfbecomes antique, " was finely observed by Livy, long ere our philosophy ofthe mind existed as a system. This rapture, or sensation of deep study, has been described by one whose imagination had strayed into the occultlearning of antiquity, and in the hymns of Orpheus it seemed to him thathe had lifted the veil from Nature. His feelings were associated with herloneliness. I translate his words:--"When I took these dark mystical hymnsinto my hands, I appeared as it were to be descending into an abyss of themysteries of venerable antiquity; at that moment, the world in silence andthe stars and moon only, watching me. " This enthusiasm is confirmed by Mr. Mathias, who applies this description to his own emotions on his firstopening the manuscript volumes of the poet Gray on the philosophy ofPlato; "and many a learned man, " he adds, "will acknowledge as his own thefeelings of this animated scholar. "

Amidst the monuments of great and departed nations, our Imagination istouched by the grandeur of local impressions, and the vivid associations, or suggestions, of the manners, the arts, and the individuals, of a greatpeople. The classical author of Anacharsis, when in Italy, would oftenstop as if overcome by his recollections. Amid camps, temples, circuses, hippodromes, and public and private edifices, he, as it were, held aninterior converse with the manes of those who seemed hovering about thecapital of the old world; as if he had been a citizen of ancient Rometravelling in the modern. So men of genius have roved amid the awful ruinstill the ideal presence has fondly built up the city anew, and have becomeRomans in the Rome of two thousand years past. POMPONOIUS LETUS, whodevoted his life to this study, was constantly seen wandering amidst thevestiges of this "throne of the world. " There, in many a reverie, as hiseye rested on the mutilated arch and the broken column, abstracted andimmovable, he dropped tears in the ideal presence of Rome and of theRomans. [A] Another enthusiast of this class was BOSIUS, who sought beneathRome for another Rome, in those catacombs built by the early Christiansfor their asylum and their sepulchre. His work of "Roma Sotteranea" is theproduction of a subterraneous life, passed in fervent and perilouslabours. Taking with him a hermit's meal for the week, this new Plinyoften descended into the bowels of the earth, by lamp-light, clearing awaythe sand and ruins till a tomb broke forth, or an inscription becamelegible. Accompanied by some friend whom his enthusiasm had inspired withhis own sympathy, here he dictated his notes, tracing the moulderingsculpture, and catching the fading picture. Thrown back into the primitiveages of Christianity, amid the local impressions, the historian of theChristian catacombs collected the memorials of an age and of a race whichwere hidden beneath the earth. [B]

[Footnote A: Shelley caught much of his poetry in wandering among theruins of the palace of the Cæsars on the Palatine Hill; and theimpression made by historic ruins on the mind of Byron is powerfullyevinced in his "Childe Harold. "--ED. ]

[Footnote B: A large number of these important memorials have been sinceremoved to the _Galleria Lapidaria_ of the Vatican, and arranged on thewalls by Marini. They are invaluable as mementoes of the early Church atRome. Aringhi has also devoted a work to their elucidation. The Rev. C. Maitland's "Church in the Catacombs" is an able general summary, clearlydisplaying their intrinsic historic value--ED. ]

The same enthusiasm surrounds the world of science with that creativeimagination which has startled even men of science by its peculiardiscoveries. WERNER, the mineralogist, celebrated for his lectures, appears, by some accounts transmitted by his auditors, to have exercisedthis faculty. Werner often said that "he always depended on the muse forinspiration. " His unwritten lecture was a reverie--till kindling in hisprogress, blending science and imagination in the grandeur of hisconceptions, at times, as if he had gathered about him the very elementsof nature, his spirit seemed to be hovering over the waters and thestrata. With the same enthusiasm of science, CUVIER meditated on somebones, and some fragments of bones, which could not belong to any knownclass of the animal kingdom. The philosopher dwelt on these animal ruinstill he constructed numerous species which had disappeared from the globe. This sublime naturalist has ascertained and classified the fossil remainsof animals whose existence can no longer be traced in the records ofmankind. His own language bears testimony to the imagination which carriedhim on through a career so strange and wonderful. "It is a rational objectof ambition in the mind of man, to whom only a short space of time isallotted upon earth, to have the glory of restoring the history of_thousands of ages which preceded the existence of his race, and ofthousands of animals that never were contemporaneous with his species_. "Philosophy becomes poetry, and science imagination, in the enthusiasm ofgenius. Even in the practical part of a science, painful to the operatorhimself, Mr. Abernethy has declared, and eloquently declared, that thisenthusiasm is absolutely requisite. "We have need of enthusiasm, or somestrong incentive, to induce us to spend our nights in study, and our daysin the disgusting and health-destroying observation of human diseases, which alone can enable us to understand, alleviate, or remove them. On noother terms can we be considered as real students of our profession--toconfer that which sick kings would fondly purchase with their diadem--thatwhich wealth cannot purchase, nor state nor rank bestow--to alleviate themost insupportable of human afflictions. " Such is the enthusiasm of thephysiologist of genius, who elevates the demonstrations of anatomicalinquiries by the cultivation of the intellectual faculties, connecting"man with the common Master of the universe. "

This enthusiasm inconceivably fills the mind of genius in all great andsolemn operations. It is an agitation amidst calmness, and is required hotonly in the fine arts, but wherever a great and continued exertion of thesoul must be employed. The great ancients, who, if they were not alwaysphilosophers, were always men of genius, saw, or imagined they saw, adivinity within the man. This enthusiasm is alike experienced in thesilence of study and amidst the roar of cannon, in painting a picture orin scaling a rampart. View DE THOU, the historian, after his morningprayers, imploring the Divinity to purify his heart from partiality andhatred, and to open his spirit in developing the truth, amidst thecontending factions of his times; and HAYDN, employed in his "Creation, "earnestly addressing the Creator ere he struck his instrument. In momentslike these, man becomes a perfect unity--one thought and one act, abstracted from all other thoughts and all other acts. This intensity ofthe mind was felt by GRAY in his loftiest excursions, and is perhaps thesame power which impels the villager, when, to overcome his rivals in acontest for leaping, he retires hack some steps, collects all exertioninto his mind, and clears the eventful bound. One of our admirals in thereign of Elizabeth held as a maxim, that a height of passion, amounting tofrenzy, was necessary to qualify a man for the command of a fleet; andNELSON, decorated by all his honours about him, on the day of battle, atthe sight of those emblems of glory emulated himself. This enthusiasm wasnecessary for his genius, and made it effective. 

But this enthusiasm, prolonged as it often has been by the operation ofthe imaginative existence, becomes a state of perturbed feeling, and canonly be distinguished from a disordered intellect by the power of volitionpossessed by a sound mind of withdrawing from the ideal world into theworld of sense. It is but a step which may carry us from the wanderings offancy into the aberrations of delirium. The endurance of attention, evenin minds of the highest order, is limited by a law of nature; and whenthinking is goaded on to exhaustion, confusion of ideas ensues, asstraining any one of our limbs by excessive exertion produces tremor andtorpor. 

 With curious art the brain too finely wrought Preys on herself and is destroyed by Thought; Constant attention wears the active mind, Blots out her powers, and leaves a blank behind-- The greatest genius to this fate may bow. 

Even minds less susceptible than high genius may become overpowered bytheir imagination. Often, in the deep silence around us, we seek torelieve ourselves by some voluntary noise or action which may direct ourattention to an exterior object, and bring us back to the world, which wehad, as it were, left behind us. The circumstance is sufficientlyfamiliar; as well as another; that whenever we are absorbed in profoundcontemplation, a startling noise scatters the spirits, and painfullyagitates the whole frame. The nerves are then in a state of the utmostrelaxation. There may be an agony in thought which only deep thinkersexperience. The terrible effect of metaphysical studies on BEATTIE hasbeen told by himself. "Since the 'Essay on Truth' was printed in quarto, Ihave never _dared_ to read it over. I durst not even read the sheets tosee whether there were any errors in the print, and was obliged to get afriend to do that office for me. These studies came in time to havedreadful effects upon my nervous system; and I cannot read what I thenwrote without some degree of horror, because it recalls to my mind thehorrors that I have sometimes felt after passing a long evening in thosesevere studies. "

GOLDONI, after a rash exertion of writing sixteen plays in a year, confesses he paid the penalty of the folly. He flew to Genoa, leading alife of delicious vacuity. To pass the day without doing anything, was allthe enjoyment he was now capable of feeling. But long after he said, "Ifelt at that time, and have ever since continued to feel, the consequenceof that exhaustion of spirits I sustained in composing my sixteencomedies. "

The enthusiasm of study was experienced by POPE in his self-education, andonce it clouded over his fine intellect. It was the severity of hisapplication which distorted his body; and he then partook of a calamityincidental to the family of genius, for he sunk into that state ofexhaustion which SMOLLETT experienced during half a year, called a _comavigil, _ an affection of the brain, where the principle of life is soreduced, that all external objects appear to be passing in a dream. BOERHAAVE has related of himself, that having imprudently indulged inintense thought on a particular subject, he did not close his eyes for sixweeks after; and TISSOT, in his work on the health of men of letters, abounds in similar cases, where a complete stupor has affected the unhappystudent for a period of six months. 

Assuredly the finest geniuses have not always the power to withdrawthemselves from that intensely interesting train of ideas, which we haveshown has not been removed from about them by even the violent stimuli ofexterior objects; and the scenical illusion which then occurs, has beencalled the _hallucinatio studiosa, _ or false ideas in reverie. Such wasthe state in which PETRARCH found himself, in that minute narrativeof a vision in which Laura appeared to him; and TASSO, in the loftyconversations he held with a spirit that glided towards him on the beamsof the sun. In this state was MALEBRANCHE listening to the voice of Godwithin him; and Lord HERBEBT, when, to know whether he should publish hisbook, he threw himself on his knees, and interrogated the Deity in thestillness of the sky. [A] And thus PASCAL started at times at a fiery gulfopening by his side. SPINELLO having painted the fall of the rebelliousangels, had so strongly imagined the illusion, and more particularly theterrible features of Lucifer, that he was himself struck with such horroras to have been long afflicted with the presence of the demon to which hisgenius had given birth. The influence of the game ideal presence operatedon the religious painter ANGELONI, who could never represent thesufferings of Jesus without his eyes overflowing with tears. DESCARTES, when young, and in a country seclusion, his brain exhausted withmeditation, and his imagination heated to excess, heard a voice in the airwhich called him to pursue the search of truth; nor did he doubt thevision, and this delirious dreaming of genius charmed him even in hisafter-studies. Our COLLINS and COWPER were often thrown into thatextraordinary state of mind, when the ideal presence converts us intovisionaries; and their illusions were as strong as SEEDENBORG'S, who saw aterrestrial heaven in the glittering streets of his New Jerusalem; orJACOB BEHMEN'S, who listened to a celestial voice till he beheld theapparition of an angel; or CARDAN'S, when he so carefully observed anumber of little armed men at his feet; or BENVENUTO CELLINI'S, whosevivid imagination and glorious egotism so frequently contemplated "aresplendent light hovering over his shadow. "

[Footnote A: In his curious autobiography he has given the prayer he used, ending "I am not satisfied whether I shall publish this book _deveritate_; if it be for thy glory, I beseech thee give me some sign fromheaven; if not I shall suppress it. " His lordships adds, "I had no soonerspoken these words but a loud, though gentle noise came from the heavens(for it was like nothing on earth) which did so comfort and cheer me, thatI took my petition as granted, and that I had the sign I demanded, whereupon also I resolved to print my book. This (how strange soever itmay seem) I protest before the eternal God is true, neither am I any waysuperstitiously deceived therein, since I did not only clearly hear thenoise, but in the serenest sky that ever I saw, being without all cloud, did to my thinking see the place from whence it came. "--ED. ]

Such minds identified themselves with their visions! If we pass them overby asserting that they were insane, we are only cutting the knot which wecannot untie. We have no right to deny what some maintain, that a sympathyof the corporeal with the incorporeal nature of man, his imaginative withhis physical existence, is an excitement which appears to have beenexperienced by persons of a peculiar organization, and whichmetaphysicians in despair must resign to the speculations of enthusiaststhemselves, though metaphysicians reason about phenomena far removed fromthe perceptions of the eye. The historian of the mind cannot omit thisfact, unquestionable, however incomprehensible. According to our ownconceptions, this state must produce a strange mysterious personage: aconcentration of a human being within himself, endowed with inward eyes, ears which listen to interior sounds, and invisible hands touchingimpalpable objects, for whatever they act or however they are acted on, asfar as respects themselves all must have passed within their own minds. The Platonic Dr. MORE flattered himself that he was an enthusiast withoutenthusiasm, which seems but a suspicious state of convalescence. "I mustingenuously confess, " he says, "that I have a natural touch of enthusiasm, in my complexion, but such as I thank God was ever governable enough, andhave found at length perfectly subduable. In virtue of which victory Iknow better what is in enthusiasts than they themselves; and therefore wasable to write with life and judgment, and shall, I hope, contribute not alittle to the peace and quiet of this kingdom thereby. " Thus far one ofits votaries: and all that he vaunts to have acquired by this mysteriousfaculty of enthusiasm is the having rendered it "at length perfectlysubduable. " Yet those who have written on "Mystical devotion, " havedeclared that, "it is a sublime state of mind to which whole sects haveaspired, and some individuals appear to have attained. "[A] The historiesof great visionaries, were they correctly detailed, would probably provehow their delusions consisted of the ocular _spectra_ of their brain andthe accelerated sensations of their nerves. BAYLE has conjured up anamusing theory of apparitions, to show that HOBBES, who was subject tooccasional terrors, might fear that a certain combination of atomsagitating his brain might so disorder his mind as to expose him tospectral visions; and so being very timid, and distrusting his ownimagination, he was averse at times to be left alone. Apparitions oftenhappen in dreams, but they may happen to a man when awake, for reading andhearing of them would revive their images, and these images might playeven an incredulous philosopher some unlucky trick. 

[Footnote A: CHARLES BUTLER has drawn up a sensible essay on "MysticalDevotion. " He was a Roman Catholic. NORRIS, and Dr. HENRY MORE, and BishopBERKELEY, may be consulted by the curious. ]

But men of genius whose enthusiasm has not been past recovery, haveexperienced this extraordinary state of the mind, in those exhaustions ofstudy to which they unquestionably are subject. Tissot, on "The Health ofMen of Letters, " has produced a terrifying number of cases. Theysee and hear what none but themselves do. Genius thrown into thispeculiar state has produced some noble effusions. KOTZEBUE was onceabsorbed in hypochondriacal melancholy, and appears to have meditated onself-destruction; but it happened that he preserved his habit of dramaticcomposition, and produced one of his most energetic dramas--that of"Misanthropy and Repentance. " He tells us that he had never experiencedsuch a rapid flow of thoughts and images, and he believed, what aphysiological history would perhaps show, that there are some maladies, those of the brain and the nerves, which actually stretch the powers ofthe mind beyond their usual reach. It is the more vivid world of idealexistence. 

But what is more evident, men of the finest genius have experienced thesehallucinations in society acting on their moral habits. They haveinsulated the mind. With them ideas have become realities, and suspicionscertainties; while events have been noted down as seen and heard, which intruth had never occurred. ROUSSEAU'S phantoms scarcely ever quitted himfor a day. BARRY imagined that he was invisibly persecuted by the RoyalAcademy, who had even spirited up a gang of housebreakers. The vividmemoirs of ALFIERI will authenticate what DONNE, who himself had sufferedfrom them, calls "these eclipses, sudden offuscations and darkening of thesenses. " Too often the man of genius, with a vast and solitary power, darkens the scene of life; he builds a pyramid between himself and thesun. Mocking at the expedients by which society has contrived to protectits feebleness, he would break down the institutions from which he hasshrunk away in the loneliness of his feelings. Such is the insulatingintellect in which some of the most elevated spirits have been reduced. Toimbue ourselves with the genius of their works, even to think of them, isan awful thing! In nature their existence is a solecism, as their geniusis a paradox; for their crimes seem to be without guilt, their curses havekindness in them, and if they afflict mankind it is in sorrow. 

Yet what less than enthusiasm is the purchase-price of high passion andinvention? Perhaps never has there been a man of genius of this rare cast, who has not betrayed the ebullitions of imagination in some outwardaction, at that period when the illusions of life are more real to geniusthan its realities. There is a _fata morgana_, that throws into the air apictured land, and the deceived eye trusts till the visionary shadowsglide away. "I have dreamt of a golden land, " exclaimed FUSELI, "andsolicit in vain for the barge which is to carry me to its shore. " A slightderangement of our accustomed habits, a little perturbation of thefaculties, and a romantic tinge on the feelings, give no indifferentpromise of genius; of that generous temper which knowing nothing of thebaseness of mankind, with indefinite views carries on some glorious designto charm the world or to make it happier. Often we hear, from theconfessions of men of genius, of their having in youth indulged the mostelevating and the most chimerical projects; and if age ridicule thyimaginative existence, be assured that it is the decline of its genius. That virtuous and tender enthusiast, FÉNÉLON, in his early youth, troubledhis friends with a classical and religious reverie. He was on the point ofquitting them to restore the independence of Greece, with the piety of amissionary, and with the taste of a classical antiquary. The Peloponnesusopened to him the Church of Corinth where St. Paul preached, the Piræuswhere Socrates conversed; while the latent poet was to pluck laurels fromDelphi, and rove amidst the amenities of Tempe. Such was the influence ofthe ideal presence; and barren will be his imagination, and luckless hisfortune, who, claiming the honours of genius, has never been touched bysuch a temporary delirium. 

To this enthusiasm, and to this alone, can we attribute theself-immolation of men of genius. Mighty and laborious works have beenpursued, as a forlorn hope, at the certain destruction of the fortune ofthe individual. Vast labours attest the enthusiasm which accompanied theirprogress. Such men have sealed their works with their blood: they havesilently borne the pangs of disease; they have barred themselves from thepursuits of fortune; they have torn themselves away from all they loved inlife, patiently suffering these self-denials, to escape from interruptionsand impediments to their studies. Martyrs of literature and art, theybehold in their solitude the halo of immortality over their studiousheads--that fame which is "a life beyond life. " VAN HELMONT, in hislibrary and his laboratory, preferred their busy solitude to the honoursand the invitations of Rodolphus II. , there writing down what he dailyexperienced during thirty years; nor would the enthusiast yield up to theemperor one of those golden and visionary days! MILTON would not desistfrom proceeding with one of his works, although warned by the physician ofthe certain loss of his sight. He declared he preferred his duty to hiseyes, and doubtless his fame to his comfort. ANTHONY WOOD, to preserve thelives of others, voluntarily resigned his own to cloistered studies; nordid the literary passion desert him in his last moments, when with hisdying hands the hermit of literature still grasped his beloved papers, andhis last mortal thoughts dwelt on his "Athenæ Oxonienses. " MORERI, thefounder of our great biographical collections, conceived the design withsuch enthusiasm, and found such seduction in the labour, that he willinglywithdrew from the popular celebrity he had acquired as a preacher, and thepreferment which a minister of state, in whose house he resided, wouldhave opened to his views. [A] After the first edition of his "HistoricalDictionary, " he had nothing so much at heart as its improvement. Hisunyielding application was converting labour into death; but collectinghis last renovated vigour, with his dying hands he gave the volume to theworld, though he did not live to witness even its publication. All objectsin life appeared mean to him, compared with that exalted delight ofaddressing, to the literary men of his age, the history of their brothers. Such are the men, as BACON says of himself, who are "the servants ofposterity, "--

 Who scorn delights, and live laborious days!

[Footnote A: Louis Moreri was born in Provence in 1643, and died in 1680, at the early age of 37, while engaged on a second edition of his greatwork. The minister alluded to in the text was M. De Pomponne, Secretary ofState to Louis XIV. Until the year 1679. --ED. ]

The same enthusiasm inspires the pupils of art consumed by their ownardour. The young and classical sculptor who raised the statue of CharlesII. , placed in the centre of the Royal Exchange, was, in the midst of hiswork, advised by his medical friends to desist; for the energy of hislabour, with the strong excitement of his feelings, already had made fatalinroads in his constitution: but he was willing, he said, to die at thefoot of his statue. The statue was raised, and the young sculptor, withthe shining eye and hectic flush of consumption, beheld it there--returnedhome--and died. DROUAIS, a pupil of David, the French painter, was a youthof fortune, but the solitary pleasure of his youth was his devotion toRaphael; he was at his studies from four in the morning till night. "Painting or nothing!" was the cry of this enthusiast of elegance; "Firstfame, then amusement, " was another. His sensibility was great as hisenthusiasm; and he cut in pieces the picture for which David declared hewould inevitably obtain the prize. "I have had my reward in yourapprobation; but next year I shall feel more certain of deserving it, " wasthe reply of this young enthusiast. Afterwards he astonished Paris withhis "Marius;" but while engaged on a subject which he could never quit, the principle of life itself was drying up in his veins. HENRY HEADLEY andKIRKE WHITE were the early victims of the enthusiasm of study, and aremourned by the few who are organized like themselves. 

 'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low; So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart; Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel He nursed the pinion which impell'd the steel, While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest, Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast, One of our former great students, when reduced in health by excessivestudy, was entreated to abandon it, and in the scholastic language of theday, not to _perdere substantiam propter accidentia_. With a smile themartyr of study repeated a verse from Juvenal:

 Nec propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. No! not for life lose that for which I live!

Thus the shadow of death falls among those who are existing with more thanlife about them. Yet "there is no celebrity for the artist, " said GESNER, "if the love of his own art do not become a vehement passion; if the hourshe employs to cultivate it be not for him the most delicious ones of hislife; if study become not his true existence and his first happiness; ifthe society of his brothers in art be not that which most pleases him; ifeven in the night-time the ideas of his art do not occupy his vigils orhis dreams; if in the morning he fly not to his work, impatient torecommence what he left unfinished. These are the marks of him who laboursfor true glory and posterity; but if he seek only to please the taste ofhis age, his works will not kindle the desires nor touch the hearts ofthose who love the arts and the artists. "

Unaccompanied by enthusiasm, genius will produce nothing but uninterestingworks of art; not a work of art resembling the dove of Archytas, whichbeautiful piece of mechanism, while other artists beheld flying, no onecould frame such another dove to meet it in the air. Enthusiasm is thatsecret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the production of genius, throwing the reader of a book, or the spectator of a statue, into the veryideal presence whence these works have really originated. A great workalways leaves us in a state of musing. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Of the jealousy of Genius. --Jealousy often proportioned to the degree ofgenius. --A perpetual fever among Authors and Artists. --Instances of itsincredible excess among brothers and benefactors. --Of a peculiar species, where the fever consumes the sufferer, without its malignancy. 

Jealousy, long supposed to be the offspring of little minds, is not, however, confined to them. In the literary republic, the passion fiercelyrages among the senators as well as among the people. In that curiousself-description which LINNÆUS comprised in a single page, written withthe precision of a naturalist, that great man discovered that hisconstitution was liable to be afflicted with jealousy. Literary jealousyseems often proportioned to the degree of genius, and the shadowy andequivocal claims of literary honour is the real cause of this terriblefear; for in cases where the object is more palpable and definite thanintellectual excellence, jealousy does not appear so strongly to affectthe claimant for admiration. The most beautiful woman, in the season ofbeauty, is more haughty than jealous; she rarely encounters a rival;and while her claims exist, who can contend with a fine feature or adissolving glance? But a man of genius has no other existence than in theopinion of the world; a divided empire would obscure him, and a contestedone might prove his annihilation. 

The lives of authors and artists exhibit a most painful disease in thatjealousy which is the perpetual fever of their existence. Why does PLATOnever mention XENOPHON, and why does XENOPHON inveigh against PLATO, studiously collecting every little rumour which may detract from his fame?They wrote on the same subject! The studied affectation of ARISTOTLE todiffer from the doctrines of his master PLATO while he was following them, led him into ambiguities and contradictions which have been remarked. Thetwo fathers of our poetry, CHAUCER and GOWER, suffered their friendship tobe interrupted towards the close of their lives. Chaucer bitterly reflectson his friend for the indelicacy of some of his tales: "Of all such_cursed stories_ I say fy!" and GOWER, evidently in return, erased thoseverses in praise of his friend which he had inserted in the first copy ofhis "Confessio Amantis. " Why did CORNEILLE, tottering to the grave, whenRACINE consulted him on his first tragedy, advise the author never towrite another? Why does VOLTAIRE continually detract from the sublimity ofCorneille, the sweetness of Racine, and the fire of Crébillon? Why didDRYDEN never speak of OTWAY with kindness but when in his grave, thenacknowledging that Otway excelled him in the pathetic? Why did LEIBNITZspeak slightingly of LOCKE's Essay, and meditate on nothing less than thecomplete overthrow of NEWTON'S system? Why, when Boccaccio sent toPETRARCH a copy of DANTE, declaring that the work was like a first lightwhich had illuminated his mind, did Petrarch boldly observe that he hadnot been anxious to inquire after it, for intending himself to compose inthe vernacular idiom, he had no wish to be considered as a plagiary? andhe only allows Dante's superiority from having written in the vulgaridiom, which he did not consider an enviable merit. Thus frigidly Petrarchcould behold the solitary Ætna before him, in the "Inferno, " while heshrunk into himself with the painful consciousness of the existence ofanother poet, obscuring his own majesty. It is curious to observe LordSHAFTESBURY treating with the most acrimonious contempt the great writersof his own times--Cowley, Dryden, Addison, and Prior. We cannot imaginethat his lordship was so entirely destitute of every feeling of wit andgenius as would appear by this damnatory criticism on all the wit andgenius of his age. It is not, indeed, difficult to comprehend a differentmotive for this extravagant censure in the jealousy which even a greatwriter often experiences when he comes in contact with his living rivals, and hardily, if not impudently, practises those arts of criticaldetraction to raise a moment's delusion, which can gratify no one buthimself. 

The moral sense has often been found too weak to temper the malignancy ofliterary jealousy, and has impelled some men of genius to an incredibleexcess. A memorable example offers in the history of the two brothers, Dr. WILLIAM and JOHN HUNTER, both great characters fitted to be rivals; butNature, it was imagined, in the tenderness of blood, had placed a bar torivalry. John, without any determined pursuit in his youth, was receivedby his brother at the height of his celebrity; the doctor initiated himinto his school; they performed their experiments together; and WilliamHunter was the first to announce to the world the great genius of hisbrother. After this close connexion in all their studies and discoveries, Dr. William Hunter published his magnificent work--the proud favourite ofhis heart, the assertor of his fame. Was it credible that the genius ofthe celebrated anatomist, which had been nursed under the wing of hisbrother, should turn on that wing to clip it? John Hunter put in his claimto the chief discovery; it was answered by his brother. The Royal Society, to whom they appealed, concealed the documents of this unnatural feud. Theblow was felt, and the jealousy of literary honour for ever separated thebrothers--the brothers of genius. 

Such, too, was the jealousy which separated AGOSTINO and ANNIBAL CARRACCI, whom their cousin LUDOVICO for so many years had attempted to unite, andwho, during the time their academy existed, worked together, combiningtheir separate powers. [A] The learning and the philosophy of Agostinoassisted the invention of the master genius, Annibal; but Annibal wasjealous of the more literary and poetical character of Agostino, and, byhis sarcastic humour, frequently mortified his learned brother. Alikegreat artists, when once employed on the same work, Agostino was thoughtto have excelled his brother. Annibal, sullen and scornful, immediatelybroke with him; and their patron, Cardinal Farnese, was compelled toseparate the brothers. Their fate is striking: Agostino, divided from hisbrother Annibal, sunk into dejection and melancholy, and perished by apremature death, while Annibal closed his days not long after in a stateof distraction. The brothers of Nature and Art could not live together, and could not live separate. 

[Footnote A: See an article on the Carracci in "Curiosities ofLiterature. " vol. Ii. ]

The history of artists abounds with instances of jealousy, perhaps morethan that of any other class of men of genius. HUDSON, the master ofREYNOLDS, could not endure the sight of his rising pupil, and would notsuffer him to conclude the term of his apprenticeship; while even the mildand elegant Reynolds himself became so jealous of WILSON, that he tookevery opportunity of depreciating his singular excellence. Stung by themadness of jealousy, BARRY one day addressing Sir Joshua on his lectures, burst out, "Such poor flimsy stuff as your discourses!" clenching his fistin the agony of the convulsion. After the death of the great artist, BARRYbestowed on him the most ardent eulogium, and deeply grieved over thepast. But the race of genius born too "near the sun" have found theirincreased sensibility flame into crimes of a deeper dye--crimes attestingthe treachery and the violence of the professors of an art which, itappears, in softening the souls of others, does not necessarily mollifythose of the artists themselves. The dreadful story of ANDREA DEL CASTAGNOseems not doubtful. Having been taught the discovery of painting in oil byDomenico Venetiano, yet, still envious of the merit of the generous friendwho had confided that great secret to him, Andrea with his own handsecretly assassinated him, that he might remain without a rival. Thehorror of his crime only appeared in his confession on his death-bed. DOMENICHINO seems to have been poisoned for the preference he obtainedover the Neapolitan artists, which raised them to a man against him, andreduced him to the necessity of preparing his food With his own hand. Onhis last return to Naples, Passeri says, "_Non fu mai più veduto da buonocchio da quelli Napoletani: e li Pittori lo detestavano perchè egliera ritornato--mori con qualche sospetto di veleno, e questo non èinverisimile perchè l'interesso è un perfido tiranno_. " So that theNeapolitans honoured Genius at Naples by poison, which they might haveforgotten had it flourished at Rome. The famous cartoon of the battleof Pisa, a work of Michael Angelo, which he produced in a gloriouscompetition with the Homer of painting, Leonardo da Vinci, and in which hehad struck out the idea of a new style, is only known by a print which haspreserved the wonderful composition; for the original, it is said, was cutinto pieces by the mad jealousy of BACCIO BANDINELLI, whose whole life wasmade miserable by his consciousness of a superior rival. 

In the jealousy of genius, however, there is a peculiar case where thefever silently consumes the sufferer, without possessing the malignantcharacter of the disease. Even the gentlest temper declines under its slowwastings, and this infection may happen among dear friends, whenever a manof genius loses that self-opinion which animates his solitary labours andconstitutes his happiness. Perhaps when at the height of his class, hesuddenly views himself eclipsed by another genius--and that genius hisfriend! This is the jealousy, not of hatred, but of despair. Churchillobserved the feeling, but probably included in it a greater degree ofmalignancy than I would now describe. 

 Envy which turns pale, And sickens even if a friend prevail. 

SWIFT, in that curious poem on his own death, said of POPE that

 --He can in one couplet fix More sense than I can do in six. 

The Dean, perhaps, is not quite serious, but probably is in the nextlines--

 It gives me such a jealous fit, I cry "Pox take him and his wit. "

If the reader pursue this hint throughout the poem, these compliments tohis friends, always at his own expense, exhibit a singular mixture of thesensibility and the frankness of true genius, which Swift himself hashonestly confessed. 

 What poet would not grieve to see His brother write as well as he?[A]

ADDISON experienced this painful and mixed emotion in his intercoursewith POPE, to whose rising celebrity he soon became too jealouslyalive. [B] It was more tenderly, but not less keenly, felt by the Spanishartist CASTILLO, a man distinguished by every amiable disposition. He wasthe great painter of Seville; but when some of his nephew MURILLO'Spaintings were shown to him, he stood in meek astonishmont before them, and turning away, he exclaimed with a sigh--"_Yà murio Castillo_!"Castillo is no more! Returning home, the stricken genius relinquished hispencil, and pined away, in hopelessness. The same occurrence happened toPIETRO PERUGINO, the master of Raphael, whose general character as apainter was so entirely eclipsed by his far-renowned scholar; yet, whilehis real excellences in the ease of his attitudes and the mild grace ofhis female countenances have been passed over, it is probable thatRaphael himself might have caught from them his first feelings of idealbeauty. 

[Footnote A: The plain motive of all these dislikes is still more amusing, as given in this couplet of the same poem:--

 "If with such genius heaven has blest 'em, Have I not reason to detest 'em. "--ED. ]

[Footnote B: See article on Pope and Addison in "Quarrels of Authors. " ]

CHAPTER XIV. 

Want of mutual esteem among men of genius often originates in a deficiencyof analogous ideas. --It is not always envy or jealousy which induces menof genius to undervalue each other. 

Among men of genius, that want of mutual esteem, usually attributed toenvy or jealousy, often originates in a deficiency of analogous ideas, orof sympathy, in the parties. On this principle, several curious phenomenain the history of genius may be explained. 

Every man of genius has a manner of his own; a mode of thinking and ahabit of style, and usually decides on a work as it approximates or variesfrom his own. When one great author depreciates another, his depreciationhas often no worse source than his own taste. The witty Cowley despisedthe natural Chaucer; the austere classical Boileau the rough sublimity ofCréibillon; the refining Marivaux the familiar Molière. Fielding ridiculedRichardson, whose manner so strongly contrasted with his own; andRichardson contemned Fielding, and declared he would not last. Cumberlandescaped a fit of unforgiveness, not living to read his own character byBishop Watson, whose logical head tried the lighter elegancies of thatpolished man by his own nervous genius, destitute of the beautiful intaste. There was no envy in the breast of Johnson when he advised Mrs. Thrale not to purchase "Gray's Letters, " as trifling and dull, no morethan there was in Gray himself when he sunk the poetical character ofShenstone, and debased his simplicity and purity of feeling by an image ofludicrous contempt. I have heard that WILKES, a mere wit and elegantscholar, used to treat GIBBON as a mere bookmaker; and applied to thatphilosophical historian the verse by which Voltaire described, with somuch caustic facetiousness, the genius of the Abbé Trablet--

 Il a compilé, compilé, compilé. 

The deficient sympathy in these men of genius for modes of feelingopposite to their own was the real cause of their opinions; and thus ithappens that even superior genius is so often liable to be unjust andfalse in its decisions. 

The same principle operates still more strikingly in the remarkablecontempt of men of genius for those pursuits which require talentsdistinct from their own, and a cast of mind thrown by nature into anothermould. Hence we must not be surprised at the poetical antipathies ofSelden and Locke, as well as Longuerue and Buffon. Newton called poetry"ingenious nonsense. " On the other side, poets undervalue the pursuits ofthe antiquary, the naturalist, and the metaphysician, forming theirestimate by their own favourite scale of imagination. As we can onlyunderstand in the degree we comprehend, and feel in the degree in which wesympathize, we may be sure that in both these cases the parties will befound altogether deficient in those qualities of genius which constitutethe excellence of the other. To this cause, rather than to the one thefriends of MICKLE ascribed to ADAM SMITH, namely, a personal dislike tothe poet, may we place the severe mortification which the unfortunatetranslator of Camoens suffered from the person to whom he dedicated "TheLusiad. " The Duke of Buccleugh was the pupil of the great politicaleconomist, and so little valued an epic poem, that his Grace had not eventhe curiosity to open the leaves of the presentation copy. 

A professor of polite literature condemned the study of botany, as adaptedto mediocrity of talent, and only demanding patience; but LINNÆUS showedhow a man of genius becomes a creator even in a science which seems todepend only on order and method. It will not be a question with somewhether a man must be endowed with the energy and aptitude of genius, toexcel in antiquarianism, in natural history, and similar pursuits. Theprejudices raised against the claims of such to the honours of genius haveprobably arisen from the secluded nature of their pursuits, and the littleknowledge which the men of wit and imagination possess of these persons, who live in a society of their own. On this subject a very curiouscircumstance has been revealed respecting PEIRESC, whose enthusiasm forscience was long felt throughout Europe. His name was known in everycountry, and his death was lamented in forty languages; yet was this greatliterary character unknown to several men of genius in his own country;Rochefoucauld declared he had never heard of his name, and Malherbewondered why his death created so universal a sensation. 

Madame DE STÄEL was an experienced observer of the habits of the literarycharacter, and she has remarked how one student usually revolts fromthe other when _their occupations are different_, because they are areciprocal annoyance. The scholar has nothing to say to the poet, thepoet to the naturalist; and even among men of science, those who aredifferently occupied avoid each other, taking little interest in what isout of their own circle. Thus we see the classes of literature, like theplanets, revolving as distinct worlds; and it would not be less absurd forthe inhabitants of Venus to treat with contempt the powers and facultiesof those of Jupiter, than it is for the men of wit and imagination thoseof the men of knowledge and curiosity. The wits are incapable of exertingthe peculiar qualities which give a real value to these pursuits, andtherefore they must remain ignorant of their nature and their result. 

It is not then always envy or jealousy which induces men of genius toundervalue each other; the want of sympathy will sufficiently account forthe want of judgment. Suppose NEWTON, QUINAULT, and MACHIAVEL accidentallymeeting together, and unknown to each other, would they not soon havedesisted from the vain attempt of communicating their ideas? Thephilosopher would have condemned the poet of the Graces as an intolerabletrifler, and the author of "The Prince" as a dark political spy. Machiavelwould have conceived Newton to be a dreamer among the stars, and a merealmanack-maker among men; and the other a rhymer, nauseously _doucereux_. Quinault might have imagined that he was seated between two madmen. Havingannoyed each other for some time, they would have relieved their ennui byreciprocal contempt, and each have parted with a determination to avoidhenceforward two such disagreeable companions. 

CHAPTER XV. 

Self-praise of genius. --The love of praise instinctive in the nature ofgenius. --A high opinion of themselves necessary for their great designs. --The Ancients openly claimed their own praise. --And several Moderns. --Anauthor knows more of his merits than his readers. --And less of hisdefects. --Authors versatile in their admiration and their malignity. 

Vanity, egotism, a strong sense of their own sufficiency, form anotheraccusation against men of genius; but the complexion of self-praise mustalter with the occasion; for the simplicity of truth may appear vanity, and the consciousness of superiority seem envy--to Mediocrity. It is wewho do nothing, and cannot even imagine anything to be done, who are somuch displeased with self-lauding, self-love, self-independence, self-admiration, which with the man of genius may often be nothing but anostensible modification of the passion of glory. 

He who exults in himself is at least in earnest; but he who refuses toreceive that praise in public for which he has devoted so much labour inhis privacy, is not; for he is compelled to suppress the very instinct ofhis nature. We censure no man for loving fame, but only for showing us howmuch he is possessed by the passion: thus we allow him to create theappetite, but we deny him its aliment. Our effeminate minds are thewilling dupes of what is called the modesty of genius, or, as it has beentermed, "the polished reserve of modern times;" and this from the selfishprinciple that it serves at least to keep out of the company its painfulpre-eminence. But this "polished reserve, " like something as fashionable, the ladies' rouge, at first appearing with rather too much colour, will inthe heat of an evening die away till the true complexion come out. Whatsubterfuges are resorted to by these pretended modest men of genius, toextort that praise from their private circle which is thus openly deniedthem! They have been taken by surprise enlarging their own panegyric, which might rival Pliny's on Trajan, for care and copiousness; orimpudently veiling themselves with the transparency of a third person; ornever prefixing their name to the volume, which they would not easilyforgive a friend to pass unnoticed. 

Self-love is a principle of action; but among no class of human beings hasnature so profusely distributed this principle of life and action asthrough the whole sensitive family of genius. It reaches even to afeminine susceptibility. The love of praise is instinctive in theirnature. Praise with them is the evidence of the past and the pledge of thefuture. The generous qualities and the virtues of a man of genius arereally produced by the applause conferred on him. "To him whom the worldadmires, the happiness of the world must be dear, " said Madame DE STÄEL. ROMNEY, the painter, held as a maxim that every diffident artist required"almost a daily portion of cheering applause. " How often do such findtheir powers paralysed by the depression of confidence or the appearanceof neglect! When the North American Indians, amid their circle, chanttheir gods and their heroes, the honest savages laud the living worthies, as well as their departed; and when, as we are told, an auditor hears theshout of his own name, he answers by a cry of pleasure and of pride. Thesavage and the man of genius are here true to nature, but pleasure andpride in his own name must raise no emotion in the breast of genius amidsta polished circle. To bring himself down to their usual mediocrity, hemust start at an expression of regard, and turn away even from one of hisown votaries. Madame De Stäel, an exquisite judge of the feelings of theliterary character, was aware of this change, which has rather occurred inour manners than in men of genius themselves. "Envy, " says that eloquentwriter, "among the Greeks, existed sometimes between rivals; it has nowpassed to the spectators; and by a strange singularity the mass of men arejealous of the efforts which are tried to add to their pleasures or tomerit their approbation. "

But this, it seems, is not always the case with men of genius, since theaccusation we are noticing has been so often reiterated. Take from somethat supreme confidence in themselves, that pride of exultation, and youcrush the germ of their excellence. Many vast designs must have perishedin the conception, had not their authors breathed this vital air ofself-delight, this creative spirit, so operative in great undertakings. Wehave recently seen this principle in the literary character unfold itselfin the life of the late Bishop of Landaff. Whatever he did, he felt it wasdone as a master: whatever he wrote, it was, as he once declared, the bestwork on the subject yet written. With this feeling he emulated Cicero inretirement or in action. "When I am dead, you will not soon meet withanother JOHN HUNTER, " said the great anatomist to one of his garrulousfriends. An apology is formed by his biographer for relating the fact, butthe weakness is only in the apology. When HOGARTH was engaged in his workof the _Marriage à-la-Mode_, he said to Reynolds, "I shall very soongratify the world with such a sight as they have never seen equalled. "--"One of his foibles, " adds Northcote, "it is well known, was theexcessive high opinion he had of his own abilities. " So pronouncedNorthcote, who had not an atom of his genius. Was it a _foible_ in Hogarthto cast the glove, when he always more than redeemed the pledge?CORNEILLE has given a very noble full-length of the sublime egotism whichaccompanied him through life;[A] but I doubt, if we had any such author inthe present day, whether he would dare to be so just to himself, and sohardy to the public. The self-praise of BUFFON at least equalled hisgenius; and the inscription beneath his statue in the library of theJardin des Plantes, which I have been told was raised to him in hislifetime, exceeds all panegyric; it places him alone in nature, as thefirst and the last interpreter of her works. He said of the great geniusesof modern ages, that "there were not more than five; Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and Myself. " With this spirit he conceived andterminated his great works, and sat in patient meditation at his desk forhalf a century, till all Europe, even in a state of war, bowed to themodern Pliny. 

[Footnote A: See it versified in "Curiosities of Literature, " vol. I. P. 431. ]

Nor is the vanity of Buffon, and Voltaire, and Rousseau purely national;for men of genius in all ages have expressed a consciousness of theinternal force of genius. No one felt this self-exultation more potentthan our HOBBES; who has indeed, in his controversy with Wallis, assertedthat there may be nothing more just than self-commendation. [A] There is acurious passage in the "Purgatorio" of DANTE, where, describing thetransitory nature of literary fame, and the variableness of human opinion, the poet alludes with confidence to his own future greatness. Of twoauthors of the name of Guido, the one having eclipsed the other, the poetwrites:--

 Così ha tolto l'uno all'altro Guido La gloria della lingua; e _forse è nato Chi l'uno e l'altro caccerà di nido_. 

 Thus has one Guido from the other snatch'd The letter'd pride; _and he perhaps is born Who shall drive either from their nest_. [B]

[Footnote A: See "Quarrels of Authors, " p. 471. ]

[Footnote B: Cary. ]

DE THOU, one of the most noble-minded of historians, in the Memoirs of hisown life, composed in the third person, has surprised and somewhat puzzledthe critics, by that frequent distribution of self-commendation which theyknew not how to reconcile with the modesty and gravity with which thePresident was so amply endowed. After his great and solemn labour, amidstthe injustice of his persecutors, this eminent man had sufficientexperience of his real worth to assert it. KEPLER, amidst his sublimediscoveries, looks down like a superior being on other men. He breaksforth in glory and daring egotism: "I dare insult mankind by confessingthat I am he who has turned science to advantage. If I am pardoned, Ishall rejoice; if blamed, I shall endure. The die is cast; I have writtenthis book, and whether it be read by posterity or by my contemporaries isof no consequence; it may well wait for a reader during one century, whenGod himself during six thousand years has not sent an observer likemyself. " He truly predicts that "his discoveries would be verified insucceeding ages, " and prefers his own glory to the possession of theelectorate of Saxony. It was this solitary majesty, this futurity of theirgenius, which hovered over the sleepless pillow of Bacon, of Newton, andof Montesquieu; of Ben Jonson, of Milton, and Corneille; and of MichaelAngelo. Such men anticipate their contemporaries; they know they arecreators, long before they are hailed as such by the tardy consent of thepublic. These men stand on Pisgah heights, and for them the sun shines ona land which none can view but themselves. 

There is an admirable essay in Plutarch, "On the manner by which we maypraise ourselves without exciting envy in others. " The sage seems toconsider self-praise as a kind of illustrious impudence, and has one verystriking image: he compares these eulogists to famished persons, whofinding no other food, in their rage have eaten their own flesh, and thusshockingly nourished themselves by their own substance. He allows personsin high office to praise themselves, if by this they can repel calumny andaccusation, as did Pericles before the Athenians: but the Romans foundfault with Cicero, who so frequently reminded them of his exertions in theconspiracy of Catiline; while, when Scipio told them that "they should notpresume to judge of a citizen to whom they owed the power of judging allmen, " the people covered themselves with flowers, and followed him to thecapitol to join in a thanksgiving to Jove. "Cicero, " adds Plutarch, "praised himself without necessity. Scipio was in personal danger, andthis took away what is odious in self-praise. " An author seems sometimesto occupy the situation of a person in high office; and there may beoccasions when with a noble simplicity, if he appeal to his works, ofwhich all men may judge, he may be permitted to assert or to maintain hisclaims. It has at least been the practice of men of genius, for in thisvery essay we find Timotheus, Euripides, and Pindar censured, though theydeserved all the praise they gave themselves. 

EPICURUS, writing to a minister of state, declares, "If you desire glory, nothing can bestow it more than the letters I write to you:" and SENECA, in quoting these words, adds, "What Epicurus promised to his friend, that, my Lucilius, I promise you. " _Orna me!_ was the constant cry of CICERO;and he desires the historian Lucceius to write separately the conspiracyof Catiline, and to publish quickly, that while he yet lived he mighttaste the sweetness of his glory. HORACE and OVID wore equally sensible totheir immortality; but what modern poet would be tolerated with such anavowal? Yet DRYDEN honestly declares that it was better for him to ownthis failing of vanity, than the world to do it for him; and adds, "Forwhat other reason have I spent my life in so unprofitable a study? Why amI grown old in seeking so barren a reward as fame? The same parts andapplication which have made me a poet might have raised me to any honoursof the gown. " Was not CERVANTES very sensible to his own merits when arival started up? and did he not assert them too, and distinguish his ownwork by a handsome compliment? LOPE DE VEGA celebrated his own poeticpowers under the pseudonyme of a pretended editor, Thomas Barguillos. Iregret that his noble biographer, than whom no one can more trulysympathise with the emotions of genius, has censured the bard forhis querulous or his intrepid tone, and for the quaint conceit of histitle-page, where his detractor is introduced as a beetle in a _vega_ orgarden, attacking its flowers, but expiring in the very sweetness he wouldinjure. The inscription under BOILEAU'S portrait, which gives a preferenceto the French satirist over Juvenal and Horace, is known to have beenwritten by himself. Nor was BUTLER less proud of his own merits;for he has done ample justice to his "Hudibras, " and traced out, withgreat self-delight, its variety of excellences. RICHARDSON, the novelist, exhibits one of the most striking instances of what is called literaryvanity, the delight of an author in his works; he has pointed out all thebeauties of his three great works, in various manners. [A] He always taxeda visitor by one of his long letters. It was this intense self-delightwhich produced his voluminous labours. 

[Footnote A: I have observed them in "Curiosities of Literature, " vol. Ii. P. 64. ]

There are certain authors whose very existence seems to require a highconception of their own talents; and who must, as some animals appear todo, furnish the means of life out of their own substance. These men ofgenius open their career with peculiar tastes, or with a predilection forsome great work of no immediate interest; in a word, with many unpopulardispositions. Yet we see them magnanimous, though defeated, proceedingwith the public feeling against them. At length we view them ranking withtheir rivals. Without having yielded up their peculiar tastes or theirincorrigible viciousness, they have, however, heightened their individualexcellences. No human opinion can change their self-opinion. Alive to theconsciousness of their powers, their pursuits are placed above impediment, and their great views can suffer no contraction; _possunt quia possevidentur_. Such was the language Lord BACON once applied to himself whenaddressing a king. "I know, " said the great philosopher, "that I amcensured of some conceit of my ability or worth; but I pray your majestyimpute it to desire--_possunt quia posse videntur_. " These men of geniusbear a charmed mail on their breast; "hopeless, not heartless, " may beoften the motto of their ensign; and if they do not always possessreputation, they still look onwards for fame; for these do not necessarilyaccompany each other. 

An author is more sensible of his own merits, as he also is of his labour, which is invisible to all others, while he is unquestionably much lesssensible to his defects than most of his readers. The author not onlycomprehends his merits better, because they have passed through a longprocess in his mind, but he is familiar with every part, while the readerhas but a vague notion of the whole. Why does an excellent work, byrepetition, rise in interest? Because in obtaining this gradual intimacywith an author, we appear to recover half the genius which we had lost ona first perusal. The work of genius too is associated, in the mind of theauthor, with much more than it contains; and the true supplement, which heonly can give, has not always accompanied the work itself. We find greatmen often greater than the books they write. Ask the man of genius if hehave written all that he wished to have written? Has he satisfied himselfin this work, for which you accuse his pride? Has he dared what requiredintrepidity to achieve? Has he evaded difficulties which he should haveovercome? The mind of the reader has the limits of a mere recipient, whilethat of the author, even after his work, is teeming with creation. "Onmany occasions, my soul seems to know more than it can say, and to beendowed with a mind by itself, far superior to the mind I really have, "said MARIVAUX, with equal truth and happiness. 

With these explanations of what are called the vanity and egotism ofGenius, be it remembered, that the sense of their own sufficiency isassumed by men at their own risk. The great man who thinks greatly ofhimself, is not diminishing that greatness in heaping fuel on his fire. Itis indeed otherwise with his unlucky brethren, with whom an illusion ofliterary vanity may end in the aberrations of harmless madness; as ithappened to PERCIVAL STOCKDALE. After a parallel between himself andCharles XII. Of Sweden, he concludes that "some parts will be to _his_advantage, and some to _mine_;" but in regard to fame, the main objectbetween himself and Charles XII. , Percival imagined that "his own will notprobably take its fixed and immovable station, and shine with its expandedand permanent splendour, till it consecrates his ashes, till it illumineshis tomb. " After this the reader, who may never have heard of the name ofPercival Stockdale, must be told that there exist his own "Memoirs of hisLife and Writings. "[A] The memoirs of a scribbler who saw the prospects oflife close on him while he imagined that his contemporaries were unjust, are instructive to literary men. To correct, and to be corrected, shouldbe their daily practice, that they may be taught not only to exult inthemselves, but to fear themselves. 

[Footnote A: I have sketched a character of PERCIVAL STOCKDALE, in"Calamities of Authors" (pp. 218--224); it was taken _ad vivum_. ]

It is hard to refuse these men of genius that _aura vitalis_, of whichthey are so apt to be liberal to others. Are they not accused of themeanest adulations? When a young writer experiences the notice of a personof some eminence, he has expressed himself in language which transcendsthat of mortality. A finer reason than reason itself inspires it. Thesensation has been expressed with all its fulness by Milton:--

 The debt immense of endless gratitude. 

Who ever pays an "immense debt" in small sums? Every man of genius hasleft such honourable traces of his private affections; from LOCKE, whosededication of his great work is more adulative than could be imagined froma temperate philosopher, to CHURCHILL, whose warm eulogiums on his friendsbeautifully contrast with his satire. Even in advanced age, the man ofgenius dwells on the praise he caught in his youth from veteran genius, which, like the aloe, will flower at the end of life. When Virgil was yeta youth, it is said that Cicero heard one of his eclogues, and exclaimedwith his accustomed warmth, Magna spes altera Romæ!

"The second hope of mighty Rome!" intending by the first either himself orLucretius. The words of Cicero were the secret honey on which theimagination of Virgil fed for many a year; for in one of his latestproductions, the twelfth book of the Æneid, he applies these very wordsto Ascanius. So long had the accents of Cicero's praise lingered in thepoet's ear!

This extreme susceptibility of praise in men of genius is the sameexuberant sensibility which is so alive to censure. I have elsewhere fullyshown how some have died of criticism. [A] The self-love of genius isperhaps much more delicate than gross. 

But this fatal susceptibility is the cause of that strange facility whichhas often astonished the world, by the sudden transitions of sentimentwhich literary characters have frequently exhibited. They have eulogisedmen and events which they had reprobated, and reprobated what they hadeulogised. The recent history of political revolutions has furnished somemonstrous examples of this subservience to power. Guicciardini records oneof his own times, which has been often repeated in ours. JOVIANUSPONTANUS, the secretary of Ferdinand, King of Naples, was also selected tobe the tutor of the prince, his son. When Charles VIII. Of France invadedNaples, Pontanus was deputed to address the French conqueror. To renderhimself agreeable to the enemies of his country, he did not avoidexpatiating on the demerits of his expelled patrons: "So difficult it is, "adds the grave and dignified historian, "for ourselves to observe thatmoderation and those precepts which no man knew better than Pontanus, whowas endowed with such copious literature, and composed with such facilityin moral philosophy, and possessed such acquirements in universalerudition, that he had made himself a prodigy to the eye of the world. "[B]The student, occupied by abstract pursuits, may not indeed always takemuch interest in the change of dynasties; and perhaps the famous cancelleddedication to Cromwell, by the learned orientalist Dr. CASTELL, [C] whosupplied its place by another to Charles II. , ought not to be placed tothe account of political tergiversation. But the versatile adoration ofthe continental _savans_ of the republic or the monarchy, the consul orthe emperor, has inflicted an unhealing wound on the literary character;since, like PONTANUS, to gratify their new master, they had not thegreatness of mind to save themselves from ingratitude to their old. 

[Footnote A: In the article entitled "Anecdotes of Censured Authors, " invol. I. Of "Curiosities of Literature. "]

[Footnote B: Guicciardini, Book II. ]

[Footnote C: For the melancholy history of this devoted scholar, see noteto the article on "The Rewards of Oriental Students, " in "Calamities ofAuthors, " p. 189. ]

Their vengeance, as quickly kindled, lasts as long. Genius is a dangerousgift of nature. The same effervescent passions form a Catiline or aCicero. Plato lays great stress on his man of genius possessing the mostvehement passions, but he adds reason to restrain them. It is Imaginationwhich by their side stands as their good or evil spirit. Glory or infamyis but a different direction of the same passion. 

How are we to describe symptoms which, flowing from one source, yet showthemselves in such opposite forms as those of an intermittent fever, asilent delirium, or a horrid hypochondriasm? Have we no other opiate tostill the agony, no other cordial to warm the heart, than the greatingredient in the recipe of Plato's visionary man of genius--calmreason? Must men, who so rarely obtain this tardy panacea, remain with alltheir tortured and torturing passions about them, often self-disgusted, self-humiliated? The enmities of genius are often connected with theirmorbid imagination. These originate in casual slights, or in unguardedexpressions, or in hasty opinions, or in witty derision, or even in theobtruding goodness of tender admonition. The man of genius broods over thephantom that darkens his feelings: he multiplies a single object; hemagnifies the smallest; and suspicions become certainties. It is in thisunhappy state that he sharpens his vindictive fangs, in a libel called his"Memoirs, " or in another species of public outrage, styled a "Criticism. "

We are told that COMINES the historian, when residing at the court of theCount de Charolois, afterwards Duke of Burgundy, one day returning fromhunting, with inconsiderate jocularity sat down before the Count, andordered the prince to pull off his boots. The Count would not affectgreatness, and having executed his commission, in return for the princelyamusement, the Count dashed the boot on Comines' nose, which bled; andfrom that time, he was mortified at the court of Burgundy, by retainingthe nickname of _the booted head. _ The blow rankled in the heart of theman of genius, and the Duke of Burgundy has come down to us in COMINE'S"Memoirs, " blackened by his vengeance. Many, unknown to their readers, like COMINES, have had a booted head; but the secret poison is distilledon their lasting page, as we have recently witnessed in Lord Waldegrave's"Memoirs. " Swift's perpetual malevolence to Dryden originated in thatgreat poet's prediction, that "cousin Swift would never be a poet;" aprediction which the wit never could forget. I have elsewhere fullywritten a tale of literary hatred, where is seen a man of genius, in thecharacter of GILBERT STUART, devoting a whole life to harassing theindustry or the genius which he himself could not attain. [A]

[Footnote A: See "Calamities of Authors, " pp. 131--139. ]

A living Italian poet, of great celebrity, when at the court of Rome, presented a magnificent edition of his poetry to Pius VI. The bard, Mr. Hobhouse informs us, lived not in the good graces of his holiness, andalthough the pontiff accepted the volume, he did not forbear a severity ofremark which could not fall unheeded by the modern poet; for on thisoccasion, repeating some verses of Metastasio, his holiness drily added, "No one now-a-days writes like that great poet. " Never was this to beerased from memory: the stifled resentment of MONTI vehemently broke forthat the moment the French carried off Pius VI. From Rome. Then the longindignant secretary poured forth an invective more severe "against thegreat harlot, " than was ever traced by a Protestant pen--MONTI now invokedthe rock of Sardinia: the poet bade it fly from its base, that _the lastof monsters_ might not find even a tomb to shelter him. Such was the curseof a poet on his former patron, now an object of misery--a return for"placing him below Metastasio!"

The French Revolution affords illustrations of the worst human passions. When the wretched COLLOT D'HERBOIS was tossed up in the storm to thesummit of power, a monstrous imagination seized him; he projected razingthe city of Lyons and massacring its inhabitants. He had even the heart tocommence, and to continue this conspiracy against human nature; theostensible crime was royalism, but the secret motive is said to have beenliterary vengeance! As wretched a poet and actor as a man, D'Herbois hadbeen hissed off the theatre at Lyons, and to avenge that ignominy, he hadmeditated over this vast and remorseless crime. Is there but one CollotD'Herbois in the universe? Long since this was written, a fact has beenrecorded of CHENIER, the French dramatic poet, which parallels the horridtale of Collot D'Herbois, which some have been willing to doubt from itsenormity. It is said, that this monster, in the revolutionary period, whenhe had the power to save the life of his brother André, while his father, prostrate before a wretched son, was imploring for the life of an innocentbrother, remained silent; it is further said that he appropriated tohimself a tragedy which he found among his brother's manuscripts. "Fratricide from literary jealousy, " observes the relator of thisanecdote, "was a crime reserved for a modern French revolutionist. "[A]There are some pathethic stanzas which André was composing in his lastmoments, when awaiting his fate; the most pathetic of all stanzas is thatone which he left unfinished--

 Peut-être, avant que l'heure en cercle promenée Ait posé, sur l'émail brillant, Dans les soixante pas où sa route est bornée, Son pied sonore et vigilant, Le sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupière--

At this unfinished stanza was the pensive poet summoned to the guillotine!

[Footnote A: _Edinburgh Review_, xxxv. 159]

CHAPTER XVI. 

The domestic life of genius. --Defects of great compositions attributed todomestic infelicities. --The home of the literary character should be theabode of repose and silence. --Of the Father. --Of the Mother. --Of familygenius. --Men of genius not more respected than other men in their domesticcircle. --The cultivators of science and art do not meet on equal termswith others, in domestic life. --Their neglect of those around them. --Oftenaccused of imaginary crimes. 

When the temper and the leisure of the literary character are alikebroken, even his best works, the too faithful mirrors of his state ofmind, will participate in its inequalities; and surely the incubations ofgenius, in its delicate and shadowy combinations, are not less sensible intheir operation than the composition of sonorous bodies, where, while thewarm metal is settling in the mould, even an unusual vibration of the airduring the moment of fusion will injure the tone. 

Some of the conspicuous blemishes of several great compositions may beattributed to the domestic infelicities of their authors. The desultorylife of CAMOENS is imagined to be perceptible in the deficient connexionof his epic; and MILTON'S blindness and divided family prevented thatcastigating criticism, which otherwise had erased passages which haveescaped from his revising hand. He felt himself in the situation of hisSamson Agonistes, whom he so pathetically describes--

 His foes' derision, captive, poor, and blind. 

Even LOCKE complains of his "discontinued way of writing, " and "writing byincoherent parcels, " from the avocations of a busy and unsettled life, which undoubtedly produced a deficiency of method in the disposition ofthe materials of his great work. The careless rapid lines of DRYDENare justly attributed to his distress, and indeed he pleads for hisinequalities from his domestic circumstances. JOHNSON often silently, buteagerly, corrected the "Ramblers" in their successive editions, of whichso many had been despatched in haste. The learned GREAVES offered someexcuses for his errors in his edition of "Abulfeda, " from "his being fiveyears encumbered with lawsuits, and diverted from his studies. " When atlength he returned to them, he expresses his surprise "at the pains he hadformerly undergone, " but of which he now felt himself "unwilling, he knewnot how, of again undergoing. " GOLDONI, when at the bar, abandoned hiscomic talent for several years; and having resumed it, his first comedytotally failed: "My head, " says he, "was occupied with my professionalemployment; I was uneasy in mind and in bad humour. " A lawsuit, abankruptcy, a domestic feud, or an indulgence in criminal or in foolishpursuits, have chilled the fervour of imagination, scattered intofragments many a noble design, and paralysed the finest genius. Thedistractions of GUIDO'S studies from his passion for gaming, and ofPARMEGIANO'S for alchemy, have been traced in their works, which are oftenhurried over and unequal. It is curious to observe, that CUMBERLANDattributes the excellence of his comedy, _The West Indian_, to thepeculiarly happy situation in which he found himself at the time of itscomposition, free from the incessant avocations which had crossed him inthe writing of _The Brothers. _ "I was master of my time, my mind was free, and I was happy in the society of the dearest friends I had on earth. Thecalls of office, the cavillings of angry rivals, and the gibings ofnewspaper critics, could not reach me on the banks of the Shannon, whereall within-doors was love and affection. In no other period of my lifehave the same happy circumstances combined to cheer me in any of myliterary labours. "

The best years of MENGS' life were embittered by his father, a poorartist, and who, with poorer feelings, converted his home into aprison-house, forced his son into the slavery of stipulated task-work, while bread and water were the only fruits of the fine arts. In thisdomestic persecution, the son contracted those morose and saturninehabits which in after-life marked the character of the ungenial MENGS. ALONSO CANO, a celebrated Spanish painter, would have carried his art toperfection, had not the unceasing persecution of the Inquisitors entirelydeprived him of that tranquillity so necessary to the very existence ofart. OVID, in exile on the barren shores of Tomos, deserted by hisgenius, in his copious _Tristia_ loses much of the luxuriance of hisfancy. 

We have a remarkable evidence of domestic unhappiness annihilating thevery faculty of genius itself, in the case of Dr. BROOK TAYLOR, thecelebrated author of the "Linear Perspective. " This great mathematician inearly life distinguished himself as an inventor in science, and the mostsanguine hopes of his future discoveries were raised both at home andabroad. Two unexpected events in domestic life extinguished his inventivefaculties. After the loss of two wives, whom he regarded with no commonaffection, he became unfitted for profound studies; he carried his ownpersonal despair into his favourite objects of pursuit, and abandonedthem. The inventor of the most original work suffered the last fifteenyears of his life to drop away, without hope, and without exertion; nor isthis a solitary instance, where a man of genius, deprived of the idolisedpartner of his existence, has no longer been able to find an object in hisstudies, and where even fame itself has ceased to interest. The reasonwhich ROUSSEAU alleges for the cynical spleen which so frequently breathesforth in his works, shows how the domestic character of the man of geniusleaves itself in his productions. After describing the infelicity of hisdomestic affairs, occasioned by the mother of Theresa, and Theresaherself, both women of the lowest class and the worst dispositions, headds, on this wretched marriage, "These unexpected disagreeable events, ina state of my own choice, plunged me into literature, to give a newdirection and diversion to my mind; and in all my first works I scatteredthat bilious humour which had occasioned this very occupation. " Ourauthor's character in his works was the very opposite to the one in whichhe appeared to these low people. Feeling his degradation among them, forthey treated his simplicity as utter silliness, his personal timidityassumed a tone of boldness and originality in his writings, while a strongpersonal sense of shame heightened his causticity, and he delighted tocontemn that urbanity in which he had never shared, and which he knew nothow to practise. His miserable subservience to these people was the realcause of his oppressed spirit calling out for some undefined freedom insociety; and thus the real Rousseau, with all his disordered feelings, only appeared in his writings. The secrets of his heart were confided tohis pen. 

"The painting-room must be like Eden before the Fall; no joylessturbulent passions must enter there"--exclaims the enthusiast RICHARDSON. The home of the literary character should be the abode of repose and ofsilence. There must he look for the feasts of study, in progressive andalternate labours; a taste "which, " says GIBBON, "I would not exchangefor the treasures of India. " ROUSSEAU had always a work going on, forrainy days and spare hours, such as his "Dictionary of Music:" a varietyof works never tired; it was the single one which exhausted. METASTASIOlooks with delight on his variety, which resembled the fruits in thegarden of Armida--

 E mentre spunta l'un, l'altro mature. While one matures, the other buds and blows. 

Nor is it always fame, or any lower motive, which may induce the literarycharacter to hold an unwearied pen. Another equally powerful exists, whichmust remain inexplicable to him who knows not to escape from thelistlessness of life--it is the passion for literary occupation. He whoseeye can only measure the space occupied by the voluminous labours of theelder Pliny, of a Mazzuchelli, a Muratori, a Montfaucon, and a Gough, allmen who laboured from the love of labour, and can see nothing in thatspace but the industry which filled it, is like him who only views a cityat a distance--the streets and the edifices, and all the life andpopulation within, he can never know. These literary characters projectedtheir works as so many schemes to escape from uninteresting pursuits; and, in these folios, how many evils of life did they bury, while theirhappiness expanded with their volume! Aulus Gellius desired to live nolonger than he was able to retain the faculty of writing and observing. The literary character must grow as impassioned with his subject asÆlian-with his "History of Animals;" "wealth and honour I might haveobtained at the courts of princes; but I preferred the delight ofmultiplying my knowledge. I am aware that the avaricious and the ambitiouswill accuse me of folly; but I have always found most pleasure inobserving the nature of animals, studying their character, and writingtheir history. "

Even with those who have acquired their celebrity, the love of literarylabour is not diminished--a circumstance recorded by the younger Pliny ofLivy. In a preface to one of his lost books, that historian had said thathe had obtained sufficient glory by his former writings on the Romanhistory, and might now repose in silence; but his mind was so restless andso abhorrent of indolence, that it only felt its existence in literaryexertion. In a similar situation the feeling was fully experienced byHUME. Our philosopher completed his history neither for money nor forfame, having then more than a sufficiency of both; but chiefly to indulgea habit as a resource against indolence. [A] These are the minds which arewithout hope if they are without occupation. 

[Footnote A: This appears in one of his interesting letters firstpublished in the _Literary Gazette_, Oct. 20, 1821. --[It is addressed toAdam Smith, dated July 28, 1759, and he says, "I signed an agreement withMr. Millar, where I mention that I proposed to write the History ofEngland from the beginning till the accession of Henry VII. , ; and heengages to give me 1400_l_. For the copy. This is the first previousagreement ever I made with a bookseller. I shall execute the work atleisure, without fatiguing myself by such ardent application as I havehitherto employed. It is chiefly as a resource against idleness that Ishall undertake the work, for as to money I have enough: and as toreputation what I have wrote already will be sufficient, if it be good; ifnot, it is not likely I shall now write better. "]]

Amidst the repose and silence of study, delightful to the literarycharacter, are the soothing interruptions of the voices of those whom heloves, recalling him from his abstractions into social existence. Thesere-animate his languor, and moments of inspiration are caught in theemotions of affection, when a father or a friend, a wife, a daughter, or asister, become the participators of his own tastes, the companions of hisstudies, and identify their happiness with his fame. A beautiful incidentin the domestic life of literature is one which Morellet has revealed ofMARMONTEL. In presenting his collected works to his wife, she discoveredthat the author had dedicated his volumes to herself; but the dedicationwas not made painful to her modesty, for it was not a public one. Nor wasit so concise as to be mistaken for a compliment. The theme was copious, for the heart overflowed in the pages consecrated to her domestic virtues;and MARMONTEL left it as a record, that their children might learn thegratitude of their father, and know the character of their mother, whenthe writer should be no more. Many readers were perhaps surprised to findin NECKER's _Comte rendu au Roi_, a political and financial work, a greatand lovely character of domestic excellence in his wife. This was moreobtrusive than Marmontel's private dedication; yet it was not the lesssincere. If NECKER failed in the cautious reserve of private feelings, whowill censure? Nothing seems misplaced which the heart dictates. 

If HORACE were dear to his friends, he declares they owed him to hisfather:--

 --purus et insons (Ut me collaudem) si vivo et carus amicis, Causa fuit Pater his. 

 If pure and innocent, if dear (forgive These little praises) to my friends I live, My father was the cause. 

This intelligent father, an obscure tax-gatherer, discovered thepropensity of Horace's mind; for he removed the boy of genius from a ruralseclusion to the metropolis, anxiously attending on him to his variousmasters. GROTIUS, like Horace, celebrated in verse his gratitude to hisexcellent father, who had formed him not only to be a man of learning, buta great character. VITRUVIUS pours forth a grateful prayer to the memoryof his parents, who had instilled into his soul a love for literary andphilosophical subjects; and it is an amiable trait in PLUTARCH to haveintroduced his father in the Symposiacs, as an elegant critic andmoralist, and his brother Lamprias, whose sweetness of disposition, inclining to cheerful raillery, the Sage of Cheronæa has immortalised. The father of GIBBON urged him to literary distinction, and the dedicationof the "Essay on Literature" to that father, connected with his subsequentlabour, shows the force of the excitement. The father of POPE lived longenough to witness his son's celebrity. 

 Tears such as tender fathers shed, Warm from my eyes descend, For joy, to think when I am dead, My son shall have mankind his Friend. [A]

The son of BUFFON one day surprised his father by the sight of a column, which he had raised to the memory of his father's eloquent genius. "Itwill do you honour, " observed the Gallic sage. [B] And when that son in therevolution was led to the guillotine, he ascended in silence, so impressedwith his father's fame, that he only told the people, "I am the son ofBuffon!"

[Footnote A: These lines have been happily applied by Mr. BOWLES to thefather of POPE. --The poet's domestic affections were as permanent as theywere strong. ]

[Footnote B: It still exists in the gardens of the old château atMontbard. It is a pillar of marble bearing this inscription:--"Excelsæturris humilia columna, Parenti suo filius Buffon. 1785. "--ED. ]

Fathers absorbed in their occupations can but rarely attract theiroffspring. The first durable impressions of our moral existence come fromthe mother. The first prudential wisdom to which Genius listens falls fromher lips, and only her caresses can create the moments of tenderness. Theearnest discernment of a mother's love survives in the imagination ofmanhood. The mother of Sir WILLIAM JONES, having formed a plan for theeducation of her son, withdrew from great connexions that she might liveonly for that son. Her great principle of education, was to excite bycuriosity; the result could not fail to be knowledge. "Read, and you willknow, " she constantly replied to her filial pupil. And we have his ownacknowledgment, that to this maxim, which produced the habit of study, hewas indebted for his future attainments. KANT, the German metaphysician, was always fond of declaring that he owed to the ascendancy of hismother's character the severe inflexibility of his moral principles. Themother of BURNS kindled his genius by reciting the old Scottish ballads, while to his father he attributed his less pleasing cast of character. Bishop WATSON traced to the affectionate influence of his mother, thereligious feelings which he confesses he inherited from her. The mother ofEDGEWORTH, confined through life to her apartment, was the only person whostudied his constitutional volatility. When he hastened to her death-bed, the last imperfect accents of that beloved voice reminded him of the pastand warned him of the future, and he declares that voice "had a happyinfluence on his habits, "--as happy, at least, as his own volatile naturewould allow. "To the manner in which my mother formed me at an early age, "said Napoleon, "I principally owe my subsequent elevation. My opinion is, that the future good or bad conduct of a child entirely depends upon themother. "

There is this remarkable in the strong affections of the mother in theformation of the literary character, that, without even partaking of, orsympathising with the pleasures the child is fond of, the mother willoften cherish those first decided tastes merely from the delight ofpromoting the happiness of her son; so that that genius, which some wouldproduce on a preconceived system, or implant by stratagem, or enforce byapplication, with her may be only the watchful labour of love. [A] One ofour most eminent antiquaries has often assured me that his great passion, and I may say his genius, for his curious knowledge and his vastresearches, he attributes to maternal affection. When his early taste forthese studies was thwarted by the very different one of his father, themother silently supplied her son with the sort of treasures he languishedfor, blessing the knowledge, which indeed she could not share with him, but which she beheld imparting happiness to her youthful antiquary. 

[Footnote A: Kotzebue has noted the delicate attention of his mother innot only fostering his genius, but in watching its too rapid development. He says:--"If at any time my imagination was overheated, my mother alwayscontrived to select something for my evening reading which might moderatethis ardour, and make a gentler impression on my too irritable fancy. "--ED. ]

There is, what may be called, FAMILY GENIUS. In the home of a man ofgenius is diffused an electrical atmosphere, and his own pre-eminencestrikes out talents in all. "The active pursuits of my father, " says thedaughter of EDGEWORTH, "spread an animation through the house byconnecting children with all that was going on, and allowing them to joinin thought and conversation; sympathy and emulation excited mentalexertion in the most agreeable manner. " EVELYN, in his beautiful retreatat Saye's Court, had inspired his family with that variety of taste whichhe himself was spreading throughout the nation. His son translated Rapin's"Gardens, " which poem the father proudly preserved in his "Sylva;" hislady, ever busied in his study, excelled in the arts her husband loved, and designed the frontispiece to his "Lucretius:" she was the cultivatorof their celebrated garden, which served as "an example" of his great workon "forest trees. " Cowley, who has commemorated Evelyn's love of books andgardens, has delightfully applied them to his lady, in whom, says thebard, Evelyn meets both pleasures:--

 The fairest garden in her looks, And in her mind the wisest books. 

The house of HALLER resembled a temple consecrated to science and thearts, and the votaries were his own family. The universal acquirements ofHaller were possessed in some degree by every one under his roof; andtheir studious delight in transcribing manuscripts, in consulting authors, in botanising, drawing and colouring the plants under his eye, formedoccupations which made the daughters happy and the sons eminent. [A] Thepainter STELLA inspired his family to copy his fanciful inventions, andthe playful graver of Claudine Stella, his niece, animated his "Sports ofChildren. " I have seen a print of COYPEL in his _studio_, and by his sidehis little daughter, who is intensely watching the progress of herfather's pencil. The artist has represented himself in the act ofsuspending his labour to look on his child. At that moment, his thoughtswere divided between two objects of his love. The character and the worksof the late ELIZABETH HAMILTON were formed entirely by her brother. Admiring the man she loved, she imitated what she admired; and while thebrother was arduously completing the version of the Persian Hedaya, thesister, who had associated with his morning tasks and his eveningconversations, was recalling all the ideas, and pourtraying her fraternalmaster in her "Hindoo Rajah. "

[Footnote A: Haller's death (A. D. 1777) was as remarkable for its calmphilosophy, as his life for its happiness. He was a professional surgeon, and continued to the last an attentive and rational observer of thesymptoms of the disease which was bringing him to the grave. Hetransmitted to the University of Gottingen a scientific analysis of hiscase; and died feeling his own pulse. --ED. ]

Nor are there wanting instances where this FAMILY GENIUS has been carrieddown through successive generations: the volume of the father has beencontinued by a son, or a relative. The history of the family of theZWINGERS is a combination of studies and inherited tastes. Theodorepublished, in 1697, a folio herbal, of which his son Frederic gave anenlarged edition in 1744; and the family was honoured by their name havingbeen given to a genus of plants dedicated to their memory, and known inbotany by the name of the _Zwingera_. In history and in literature, thefamily name was equally eminent; the same Theodore continued a great work, "The Theatre of Human Life, " which had been begun by his father-in-law, and which for the third time was enlarged by another son. Among thehistorians of Italy, it is delightful to contemplate this family geniustransmitting itself with unsullied probity among the three VILLANIS, andthe MALASPINIS, and the two PORTAS. The history of the learned family ofthe STEPHENS presents a dynasty of literature; and to distinguish thenumerous members, they have been designated as Henry I. And Henry II. , --asRobert I. , the II. , and the III. [A] Our country may exult in havingpossessed many literary families--the WARTONS, the father and two sons:the BURNEYS, more in number; and the nephews of Milton, whose humble torchat least was lighted at the altar of the great bard. [B]

[Footnote A: For an account of them and their works, see "Curiosities ofLiterature, " vol, i. P. 76. ]

[Footnote B: The Phillips. ]

No event in literary history is more impressive than the fate ofQUINTILIAN; it was in the midst of his elaborate work, which was composedto form the literary character of a son, that he experienced the mostterrible affliction in the domestic life of genius--the successive deathsof his wife and his only child. It was a moral earthquake with a singlesurvivor amidst the ruins. An awful burst of parental and literaryaffliction breaks forth in Quintilian's lamentation, --"My wealth, and mywritings, the fruits of a long and painful life, must now be reserved onlyfor strangers; all I possess is for aliens, and no longer mine!" We feelthe united agony of the husband, the father, and the man of genius!

Deprived of these social consolations, we see JOHNSON call about him thosewhose calamities exiled them from society, and his roof lodges the blind, the lame, and the poor; for the heart must possess something it can callits own, to be kind to. 

In domestic life, the Abbé DE ST. PIERRE enlarged its moral vocabulary, byfixing in his language two significant words. One served to explain thevirtue most familiar to him--_bienfaisance_; and that irritable vanitywhich magnifies its ephemeral fame, the sage reduced to a mortifyingdiminutive--_la gloriole!_

It has often excited surprise that men of genius are not more reverencedthan other men in their domestic circle. The disparity between the publicand the private esteem of the same man is often striking. In privacy wediscover that the comic genius is not always cheerful, that the sage issometimes ridiculous, and the poet seldom delightful. The golden hour ofinvention must terminate like other hours, and when the man of geniusreturns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, and the amusements oflife, his companions behold him as one of themselves--the creature ofhabits and infirmities. 

In the business of life, the cultivators of science and the arts, with alltheir simplicity of feeling and generous openness about them, do not meeton equal terms with other men. Their frequent abstractions calling off themind to whatever enters into its lonely pursuits, render them greatlyinferior to others in practical and immediate observation. Studious menhave been reproached as being so deficient in the knowledge of the humancharacter, that they are usually disqualified for the management of publicbusiness. Their confidence in their friends has no bound, while theybecome the easy dupes of the designing. A friend, who was in office withthe late Mr. CUMBERLAND, assures me, that he was so intractable to theforms of business, and so easily induced to do more or to do less than heought, that he was compelled to perform the official business of thisliterary man, to free himself from his annoyance; and yet Cumberland couldnot be reproached with any deficiency in a knowledge of the humancharacter, which he was always touching with caustic pleasantry. 

ADDISON and PRIOR were unskilful statesmen; and MALESHERBES confessed, afew days before his death, that TURGOT and himself, men of genius andphilosophers, from whom the nation had expected much, had badlyadministered the affairs of the state; for "knowing men but by books, andunskilful in business, we could not form the king to the government. " Aman of genius may know the whole map of the world of human nature; but, like the great geographer, may be apt to be lost in the wood which any onein the neighbourhood knows better than him. 

"The conversation of a poet, " says Goldsmith, "is that of a man of sense, while his actions are those of a fool. " Genius, careless of the future, and often absent in the present, avoids too deep a commingling in theminor cares of life. Hence it becomes a victim to common fools and vulgarvillains. "I love my family's welfare, but I cannot be so foolish as tomake myself the slave to the minute affairs of a house, " said MONTESQUIEU. The story told of a man of learning is probably true, however ridiculousit may appear. Deeply occupied in his library, one, rushing in, informedhim that the house was on fire: "Go to my wife--these matters belong toher!" pettishly replied the interrupted student. BACON sat at one end ofhis table wrapt in many a reverie, while at the other the creatures abouthim were trafficking with his honour, and ruining his good name: "I ambetter fitted for this, " said that great man once, holding out a book, "than for the life I have of late led. Nature has not fitted me for that;knowing myself by inward calling to be fitter to hold a book than to playa part. "

BUFFON, who consumed his mornings in his old tower of Montbard, at the endof his garden, [A] with all nature opening to him, formed all his ideas ofwhat was passing before him from the arts of a pliant Capuchin, and thecomments of a perruquier on the scandalous chronicle of the village. Thesehumble confidants he treated as children, but the children were commandingthe great man! YOUNG, whose satires give the very anatomy of humanfoibles, was wholly governed by his housekeeper. She thought and acted forhim, which probably greatly assisted the "Night Thoughts, " but his curateexposed the domestic economy of a man of genius by a satirical novel. If Iam truly informed, in that gallery of satirical portraits in his "Love ofFame, " YOUNG has omitted one of the most striking--his OWN! While thepoet's eye was glancing from "earth to heaven, " he totally overlooked thelady whom he married, and who soon became the object of his contempt; andnot only his wife, but his only son, who when he returned home for thevacation from Winchester school, was only admitted into the presence ofhis poetical father on the first and the last day; and whose unhappy lifeis attributed to this unnatural neglect:[B]--a lamentable domesticcatastrophe, which, I fear, has too frequently occurred amidst the ardourand occupations of literary glory. Much, too much, of the tenderdomesticity of life is violated by literary characters. All that livesunder their eye, all that should be guided by their hand, the recluse andabstracted men of genius must leave to their own direction. But let it notbe forgotten, that, if such neglect others, they also neglect themselves, and are deprived of those family enjoyments for which few men have warmersympathies. While the literary character burns with the ambition ofraising a great literary name, he is too often forbidden to taste of thisdomestic intercourse, or to indulge the versatile curiosity of his privateamusements--for he is chained to his great labour. ROBERTSON felt thiswhile employed on his histories, and he at length rejoiced when, aftermany years of devoted toil, he returned to the luxury of reading for hisown amusement and to the conversation of his friends. "Such a sacrifice, "observes his philosophical biographer, "must be more or less made by allwho devote themselves to letters, whether with a view to emolument or tofame; nor would it perhaps be easy to make it, were it not for theprospect (seldom, alas! realised) of earning by their exertions thatlearned and honourable leisure which he was so fortunate as to attain. "

[Footnote A: For some account of this place, see the chapter on "LiteraryResidences" in vol. Iii. P. 395, of "Curiosities of Literature. "]

[Footnote B: These facts are drawn from a manuscript of the late SirHerbert Croft, who regretted that Dr. Johnson would not suffer him to givethis account during the doctor's lifetime, in his Life of Young, but whichit had always been his intention to have added to it. ]

But men of genius have often been accused of imaginary crimes. Their veryeminence attracts the lie of calumny, which tradition often conveys beyondthe possibility of refutation. Sometimes they are reproached as wanting inaffection, when they displease their fathers by making an obscure namecelebrated. The family of DESCARTES lamented, as a blot in theirescutcheon, that Descartes, who was born a gentleman, should become aphilosopher; and this elevated genius was refused the satisfaction ofembracing an unforgiving parent, while his dwarfish brother, with a minddiminutive as his person, ridiculed his philosophic relative, and turnedto advantage his philosophic disposition. The daughter of ADDISON waseducated with a perfect contempt of authors, and blushed to bear a namemore illustrious than that of all the Warwicks, on her alliance to whichnoble family she prided herself. The children of MILTON, far from solacingthe age of their blind parent, became impatient for his death, embitteredhis last hours with scorn and disaffection, and combined to cheat and robhim. Milton, having enriched our national poetry by two immortal epics, with patient grief blessed the single female who did not entirely abandonhim, and the obscure fanatic who was pleased with his poems because theywere religious. What felicities! what laurels! And now we have recentlylearned, that the daughter of Madame DE SÉVIGNÉ lived on ill termswith her mother, of whose enchanting genius she appears to have beeninsensible! The unquestionable documents are two letters hithertocautiously secreted. The daughter was in the house of her mother when anextraordinary letter was addressed to her from the chamber of Madame deSévigné after a sleepless night. In this she describes, with her peculiarfelicity, the ill-treatment she received from the daughter she idolised;it is a kindling effusion of maternal reproach, and tenderness, andgenius. [A]

[Footnote A: Lettres inédites de Madame de Sévigné, pp. 201 and 203. ]

Some have been deemed disagreeable companions, because they felt theweariness of dulness, or the impertinence of intrusion; described as badhusbands, when united to women who, without a kindred feeling, had themean art to prey upon their infirmities; or as bad fathers, because theiroffspring have not always reflected the moral beauty of their own page. But the magnet loses nothing of its virtue, even when the particles aboutit, incapable themselves of being attracted, are not acted on by itsoccult property. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The poverty of literary men. --Poverty, a relative quality. --Of the povertyof literary men in what degree desirable. --Extreme poverty. --Task-work. --Of gratuitous works. --A project to provide against the worst state ofpoverty among literary men. 

Poverty is a state not so fatal to genius, as it is usually conceived tobe. We shall find that it has been sometimes voluntarily chosen; and thatto connect too closely great fortune with great genius, creates one ofthose powerful but unhappy alliances, where the one party must necessarilyact contrary to the interests of the other. 

Poverty is a relative quality, like cold and heat, which are but theincrease or the diminution in our own sensations. The positive idea mustarise from comparison. There is a state of poverty reserved even for thewealthy man, the instant that he comes in hateful contact with theenormous capitalist. But there is a poverty neither vulgar nor terrifying, asking no favours and on no terms receiving any; a poverty whichannihilates its ideal evils, and, becoming even a source of pride, willconfer independence, that first step to genius. 

Among the continental nations, to accumulate wealth in the spirit of acapitalist does not seem to form the prime object of domestic life. Thetraffic of money is with them left to the traffickers, their merchants, and their financiers. In our country, the commercial character has soclosely interwoven and identified itself with the national one, and itspeculiar views have so terminated all our pursuits, that every rank isalike influenced by its spirit, and things are valued by a market-pricewhich naturally admits of no such appraisement. In a country where "TheWealth of Nations" has been fixed as the first principle of politicalexistence, wealth has raised an aristocracy more noble than nobility, morecelebrated than genius, more popular than patriotism; but however it maypartake at times of a generous nature, it hardly looks beyond its ownnarrow pale. It is curious to notice that Montesquieu, who was in England, observed, that "If I had been born here, nothing could have consoled me infailing to accumulate a large fortune; but I do not lament the mediocrityof my circumstances in France. " The sources of our national wealth havegreatly multiplied, and the evil has consequently increased, since thevisit of the great philosopher. 

The cares of property, the daily concerns of a family, the pressure ofsuch minute disturbers of their studies, have induced some great minds toregret the abolition of those monastic orders, beneath whose undisturbedshade were produced the mighty labours of a MONTFAUCON, a CALMET, aFLOREZ, and the still unfinished volumes of the BENEDICTINES. Often hasthe literary character, amidst the busied delights of study, sighed "tobid a farewell sweet" to the turbulence of society. It was not discontent, nor any undervaluing of general society, but the pure enthusiasm of thelibrary, which once induced the studious EVELYN to sketch a retreat ofthis nature, which he addressed to his friend, the illustrious BOYLE. Heproposed to form "A college where persons of the same turn of mind mightenjoy the pleasure of agreeable society, and at the same time pass theirdays without care or interruption. "[A] This abandonment of their life totheir genius has, indeed, often cost them too dear, from the days ofSOPHOCLES, who, ardent in his old age, neglected his family affairs, andwas brought before his judges by his relations, as one fallen into asecond childhood. The aged poet brought but one solitary witness in hisfavour--an unfinished tragedy; which having read, the judges rose beforehim, and retorted the charge on his accusers. 

[Footnote A: This romantic literary retreat is one of those delightfulreveries which the elegant taste of EVELYN abounded with. It may be foundat full length in the fifth volume of Boyle's Works, not in the second, asthe Biog. Brit. Says. His lady was to live among the society. "If I and mywife take up two apartments, for we are to be decently asunder, however Istipulate, and her inclination will greatly suit with it, that shall be noimpediment to the society, but a considerable advantage to the economicpart, " &c. ]

A parallel circumstance occurred to the Abbé COTIN, the victim of a rhymeof the satirical Boileau. Studious, and without fortune, Cotin had livedcontented till he incurred the unhappiness of inheriting a large estate. Then a world of cares opened on him; his rents were not paid, and hiscreditors increased. Dragged from his Hebrew and Greek, poor Cotinresolved to make over his entire fortune to one of his heirs, on conditionof maintenance. His other relations assuming that a man who parted withhis estate in his lifetime must necessarily be deranged, brought thelearned Cotin into court. Cotin had nothing to say in his own favour, butrequested his judges would allow him to address them from the sermonswhich he preached. The good sense, the sound reasoning, and the eruditionof the preacher were such, that the whole bench unanimously declared thatthey themselves might be considered as madmen, were they to condemn a manof letters who was desirous of escaping from the incumbrance of a fortunewhich had only interrupted his studies. 

There may then be sufficient motives to induce such a man to make a stateof mediocrity his choice. If he lose his happiness, he mutilates hisgenius. GOLDONI, with all the simplicity of his feelings and habits, inreviewing his life, tells us how he was always relapsing into his oldpropensity of comic writing; "but the thought of this does not disturbme, " says he; "for though in any other situation I might have been ineasier circumstances, I should never have been so happy. " BAYLE is aparent of the modern literary character; he pursued the same course, andearly in life adopted the principle, "Neither to fear bad fortune nor haveany ardent desires for good. " Acquainted with the passions only as theirhistorian, and living only for literature, he sacrificed to it the twogreat acquisitions of human pursuits--fortune and a family: but in whatcountry had Bayle not a family and a possession in his fame? HUME andGIBBON had the most perfect conception of the literary character, and theywere aware of this important principle in its habits--"My own revenue, "said HUME, "will be sufficient for a man of letters, who surely needs lessmoney, both for his entertainment and credit, than other people. " GIBBONobserved of himself--"Perhaps the golden mediocrity of my fortune hascontributed to fortify my application. "

The state of poverty, then, desirable in the domestic life of genius, isone in which the cares of property never intrude, and the want of wealthis never perceived. This is not indigence; that state which, howeverdignified the man of genius himself may be, must inevitably degrade! forthe heartless will gibe, and even the compassionate turn aside incontempt. This literary outcast will soon be forsaken even by himself! hisown intellect will be clouded over, and his limbs shrink in the palsy ofbodily misery and shame--

 Malesuada Fames, et turpis Egestas Terribiles visu formæ. 

Not that in this history of men of genius we are without illustriousexamples of those who have even _learnt to want, _ that they mightemancipate their genius from their necessities!

We see ROUSSEAU rushing out of the palace of the financier, selling hiswatch, copying music by the sheet, and by the mechanical industry of twohours, purchasing ten for genius. We may smile at the enthusiasm of youngBARRRY, who finding himself too constant a haunter of taverns, imaginedthat this expenditure of time was occasioned by having money; and to putan end to the conflict, he threw the little he possessed at once into theLiffey; but let us not forget that BARRY, in the maturity of life, confidently began a labour of years, [A] and one of the noblest inventionsin his art--a great poem in a picture--with no other resource than whathe found by secret labours through the night, in furnishing the shops withthose slight and saleable sketches which secured uninterrupted morningsfor his genius. SPINOSA, a name as celebrated, and perhaps as calumniated, as Epicurus, lived in all sorts of abstinence, even of honours, ofpensions, and of presents; which, however disguised by kindness, he wouldnot accept, so fearful was this philosopher of a chain! Lodging in acottage, and obtaining a livelihood by polishing optical glasses, hedeclared he had never spent more than he earned, and certainly thoughtthere was such a thing as superfluous earnings. At his death, his smallaccounts showed how he had subsisted on a few pence a-day, and

 Enjoy'd, spare feast! a radish and an egg. 

[Footnote A: His series of pictures for the walls of the meeting-room ofthe Society of Arts in the Adelphi. --ED. ]

POUSSIN persisted in refusing a higher price than that affixed to the backof his pictures, at the time he was living without a domestic. The greatoriental scholar, ANQUETIL DE PERRON, is a recent example of the literarycharacter carrying his indifference to privations to the very cynicism ofpoverty; and he seems to exult over his destitution with the same pride asothers would expatiate over their possessions. Yet we must not forget, touse the words of Lord Bacon, that "judging that means were to be spentupon learning, and not learning to be applied to means, " DE PERRON refusedthe offer of thirty thousand livres for his copy of the "Zend-avesta. "Writing to some Bramins, he describes his life at Paris to be much liketheir own. "I subsist on the produce of my literary labours withoutrevenue, establishment, or place. I have no wife nor children; alone, absolutely free, but always the friend of men of probity. In a perpetualwar with my senses, I triumph over the attractions of the world or Icontemn them. "

This ascetic existence is not singular. PARINI, a great modern poet ofItaly, whom the Milanese point out to strangers as the glory of theircity, lived in the same state of unrepining poverty. Mr. Hobhouse hasgiven us this self-portrait of the poet:--

 Me, non nato a percotere Le dure illustri porte, Nudo accorra, ma libero Il regno della morte. 

Naked, but free! A life of hard deprivations was long that of theillustrious LINNÆUS. Without fortune, to that great mind it never seemednecessary to acquire any. Perigrinating on foot with a stylus, amagnifying-glass, and a basket for plants, he shared the rustic meal ofthe peasant. Never was glory obtained at a cheaper rate! exclaims one ofhis eulogists. Satisfied with the least of the little, he only felt oneperpetual want--that of completing his Flors. Not that LINNÆUS wasinsensible to his situation, for he gave his name to a little flower inLapland--the _Linnæa Borealis, _ from the fanciful analogy he discoveredbetween its character and his own early fate, "a little northern plantflowering early, depressed, abject, and long overlooked. " The want offortune, however, did not deprive this man of genius of his true glory, nor of that statue raised to him in the gardens of the University ofUpsal, nor of that solemn eulogy delivered by a crowned head, nor of thosemedals which his nation struck to commemorate the genius of the threekingdoms of nature!

This, then, is the race who have often smiled at the light regard of theirgood neighbours when contrasted with their own celebrity; for in povertyand in solitude such men are not separated from their fame; that is everproceeding, ever raising a secret, but constant, triumph in theirminds. [A]

Yes! Genius, undegraded and unexhausted, may indeed even in a garret glowin its career; but it must be on the principle which induced ROUSSEAUsolemnly to renounce writing "_par métier_. " This in the _Journal deSçavans_ he once attempted, but found himself quite inadequate to "theprofession. "[B] In a garret, the author of the "Studies of Nature, " as heexultingly tells us, arranged his work. "It was in a little garret, in thenew street of St. Etienne du Mont, where I resided four years, in themidst of physical and domestic afflictions. But there I enjoyed the mostexquisite pleasures of my life, amid profound solitude and an enchantinghorizon. There I put the finishing hand to my 'Studies of Nature, ' andthere I published them. " Pope, one day taking his usual walk with Hartein the Haymarket, desired him to enter a little shop, where going up threepair of stairs into a small room, Pope said, "In this garret AUDISONwrote his 'Campaign!'" To the feelings of the poet this garret had becomea consecrated spot; Genius seemed more itself, placed in contrast with itsmiserable locality!

[Footnote A: Spagnoletto, while sign-painting at Rome, attracted by hisability the notice of a cardinal, who ultimately gave him a home in hispalace; but the artist, feeling that his poverty was necessary to hisindustry and independence, fled to Naples, and recommenced a life oflabour. --ED. ]

[Footnote B: Twice he repeated this resolution. See his Works, vol. Xxxi, p. 283; vol. Xxxii. P. 90. ]

The man of genius wrestling with oppressive fortune, who follows theavocations of an author as a precarious source of existence, should takeas the model of the authorial life, that of Dr. JOHNSON. The dignity ofthe literary character was as deeply associated with his feelings, and the"reverence thyself" as present to his mind, when doomed to be one of the_Helots_ of literature, by Osborn, Cave, and Miller, as when, in thehonest triumph of Genius, he repelled a tardy adulation of the lordlyChesterfield. Destitute of this ennobling principle, the author sinks intothe tribe of those rabid adventurers of the pen who have masked thedegraded form of the literary character under the assumed title of"authors by profession"[A]--the GUTHRIES, the RALPHS, and the AMHURSTS[B]. "There are worse evils for the literary man, " says a living author, whohimself is the true model of the great literary character, "than neglect, poverty, imprisonment, and death. There are even more pitiable objectsthan Chatterton himself with the poison at his lips. " "I should die withhunger were I at peace with the world!" exclaimed a corsair of literature--and dashed his pen into the black flood before him of soot and gall. 

[Footnote A: From an original letter which I have published from GUTHRIEto a minister of state, this modern phrase appears to have been his owninvention. The principle unblushingly avowed, required the sanction of arespectable designation. I have preserved it in "Calamities of Authors. "]

[Footnote B: For some account of these men, see "Calamities of Authors. "]

In substituting fortune for the object of his designs, the man of geniusdeprives himself of those heats of inspiration reserved for him who livesfor himself; the _mollia tempora fandi_ of Art. If he be subservient tothe public taste, without daring to raise it to his own, the creature ofhis times has not the choice of his subjects, which choice is itself asort of invention. A task-worker ceases to think his own thoughts. Thestipulated price and time are weighing on his pen or his pencil, while thehour-glass is dropping its hasty sands. If the man of genius would bewealthy and even luxurious, another fever besides the thirst of glorytorments him. Such insatiable desires create many fears, and a mind infear is a mind in slavery. In one of SHAKSPEARE'S sonnets he patheticallylaments this compulsion of his necessities which forced him to the tradeof pleasing the public; and he illustrates this degradation by a novelimage. "Chide Fortune, " cries the bard, --

 The guilty goddess of my harmless deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds; Thence comes it that my name receives a brand; _And almost thence my nature is subdued To what it works in_, LIKE THE DYER'S HAND. 

Such is the fate of that author, who, in his variety of task-works, blue, yellow, and red, lives without ever having shown his own naturalcomplexion. We hear the eloquent truth from one who has alike shared inthe bliss of composition, and the misery of its "daily bread. " "A singlehour of composition won from the business of the day, is worth more thanthe whole day's toil of him who works at the _trade of literature_: in theone case, the spirit comes joyfully to refresh itself, like a hart to thewaterbrooks; in the other, it pursues its miserable way, panting andjaded, with the dogs of hunger and necessity behind. "[A] We trace the fateof all task-work in the history of POUSSIN, when called on to reside atthe French court. Labouring without intermission, sometimes on one thingand sometimes on another, and hurried on in things which required bothtime and thought, he saw too clearly the fatal tendency of such a life, and exclaimed, with ill-suppressed bitterness, "If I stay long in thiscountry, I shall turn dauber like the rest here. " The great artistabruptly returned to Rome to regain the possession of his own thoughts. 

[Footnote A: _Quarterly Review_, vol. Viii. P. 538. ]

It has been a question with some, more indeed abroad than at home, whetherthe art of instructing mankind by the press would not be less suspiciousin its character, were it less interested in one of its prevalent motives?Some noble self-denials of this kind are recorded. The principle ofemolument will produce the industry which furnishes works for populardemand; but it is only the principle of honour which can produce thelasting works of genius. BOILEAU seems to censure Racine for havingaccepted money for one of his dramas, while he, who was not rich, gaveaway his polished poems to the public. He seems desirous of raising theart of writing to a more disinterested profession than any other, requiring no fees for the professors. OLIVET presented his elaborateedition of Cicero to the world, requiring no other remuneration thanits glory. MILTON did not compose his immortal work for his trivialcopyright;[A] and LINNÆUS sold his labours for a single ducat. The AbbéMABLY, the author of many political and moral works, lived on little, andwould accept only a few presentation copies from the booksellers. But, since we have become a nation of book-collectors, and since there exists, as Mr. Coleridge describes it, "a reading public, " this principle ofhonour is altered. Wealthy and even noble authors are proud to receive thelargest tribute to their genius, because this tribute is the certainevidence of the number who pay it. The property of a book, therefore, represents to the literary candidate the collective force of the thousandsof voters on whose favour his claims can only exist. This change in theaffairs of the literary republic in our country was felt by GIBBON, whohas fixed on "the patronage of booksellers" as the standard of publicopinion: "the measure of their liberality, " he says, "is the leastambiguous test of our common success. " The philosopher accepted it as asubstitute for that "friendship or favour of princes, of which he couldnot boast. " The same opinion was held by JOHNSON. Yet, looking on thepresent state of English literature, the most profuse perhaps in Europe, we cannot refrain from thinking that the "patronage of booksellers" isfrequently injurious to the great interests of literature. 

[Footnote A: The agreement made with Simmons, the publisher, was 5_l_. Down, and 5_l_. More when 1500 copies were sold, the same sum to be paidfor the second and third editions, each of the same number of copies. Milton only lived during the publication of two editions, and his widowparted with all her right in the work to the same bookseller for eightpounds. Her autograph receipt was in the possession of the late DawsonTurner. --ED. ]

The dealers in enormous speculative purchases are only subservient to thespirit of the times. If they are the purveyors, they are also thepanders of public taste; and their vaunted patronage only extends topopular subjects; while their urgent demands are sure to produce hastymanufactures. A precious work on a recondite subject, which may haveconsumed the life of its author, no bookseller can patronise; and wheneversuch a work is published, the author has rarely survived the long seasonof the public's neglect. While popular works, after some few years ofcelebrity, have at length been discovered not worth the repairs nor therenewal of their lease of fame, the neglected work of a nobler designrises in value and rarity. The literary work which requires the greatestskill and difficulty, and the longest labour, is not commercially valuedwith that hasty, spurious novelty; for which the taste of the public iscraving, from the strength of its disease rather than of its appetite. ROUSSEAU observed, that his musical opera, the work of five or six weeks, brought him as much money as he had received for his "Emile, " which hadcost him twenty years of meditation, and three years of composition. Thissingle fact represents a hundred. So fallacious are public opinion and thepatronage of booksellers!

Such, then, is the inadequate remuneration of a life devoted toliterature; and notwithstanding the more general interest excited by itsproductions within the last century, it has not essentially altered theirsituation in society; for who is deceived by the trivial exultation of thegay sparkling scribbler who lately assured us that authors now dip theirpens in silver ink-standishes, and have a valet for an amanuensis?Fashionable writers must necessarily get out of fashion; it is theinevitable fate of the material and the manufacturer. An eleemosynary fundcan provide no permanent relief for the age and sorrows of the unhappy menof science and literature; and an author may even have composed a workwhich shall be read by the next generation as well as the present, andstill be left in a state even of pauperism. These victims perish insilence! No one has attempted to suggest even a palliative for this greatevil; and when I asked the greatest genius of our age to propose somerelief for this general suffering, a sad and convulsive nod, a shrug thatsympathised with the misery of so many brothers, and an avowal that evenhe could not invent one, was all that genius had to alleviate the forlornstate of the literary character. [A]

[Footnote A: It was the late Sir WALTER SCOTT--if I could assign the_date_ of this conversation, it would throw some light on what might bethen passing in his own mind. ]

The only man of genius who has thrown out a hint for improving thesituation of the literary man is ADAM SMITH. In that passage in his"Wealth of Nations" to which I have already referred, he says, that"Before the invention of the art of printing, the only employment by whicha man of letters could make anything by his talents was that of a _publicor a private teacher_, or by communicating to other people the various anduseful knowledge which he had acquired himself; and this surely is a morehonourable, a more useful, and in general even a more profitableemployment than that other _of writing for a bookseller_, to which the artof printing has given occasion. " We see the political economist, alikeinsensible to the dignity of the literary character, incapable of taking ajust view of its glorious avocation. To obviate the personal wantsattached to the occupations of an author, he would, more effectually thanskilfully, get rid of authorship itself. This is not to restore the limb, but to amputate it. It is not the preservation of existence, but itsannihilation. His friends Hume and Robertson must have turned from thispage humiliated and indignant. They could have supplied Adam Smith with atruer conception of the literary character, of its independence, itsinfluence, and its glory. 

I have projected a plan for the alleviation of the state of these authorswho are not blessed with a patrimony. The _trade_ connected withliterature is carried on by men who are usually not literate, and thegenerality of the publishers of books, unlike all other tradesmen, areoften the worst judges of their own wares. Were it practicable, as Ibelieve it to be, that authors and men of letters could themselves bebooksellers, the public would derive this immediate benefit from thescheme; a deluge of worthless or indifferent books would be turned away, and the name of the literary publisher would be a pledge for the value ofevery new book. Every literary man would choose his own favouritedepartment, and we should learn from him as well as from his books. 

Against this project it may be urged, that literary men are ill adapted toattend to the regular details of trade, and that the great capitalists inthe book business have not been men of literature. But this plan is notsuggested for accumulating a great fortune, or for the purpose of raisingup a new class of tradesmen. It is not designed to make authors wealthy, for that would inevitably extinguish great literary exertion, but only tomake them independent, as the best means to preserve exertion. The detailsof trade are not even to reach him. The poet GESNER, a bookseller, lefthis _librairie_ to the care of his admirable wife. His own works, the elegant editions which issued from his press, and the value ofmanuscripts, were the objects of his attention. 

On the Continent many of the dealers in books have been literary men. Atthe memorable expulsion of the French Protestants on the edict of Nantes, their expatriated literary men flew to the shores of England, and thefree provinces of Holland; and it was in Holland that this colony of_littérateurs_ established magnificent printing-houses, and furnishedEurope with editions of the native writers of France, often preferable tothe originals, and even wrote the best works of that time. At thatmemorable period in our own history, when two thousand nonconformists wereejected on St. Bartholomew's day from the national establishment, thegreater part were men of learning, who, deprived of their livings, weredestitute of any means of existence. These scholars were compelled to lookto some profitable occupation, and for the greater part they fixed ontrades connected with literature; some became eminent booksellers, andcontinued to be voluminous writers, without finding their studiesinterrupted by; their commercial arrangements. The details of trade mustbe left to others; the hand of a child can turn a vast machine, and theobject here proposed would be lost, if authors sought to become merelybooksellers. 

Whenever the public of Europe shall witness such a new order of men amongtheir booksellers, they will have less to read, but more to remember. Their opinions will be less fluctuating, and their knowledge will come tothem with more maturity. Men of letters will fly to the house of thebookseller who in that class of literature in which he deals, will himselfbe not the least eminent member. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The matrimonial state of literature. --Matrimony said not to be well suitedto the domestic life of genius. --Celibacy a concealed cause of the earlyquerulousness of men of genius. --Of unhappy unions. --Not absolutelynecessary that the wife should be a literary woman. --Of the docility andsusceptibility of the higher female character. --A picture of a literarywife. 

Matrimony has often been considered as a condition not well suited to thedomestic life of genius, accompanied as it must be by many embarrassmentsfor the head and the heart. It was an axiom with Fuessli, the Swissartist, that the marriage state is incompatible with a high cultivation ofthe fine arts; and such appears to have been the feeling of most artists. When MICHAEL ANGELO was asked why he did not marry, he replied, "I haveespoused my art; and it occasions me sufficient domestic cares, for myworks shall be my children. What would Bartholomeo Ghiberti have been, hadhe not made the gates of St. John? His children consumed his fortune, buthis gates, worthy to be the gates of Paradise, remain. " The threeCaraccis refused the conjugal bond on the same principle, dreading theinterruptions of domestic life. Their crayons and paper were always ontheir dining-table. Careless of fortune, they determined never to hurryover their works in order that they might supply the ceaseless demands ofa family. We discover the same principle operating in our own times. Whena young painter, who had just married, told Sir Joshua that he waspreparing to pursue his studies in Italy, that great painter exclaimed, "Married! then you are ruined as an artist!"

The same principle has influenced literary men. Sir THOMAS BODLEY had asmart altercation with his first librarian, insisting that he should notmarry, maintaining its absurdity in the man who had the perpetual care ofa public library; and Woodward left as one of the express conditions ofhis lecturer, that he was not to be a married man. They imagined thattheir private affairs would interfere with their public duties. PEIRESC, the great French collector, refused marriage, convinced that the cares ofa family were too absorbing for the freedom necessary to literarypursuits, and claimed likewise a sacrifice of fortune incompatible withhis great designs. BOYLE, who would not suffer his studies to beinterrupted by "household affairs, " lived as a boarder with his sister, Lady Ranelagh. Newton, Locke, Leibnitz, Bayle, and Hobbes, and Hume, andGibbon, and Adam Smith, decided for celibacy. These great authors placedtheir happiness in their celebrity. 

This debate, for the present topic has sometimes warmed into one, is intruth ill adapted for controversy. The heart is more concerned in itsissue than any espoused doctrine terminating in partial views. Look intothe domestic annals of genius--observe the variety of positions into whichthe literary character is thrown in the nuptial state. Cynicism will notalways obtain a sullen triumph, nor prudence always be allowed tocalculate away some of the richer feelings of our nature. It is not anaxiom that literary characters must necessarily institute a new order ofcelibacy. The sentence of the apostle pronounces that "the forbidding tomarry is a doctrine of devils. " WESLEY, who published "Thoughts on aSingle Life, " advised some "to remain single for the kingdom of heaven'ssake; but the precept, " he adds, "is not for the many. " So indecisive havebeen the opinions of the most curious inquirers concerning the matrimonialstate, whenever a great destination has engaged their consideration. 

One position we may assume, that the studies, and even the happiness ofthe pursuits of men of genius, are powerfully influenced by the domesticassociate of their lives. 

They rarely pass through the age of love without its passion. Even theirDelias and their Amandas are often the shadows of some real object; for asShakspeare's experience told him, "Never durst poet touch a pen to write, Until his ink were temper'd with love's sighs. "

Their imagination is perpetually colouring those pictures of domestichappiness on which they delight to dwell. He who is no husband sighs forthat tenderness which is at once bestowed and received; and tears willstart in the eyes of him who, in becoming a child among children, yetfeels that he is no father! These deprivations have usually been theconcealed cause of the querulous melancholy of the literary character. 

Such was the real occasion of SHENSTONE'S unhappiness. In early life hehad been captivated by a young lady adapted to be both the muse and thewife of the poet, and their mutual sensibility lasted for some years. Itlasted until she died. It was in parting from her that he first sketchedhis "Pastoral Ballad. " SHENSTONE had the fortitude to refuse marriage. His spirit could not endure that she should participate in that life ofself-privations to which he was doomed; but his heart was not locked up inthe ice of celibacy, and his plaintive love songs and elegies flowed fromno fictitious source. "It is long since, " said he, "I have consideredmyself as _undone_. The world will not perhaps consider me in that lightentirely till I have married my maid. "[A]

[Footnote A: The melancholy tale of Shenstone's life is narrated in thethird volume "Curiosities of Literature, "--ED. ]

THOMSON met a reciprocal passion in his Amanda, while the full tendernessof his heart was ever wasting itself like waters in a desert. As we havebeen made little acquainted with this part of the history of the poet ofthe "Seasons, " I shall give his own description of those deep feelingsfrom a manuscript letter written to Mallet. "To turn my eyes a softer way, to you know who--absence sighs it to me. What is my heart made of? a softsystem of low nerves, too sensible for my quiet--capable of being veryhappy or very unhappy, I am afraid the last will prevail. Lay your handupon a kindred heart, and despise me not. I know not what it is, but shedwells upon my thought in a mingled sentiment, which is the sweetest, themost intimately pleasing the soul can receive, and which I would wishnever to want towards some dear object or another. To have always somesecret darling idea to which one can still have recourse amidst the noiseand nonsense of the world, and which never fails to touch us in the mostexquisite manner, is an art of happiness that fortune cannot deprive usof. This may be called romantic; but whatever the cause is, the effect isreally felt. Pray, when you write, tell me when you saw her, and with thepure eye of a friend, when you see her again, whisper that I am her mosthumble servant. "

Even POPE was enamoured of a "scornful lady;" and, as Johnson observed, "polluted his will with female resentment. " JOHNSON himself, we are toldby one who knew him, "had always a metaphysical passion for one princessor other, --the rustic Lucy Porter, or the haughty Molly Aston, or thesublimated methodistic Hill Boothby; and, lastly, the more charming Mrs. Thrale. " Even in his advanced age, at the height of his celebrity, we hearhis cries of lonely wretchedness. "I want every comfort; my life is verysolitary and very cheerless. Let me know that I have yet a friend--let usbe kind to one another. " But the "kindness" of distant friends is likethe polar sun--too far removed to warm us. Those who have eluded theindividual tenderness of the female, are tortured by an aching void intheir feelings. The stoic AKENSIDE, in his "Odes, " has preserved thehistory of a life of genius in a series of his own feelings. One entitled, "At Study, " closes with these memorable lines:--

 Me though no peculiar fair Touches with a lover's care; Though the pride of my desire Asks immortal friendship's name, Asks the palm of honest fame And the old heroic lyre; Though the day have smoothly gone, Or to letter'd leisure known, Or in social duty spent; Yet at the eve my lonely breast _Seeks in vain for perfect rest, Languishes for true content. _

If ever a man of letters lived in a state of energy and excitement whichmight raise him above the atmosphere of social love, it was assuredly theenthusiast, THOMAS HOLLIS, who, solely devoted to literature and torepublicanism, was occupied in furnishing Europe and America with editionsof his favourite authors. He would not marry, lest marriage shouldinterrupt the labours of his platonic politics. But his extraordinarymemoirs, while they show an intrepid mind in a robust frame, bear witnessto the self-tormentor who had trodden down the natural bonds of domesticlife. Hence the deep "dejection of his spirits;" those incessant cries, that he has "no one to advise, assist, or cherish those magnanimouspursuits in him. " At length he retreated into the country, in utterhopelessness. "I go not into the country for attentions to agriculture assuch, nor attentions of interest of any kind, which I have ever despisedas such; but as a _used man_, to pass the remainder of a life in tolerablesanity and quiet, after having given up the flower of it, voluntarily, day, week, month, year after year, successive to each other, to publicservice, and being no longer able to sustain, in _body or mind_, thelabours that I have chosen to go through without falling speedily into_the greatest disorders_, and it might be _imbecility itself_. This is notcolouring, but the exact plain truth. "

 Poor moralist, and what art thou? A solitary fly! Thy joys no glittering female meets, No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets. 

Assuredly it would not have been a question whether these literarycharacters should have married, had not MONTAIGNE, when a widower, declared that "he would not marry a second time, though it were Wisdomitself;" but the airy Gascon has not disclosed how far _Madame_ wasconcerned in this anathema. 

If the literary man unite himself to a woman whose taste and whose temperare adverse to his pursuits, he must courageously prepare for a martyrdom. Should a female mathematician be united to a poet, it is probable that shewould be left amidst her abstractions, to demonstrate to herself how manya specious diagram fails when brought into its mechanical operation; ordiscovering the infinite varieties of a curve, she might take occasion todeduce her husband's versatility. If she become as jealous of his books asother wives might be of his mistresses, she may act the virago even overhis innocent papers. The wife of Bishop COOPER, while her husband wasemployed on his Lexicon, one day consigned the volume of many years to theflames, and obliged that scholar to begin a second siege of Troy in asecond Lexicon. The wife of WHITELOCKE often destroyed his MSS. , andthe marks of her nails have come down to posterity in the numerous_lacerations_ still gaping in his "Memorials. " The learned Sir HENRYSAVILLE, who devoted more than half his life and nearly ten thousandpounds to his magnificent edition of St. Chrysostom, led a very uneasylife between the saint and her ladyship. What with her tenderness for him, and her own want of amusement, Saint Chrysostom, it appears, incurred morethan one danger. 

Genius has not preserved itself from the errors and infirmities ofmatrimonial connexions. The energetic character of DANTE could neithersoften nor control the asperity of his lady; and when that great poetlived in exile, she never cared to see him more, though he was the fatherof her six children. The internal state of the house of DOMENICHINOafflicted that great artist with many sorrows. He had married a beauty ofhigh birth and extreme haughtiness, and of the most avariciousdisposition. When at Naples he himself dreaded lest the avaricious passionof his wife should not be able to resist the offers she received to poisonhim, and he was compelled to provide and dress his own food. It isbelieved that he died of poison. What a picture has Passeri left of thedomestic interior of this great artist! _Così fra mille crepacuori moriuno de' più eccellenti artefici del mundo; che oltre al suo valorepittorìco avrebbe più d'ogni altri maritato di viver sempre per l'onestàpersonale. _ "So perished, amidst a thousand heart-breakings, the mostexcellent of artists; who besides his worth as a painter, deserved as muchas any one to have lived for his excellence as a man. "

MILTON carried nothing of the greatness of his mind in the choice of hiswives. His first wife was the object of sudden fancy. He left themetropolis, and unexpectedly returned a married man, and united to awoman of such uncongenial dispositions, that the romp was frightened atthe literary habits of the great poet, found his house solitary, beathis nephews, and ran away after a single month's residence! To thiscircumstance we owe his famous treatise on Divorce; and a party (by nomeans extinct), who having made as ill choices in their wives, were fordivorcing as fast as they had been for marrying, calling themselves_Miltonists_. 

When we find that MOLIÈRE, so skilful in human life, married a girl fromhis own troop, who made him experience all those bitter disgusts andridiculous embarrassments which he himself played off at the theatre; thatADDISON'S fine taste in morals and in life could suffer the ambition of acourtier to prevail with himself to seek a countess, whom he describesunder the stormy character of Oceana, and who drove him contemptuouslyinto solitude, and shortened his days; and that STEELE, warm andthoughtless, was united to a cold precise "Miss Prue, " as he himself callsher, and from whom he never parted without bickerings; in all these caseswe censure the great men, not their wives. [A] ROUSSEAU has honestlyconfessed his error. He had united himself to a low, illiterate woman; andwhen he retreated into solitude, he felt the weight which he carried withhim. He laments that he had not educated his wife: "In a docile age, Icould have adorned her mind with talents and knowledge, which would havemore closely united us in retirement. We should not then have felt theintolerable tedium of a tête-à-tête; it is in solitude one feels theadvantage of living with another who can think. " Thus Rousseau confessesthe fatal error, and indicates the right principle. 

[Footnote A: See "Curiosities of Literature, " for anecdotes of "LiteraryWives. "]

Yet it seems not absolutely necessary for the domestic happiness of theliterary character, that his wife should be a literary woman. TYCHO BRAHE, noble by birth as well as genius, married the daughter of a peasant. Bywhich means that great man obtained two points essential for his abstractpursuits; he acquired an obedient wife, and freed himself of his noblerelatives, who would no longer hold an intercourse with the man who wasspreading their family honours into more ages than perhaps they could havetraced them backwards. The lady of WIELAND was a pleasing domestic person, who, without reading her husband's works, knew he was a great poet. Wieland was apt to exercise his imagination in declamatory invectives andbitter amplifications; and the writer of this account, in perfect Germantaste, assures us, "that many of his felicities of diction were thusstruck out at a heat. " During this frequent operation of his genius, theplacable temper of Mrs. Wieland overcame the orgasm of the German bard, merely by persisting in her admiration and her patience. When the burstwas over, Wieland himself was so charmed by her docility, that he usuallyclosed with giving up all his opinions. 

There is another sort of homely happiness, aptly described in the plainwords of Bishop NEWTON. He found "the study of sacred and classic authorsill agreed with butchers' and bakers' bills;" and when the prospect of abishopric opened on him, "more servants, more entertainments, a bettertable, &c. , " it became necessary to look out for "some clever, sensiblewoman to be his wife, who would lay out his money to the best advantage, and be careful and tender of his health; a friend and companion at allhours, and who would be happier in staying at home than be perpetuallygadding abroad. " Such are the wives not adapted to be the votaries, butwho may be the faithful companions through life, even of a man of genius. 

But in the character of the higher female we may discover a constitutionalfaculty of docility and enthusiasm which has varied with the genius ofdifferent ages. It is the opinion of an elegant metaphysician, that themind of the female adopts and familiarises itself with ideas more easilythan that of man, and hence the facility with which the sex contract orlose habits, and accommodate their minds to new situations. Politics, war, and learning, are equally objects of attainment to their delightfulsusceptibility. Love has the fancied transparency of the cameleon. Whenthe art of government directed the feelings of a woman, we behold Aspasia, eloquent with the genius of Pericles, instructing the Archons; Portia, thewife of the republican Brutus, devouring burning coals; and the wife ofLucan, transcribing and correcting the Pharsalia, before the bust of thepoet, which she had placed on her bed, that his very figure might never beabsent. When universities were opened to the sex, they acquired academicglory. The wives of military men have shared in the perils of the field;or like Anna Comnena and our Mrs. Hutchinson, have become even theirhistorians. In the age of love and sympathy, the female often receives anindelible pliancy from her literary associate. His pursuits become theobjects of her thoughts, and he observes his own taste reflected in hisfamily; much less through his own influence, for his solitary laboursoften preclude him from forming them, than by that image of his owngenius--the mother of his children! The subjects, the very books whichenter into his literary occupation, are cherished by her imagination; afeeling finely opened by the lady of the author of "Sandford and Merton:""My ideas of my husband, " she said, "are so much associated with his_books_, that to part with them would be as it were breaking some of thelast ties which still connect me with so beloved an object. The being inthe midst of books he has been accustomed to read, and which contain his_marks_ and _notes_, will still give him _a sort of existence_ with _me_. Unintelligible as such fond chimeras may appear to many people, I ampersuaded they are not so to you. "

With what simplicity Meta Hollers, the wife of Klopstock, in herGerman-English, describes to Richardson, the novelist, the manner inwhich she passes her day with her poet! she tells him that "she is alwayspresent at the birth of the young verses, which begin by fragments, hereand there, of a subject with which his soul is just then filled. Personswho live as we do have no need of two chambers; we are always in the same:I with my little work, still! still! only regarding sometimes my husband'sface, which is so venerable at that time with tears of devotion, and allthe sublimity of the subject--my husband reading me his young verses, andsuffering my criticisms. "

The picture of a literary wife of antiquity has descended to us, touchedby the domestic pencil of genius, in the susceptible CALPHUENIA, the ladyof the younger PLINY. "Her affection for me, " he says, "has given her aturn to books: her passion will increase with our days, for it is not myyouth or my person, which time gradually impairs, but my reputation and myglory, of which she is enamoured. "

I have been told that BUFFON, notwithstanding his favourite seclusion ofhis old tower in his garden, acknowledged to a friend that his lady had aconsiderable influence over his compositions: "Often, " said he, "when Icannot please myself, and am impatient at the disappointment, Madame deBuffon reanimates my exertion, or withdraws me to repose for a shortinterval; I return to my pen refreshed, and aided by her advice. "

GESNER declared that whatever were his talents, the person who had mostcontributed to develope them was his wife. She is unknown to the public;but the history of the mind of such a woman is discovered in the "Lettersof Gesner and his Family. " While GESNER gave himself up entirely to hisfavourite arts, drawing, painting, etching, and poetry, his wife wouldoften reanimate a genius that was apt to despond in its attempts, andoften exciting him to new productions, her sure and delicate taste wasattentively consulted by the poet-painter--but she combined the mostpractical good sense with the most feeling imagination. This forms therareness of the character; for this same woman, who united with herhusband in the education of their children, to relieve him from theinterruptions of common business, carried on alone the concerns of hishouse in _la librairie_. [A] Her correspondence with her son, a youngartist travelling for his studies, opens what an old poet comprehensivelyterms "a gathered mind. " Imagine a woman attending to the domesticeconomy, and to the commercial details, yet withdrawing out of thisbusiness of life into the more elevated pursuits of her husband, and atthe same time combining with all this the cares and counsels which shebestowed on her son to form the artist and the man. 

[Footnote A: Gesner's father was a bookseller of Zurich; descended from afamily of men learned in the exact sciences, he was apprenticed to abookseller at Berlin, and afterwards entered into his father's business. The best edition of his "Idylls" is that published by himself, in twovolumes, 4to, illustrated by his own engravings. --ED. ]

To know this incomparable woman we must hear her. "Consider your father'sprecepts as oracles of wisdom; they are the result of the experience hehas collected, not only of life, but of that art which he has acquiredsimply by his own industry. " She would not have her son suffer his strongaffection to herself to absorb all other sentiments. "Had you remained athome, and been habituated under your mother's auspices to employmentsmerely domestic, what advantage would you have acquired? I own we shouldhave passed some delightful winter evenings together; but your love forthe arts, and my ambition to see my sons as much distinguished for theirtalents as their virtues, would have been a constant source of regret atyour passing your time in a manner so little worthy of you. "

How profound is her observation on the strong but confined attachmentsof a youth of genius! "I have frequently remarked, with some regret, the excessive attachment you indulge towards those who see and feelas you do yourself, and the total neglect with which you seem to treatevery one else. I should reproach a man with such a fault who wasdestined to pass his life in a small and unvarying circle; but in anartist, who has a great object in view, and whose country is the wholeworld, this disposition seems to be likely to produce a great number ofinconveniences. Alas! my son, the life you have hitherto led in yourfather's house has been in fact a pastoral life, and not such a one as wasnecessary for the education of a man whose destiny summons him to theworld. "

And when her son, after meditating on some of the most gloriousproductions of art, felt himself, as he says, "disheartened and cast downat the unattainable superiority of the artist, and that it was only byreflecting on the immense labour and continued efforts which suchmasterpieces must have required, that I regained my courage and myardour, " she observes, "This passage, my dear son, is to me as preciousas gold, and I send it to you again, because I wish you to impress itstrongly on your mind. The remembrance of this may also be a usefulpreservative from too great confidence in your abilities, to which a warmimagination may sometimes be liable, or from the despondence you mightoccasionally feel from the contemplation of grand originals. Continue, therefore, my dear son, to form a sound judgment and a pure taste fromyour own observations: your mind, while yet young and flexible, mayreceive whatever impressions you wish. Be careful that your abilities donot inspire in you too much confidence, lest it should happen to you as ithas to many others, that they have never possessed any greater merit thanthat of having good abilities. "

One more extract, to preserve an incident which may touch the heart ofgenius. This extraordinary woman, whose characteristic is that of strongsense combined with delicacy of feeling, would check her Germansentimentality at the moment she was betraying those emotions in which theimagination is so powerfully mixed up with the associated feelings. Arriving at their cottage at Sihlwald, she proceeds--"On entering theparlour three small pictures, painted by you, met my eyes. I passed sometime in contemplating them. It is now a year, I thought, since I saw himtrace these pleasing forms; he whistled and sang, and I saw them growunder his pencil; now he is far, far from us. In short, I had the weaknessto press my lips on one of these pictures. You well know, my dear son, that I am not much addicted to scenes of a sentimental turn; but to-day, while I considered your works, I could not restrain this little impulse ofmaternal feelings. Do not, however, be apprehensive that the tenderaffection of a mother will ever lead me too far, or that I shall suffer mymind to be too powerfully impressed with the painful sensations to whichyour absence gives birth. My reason convinces me that it is for yourwelfare that you are now in a place where your abilities will haveopportunities of unfolding, and where you can become great in your art. "

Such was the incomparable wife and mother of the GESNERS! Will it now be aquestion whether matrimony be incompatible with the cultivation of thearts? A wife who reanimates the drooping genius of her husband, and amother who is inspired by the ambition of beholding her sons eminent, isshe not the real being which the ancients personified in their Muse?

CHAPTER XIX. 

Literary friendships. --In early life. --Different from those of men of theworld. --They suffer an unrestrained communication of their ideas, and bearreprimands and exhortations. --Unity of feelings. --A sympathy not ofmanners but of feelings. --Admit of dissimilar characters. --Their peculiarglory. --Their sorrow. 

Among the virtues which literature inspires, is often that of the mostromantic friendship. The delirium of love, and even its lighter caprices, are incompatible with the pursuits of the student; but to feel friendshiplike a passion is necessary to the mind of genius alternately elated anddepressed, ever prodigal of feeling and excursive in knowledge. 

The qualities which constitute literary friendship, compared with those ofmen of the world, must render it a sentiment as rare as love itself, whichit resembles in that intellectual tenderness in which both so deeplyparticipate. 

Born "in the dews of their youth, " this friendship will not expire ontheir tomb. In the school or the college this immortality begins; and, engaged in similar studies, should even one excel the other, he will findin him the protector of his fame; as ADDISON did in STEELE, WEST in GRAY, and GRAY in MASON. Thus PETRARCH was the guide of Boccaccio, thusBOCCACCIO became the defender of his master's genius. Perhaps friendshipis never more intense than in an intercourse of minds of ready counselsand inspiring ardours. United in the same pursuits, but directed by anunequal experience, the imperceptible superiority interests, withoutmortifying. It is a counsel, it is an aid; in whatever form it showsitself, it has nothing of the malice of rivalry. 

A beautiful picture of such a friendship among men of genius offers itselfin the history of MIGNARD, the great French painter, and DU FRESNOY, thegreat critic of the art itself. DU FRESNOY, abandoned in utter scornby his stern father, an apothecary, for his entire devotion to hisseductive art, lived at Rome in voluntary poverty, till MIGNARD, his oldfellow-student, arrived, when they became known by the name of "theinseparables. " The talents of the friends were different, but theirstudios were the same. Their days melted away together in drawing from theancient statues and the basso-relievos, in studying in the galleries ofpaintings, or among the villas which embellish the environs of Rome. Oneroof sheltered them, and one table supplied their sober meal. Light werethe slumbers which closed each day, each the pleasing image of the former. But this remarkable friendship was not a simple sentiment which limitedthe views of "the Inseparables, " for with them it was a perpetual sourceof mutual usefulness. They gave accounts to each other of whatever theyobserved, and carefully noted their own defects. DU FRESNOY, so criticalin the theory of the art, was unsuccessful in the practical parts. Hisdelight in poetical composition had retarded the progress of his pictorialpowers. Not having been taught the handling of his pencil, he worked withdifficulty; but MIGNARD succeeded in giving him a freer command and a moreskilful touch; while DU FRESNOY, who was the more literary man, enrichedthe invention of MIGNARD by reading to him an Ode of Anacreon or Horace, apassage from the Iliad or Odyssey, or the Æneid, or the JerusalemDelivered, which offered subjects for the artist's invention, who wouldthrow out five or six different sketches on the same subject; a habitwhich so highly improved the inventive powers of MIGNARD, that he couldcompose a fine picture with playful facility. Thus they lived-together, mutually enlightening each other. MIGNARD supplied DU FRESNOY with allthat fortune had refused him; and, when he was no more, perpetuated hisfame, which he felt was a portion of his own celebrity, by publishing hisposthumous poem, _De Arts Graphica;_[A] a poem, which Mason has madereadable by his versification, and Reynolds even interesting by hisinvaluable commentary. 

[Footnote A: La Vie de Pierre Mignard, par L'Abbé de Monville, the work ofan amateur. ]

In the poem COWLET composed, on the death of his friend HARVEY, thisstanza opens a pleasing scene of two young literary friends engaged intheir midnight studies:

 Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights! How oft unwearied have we spent the nights, Till the Ledæan stars, so famed for love, Wonder'd at us from above. We spent them not in toys, in lust, or wine; But search of deep philosophy, Wit, eloquence, and poetry; Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine. 

Touched by a personal knowledge of this union of genius and affection, even MALONE commemorates, with unusual warmth, the literary friendships ofSir Joshua Reynolds; and with a felicity of fancy, not often indulged, hasraised an unforced parallel between the bland wisdom of Sir Joshua and the"mitis sapientia Laeli. " "What the illustrious Scipio was to Laelius wasthe all-knowing and all-accomplished BURKE to REYNOLDS;" and what theelegant Laelius was to his master Panaetius, whom he gratefully protected, and to his companion the poet Lucilius, whom he patronised, was REYNOLDSto JOHNSON, of whom he was the scholar and friend, and to GOLDSMITH, whomhe loved and aided[A]. 

[Footnote A: Reynolds's hospitality was unbounded to all literary men, andhis evenings were devoted to their society. It was at his house theycompared notes; and the President of the Royal Academy obtained thatinformation which gave him a full knowledge of the outward world, whichhis ceaseless occupation could not else have allowed. --ED. ]

Count AZARA mourns with equal tenderness and force over the memory of theartist and the writer Mengs. "The most tender friendship would call forthtears in this sad duty of scattering flowers on his tomb; but the shade ofmy extinct friend warns me not to be satisfied with dropping flowers andtears--they are useless; and I would rather accomplish his wishes, inmaking known the author and his works. "

I am infinitely delighted by a circumstance communicated to me by one whohad visited GLEIM, the German poet, who seems to have been a creature madeup altogether of sensibility. His many and illustrious friends he hadnever forgotten, and to the last hour of a life, prolonged beyond hiseightieth year, he possessed those interior feelings which can make evenan old man an enthusiast. There seemed for GLEIM to be no extinction infriendship when the friend was no more; and he had invented a singularmode of gratifying his feelings of literary friendships. The visitor foundthe old man in a room of which the wainscot was panelled, as we still seeamong us in ancient houses. In every panel GLEIM had inserted theportrait of a friend, and the apartment was crowded. "You see, " said thegrey-haired poet, "that I never have lost a friend, and am sitting alwaysamong them. "

Such friendship can never be the lot of men of the world; for the sourceof these lies in the interior affections and the intellectual feelings. FONTENELLE describes with characteristic delicacy the conversations ofsuch literary friends: "Our days passed like moments; thanks to thosepleasures, which, however, are not included in those which are commonlycalled pleasures. " The friendships of the men of society move on theprinciple of personal interest, but interest can easily separate theinterested; or they are cherished to relieve themselves from thelistlessness of existence; but, as weariness is contagious, the contact ofthe propagator is watched. Men of the world may look on each other withthe same countenances, but not with the same hearts. In the common mart oflife intimacies may be found which terminate in complaint and contempt;the more they know one another, the less is their mutual esteem: thefeeble mind quarrels with one still more imbecile than itself; thedissolute riot with the dissolute, and they despise their companions, while they too have themselves become despicable. 

Literary friendships are marked by another peculiarity; the truephilosophical spirit has learned to bear that shock of contrary opinionswhich minds less meditative are unequal to encounter. Men of genius livein the unrestrained communication of their ideas, and confide even theircaprices with a freedom which sometimes startles ordinary observers. Wesee literary men, the most opposite in dispositions and opinions, derivingfrom each other that fulness of knowledge which unfolds the certain, theprobable, the doubtful. Topics which break the world into factions andsects, and truths which ordinary men are doomed only to hear from amalignant adversary, they gather from a friend! If neither yields up hisopinions to the other, they are at least certain of silence and a hearing;but usually

 The wise new wisdom from the wise acquire. 

This generous freedom, which spares neither reprimands nor exhortation, has often occurred in the intercourse of literary men. HUME and ROBERTSONwere engaged in the same studies, but with very opposite principles; yetRobertson declined writing the English history, which he aspired to do, lest it should injure the plans of Hume; a noble sacrifice!

Politics once divided Boccaccio and Petrarch. The poet of Valchiusa hadnever forgiven the Florentines for their persecution of his father. By themediation of BOCCACCIO they now offered to reinstate PETRARCH in hispatrimony and his honours. Won over by the tender solicitude of hisfriend, PETRARCH had consented to return to his country; but with hisusual inconstancy of temper, he had again excused himself to the senate ofFlorence, and again retreated to his solitude. Nor was this all; for theVisconti of Milan had by their flattery and promises seduced PETRARCH totheir court; a court, the avowed enemy of Florence. BOCCACCIO, for thehonour of literature, of his friend, of his country, indignantly heard ofPETRARCH'S fatal decision, and addressed him by a letter--the mostinteresting perhaps which ever passed between two literary friends, whowere torn asunder by the momentary passions of the vulgar, but who werestill united by that immortal friendship which literature inspires, and bya reverence for that posterity which they knew would concern itself withtheir affairs. 

It was on a journey to Ravenna that BOCCACCIO first heard the news ofPETRARCH'S abandonment of his country, when he thus vehemently addressedhis brother-genius:--

"I would be silent, but I cannot: my reverence commands silence, but myindignation speaks. How has it happened that Silvanus (under this name heconceals Petrarch) has forgotten his dignity, the many conversations wehad together on the state of Italy, his hatred of the archbishop(Visconti), his love of solitude and freedom, so necessary for study, andhas resolved to imprison the Muses at that court? Whom may we trust again, if Silvanus, who once branded _Il Visconti_ as the Cruel, a Polyphemus, aCyclop, has avowed himself his friend, and placed his neck under the yokeof him whose audacity, and pride, and tyranny, he so deeply abhorred? Howhas Visconti obtained that which King Robert, which the pontiff, theemperor, the King of France, could not? Am I to conclude that you acceptedthis favour from a disdain of your fellow-citizens, who once indeedscorned you, but who have reinstated you in the paternal patrimony ofwhich you have been deprived? I do not disapprove of a just indignation;but I take Heaven to witness that I believe that no man, whoever he maybe, rightly and honestly can labour against his country, whatever be theinjury he has received. You will gain nothing by opposing me in thisopinion; for if stirred up by the most just indignation you become thefriend of the enemy of your country, unquestionably you will not spur himon to war, nor assist him by your arm, nor by your counsel; yet howcan you avoid rejoicing with him, when you bear of the ruins, theconflagrations, the imprisonments, death, and rapine, which he shallspread among us?"

Such was the bold appeal to elevated feelings, and such the keen reproachinspired by that confidential freedom which can only exist in theintercourse of great minds. The literary friendship, or rather adorationof BOCCACCIO for PETRARCH, was not bartered at the cost of his patriotism:and it is worthy of our notice that PETRARCH, whose personal injuries froman ungenerous republic were rankling in his mind, and whom even theeloquence of Boccaccio could not disunite from his protector Visconti, yetreceived the ardent reproaches of his friend without anger, though notwithout maintaining the freedom of his own opinions. PETRARCH replied, that the anxiety of BOCCACCIO for the liberty of his friend was a thoughtmost grateful to him; but he assured Boccaccio that he preserved hisfreedom, even although it appeared that he bowed under a hard yoke. Hehoped that he had not to learn to serve in his old age, he who hadhitherto studied to preserve his independence; but, in respect toservitude, he did not know whom it was most displeasing to serve, a tyrantlike Visconti, or with Boccaccio, a people of tyrants[A]. 

[Footnote A: These interesting letters are preserved in Count Baldelli's"Life of Boccaccio, " p. 115. ]

The unity of feeling is displayed in such memorable associates as BEAUMONTand FLETCHER; whose labours are so combined, that no critic can detect themingled production of either; and whose lives are so closely united, thatno biographer can compose the memoirs of the one without running into thehistory of the other. Their days were interwoven as their verses. MONTAIGNE and CHARRON, in the eyes of posterity, are rivals; but suchliterary friendship knows no rivalry. Such was Montaigne's affection forCharron, that he requested him by his will to bear the arms of theMontaignes; and Charrot evinced his gratitude to the manes of his departedfriend, by leaving his fortune to the sister of Montaigne. 

How pathetically ERASMUS mourns over the death of his beloved Sir THOMASMORE!--"_In Moro mihi videor extinctus"_--"I seem to see myself extinct inMore. " It was a melancholy presage of his own death, which shortly afterfollowed. The Doric sweetness and simplicity of old ISAAC WALTON, theangler, were reflected in a mind as clear and generous, when CHARLESCOTTON continued the feelings, rather than the little work of Walton. METASTASIO and FARINELLI called each other _il Gemello_, the Twin: andboth delighted to trace the resemblance of their lives and fates, and theperpetual alliance of the verse and the voice. The famous JOHN BAPTISTAPORTA had a love of the mysterious parts of sciences, such as physiognomy, natural magic, the cryptical arts of writing, and projected many curiousinventions which astonished his age, and which we have carried toperfection. This extraordinary man saw his fame somewhat diminishing by arumour that his brother John Vincent had a great share in the compositionof his works; but this never disturbed him; and Peiresc, in aninteresting account of a visit to this celebrated Neapolitan, observed, that though now aged and grey-haired, he treated his younger brother as ason. These single-hearted brothers, who would not marry that they mightnever be separated, knew of but one fame, and that was the fame of Porta. 

GOGUET, the author of "The Origin of the Arts and Sciences, " bequeathedhis MSS. And his books to his friend Fugere, with whom he had long unitedhis affections and his studies, that his surviving friend might proceedwith them: but the author had died of a slow and painful disorder, whichFugere had watched by his side, in silent despair. The sight of those MSS. And books was the friend's death-stroke; half his soul, which had oncegiven them animation, was parted from him, and a few weeks terminated hisown days. When LLOYD heard of the death of CHURCHILL, he neither wished tosurvive him, nor did[A]. The Abbé de St. Pierre gave an interesting proofof literary friendship for Varignon, the geometrician. They were ofcongenial dispositions, and St. Pierre, when he went to Paris, could notendure to part with Varignon, who was too poor to accompany him; and St. Pierre was not rich. A certain income, however moderate, was necessary forthe tranquil pursuits of geometry. St. Pierre presented Varignon with aportion of his small income, accompanied by that delicacy of feeling whichmen of genius who know each other can best conceive: "I do not give ityou, " said St. Pierre, "as a salary but as an annuity, that you may beindependent, and quit me when you dislike me. " The same circumstanceoccurred between AKENSIDE and DYSON. Dyson, when the poet was in greatdanger of adding one more illustrious name to the "Calamities of Authors, "interposed between him and ill-fortune, by allowing him an annuity ofthree hundred a-year; and, when he found the fame of his literary friendattacked, although not in the habit of composition, he published a defenceof his poetical and philosophical character. The name and character ofDyson have been suffered to die away, without a single tribute of evenbiographical sympathy; as that of LONGUEVILLE, the modest patron ofBUTLER, in whom that great political satirist found what the carelessingratitude of a court had denied: but in the record of literary glory, the patron's name should be inscribed by the side of the literarycharacter: for the public incurs an obligation whenever a man of genius isprotected. 

[Footnote A: This event is thus told by Southey: "The news of Churchill'sdeath was somewhat abruptly announced to Lloyd as he sat at dinner; he wasseized with a sudden sickness, and saying, 'I shall follow poor Charles, 'took to his bed, from which he never rose again; dying, if ever man died, of a broken heart. The tragedy did not end here: Churchill's favouritesister, who is said to have possessed much of her brother's sense, andspirit, and genius, and to have been betrothed to Lloyd, attended himduring his illness, and, sinking under the double loss, soon followed herbrother and her lover to the grave. "--ED. ]

The statesman Fouquet, deserted by all others, witnessed LA FONTAINEhastening every literary man to his prison-gate. Many have inscribed theirworks to their disgraced patrons, as POPE did so nobly to the Earl ofOxford in the Tower:

 When interest calls off all her sneaking train, And all the obliged desert, and all the vain, They wait, or to the scaffold, or the cell, When the last lingering friend has bid farewell. 

Literary friendship is a sympathy not of manners, but of feelings. Thepersonal character may happen to be very opposite: the vivacious may beloved by the melancholic, and the wit by the man of learning. He who isvehement and vigorous will feel himself a double man by the side of thefriend who is calm and subtle. When we observe such friendships, we areapt to imagine that they are not real because the characters aredissimilar; but it is their common tastes and pursuits which form a bondof union. POMPONIUS LAETUS, so called from his natural good-humour, wasthe personal friend of HERMOLATTS BARBABUS, whose saturnine and melancholydisposition he often exhilarated; the warm, impetuous LUTHER, was thebeloved friend of the mild and amiable MELANCTHON; the caustic BOILEAU wasthe companion of RACINE and MOLIERE; and France, perhaps, owes the_chefs-d'oeuvre_ of her tragic and her comic poet to her satirist. Thedelicate taste and the refining ingenuity of HURD only attached him themore to the impetuous and dogmatic WARBURTON[A]. No men could be moreopposite in personal character than the careless, gay, and hasty STEELE, and the cautious, serious, and the elegant ADDISON; yet no literaryfriendship was more fortunate than their union. 

[Footnote A: For a full account of their literary career see the firstarticle in "Quarrels of Authors. "]

One glory is reserved for literary friendship. The friendship of a greatname indicates the greatness of the character who appeals to it. WhenSYDENHAM mentioned, as a proof of the excellence of his method of treatingacute diseases, that it had received the approbation of his illustriousfriend LOCKE, the philosopher's opinion contributed to the physician'ssuccess. 

Such have been the friendships of great literary characters; but too trueit is, that they have not always contributed thus largely to their mutualhappiness. The querulous lament of GLEIM to KLOPSTOCK is too generallyparticipated. As Gleim lay on his death-bed he addressed the great bard ofGermany--"I am dying, dear Klopstock; and, as a dying man will I say, inthis world we have not lived long enough together and for each other; butin vain would we now recal the past!" What tenderness in the reproach!What self-accusation in its modesty!

CHAPTER XX. 

The literary and the personal character. --The personal dispositions of anauthor may be the reverse of those which appear in his writings. --Erroneous conceptions of the character of distant authors. --Paradoxicalappearances in the history of Genius. --Why the character of the man may beopposite to that of his writings. 

Are the personal dispositions of an author discoverable in his writings, as those of an artist are imagined to appear in his works, where MichaelAngelo is always great, and Raphael ever graceful?

Is the moralist a moral man? Is he malignant who publishes causticsatires? Is he a libertine who composes loose poems? And is he, whoseimagination delights in terror and in blood, the very monster he paints?

Many licentious writers have led chaste lives. LA MOTHE LE VAYER wrote twoworks of a free nature; yet his was the unblemished life of a retiredsage. BAYLE is the too faithful compiler of impurities, but he resistedthe voluptuousness of the senses as much as Newton. LA FONTAINE wrotetales fertile in intrigue, yet the "bon-homme" has not left on record asingle ingenious amour of his own. The Queen of NAVARRE'S Tales aregross imitations of Boccaccio's; but she herself was a princess ofirreproachable habits, and had given proof of the most rigid virtue; butstories of intrigues, told in a natural style, formed the fashionableliterature of the day, and the genius of the female writer was amused inbecoming an historian without being an actor. FORTIGUERRA, the author ofthe Ricciardetto, abounds with loose and licentious descriptions, and yetneither his manners nor his personal character were stained by theoffending freedom of his inventions. SMOLLETT'S character is immaculate;yet he has described two scenes which offend even in the license ofimagination. COWLEY, who boasts with such gaiety of the versatility of hispassion among so many mistresses, wanted even the confidence to addressone. Thus, licentious writers may be very chaste persons. The imaginationmay be a volcano while the heart is an Alp of ice. 

Turn to the moralist--there we find Seneca, a usurer of seven millions, writing on moderate desires on a table of gold. SALLUST, who so eloquentlydeclaims against the licentiousness of the age, was repeatedly accused inthe senate of public and habitual debaucheries; and when this inveigheragainst the spoilers of provinces attained to a remote government, hepillaged like Verres. That "DEMOSTHENES was more capable of recommendingthan of imitating the virtues of our ancestors, " is the observation ofPlutarch. LUCIAN, when young, declaimed against the friendship of thegreat, as another name for servitude; but when his talents procured him asituation under the emperor, he facetiously compared himself to thosequacks who, themselves plagued by a perpetual cough, offer to sell aninfallible remedy for one. Sir THOMAS MORE, in his "Utopia, " declares thatno man ought to be punished for his religion; yet he became a fiercepersecutor, flogging and racking men for his own "true faith. " At themoment the poet ROUSSEAU was giving versions of the Psalms, full ofunction, as our Catholic neighbours express it, he was profaning the samepen with infamous epigrams; and an erotic poet of our times has composednight-hymns in churchyards with the same ardour with which he poured forthAnacreontics. Napoleon said of Bernardin St. Pierre, whose writingsbreathe the warm principles of humanity and social happiness in everypage, that he was one of the worst private characters in France. I haveheard this from other quarters; it startles one! The pathetic genius ofSTERNE played about his head, but never reached his heart[A]. CardinalRICHELIEU wrote "The Perfection of a Christian, or the Life of aChristian;" yet was he an utter stranger to Gospel maxims; and FREDERICKTHE GREAT, when young, published his "Anti-Machiavel, " and deceived theworld by the promise of a pacific reign. This military genius protestedagainst those political arts which, he afterwards adroitly practised, uniting the lion's head with the fox's tail--and thus himself realisingthe political monster of Machiavel!

[Footnote A: See what is said on this subject in the article on Sterne inthe "Literary Miscellanies, " of the present volume. ]

And thus also is it with the personal dispositions of an author, which maybe quite the reverse from those which appear in his writings. Johnsonwould not believe that HORACE was a happy man because his verses werecheerful, any more than he could think POPE so, because the poet iscontinually informing us of it. It surprised Spence when Pope told himthat ROWE, the tragic poet, whom he had considered so solemn a personage, "would laugh all day long, and do nothing else but laugh. " Lord Kaimessays, that ARBUTHNOT must have been a great genius, for he exceeded Swiftand Addison in humorous painting; although we are informed he had nothingof that peculiarity in his character. YOUNG, who is constantly contemningpreferment in his writings, was all his life pining after it; and theconversation of the sombrous author of the "Night Thoughts" was of themost volatile kind, abounding with trivial puns. He was one of the firstwho subscribed to the assembly at Wellwyn. Mrs. Carter, who greatlyadmired his sublime poetry, expressing her surprise at his socialconverse, he replied, "Madam, there is much difference between writing andtalking. "

MOLIERE, on the contrary, whose humour is so perfectly comic, andeven ludicrous, was thoughtful and serious, and even melancholy. Hisstrongly-featured physiognomy exhibits the face of a great tragic, ratherthan of a great comic, poet. Boileau called Molière "The ContemplativeMan. " Those who make the world laugh often themselves laugh the least. Afamous and witty harlequin of France was overcome with hypochondriasm, andconsulted a physician, who, after inquiring about his malady, told hismiserable patient, that he knew of no other medicine for him than to takefrequent doses of Carlin--"I am Carlin himself, " exclaimed the melancholyman, in despair. BURTON, the pleasant and vivacious author of "The Anatomyof Melancholy, " of whom it is noticed, that he could in an interval ofvapours raise laughter in any company, in his chamber was "mute andmopish, " and at last was so overcome by that intellectual disorder, whichhe appeared to have got rid of by writing his volume, that it is believedhe closed his life in a fit of melancholy. [A]

[Footnote A: It is reported of him that his only mode of alleviating hismelancholy was by walking from his college at Oxford to the bridge, tolisten to the rough jokes of the bargemen. ]

Could one have imagined that the brilliant wit, the luxuriant raillery, and the fine and deep sense of PASCAL, could have combined with the mostopposite qualities--the hypochondriasm and bigotry of an ascetic?ROCHEFOUCAULD, in private life, was a conspicuous example of all thosemoral qualities of which he seemed to deny the existence, and exhibited inthis respect a striking contrast to the Cardinal de Retz, who has presumedto censure him for his want of faith in the reality of virtue; but DE RETZhimself was the unbeliever in disinterested virtue. This great genius wasone of those pretended patriots destitute of a single one of the virtuesfor which he was the clamorous advocate of faction. 

When Valincour attributed the excessive tenderness in the tragedies ofRACINE to the poet's own impassioned character, the son amply showed thathis father was by no means the slave of love. RACINE never wrote a singlelove-poem, nor even had a mistress; and his wife had never read histragedies, for poetry was not her delight. Racine's motive for making lovethe constant source of action in his tragedies, was from the principlewhich has influenced so many poets, who usually conform to the prevalenttaste of the times. In the court of a young monarch it was necessary thatheroes should be lovers; Corneille had nobly run in one career, and Racinecould not have existed as a great poet had he not rivalled him in anopposite one. The tender RACINE was no lover; but he was a subtle andepigrammatic observer, before whom his convivial friends never cared toopen their minds; and the caustic BOILEAU truly said of him, "RACINE isfar more malicious than I am. "

ALFIERI speaks of his mistress as if he lived with her in the mostunreserved familiarity; the reverse was the case. And the gratitude andaffection with which he describes his mother, and which she deserved, entered so little into his habitual feelings, that, after their earlyseparation, he never saw her but once, though he often passed through thecountry where she resided. 

JOHNSON has composed a beautiful Rambler, describing the pleasures whichresult from the influence of good-humour; and somewhat remarkably says, "Without good-humour learning and bravery can be only formidable, andconfer that superiority which swells the heart of the lion in the desert, where he roars without reply, and ravages without resistance. " He whocould so finely discover the happy influence of this pleasing quality washimself a stranger to it, and "the roar and the ravage" were familiar toour lion. Men of genius frequently substitute their beautiful imaginationfor spontaneous and natural sentiment. It is not therefore surprising ifwe are often erroneous in the conception we form of the personal characterof a distant author. KLOPSTOCK, the votary of the muse of Zion, soastonished and warmed the sage BODMER, that he invited the inspired bardto his house: but his visitor shocked the grave professor, when, insteadof a poet rapt in silent meditation, a volatile youth leaped out of thechaise, who was an enthusiast for retirement only when writing verses. Anartist, whose pictures exhibit a series of scenes of domestic tenderness, awakening all the charities of private life, I have heard, participated inthem in no other way than on his canvas. EVELYN, who has written in favourof active life, "loved and lived in retirement;"[A] while Sir GEORGEMACKENZIE, who had been continually in the bustle of business, framed aeulogium on solitude. We see in MACHIAVEL'S code of tyranny, of depravity, and of criminal violence, a horrid picture of human nature; but thisretired philosopher was a friend to the freedom of his country; heparticipated in none of the crimes he had recorded, but drew up thesesystemized crimes "as an observer, not as a criminal. " DRUMMOND, whosesonnets still retain the beauty and the sweetness and the delicacy of themost amiable imagination, was a man of a harsh irritable temper, and hasbeen thus characterised:--

 Testie Drummond could not speak for fretting. 

[Footnote A: Since this was written the correspondence of EVELYN hasappeared, by which we find that he apologised to Cowley for havingpublished this very treatise, which seemed to condemn that life of studyand privacy to which they were both equally attached; and confesses thatthe whole must be considered as a mere sportive effusion, requesting thatCowley would not suppose its principles formed his private opinions. ThusLEIBNITZ, we are told, laughed at the fanciful system revealed in his_Theodicée_, and acknowledged that he never wrote it in earnest; that aphilosopher is not always obliged to write seriously, and that to inventan hypothesis is only a proof of the force of imagination. ]

Thus authors and artists may yield no certain indication of their personalcharacters in their works. Inconstant men will write on constancy, andlicentious minds may elevate themselves into poetry and piety. Weshould be unjust to some of the greatest geniuses if the extraordinarysentiments which they put into the mouths of their dramatic personages aremaliciously to be applied to themselves. EURIPIDES was accused of atheismwhen he introduced a denier of the gods on the stage. MILTON has beencensured by CLARKE for the impiety of Satan; and an enemy of SHAKSPEAREmight have reproached him for his perfect delineation of the accomplishedvillain Iago, as it was said that Dr. MOORE was hurt in the opinions ofsome by his odious Zeluco. CREBILLON complains of this:--"They charge mewith all the iniquities of Atreus, and they consider me in some places asa wretch with whom it is unfit to associate; as if all which the mindinvents must be derived from the heart. " This poet offers a strikinginstance of the little alliance existing between the literary and personaldispositions of an author. CREBILLON, who exulted, on his entrance intothe French Academy, that he had never tinged his pen with the gall ofsatire, delighted to strike on the most harrowing string of the tragiclyre. In his _Atreus_ the father drinks the blood of his son; in his_Rhadamistus_ the son expires under the hand of the father; in his_Electra_, the son assassinates the mother. A poet is a painter of thesoul, but a great artist is not therefore a bad man. 

MONTAIGNE appears to have been sensible of this fact in the literarycharacter. Of authors, he says, he likes to read their little anecdotesand private passions:--"Car j'ai une singulière curiosité de connaîtrel'âme et les naïfs jugemens de mes auteurs. Il faut bien juger leursuffisance, mais non pas leurs moeurs, ni eux, par cette montre de leursécrits qu'ils étalent au théatre du monde. " Which may be thus translated:"For I have a singular curiosity to know the soul and simple opinions ofmy authors. We must judge of their ability, but not of their manners, norof themselves, by that show of their writings which they display on thetheatre of the world. " This is very just; are we yet sure, however, thatthe simplicity of this old favourite of Europe might not have been as mucha theatrical gesture as the sentimentality of Sterne? The great authors ofthe Port-Royal Logic have raised severe objections to prove that MONTAIGNEwas not quite so open in respect to those simple details which he imaginedmight diminish his personal importance with his readers. He pretends thathe reveals all his infirmities and weaknesses, while he is perpetuallypassing himself off for something more than he is. He carefully informs usthat he has "a page, " the usual attendant of an independent gentleman, andlives in an old family château; when the fact was, that his whole revenuedid not exceed six thousand livres, a state beneath mediocrity. He is alsoequally careful not to drop any mention of his having a _clerk with abag_; for he was a counsellor of Bordeaux, but affected the gentleman andthe soldier. He trumpets himself forth for having been _mayor_ ofBordeaux, as this offered an opportunity of telling us that he succeeded_Marshal_ Biron, and resigned it to _Marshal_ Matignon. Could he havediscovered that any _marshal_ had been a _lawyer_ he would not have sunkthat part of his life. Montaigne himself has said, "that in forming ajudgment of a man's life, particular regard should be paid to hisbehaviour at the end of it;" and he more than once tells us that the chiefstudy of his life is to die calm and silent; and that he will plungehimself headlong and stupidly into death, as into an obscure abyss, whichswallows one up in an instant; that to die was the affair of a moment'ssuffering, and required no precepts. He talked of reposing on the "pillowof doubt. " But how did this great philosopher die? He called for the morepowerful opiates of the infallible church! The mass was performed in hischamber, and, in rising to embrace it, his hands dropped and failed him;thus, as Professor Dugald Stewart observes on this philosopher--"Heexpired in performing what his old preceptor, Buchanan, would not havescrupled to describe as an act of idolatry. "

We must not then consider that he who paints vice with energy is thereforevicious, lest we injure an honourable man; nor must we imagine that he whocelebrates virtue is therefore virtuous, for we may then repose on a heartwhich knowing the right pursues the wrong. 

These paradoxical appearances in the history of genius present a curiousmoral phenomenon. Much must be attributed to the plastic nature of theversatile faculty itself. Unquestionably many men of genius have oftenresisted the indulgence of one talent to exercise another with equalpower; and some, who have solely composed sermons, could have touched onthe foibles of society with the spirit of Horace or Juvenal. BLACKSTONEand Sir WILLIAM JONES directed that genius to the austere studies of lawand philology, which might have excelled in the poetical and historicalcharacter. So versatile is this faculty of genius, that its possessorsare sometimes uncertain of the manner in which they shall treat theirsubject, whether gravely or ludicrously. When BREBOEUF, the Frenchtranslator of the Pharsalia of Lucan, had completed the first book as itnow appears, he at the same time composed a burlesque version, and sentboth to the great arbiter of taste in that day, to decide which the poetshould continue. The decision proved to be difficult. Are there notwriters who, with all the vehemence of genius, by adopting one principlecan make all things shrink into the pigmy form of ridicule, or byadopting another principle startle us by the gigantic monsters of theirown exaggerated imagination? On this principle, of the versatility of thefaculty, a production of genius is a piece of art which, wrought up toits full effect with a felicity of manner acquired by taste and habit, ismerely the result of certain arbitrary combinations of the mind. 

Are we then to reduce the works of a man of genius to a mere sport of histalents--a game in which he is only the best player? Can he whose secretpower raises so many emotions in our breasts be without any in his own? Amere actor performing a part? Is he unfeeling when he is pathetic, indifferent when he is indignant? Is he an alien to all the wisdom andvirtue he inspires? No! were men of genius themselves to assert this, andit is said some incline so to do, there is a more certain conviction thantheir misconceptions, in our own consciousness, which for ever assures us, that deep feelings and elevated thoughts can alone spring from those whofeel deeply and think nobly. 

In proving that the character of the man may be very opposite to that ofhis writings, we must recollect that the habits of the life may becontrary to the habits of the mind. [A] The influence of their studies overmen of genius is limited. Out of the ideal world, man is reduced to be theactive creature of sensation. An author has, in truth, two distinctcharacters: the literary, formed by the habits of his study; the personal, by the habits of his situation. GRAY, cold, effeminate, and timid in hispersonal, was lofty and awful in his literary character. We see men ofpolished manners and bland affections, who, in grasping a pen, arethrusting a poniard; while others in domestic life with the simplicity ofchildren and the feebleness of nervous affections, can shake the senate orthe bar with the vehemence of their eloquence and the intrepidity of theirspirit. The writings of the famous BAPTISTA PORTA are marked by theboldness of his genius, which formed a singular contrast with thepusillanimity of his conduct when menaced or attacked. The heart may befeeble, though the mind is strong. To think boldly may be the habit of themind, to act weakly may be the habit of the constitution. 

[Footnote A: Nothing is more delightful to me in my researches on theliterary character than when I find in persons of unquestionable and highgenius the results of my own discoveries. This circumstance has frequentlyhappened to confirm my principles. Long after this was published, Madamede Staël made this important confession in her recent work, "Dix Annéesd'Exil, " p. 154. "Je ne pouvais me dissimuler que je n'étais pas unepersoune courageuse; j'ai de la hardiesse dans _l'imagination, _ mais de latimidité dans la _caractère_. "]

However the personal character may contrast with that of their genius, still are the works themselves genuine, and exist as realities for us--andwere so, doubtless, to the composers themselves in the act of composition. In the calm of study, a beautiful imagination may convert him whose moralsare corrupt into an admirable moralist, awakening feelings which yet maybe cold in the business of life: as we have shown that the phlegmatic canexcite himself into wit, and the cheerful man delight in "Night Thoughts. "SALLUST, the corrupt Sallust, might retain the most sublime conceptions ofthe virtues which were to save the Republic; and STERNE, whose heart wasnot so susceptible in ordinary occurrences, while he was graduallycreating incident after incident and touching successive emotions, inthe stories of Le Fevre and Maria, might have thrilled--like someof his readers. Many have mourned over the wisdom or the virtue theycontemplated, mortified at their own infirmity. Thus, though there may beno identity between the book and the man, still for us an author is everan abstract being, and, as one of the Fathers said--"A dead man may sindead, leaving books that make others sin. " An author's wisdom or his follydoes not die with him. The volume, not the author, is our companion, andis for us a real personage, performing before us whatever it inspires--"Hebeing dead, yet speaketh. " Such is the vitality of a book!

CHAPTER XXI. 

The man of letters. --Occupies an intermediate station between authors andreaders. --His solitude described. --Often the father of genius. --Atticus, aman of letters of antiquity. --The perfect character of a modern man ofletters exhibited in Peiresc. --Their utility to authors and artists. 

Among the active members of the literary republic, there is a class whomformerly we distinguished by the title of MEN OF LETTERS--a title which, with us, has nearly gone out of currency, though I do not think that thegeneral term of "literary men" would be sufficiently appropriate. 

The man of letters, whose habits and whose whole life so closely resemblethose of an author, can only be distinguished by this simple circumstance, that the man of letters is not an author. 

Yet he whose sole occupation through life is literature--he who is alwaysacquiring and never producing, appears as ridiculous as the architect whonever raised an edifice, or the statuary who refrains from sculpture. Hispursuits are reproached with terminating in an epicurean selfishness, andamidst his incessant avocations he himself is considered as a particularsort of idler. 

This race of literary characters, as we now find them, could not haveappeared till the press had poured forth its affluence. In the degree thatthe nations of Europe became literary, was that philosophical curiositykindled which induced some to devote their fortunes and their days, and toexperience some of the purest of human enjoyments in preserving andfamiliarising themselves with "the monuments of vanished minds, " as booksare called by D'Avenant with so much sublimity. Their expansive librarypresents an indestructible history of the genius of every people, throughall their eras--and whatever men have thought and whatever men have done, were at length discovered in books. 

Men of letters occupy an intermediate station between authors and readers. They are gifted with more curiosity of knowledge, and more multipliedtastes, and by those precious collections which they are forming duringtheir lives, are more completely furnished with the means than arepossessed by the multitude who read, and the few who write. 

The studies of an author are usually restricted to particular subjects. His tastes are tinctured by their colouring, his mind is always shapingitself by their form. An author's works form his solitary pride, and hissecret power; while half his life wears away in the slow maturity ofcomposition, and still the ambition of authorship torments its victimalike in disappointment or in possession. 

But soothing is the solitude of the MAN OF LETTERS! View the busiedinhabitant of the library surrounded by the objects of his love! Hepossesses them--and they possess him! These volumes--images of our mindand passions!--as he traces them from Herodotus to Gibbon, from Homer toShakspeare--those portfolios which gather up, the inventions of genius, and that selected cabinet of medals which holds so many unwrittenhistories;--some favourite sculptures and pictures, and some antiquitiesof all nations, here and there about his house--these are his furniture!

In his unceasing occupations the only repose he requires, consists not inquitting, but in changing them. Every day produces its discovery; everyday in the life of a man of letters may furnish a multitude of emotionsand of ideas. For him there is a silence amidst the world; and in thescene ever opening before him, all that has passed is acted over again, and all that is to come seems revealed as in a vision. Often his libraryis contiguous to his chamber, [A] and this domain "_parva sed apta_, " thiscontracted space, has often marked the boundary of the existence of theopulent owner, who lives where he will die, contracting his days intohours; and a whole life thus passed is found too short to close itsdesigns. Such are the men who have not been unhappily described by theHollanders as _lief-hebbers_, lovers or fanciers, and their collection as_lief-hebbery_, things of their love. The Dutch call everything for whichthey are impassioned _lief-hebbery_; but their feeling being much strongerthan their delicacy, they apply the term to everything, from poesyand picture to tulips and tobacco. The term wants the melody of thelanguages of genius; but something parallel is required to correctthat indiscriminate notion which most persons associate with that of_collectors_. 

[Footnote A: The contiguity of the CHAMBER to the LIBRARY is not thesolitary fancy of an individual, but marks the class. Early in life, whenin France and Holland, I met with several of these _amateurs_, who hadbounded their lives by the circle of their collections, and were rarelyseen out of them. The late Duke of ROXBURGH once expressed his delight toa literary friend of mine, that he had only to step from his sleepingapartment into his fine library; so that he could command, at all moments, the gratification of pursuing his researches while he indulged hisreveries. The Chevalier VERHULST, of Bruxelles, of whom we have a curiousportrait prefixed to the catalogue of his pictures and curiosities, wasone of those men of letters who experienced this strong affection for hiscollections, and to such a degree, that he never went out of his house fortwenty years; where, however, he kept up a courteous intercourse with thelovers of art and literature. He was an enthusiastic votary of Rubens, ofwhom he has written a copious life in Dutch, the only work he appears tohave composed. ]

It was fancifully said of one of these lovers, in the style of the age, that, "His book was his bride, and his study his bride-chamber. " Manyhave voluntarily relinquished a public station and their rank insociety, neglecting even their fortune and their health, for the life ofself-oblivion of the man of letters. Count DE CAYLUS expended a princelyincome in the study and the encouragement of Art. He passed his morningsamong the studios of artists, watching their progress, increasing hiscollections, and closing his day in the retirement of his own cabinet. Hisrank and his opulence were no obstructions to his settled habits. CICEROhimself, in his happier moments, addressing ATTICUS, exclaimed--"I hadmuch rather be sitting on your little bench under Aristotle's picture, than in the curule chairs of our great ones. " This wish was probablysincere, and reminds us of another great politician who in his secessionfrom public affairs retreated to a literary life, where he appearssuddenly to have discovered a new-found world. Fox's favourite line, whichhe often repeated, was--

 How various his employments whom the world Calls idle!

De Sacy, one of the Port-Royalists, was fond of repeating this livelyremark of a man of wit--"That all the mischief in the world comes from notbeing able to keep ourselves quiet in our room. "

But tranquillity is essential to the existence of the man of letters--anunbroken and devotional tranquillity. For though, unlike the author, hisoccupations are interrupted without inconvenience, and resumed withouteffort; yet if the painful realities of life break into this visionaryworld of literature and art, there is an atmosphere of taste about himwhich will be dissolved, and harmonious ideas which will be chased away, as it happens when something is violently flung among the trees where thebirds are singing--all instantly disperse!

Even to quit their collections for a short time is a real suffering tothese lovers; everything which surrounds them becomes endeared by habit, and by some higher associations. Men of letters have died with grief fromhaving been forcibly deprived of the use of their libraries. DE THOU, withall a brother's sympathy, in his great history, has recorded the sad fatesof several who had witnessed their collections dispersed in the civil warsof France, or had otherwise been deprived of their precious volumes. SirROBERT COTTON fell ill, and betrayed, in the ashy paleness of hiscountenance, the misery which killed him on the sequestration of hiscollections. "They have broken my heart who have locked up my library fromme, " was his lament. 

If this passion for acquisition and enjoyment be so strong and exquisite, what wonder that these "lovers" should regard all things as valueless incomparison with the objects of their love? There seem to be spells intheir collections, and in their fascination they have often submitted tothe ruin of their personal, but not of their internal enjoyments. Theyhave scorned to balance in the scales the treasures of literature and art, though imperial magnificence once was ambitious to outweigh them. 

VAN PRAUN, a friend of Albert Durer's, of whom we possess a catalogue ofpictures and prints, was one of these enthusiasts of taste. The Emperor ofGermany, probably desirous of finding a royal road to a rare collection, sent an agent to procure the present one entire; and that some delicacymight be observed with such a man, the purchase was to be proposed in theform of a mutual exchange; the emperor had gold, pearls, and diamonds. Our_lief-hebber_ having silently listened to the imperial agent, seemedastonished that such things should be considered as equivalents for acollection of works of art, which had required a long life of experienceand many previous studies and practised tastes to have formed, andcompared with which gold, pearls, and diamonds, afforded but a mean, anunequal, and a barbarous barter. 

If the man of letters be less dependent on others for the very perceptionof his own existence than men of the world are, his solitude, however, isnot that of a desert: for all there tends to keep alive those concentratedfeelings which cannot be indulged with security, or even without ridiculein general society. Like the Lucullus of Plutarch, he would not only liveamong the votaries of literature, but would live for them; he throws openhis library, his gallery, and his cabinet, to all the Grecians. Such menare the fathers of genius; they seem to possess an aptitude in discoveringthose minds which are clouded over by the obscurity of their situations;and it is they who so frequently project those benevolent institutions, where they have poured out the philanthropy of their hearts in that worldwhich they appear to have forsaken. If Europe be literary, to whom doesshe owe this more than to these men of letters? Is it not to their noblepassion of amassing through life those magnificent collections, whichoften bear the names of their founders from the gratitude of a followingage? Venice, Florence, and Copenhagen, Oxford, and London, attest theexistence of their labours. Our BODLEYS and our HARLEYS, our COTTONS andour SLOANES, our CRACHERODES, our TOWNLEYS, and our BANKS, were of thisrace![A] In the perpetuity of their own studies they felt as if they wereextending human longevity, by throwing an unbroken light of knowledge intothe next age. The private acquisitions of a solitary man of letters duringhalf a century have become public endowments. A generous enthusiasminspired these intrepid labours, and their voluntary privations of whatthe world calls its pleasures and its honours, would form an interestinghistory not yet written; their due, yet undischarged. 

[Footnote A: Sir Thomas Bodley, in 1602, first brought the old librariesat Oxford into order for the benefit of students, and added thereto hisown noble collection. That of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford (died 1724), was purchased by the country, and is now in the British Museum; and alsoare the other collections named above. Sir Robert Cotton died 1631; hiscollection is remarkable for its historic documents and state-papers. SirHans Sloane's collections may be said to be the foundation of the BritishMuseum, and were purchased by Government for 20, 000_l_. , after his death, in 1749. Of Cracherode and Townley some notice will be found on p. 2 ofthe present volume. Sir Joseph Banks and his sister made large bequests tothe same national establishment. --ED. ]

But "men of the world, " as they are emphatically distinguished, imaginethat a man so lifeless in "the world" must be one of the dead in it, and, with mistaken wit, would inscribe over the sepulchre of his library, "Herelies the body of our friend. " If the man of letters have voluntarilyquitted their "world, " at least he has passed into another, where heenjoys a sense of existence through a long succession of ages, and whereTime, who destroys all things for others, for him only preserves anddiscovers. This world is best described by one who has lingered among itsinspirations. "We are wafted into other times and strange lands, connecting us by a sad but exalting relationship with the great events andgreat minds which have passed away. Our studies at once cherish andcontrol the imagination, by leading it over an unbounded range of thenoblest scenes in the overawing company of departed wisdom and genius. "[A]

[Footnote A: "Quarterly Review, " No. Xxxiii. P. 145. ]

Living more with books than with men, which is often becoming betteracquainted with man himself, though not always with men, the manof letters is more tolerant of opinions than opinionists are amongthemselves. Nor are his views of human affairs contracted to the day, like those who, in the heat and hurry of a too active life, preferexpedients to principles; men who deem themselves politicians because theyare not moralists; to whom the centuries behind have conveyed no results, and who cannot see how the present time is always full of the future. "Everything, " says the lively Burnet, "must be brought to the nature oftinder or gunpowder, ready for a spark to set it on fire, " before theydiscover it. The man of letters indeed is accused of a cold indifferenceto the interests which divide society; he is rarely observed as the heador the "rump of a party;" he views at a distance their temporary passions--those mighty beginnings, of which he knows the miserable terminations. 

Antiquity presents the character of a perfect man of letters in ATTICUS, who retreated from a political to a literary life. Had his lettersaccompanied those of Cicero, they would have illustrated the idealcharacter of his class. But the sage ATTICUS rejected a popular celebrityfor a passion not less powerful, yielding up his whole soul to study. CICERO, with all his devotion to literature, was at the same time agitatedby another kind of glory, and the most perfect author in Rome imaginedthat he was enlarging his honours by the intrigues of the consulship. Hehas distinctly marked the character of the man of letters in the person ofhis friend ATTICUS, for which he has expressed his respect, although hecould not content himself with its imitation. "I know, " says this man ofgenius and ambition, "I know the greatness and ingenuousness of your soul, nor have I found any difference between us, but in a different choice oflife; a certain sort of ambition has led me earnestly to seek afterhonours, while other motives, by no means blameable, induced you to adoptan honourable leisure; _honestum otium_. "[A] These motives appear in theinteresting memoirs of this man of letters; a contempt of politicalintrigues combined with a desire to escape from the splendid bustle ofRome to the learned leisure of Athens. He wished to dismiss a pompoustrain of slaves for the delight of assembling under his roof a literarysociety of readers and transcribers. And having collected under that roofthe portraits or busts of the illustrious men of his country, inspired bytheir spirit and influenced by their virtues or their genius, he inscribedunder them, in concise verses, the characters of their mind. Valuingwealth only for its use, a dignified economy enabled him to be profuse, and a moderate expenditure allowed him to be generous. 

[Footnote A: "Ad Atticum, " Lib. I. Ep. 17. ]

The result of this literary life was the strong affections of theAthenians. At the first opportunity the absence of the man of lettersoffered, they raised a statue to him, conferring on our POMPONIUS the fondsurname of ATTICUS. To have received a name from the voice of the citythey inhabited has happened to more than one man of letters. PINELLI, borna Neapolitan, but residing at Venice, among other peculiar honoursreceived from the senate, was there distinguished by the affectionatetitle of "the Venetian. "

Yet such a character as ATTICUS could not escape censure from "men of theworld. " They want the heart and the imagination to conceive somethingbetter than themselves. The happy indifference, perhaps the contemptof our ATTICUS for rival factions, they have stigmatised as a coldneutrality, a timid pusillanimous hypocrisy. Yet ATTICUS could not havebeen a mutual friend, had not both parties alike held the man of lettersas a sacred being amidst their disguised ambition; and the urbanity ofATTICUS, while it balanced the fierceness of two heroes, Pompey and Cæsar, could even temper the rivalry of genius in the orators Hortensius andCicero. A great man of our own country widely differed from the accusersof Atticus. Sir MATTHEW HALE lived in distracted times, and took thecharacter of our man of letters for his model, adopting two principles inthe conduct of the Roman. He engaged himself with no party business, andafforded a constant relief to the unfortunate, of whatever party. He wasthus preserved amidst the contests of the times. 

If the personal interests of the man of letters be not deeply involved insociety, his individual prosperity, however, is never contrary to publichappiness. Other professions necessarily exist by the conflict and thecalamities of the community: the politician becomes great by hatchingan intrigue; the lawyer, in counting his briefs; the physician, hissick-list. The soldier is clamorous for war; the merchant riots on highprices. But the man of letters only calls for peace and books, to unitehimself with his brothers scattered over Europe; and his usefulness canonly be felt at those intervals, when, after a long interchange ofdestruction, men, recovering their senses, discover that "knowledge ispower. " BURKE, whose ample mind took in every conception of the literarycharacter, has finely touched on the distinction between this order ofcontemplative men, and the other active classes of society. In addressingMr. MALONE, whose real character was that of a man of letters who firstshowed us the neglected state of our literary history, BURKE observed--forI shall give his own words, always too beautiful to alter--"If you are notcalled to exert your great talents, and employ your great acquisitions inthe transitory service of your country, which is done in active life, youwill continue to do it that permanent service which it receives from thelabours of those who know how to make the silence of closets morebeneficial to the world than all the noise and bustle of courts, senates, and camps. "

A moving picture of the literary life of a man of letters who was noauthor, would have been lost to us, had not PEIRESC found in GASSENDI atwin spirit. So intimate was the biographer with the very thoughts, soclosely united in the same pursuits, and so perpetual an observer of theremarkable man whom he has immortalised, that when employed on thiselaborate resemblance of his friend, he was only painting himself with allthe identifying strokes of self-love[A]. 

[Footnote A: "I suppose, " writes EVELYN, that most agreeable enthusiast ofliterature, to a travelling friend, "that you carry the life of thatincomparable virtuoso always about you in your motions, not only becauseit is portable, but for that it is written by the pen of the greatGassendus. "]

It was in the vast library of PINELLI, the founder of the most magnificentone in Europe, that PEIRESC, then a youth, felt the remote hope ofemulating the man of letters before his eyes. His life was not withoutpreparation, nor without fortunate coincidences; but there was a grandeurof design in the execution which originated in the genius of the manhimself. 

The curious genius of PEIRESC was marked by its precocity, as usually arestrong passions in strong minds; this intense curiosity was the germ ofall those studies which seemed mature in his youth. He early resolved on apersonal intercourse with the great literary characters of Europe; and hisfriend has thrown over these literary travels that charm of detail bywhich we accompany PEIRESC into the libraries of the learned; therewith the historian opening new sources of history, or with the criticcorrecting manuscripts, and settling points of erudition; or by the openedcabinet of the antiquary, deciphering obscure inscriptions, and explainingmedals. In the galleries of the curious in art, among their marbles, theirpictures, and their prints, PEIRESC has often revealed to the artist somesecret in his own art. In the museum of the naturalist, or the garden ofthe botanist, there was no rarity of nature on which he had not somethingto communicate. His mind toiled with that impatience of knowledge, thatbecomes a pain only when the mind is not on the advance. In EnglandPEIRESC was the associate of Camden and Selden, and had more than oneinterview with that friend to literary men, our calumniated James theFirst. One may judge by these who were the men whom PEIRESC sought, andby whom he himself was ever after sought. Such, indeed, were immortalfriendships! Immortal they may be justly called, from the objects in whichthey concerned themselves, and from the permanent results of the combinedstudies of such friends. 

Another peculiar greatness in this literary character was PEIRESC'Senlarged devotion to literature out of its purest love for itself alone. He made his own universal curiosity the source of knowledge to other men. Considering the studious as forming but one great family wherever theywere, for PEIRESC the national repositories of knowledge in Europe formedbut one collection for the world. This man of letters had possessedhimself of their contents, that he might have manuscripts collated, unedited pieces explored, extracts supplied, and even draughtsmen employedin remote parts of the world, to furnish views and plans, and to copyantiquities for the student, who in some distant retirement oftendiscovered that the literary treasures of the world were unfailinglyopened to him by the secret devotion of this man of letters. 

Carrying on the same grandeur in his views, his universal mind busieditself in every part of the habitable globe. He kept up a noble trafficwith all travellers, supplying them with philosophical instruments andrecent inventions, by which he facilitated their discoveries, and securedtheir reception even in barbarous realms. In return he claimed, at his owncost, for he was "born rather to give than to receive, " says Gassendi, fresh importations of Oriental literature, curious antiquities, or botanicrarities; and it was the curiosity of PEIRESC which first embellished hisown garden, and thence the gardens of Europe, with a rich variety ofexotic flowers and fruits. [A] Whenever presented with a medal, a vase, ora manuscript, he never slept over the gift till he had discovered what thedonor delighted in; and a book, a picture, a plant, when money could notbe offered, fed their mutual passion, and sustained the general cause ofscience. The correspondence of PEIRESC branched out to the farthest boundsof Ethiopia, connected both Americas, and had touched the newly-discoveredextremities of the universe, when this intrepid mind closed in a prematuredeath. 

[Footnote A: On this subject see "Curiosities of Literature, " vol. Ii. P. 151; and for some further account of Peiresc and his labours, vol. Iii. P. 409, of the same work. --ED. ]

I have drawn this imperfect view of PEIRESC'S character, that men ofletters may be reminded of the capacities they possess. In the characterof PEIRESC, however, there still remains another peculiar feature. Hisfortune was not great; and when he sometimes endured the reproach of thosewhose sordidness was startled at his prodigality of mind, and the greatobjects which were the result, PEIRESC replied, that "a small mattersuffices for the natural wants of a literary man, whose true wealthconsists in the monuments of arts, the treasures of his library, and thebrotherly affections of the ingenious. " PEIRESC was a French judge, but hesupported his rank more by his own character than by luxury or parade. Hewould not wear silk, and no tapestry hangings ornamented his apartments;but the walls were covered with the portraits of his literary friends; andin the unadorned simplicity of his study, his books, his papers, and hisletters were scattered about him on the tables, the seats, and the floor. There, stealing from the world, he would sometimes admit to his sparesupper his friend Gassendi, "content, " says that amiable philosopher, "tohave me for his guest. "

PEIRESC, like PINELLI, never published any work. These men of lettersderived their pleasure, and perhaps their pride, from those vast strata ofknowledge which their curiosity had heaped together in their mightycollections. They either were not endowed with that faculty of geniuswhich strikes out aggregate views, or were destitute of the talent ofcomposition which embellishes minute ones. This deficiency in the minds ofsuch men may be attributed to a thirst of learning, which the very meansto allay can only inflame. From all sides they are gathering information;and that knowledge seems never perfect to which every day brings newacquisitions. With these men, to compose is to hesitate; and to revise isto be mortified by fresh doubts and unsupplied omissions. PEIRESC wasemployed all his life on a history of Provence; but, observes Gassendi, "He could not mature the birth of his literary offspring, or lick it intoany shape of elegant form; he was therefore content to take the midwife'spart, by helping the happier labours of others. "

Such are the cultivators of knowledge, who are rarely authors, but who areoften, however, contributing to the works of others; and without whosesecret labours the public would not have possessed many valued ones. Thedelightful instruction which these men are constantly offering to authorsand to artists, flows from their silent but uninterrupted cultivation ofliterature and the arts. 

When Robertson, after his successful "History of Scotland, " was longirresolute in his designs, and still unpractised in that curious researchwhich habitually occupies these men of letters, his admirers had nearlylost his popular productions, had not a fortunate introduction to Dr. BIRCH enabled him to open the clasped books, and to drink of the sealedfountains. ROBERTSON has confessed his inadequate knowledge, and hisoverflowing gratitude, in letters which I have elsewhere printed. Asuggestion by a man of letters has opened the career of many an aspirant. A hint from WALSH conveyed a new conception of English poetry to one ofits masters. The celebrated treatise of GROTIUS on "Peace and War" wasprojected by PEIRESC. It was said of MAGLIABECHI, who knew all books, andnever wrote one, that by his diffusive communications he was in somerespect concerned in all the great works of his times. Sir ROBERT COTTONgreatly assisted CAMDEN and SPEED; and that hermit of literature, BAKER, of Cambridge, was ever supplying with his invaluable researches Burnet, Kennet, Hearne, and Middleton. The concealed aid which men of lettersafford authors, may be compared to those subterraneous streams, which, flowing into spacious lakes, are, though unobserved, enlarging the waterswhich attract the public eye. 

Count DE CAYLUS, celebrated for his collections, and for his generouspatronage of artists, has given the last touches to this picture of theman of letters, with all the delicacy and warmth of a self-painter. 

"His glory is confined to the mere power which he has of being one dayuseful to letters and to the arts; for his whole life is employed incollecting materials of which learned men and artists make no use tillafter the death of him who amassed them. It affords him a very sensiblepleasure to labour in hopes of being useful to those who pursue the samecourse of studies, while there are so great a number who die withoutdischarging the debt which they incur to society. "

Such a man of letters appears to have been the late Lord WOODHOUSELEE. Mr. Mackenzie, returning from his lordship's literary retirement, meeting Mr. Alison, finely said, that "he hoped he was going to Woodhouselee; for noman could go there without being happier, or return from it without beingbetter. "

Shall we then hesitate to assert, that this class of literary men forms auseful, as well as a select order in society? We see that their leisure isnot idleness, that their studies are not unfruitful for the public, andthat their opinions, purified from passions and prejudices, are always thesoundest in the nation. They are counsellors whom statesmen may consult;fathers of genius to whom authors and artists may look for aid, andfriends of all nations; for we ourselves have witnessed, during a war ofthirty years, that the MEN OF LETTERS in England were still united withtheir brothers in France. The abode of Sir JOSEPH BANKS was ever open toevery literary and scientific foreigner; while a wish expressed or acommunication written by this MAN OF LETTERS, was even respected by apolitical power which, acknowledging no other rights, paid a voluntarytribute to the claims of science and the privileges of literature. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Literary old age still learning. --Influence of late studies in life. --Occupations in advanced age of the literary character. --Of literary menwho have died at their studies. 

The old age of the literary character retains its enjoyments, and usuallyits powers--a happiness which accompanies no other. The old age ofcoquetry witnesses its own extinct beauty; that of the "used" idler isleft without a sensation; that of the grasping Croesus exists only to envyhis heir; and that of the Machiavel who has no longer a voice in thecabinet, is but an unhappy spirit lingering to find its grave: but for theaged man of letters memory returns to her stores, and imagination is stillon the wing amidst fresh discoveries and new designs. The others fall likedry leaves, but he drops like ripe fruit, and is valued when no longer onthe tree. 

The constitutional melancholy of JOHNSON often tinged his views of humanlife. When he asserted that "no man adds much to his stock of knowledge, or improves much after forty, " his theory was overturned by his ownexperience; for his most interesting works were the productions of a verylate period of life, formed out of the fresh knowledge with which he hadthen furnished himself. 

The intellectual faculties, the latest to decline, are often vigorous inthe decrepitude of age. The curious mind is still striking out into newpursuits, and the mind of genius is still creating. ANCORA IMPARO!--"Evenyet I am learning!" was the concise inscription on an ingenious device ofan old man placed in a child's go-cart, with an hour-glass upon it, which, it is said, Michael Angelo applied to his own vast genius in his ninetiethyear. Painters have improved even to extreme old age: West's last workswere his best, and Titian was greatest on the verge of his century. Poussin was delighted with the discovery of this circumstance in the livesof painters. "As I grow older, I feel the desire of surpassing myself. "And it was in the last years of his life, that with the finest poeticalinvention, he painted the allegorical pictures of the Seasons. A man ofletters in his sixtieth year once told me, "It is but of late years that Ihave learnt the right use of books and the art of reading. "

Time, the great destroyer of other men's happiness, only enlargesthe patrimony of literature to its possessor. A learned and highlyintellectual friend once said to me, "If I have acquired more knowledgethese last four years than I had hitherto, I shall add materially to mystores in the next four years; and so at every subsequent period of mylife, should I acquire only in the same proportion, the general mass of myknowledge will greatly accumulate. If we are not deprived by nature ormisfortune of the means to pursue this perpetual augmentation ofknowledge, I do not see but we may be still fully occupied and deeplyinterested even to the last day of our earthly term. " Such is thedelightful thought of Owen Feltham; "If I die to-morrow, my life will besomewhat the sweeter to-day for knowledge. " The perfectibility of thehuman mind, the animating theory of the eloquent De Staël, consists in themass of our ideas, to which every age will now add, by means unknown topreceding generations. Imagination was born at once perfect, and her artsfind a term to their progress; but there is no boundary to knowledge northe discovery of thought. 

How beautiful in the old age of the literary character was the plan whicha friend of mine pursued! His mind, like a mirror whose quicksilver hadnot decayed, reflected all objects to the last. Pull of learned studiesand versatile curiosity, he annually projected a summer-tour on theContinent to some remarkable spot. The local associations were anunfailing source of agreeable impressions to a mind so well prepared, andhe presented his friends with a "Voyage Littéraire, " as a new-year's gift. In such pursuits, where life is "rather wearing out than rusting out, " asBishop Cumberland expressed it, scarcely shall we feel those continuedmenaces of death which shake the old age of men of no intellectualpursuits, who are dying so many years. 

Active enjoyments in the decline of life, then, constitute the happinessof literary men. The study of the arts and literature spreads a sunshineover the winter of their days. In the solitude and the night of humanlife, they discover that unregarded kindness of nature, which has givenflowers that only open in the evening, and only bloom through thenight-season. NECKER perceived the influence of late studies in life; forhe tells us, that "the era of threescore and ten is an agreeable age forwriting; your mind has not lost its vigour, and envy leaves you in peace. "

The opening of one of LA MOTHE LE VAYER'S Treatises is striking: "Ishould but ill return the favours God has granted me in the eightieth yearof my age, should I allow myself to give way to that shameless want ofoccupation which all my life I have condemned;" and the old man proceedswith his "Observations on the Composition and Reading of Books. " "If manbe a bubble of air, it is then time that I should hasten my task; for myeightieth year admonishes me to get my baggage together ere I leave theworld, " wrote VARBO, in opening his curious treatise _de Re Rustica_, which the sage lived to finish, and which, after nearly two thousandyears, the world possesses. "My works are many, and I am old; yet I stillcan fatigue and tire myself with writing more. " says PETRARCH in his"Epistle to Posterity. " The literary character has been fully occupied inthe eightieth and the ninetieth year of life. ISAAC WALTON still glowedwhile writing some of the most interesting biographies in his eighty-fifthyear, and in the ninetieth enriched the poetical world with the firstpublication of a romantic tale by Chalkhill, "the friend of Spenser. "BODMER, beyond eighty, was occupied on Homer, and WIELAND on Cicero'sLetters. [A]

[Footnote A: See "Curiosities of Literature, " on "The progress of old agein new studies. "]

But the delight of opening a new pursuit, or a new course of reading, imparts the vivacity and novelty of youth even to old age. The revolutionsof modern chemistry kindled the curiosity of Dr. Reid to his latest days, and he studied by various means to prevent the decay of his faculties, andto remedy the deficiencies of one failing sense by the increased activityof another. A late popular author, when advanced in life, discovered, in aclass of reading to which he had never been accustomed, a profuse supplyof fresh furniture for his mind. This felicity was the delightfulness ofthe old age of GOETHE--literature, art, and science, formed his dailyinquiries; and this venerable genius, prompt to receive each novelimpression, was a companion for the youthful, and a communicator ofknowledge even for the most curious. 

Even the steps of time are retraced, and we resume the possessions weseemed to have lost; for in advanced life a return to our early studiesrefreshes and renovates the spirits: we open the poets who made usenthusiasts, and the philosophers who taught us to think, with a newsource of feeling acquired by our own experience. ADAM SMITH confessed hissatisfaction at this pleasure to Professor Dugald Stewart, while "he wasreperusing, with the enthusiasm of a student, the tragic poets of ancientGreece, and Sophocles and Euripides lay open on his table. "

 Dans ses veines toujours un jeune sang bouillone, Et Sophocle à cent ans peint encore Antigone. 

The calm philosophic Hume found that death only could interrupt the keenpleasure he was again receiving from Lucian, inspiring at the moment ahumorous self-dialogue with Charon. "Happily, " said this philosopher, "onretiring from the world I found my taste for reading return, even withgreater avidity. " We find GIBBON, after the close of his History, returning with an appetite as keen to "a full repast on Homer andAristophanes, and involving himself in the philosophic maze of thewritings of Plato. " Lord WOODHOUSELEE found the recomposition of his"Lectures on History" so fascinating in the last period of his life, thatMr. Alison informs us, "it rewarded him with that _peculiar delight_, which has been often observed in the later years of literary men; thedelight of returning again to the studies of their youth, and of feelingunder the snows of age the cheerful memories of their spring. "[A]

[Footnote A: There is an interesting chapter on Favourite Authors in"Curiosities of Literature, " vol. Ii. , to which the reader may be referredfor other examples. --ED. ]

Not without a sense of exultation has the literary character felt thispeculiar happiness, in the unbroken chain of his habits and his feelings. HOBBES exulted that he had outlived his enemies, and was still the sameHobbes; and to demonstrate the reality of this existence, published, inthe eighty-seventh year of his age, his version of the _Odyssey_, and thefollowing year his _Iliad_. Of the happy results of literary habits inadvanced life, the Count DE TRESSAN, the elegant abridger of the oldFrench romances, in his "Literary Advice to his Children" has drawna most pleasing picture. With a taste for study, which he found ratherinconvenient in the moveable existence of a man of the world, and amilitary wanderer, he had, however, contrived to reserve an hour or twoevery day for literary pursuits. The men of science, with whom he hadchiefly associated, appear to have turned his passion to observation andknowledge rather than towards imagination and feeling; the combinationformed a wreath for his grey hairs. When Count De Tressan retired from abrilliant to an affectionate circle, amidst his family, he pursued hisliterary tastes with the vivacity of a young author inspired by theillusion of fame. At the age of seventy-five, with the imaginationof a poet, he abridged, he translated, he recomposed his old ChivalricRomances, and his reanimated fancy struck fire in the veins of theold man. Among the first designs of his retirement was a singularphilosophical legacy for his children. It was a view of the history andprogress of the human mind--of its principles, its errors, and itsadvantages, as these were reflected in himself; in the dawnings of histaste, and the secret inclinations of his mind, which the men of genius ofthe age with whom he associated had developed. Expatiating on theirmemory, he calls on his children to witness the happiness of study, soevident in those pleasures which were soothing and adorning his oldage. "Without knowledge, without literature, " exclaims the venerableenthusiast, "in whatever rank we are born, we can only resemble thevulgar. " To the centenary FONTENELLE the Count DE TRESSAN was chieflyindebted for the happy life he derived from the cultivation of literature;and when this man of a hundred years died, TRESSAN, himself on the bordersof the grave, would offer the last fruits of his mind in an _éloge_ to hisancient master. It was the voice of the dying to the dead, a last momentof the love and sensibility of genius, which feeble life could notextinguish. The genius of CICERO, inspired by the love of literature, hasthrown something delightful over this latest season of life, in his _deSenectute_. To have written on old age, in old age, is to have obtained atriumph over Time. [A]

[Footnote A: "Spurinna, or the Comforts of Old Age, " by the late SirThomas Bernard, was written a year or two before he died. ]

When the literary character shall discover himself to be like a strangerin a new world, when all that he loved has not life, and all that liveshas no love for old age: when his ear has ceased to listen, and nature haslocked up the man within himself, he may still expire amidst his busiedthoughts. Such aged votaries, like the old bees, have been found dying intheir honeycombs. Let them preserve but the flame alive on the altar, andat the last momenta they may be found in the act of sacrifice! Thevenerable BEDE, the instructor of his generation, and the historian for somany successive ones, expired in the act of dictating. Such was the fateof PETRARCH, who, not long before his death, had written to a friend, "Iread, I write, I think; such is my life, and my pleasures as they were inmy youth. " Petrarch was found lying on a folio in his library, from whichvolume he had been busied making extracts for the biography of hiscountrymen. His domestics having often observed him studying in thatreclining posture for days together, it was long before they discoveredthat the poet was no more. The fate of LEIBNITZ was similar: he was founddead with the "Argenis" of Barclay in his hand; he had been studying thestyle of that political romance as a model for his intended history of theHouse of Brunswick. The literary death of BARTHELEMY affords a remarkableproof of the force of uninterrupted habits of study. He had been slightlylooking over the newspaper, when suddenly he called for a Horace, openedthe volume, and found the passage, on which he paused for a moment; andthen, too feeble to speak, made a sign to bring him Dacier's; but hishands were already cold, the Horace fell--and the classical and dying manof letters sunk into a fainting fit, from which he never recovered. Such, too, was the fate--perhaps now told for the first time--of the great LordCLARENDON. It was in the midst of composition that his pen suddenlydropped from his hand on the paper, he took it up again, and again itdropped: deprived of the sense of touch--his hand without motion--the earlperceived himself struck by palsy--and the life of the noble exile closedamidst the warmth of a literary work unfinished!

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Universality of genius. --Limited notion of genius entertained by theancients. --Opposite faculties act with diminished force. --Men of geniusexcel only in a single art. 

The ancients addicted themselves to one species of composition; the tragicpoet appears not to have entered into the province of comedy, nor, as faras we know, were their historians writers of verse. Their artists workedon the same principle; and from Pliny's account of the ancient sculptors, we may infer that with them the true glory of genius consisted in carryingto perfection a single species of their art. They did not exercisethemselves indifferently on all subjects, but cultivated the favouriteones which they had chosen from the impulse of their own imagination. Thehand which could copy nature in a human form, with the characteristics ofthe age and the sex, and the occupations of life, refrained fromattempting the colossal and ideal majesty of a divinity; and when one ofthese sculptors, whose skill was pre-eminent in casting animals, hadexquisitely wrought the glowing coursers for a triumphal car, he requestedthe aid of Praxiteles to place the driver in the chariot, that his workmight not be disgraced by a human form of inferior beauty to his animals. Alluding to the devotion of an ancient sculptor to his labours, Madame deStaël has finely said, "The history of his life was the history of hisstatue. "

Such was the limited conception which the ancients formed of genius. Theyconfined it to particular objects or departments in art. But there is atendency among men of genius to ascribe a universality of power to amaster-intellect. Dryden imagined that Virgil could have written satireequally with Juvenal, and some have hardily defined genius as "a power toaccomplish all that we undertake. " But literary history will detect thisfallacy, and the failures of so many eminent men are instructions fromNature which must not be lost on us. 

No man of genius put forth more expansive promises of universal power thanLEIBNITZ. Science, imagination, history, criticism, fertilized the richestof human soils; yet LEIBNITZ, with immense powers and perpetual knowledge, dissipated them in the multiplicity of his pursuits. "The first ofphilosophers, " the late Professor Playfair observed, "has left nothing inthe immense tract of his intellect which can be distinguished as amonument of his genius. " As a universalist, VOLTAIRE remains unparalleledin ancient or in modern times. This voluminous idol of our neighboursstands without a rival in literature; but an exception, even if this wereone, cannot overturn a fundamental principle, for we draw our conclusionsnot from the fortune of one man of genius, but from the fate of many. Thereal claims of this great writer to invention and originality are asmoderate as his size and his variety are astonishing. The wonder of hisninety volumes is, that he singly consists of a number of men of thesecond order, making up one great man; for unquestionably some could rivalVoltaire in any single province, but no one but himself has possessed themall. Voltaire discovered a new art, that of creating a supplement to thegenius which had preceded him; and without Corneille, Racine, and Ariosto, it would be difficult to conjecture what sort of a poet Voltaire couldhave been. He was master, too, of a secret in composition, which consistedin a new style and manner. His style promotes, but never interruptsthinking, while it renders all subjects familiar to our comprehension: hismanner consists in placing objects well known in new combinations; heploughed up the fallow lands, and renovated the worn-out exhausted soils. Swift defined a good style, as "proper words in proper places. " Voltaire'simpulse was of a higher flight, "proper thoughts on proper subjects. "Swift's idea was that of a grammarian. Voltaire's feeling was that of aphilosopher. We are only considering this universal writer in his literarycharacter, which has fewer claims to the character of an inventor thanseveral who never attained to his celebrity. 

Are the original powers of genius, then, limited to a single art, and evento departments in that art? May not men of genius plume themselves withthe vainglory of universality? Let us dare to call this a vainglory;for he who stands the first in his class, does not really add to thedistinctive character of his genius, by a versatility which, howeverapparently successful, is always subordinate to the great character onwhich his fame rests. It is only that character which bears the racinessof the soil; it is only that impulse whose solitary force stamps theauthentic work of genius. To execute equally well on a variety of subjectsmay raise a suspicion of the nature of the executive power. Should it hemimetic, the ingenious writer may remain absolutely destitute of everyclaim to genius. DU CLOS has been refused the honours of genius by theFrench critics, because he wrote equally well on a variety of subjects. 

I know that this principle is contested by some of great name, who havethemselves evinced a wonderful variety of powers. This penurious principleflatters not that egotism which great writers share in common with theheroes who have aimed at universal empire. Besides, this universality mayanswer many temporary purposes. These writers may, however, observe thattheir contemporaries are continually disputing on the merits of theirversatile productions, and the most contrary opinions are even formed bytheir admirers; but their great individual character standing by itself, and resembling no other, is a positive excellence. It is time only, who isinfluenced by no name, and will never, like contemporaries, mistake thetrue work of genius. 

And if it be true that the primary qualities of the mind are so differentin men of genius as to render them more apt for one class than foranother, it would seem that whenever a pre-eminent faculty had shaped themind, a faculty of the most contrary nature must act with a diminishedforce, and the other often with an exclusive one. An impassioned andpathetic genius has never become equally eminent as a comic genius. RICHARDSON and FIELDING could not have written each other's works. CouldBUTLER, who excelled in wit and satire, like MILTON have excelled insentiment and imagination? Some eminent men have shown remarkable failuresin their attempts to cultivate opposite departments in their own pursuits. The tragedies and the comedies of DRYDEN equally prove that he was notblest with a dramatic genius. CIBBER, a spirited comic writer, was notedfor the most degrading failures in tragedy; while ROWE, successful in thesofter tones of the tragic muse, proved as luckless a candidate for thesmiles of the comic as the pathetic OTWAY. LA FONTAINE, unrivalledhumorist as a fabulist, found his opera hissed, and his romance utterlytedious. The true genius of STERNE was of a descriptive and pathetic cast, and his humour and ribaldry were a perpetual violation of his naturalbent. ALFIERI'S great tragic powers could not strike out into comedy orwit. SCARRON declared he intended to write a tragedy. The experiment wasnot made; but with his strong cast of mind and habitual associations, weprobably have lost a new sort of "Roman comique. " CICERO failed in poetry, ADDISON in oratory, VOLTAIRE in comedy, and JOHNSON in tragedy. TheAnacreontic poet remains only Anacreontic in his epic. With the fine artsthe same occurrence has happened. It has been observed in painting, thatthe school eminent for design was deficient in colouring; while those whowith Titian's warmth could make the blood circulate in the flesh, couldnever rival the expression and anatomy of even the middling artists of theRoman school. 

Even among those rare and gifted minds which have startled us by theversatility of their powers, whence do they derive the high character oftheir genius? Their durable claims are substantiated by what is inherentin themselves--what is individual--and not by that flexibility which mayinclude so much which others can equal. We rate them by their positiveoriginality, not by their variety of powers. When we think of YOUNG, it isonly of his "Night Thoughts, " not of his tragedies, nor his poems, noreven of his satires, which others have rivalled or excelled. Of AKENSIDE, the solitary work of genius is his great poem; his numerous odes are notof a higher order than those of other ode-writers. Had POPE only composedodes and tragedies, the great philosophical poet, master of human life andof perfect verse, had not left an undying name. TENIERS, unrivalled in thewalk of his genius, degraded history by the meanness of his conceptions. Such instances abound, and demonstrate an important truth in the historyof genius that we cannot, however we may incline, enlarge the naturalextent of our genius, any more than we can "add a cubit to our stature. "We may force it into variations, but in multiplying mediocrity, or indoing what others can do, we add nothing to genius. 

So true is it that men of genius appear only to excel in a single art, oreven in a single department of art, that it is usual with men of taste toresort to a particular artist for a particular object. Would you ornamentyour house by interior decorations, to whom would you apply if you soughtthe perfection of art, but to _different artists_, of very distinctcharacters in their invention and their execution? For your arabesques youwould call in the artist whose delicacy of touch and playfulness of ideasare not to be expected from the grandeur of the historical painter, or thesweetness of the _Paysagiste_. Is it not evident that men of genius_excel_ only in one department of their art, and that whatever they dowith the utmost original perfection, cannot be equally done by another manof genius? He whose undeviating genius guards itself in its own truesphere, has the greatest chance of encountering no rival. He is a Dante, aMilton, a Michael Angelo, a Raphael: his hand will not labour on what theItalians call _pasticcios_; and he remains not unimitated but inimitable. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Literature an avenue to glory. --An intellectual nobility not chimerical, but created by public opinion. --Literary honours of various nations. --Local associations with the memory of the man of genius. 

Literature is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious men whoare deprived of honours or of wealth. Like that illustrious Roman who owednothing to his ancestors, _videtur ex se natus_, these seem self-born; andin the baptism of fame, they have given themselves their name. Bruyère hasfinely said of men of genius, "These men have neither ancestors norposterity; they alone compose their whole race. "

But AKENSIDE, we have seen, blushed when his lameness reminded him of thefall of one of his father's cleavers; PRIOR, the son of a vintner, couldnot endure to be reminded, though by his favourite Horace, that "the caskretains its flavour;" like VOITURE, another descendant of a _marchand devin_, whose heart sickened over that which exhilarates all other hearts, whenever his opinion of its _quality_ was maliciously consulted. All theseinstances too evidently prove that genius is subject to the most vulgarinfirmities. 

But some have thought more courageously. The amiable ROLLIN was the son ofa cutler, but the historian of nations never felt his dignity compromisedby his birth. Even late in life, he ingeniously alluded to his firstoccupation, for we find an epigram of his in sending a knife for anew-year's gift, "informing his friend, that should this present appear tocome rather from Vulcan than from Minerva, it should not surprise, for, "adds the epigrammatist, "it was from the cavern of the Cyclops I began todirect my footsteps towards Parnassus. " The great political negotiator, Cardinal D'OSSAT, was elevated by his genius from an orphan state ofindigence, and was alike destitute of ancestry, of titles, even ofparents. On the day of his creation, when others of noble extractionassumed new titles from the seignorial names of their ancient houses, hewas at a loss to fix on one. Having asked the Pope whether he shouldchoose that of his bishopric, his holiness requested him to preserve hisplain family name, which he had rendered famous by his own genius. Thesons of a sword-maker, a potter, and a tax-gatherer, were the greatest ofthe orators, the most majestic of the poets, and the most graceful of thesatirists of antiquity; Demosthenes, Virgil, and Horace. The eloquentMassillon, the brilliant Fléchier, Rousseau, and Diderot; Johnson, Goldsmith, and Franklin, arose amidst the most humble avocations. 

Vespasian raised a statue to the historian JOSEPHUS, though a Jew; and theAthenians one to Æsop, though a slave. Even among great military republicsthe road to public honour was open, not alone to heroes and patricians, but to that solitary genius which derives from itself all which it givesto the public, and nothing from its birth or the public situation itoccupies. 

It is the prerogative of genius to elevate obscure men to the higher classof society. If the influence of wealth in the present day has created anew aristocracy of its own, where they already begin to be jealous oftheir ranks, we may assert that genius creates a sort of intellectualnobility, which is now conferred by public feeling; as heretofore thesurnames of "the African, " and of "Coriolanus, " won by valour, associatedwith the names of the conqueror of Africa and the vanquisher of Corioli. Were men of genius, as such, to have armorial bearings they might consist, not of imaginary things, of griffins and chimeras, but of deeds performedand of public works in existence. When DONDI raised the great astronomicalclock at the University of Padua, which was long the admiration of Europe, it gave a name and nobility to its maker and all his descendants. Therestill lives a Marquis Dondi dal' Horologio. Sir HUGH MIDDLETON, in memoryof his vast enterprise, changed his former arms to bear three piles, toperpetuate the interesting circumstance, that by these instruments he hadstrengthened the works he had invented, when his genius poured forth thewaters through our metropolis, thereby distinguishing it from allothers in the world. Should not EVELYN have inserted an oak-tree in hisbearings? for his "Sylva" occasioned the plantation of "many millions oftimber-trees, " and the present navy of Great Britain has been constructedwith the oaks which the genius of Evelyn planted. There was an eminentItalian musician, who had a piece of music inscribed on his tomb; and Ihave heard of a Dutch mathematician, who had a calculation for hisepitaph. 

We who were reproached for a coldness in our national character, havecaught the inspiration and enthusiasm for the works and the celebrity ofgenius; the symptoms indeed were long dubious. REYNOLDS wished to have oneof his own pictures, "Contemplation in the figure of an Angel, " carried athis funeral; a custom not unusual with foreign painters; but it was notdeemed prudent to comply with this last wish of the great artist, from thefears entertained as to the manner in which a London populace might havereceived such a novelty. This shows that the profound feeling of artis still confined within a circle among us, of which hereafter thecircumference perpetually enlarging, may embrace even the whole people. Ifthe public have borrowed the names of some lords to dignify a "Sandwich"and a "Spencer, " we may be allowed to raise into titles of literarynobility those distinctions which the public voice has attached to someauthors; _Æschylus_ Potter, _Athenian_ Stuart, and _Anacreon_ Moore. BUTLER, in his own day, was more generally known by the single andsingular name of _Hudibras_, than by his own. 

This intellectual nobility is not chimerical. Such titles must be foundindeed, in the years which are to come; yet the prelude of their famedistinguishes these men from the crowd. Whenever the rightful possessorappears, will not the eyes of all spectators be fixed on him? I allude toscenes which I have witnessed. Will not even literary honours superadd anobility to nobility; and make a name instantly recognised which mightotherwise be hidden under its rank, and remain unknown by its title? Ourillustrious list of literary noblemen is far more glorious than thesatirical "Catalogue of Noble Authors, " drawn up by a polished andheartless cynic, who has pointed his brilliant shafts at all who werechivalrous in spirit, or related to the family of genius. One may presumeon the existence of this intellectual nobility, from the extraordinarycircumstance that the great have actually felt a jealousy of the literaryrank. But no rivalry can exist in the solitary honour conferred on anauthor. It is not an honour derived from birth nor creation, but fromPUBLIC OPINION, and inseparable from his name, as an essential quality;for the diamond will sparkle and the rose will be fragrant, otherwise itis no diamond or rose. The great may well condescend to be humble togenius, since genius pays its homage in becoming proud of that humility. Cardinal Richelieu was mortified at the celebrity of the unbendingCORNEILLE; so were several noblemen at POPE'S indifference to their rank;and MAGLIABECHI, the book prodigy of his age, whom every literary strangervisited at Florence, assured Lord Raley that the Duke of Tuscany hadbecome jealous of the attention he was receiving from foreigners, as theyusually went to visit MAGLIABECHI before the Grand Duke. 

A confession by MONTESQUIEU states, with open candour, a fact in his lifewhich confirms this jealousy of the great with the literary character. "Onmy entering into life I was spoken of as a man of talents, and people ofcondition gave me a favourable reception; but when the success of myPersian Letters proved perhaps that I was not unworthy of my reputation, and the public began to esteem me, _my reception with the great wasdiscouraging, and I experienced innumerable mortifications. "_ Montesquieusubjoins a reflection sufficiently humiliating for the mere nobleman: "Thegreat, inwardly wounded with the glory of a celebrated name, seek tohumble it. In general he only can patiently endure the fame of others, whodeserves fame himself. " This sort of jealousy unquestionably prevailed inthe late Lord ORFORD, a wit, a man of the world, and a man of rank; butwhile he considered literature as a mere amusement, he was mortified atnot obtaining literary celebrity; he felt his authorial always beneath hispersonal character. It fell to my lot to develope his real feelingsrespecting himself and the literary men of his age. [A]

[Footnote A: "Calamities of Authors. " I printed, in 1812, extracts fromWalpole's correspondence with Cole. Some have considered that there was aseverity of delineation in my character of Horace Walpole. I was the_first_, in my impartial view of his literary character, to proclaim tothe world what it has now fully sanctioned, that "His most pleasing, ifnot his great talent, lay in _letter-writing;_ here he was without arival. His correspondence abounded with literature, criticism, and wit ofthe most original and brilliant composition. " This was published severalyears before the recent collection of his letters. ]

Who was the dignified character, Lord Chesterfield or Samuel Johnson, whenthe great author, proud of his protracted and vast labour, rejected hislordship's tardy and trivial patronage?[A] "I value myself, " says Swift, "upon making the ministry desire to be acquainted with PARNELL, and notParnell with the ministry. " PIRON would not suffer the literary characterto be lowered in his presence. Entering the apartment of a nobleman, whowas conducting another peer to the stairs-head, the latter stopped to makeway for Piron: "Pass on, my lord, " said the noble master; "pass, he isonly a poet. " PIRON replied, "Since our qualities are declared, I shalltake my rank, " and placed himself before the lord. Nor is this pride, thetrue source of elevated character, refused to the great artist as well asthe great author. MICHAEL ANGELO, invited by Julius II. To the court ofRome, found that intrigue had indisposed his holiness towards him, andmore than once the great artist was suffered to linger in attendance inthe antechamber. One day the indignant man of genius exclaimed, "Tell hisholiness, if he wants me, he must look for me elsewhere. " He flew back tohis beloved Florence, to proceed with that celebrated cartoon whichafterwards became a favourite study with all artists. Thrice the Popewrote for his return, and at length menaced the little State of Tuscanywith war, if Michael Angelo prolonged his absence. He returned. Thesublime artist knelt at the foot of the Father of the Church, turningaside his troubled countenance in silence. An intermeddling bishop offeredhimself as a mediator, apologising for our artist by observing, "Of thisproud humour are these painters made!" Julius turned to this pitiablemediator, and, as Vasari tells, used a switch on this occasion, observing, "You speak injuriously of him, while I am silent. It is you who areignorant. " Raising Michael Angelo, Julius II. Embraced the man of genius. 

[Footnote A: Johnson had originally submitted the plan of his"Dictionary" to Lord Chesterfield, but received no mark of interest orsympathy during its weary progress; when the moment of publicationapproached, his lordship, perhaps in the hope of earning a dedication, published in _The World_ two letters commending Johnson and his labours. It was this notice that produced Johnson's celebrated letter, in which heasks, --"Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a manstruggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbershim with help? The notice you have been pleased to take of my labours, hadit been early had been kind, but it has been delayed till I am indifferentand cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I amknown, and do not want it. "--ED. ]

"I can make lords of you every day, but I cannot create a Titian, " saidthe Emperor Charles V. To his courtiers, who had become jealous of thehours and the half-hours which the monarch stole from them that he mightconverse with the man of genius at his work. There is an elevatedintercourse between power and genius; and if they are deficient inreciprocal esteem, neither are great. The intellectual nobility seems tohave been asserted by De Harlay, a great French statesman; for when theAcademy was once not received with royal honours, he complained to theFrench monarch, observing, that when "a man of letters was presented toFrancis I. For the first time, the king always advanced three steps fromthe throne to receive him. " It is something more than an ingeniousthought, when Fontenelle, in his _éloge_ on LEIBNITZ, alluding to thedeath of Queen Anne, adds of her successor, that "The Elector of Hanoverunited under his dominion an electorate, the three kingdoms of GreatBritain, and LEIBNITZ and NEWTON. "[A]

[Footnote A: This greatness of intellect that glorifies a court, howeversmall, is well instanced in that at Weimar, where the Duke Fredericsurrounded himself with the first men in Germany. It was the chosenresidence and burial-place of Herder; the birth-place of Kotzebue. Herealso Wieland resided for many years; and in the vaults of the ducal chapelthe ashes of Schiller repose by those of Goethe, who for more than half acentury assisted in the councils, and adorned the court of Weimar. --Ed. ]

If ever the voice of individuals can recompense a life of literary labour, it is in speaking a foreign accent. This sounds like the distant plauditof posterity. The distance of space between the literary character and theinquirer, in some respects represents the distance of time which separatesthe author from the next age. FONTENELLE was never more gratified thanwhen a Swede, arriving at the gates of Paris, inquired of the custom-houseofficers where Fontenelle resided, and expressed his indignation that notone of them had ever heard of his name. HOBBES expresses his proud delightthat his portrait was sought after by foreigners, and that the Great Dukeof Tuscany made the philosopher the object of his first inquiries. CAMDENwas not insensible to the visits of German noblemen, who were desirous ofseeing the British Pliny; and POCOCK, while he received no aid frompatronage at home for his Oriental studies, never relaxed in thoseunrequited labours, animated by the learned foreigners, who hastened tosee and converse with this prodigy of Eastern learning. 

Yes! to the very presence of the man of genius will the worldspontaneously pay their tribute of respect, of admiration, or of love. Many a pilgrimage has he lived to receive, and many a crowd has followedhis footsteps! There are days in the life of genius which repay itssufferings. DEMOSTHENES confessed he was pleased when even a fishwoman ofAthens pointed him out. CORNEILLE had his particular seat in the theatre, and the audience would rise to salute him when he entered. At the presenceof RAYNAL in the House of Commons, the Speaker was requested to suspendthe debate till that illustrious foreigner, who had written on the Englishparliament, was accommodated with a seat. SPINOSA, when he gained anhumble livelihood by grinding optical glasses, at an obscure village inHolland, was visited by the first general in Europe, who, for the sake ofthis philosophical conference, suspended the march of the army. 

In all ages and in all countries has this feeling been created. It isneither a temporary ebullition nor an individual honour. It comes out ofthe heart of man. It is the passion of great souls. In Spain, whatever wasmost beautiful in its kind was described by the name of the great Spanishbard:[A] everything excellent was called a Lope. Italy would furnish avolume of the public honours decreed to literary men; nor is that spiritextinct, though the national character has fallen by the chance offortune. METASTASIO and TIRABOSCHI received what had been accorded toPETRARCH and to POGGIO. Germany, patriotic to its literary characters, isthe land of the enthusiasm of genius. On the borders of the Linnet, in thepublic walk of Zurich, the monument of GESNER, erected by the votes of hisfellow-citizens attests their sensibility; and a solemn funeral honouredthe remains of KLOPSTOCK, led by the senate of Hamburgh, with fiftythousand votaries, so penetrated by one universal sentiment, that thismultitude preserved a mournful silence, and the interference of the policeceased to be necessary through the city at the solemn burial of the man ofgenius. Has even Holland proved insensible? The statue of ERASMUS, inRotterdam, still animates her young students, and offers a noble exampleto her neighbours of the influence even of the sight of the statue of aman of genius. Travellers never fail to mention ERASMUS when Basleoccupies their recollections; so that, as Bayle observes, "He has renderedthe place of his death as celebrated as that of his birth. " In France, since Francis I. Created genius, and Louis XIV. Protected it, the impulsehas been communicated to the French people. There the statues of theirillustrious men spread inspiration on the spots which living they wouldhave haunted:--in their theatres, the great dramatists; in their Institutetheir illustrious authors; in their public edifices, congenial men ofgenius. [B] This is worthy of the country which privileged the family of LAFONTAINE to be for ever exempt from taxes, and decreed that "theproductions of the mind were not seizable, " when the creditors ofCREBILLON would have attached the produce of his tragedies. 

[Footnote A: Lope de Vega. ]

[Footnote B: We cannot bury the fame of our English worthies--that existsbefore us, independent of ourselves; but we bury the influence of theirinspiring presence in those immortal memorials of genius easy to be readby all men--their statues and their busts, consigning them to spots seldomvisited, and often too obscure to be viewed. [We have recent evidence of amore noble acknowledgment of our great men. The statue of Dr. Jenner isplaced in Trafalgar Square; and Grantham has now a noble work tocommemorate its great townsman, Sir Isaac Newton. ]]

These distinctive honours accorded to genius were in unison with theirdecree respecting the will of BAYLE. It was the subject of a lawsuitbetween the heir of the will and the inheritor by blood. The lattercontested that this great literary character, being a fugitive forreligion, and dying in a proscribed country, was divested by law of thepower to dispose of his property, and that our author, when resident inHolland, in a civil sense was dead. In the Parliament of Toulouse thejudge decided that learned men are free in all countries: that he who hadsought in a foreign land an asylum from his love of letters, was nofugitive; that it was unworthy of France to treat as a stranger a son inwhom she gloried, and he protested against the notion of a civil death tosuch a man as Bayle, whose name was living throughout Europe. Thisjudicial decision in France was in unison with that of the senate ofRotterdam, who declared of the emigrant BAYLE, that "such a man should notbe considered as a foreigner. "

Even the most common objects are consecrated when associated with thememory of the man of genius. We still seek for his tomb on the spot whereit has vanished. The enthusiasts of genius still wander on the hills ofPausilippo, and muse on VIRGIL to retrace his landscape. There is a groveat Magdalen College which retains the name of ADDISON's walk, where stillthe student will linger; and there is a cave at Macao, which is stillvisited by the Portuguese from a national feeling, for CAMOENS therepassed many days in composing his Lusiad. When PETRARCH was passing by hisnative town, he was received with the honours of his fame; but when theheads of the town conducted Petrarch to the house where the poet was born, and informed him that the proprietor had often wished to make alterations, but that the townspeople had risen to insist that the house which wasconsecrated by the birth of Petrarch should be preserved unchanged; thiswas a triumph more affecting to Petrarch than his coronation at Rome. [A]

[Footnote A: On this passage I find a remarkable manuscript note by LordByron:--"It would have pained me more that 'the proprietor' should have'often wished to make alterations, than it could give pleasure that therest of Arezzo rose against his _right_ (for _right_ he had); thedepreciation of the lowest of mankind is more painful than the applause ofthe highest is pleasing; the sting of a scorpion is more in torture thanthe possession of anything could be in rapture. "]

In the village of Certaldo is still shown the house of BOCCACCIO; and on aturret are seen the arms of the Medici, which they had sculptured there, with an inscription alluding to a small house and a name which filled theworld; and in Ferrara, the small house which ARIOSTO built was purchased, to be preserved, by the municipality, and there they still show the poet'sstudy; and under his bust a simple but affecting tribute to genius recordsthat "Ludovico Ariosto in this apartment wrote. " Two hundred and eightyyears after the death of the divine poet it was purchased by the_podesta_, with the money of the _commune_, that "the public venerationmay be maintained. "[A] "Foreigners, " says Anthony Wood of MILTON, "have, out of pure devotion, gone to Bread-street to see the house and chamberwhere he was born;" and at Paris the house which VOLTAIRE inhabited, andat Ferney his study, are both preserved inviolate. In the study ofMONTESQUIEU at La Brede, near Bordeaux, the proprietor has preserved allthe furniture, without altering anything, that the apartment where thisgreat man meditated on his immortal work should want for nothing to assistthe reveries of the spectator; and on the side of the chimney is stillseen a place which while writing he was accustomed to rub his feetagainst, as they rested on it. In a keep or dungeon of this feudal_château_, the local association suggested to the philosopher his chapteron "The Liberty of the Citizen. " It is the second chapter of the twelfthbook, of which the close is remarkable. 

[Footnote A: A public subscription secured the house in which Shakspearewas born at Stratford-on-Avon. Durer's house, at Nuremberg, is stillreligiously preserved, and its features are unaltered. The house in whichMichael Angelo resided at Florence is also carefully guarded, and therooms are still in the condition in which they were left by the greatmaster. --Ed. ]

Let us regret that the little villa of POPE, and the poetic Leasowes ofSHENSTONE, have fallen the victims of property as much as if destroyed bythe barbarous hand which cut down the consecrated tree of Shakspeare. Thevery apartment of a man of genius, the chair he studied in, the table hewrote on, are contemplated with curiosity; the spot is full of localimpressions. And all this happens from an unsatisfied desire to see andhear him whom we never can see nor hear; yet, in a moment of illusion, ifwe listen to a traditional conversation, if we can revive one of hisfeelings, if we can catch but a dim image, we reproduce this man of geniusbefore us, on whose features we so often dwell. Even the rage of themilitary spirit has taught itself to respect the abode of genius; andCæsar and Sylla, who never spared the blood of their own Rome, alike felttheir spirit rebuked, and alike saved the literary city of Athens. Antiquity has preserved a beautiful incident of this nature, in the noblereply of the artist PROTOGENES. When the city of Rhodes was taken byDemetrius, the man of genius was discovered in his garden, tranquillyfinishing a picture. "How is it that you do not participate in the generalalarm?" asked the conqueror. "Demetrius, you war against the Rhodians, butnot against the fine arts, " replied the man of genius. Demetrius hadalready shown this by his conduct, for he forbade firing that part of thecity where the artist resided. 

The house of the man of genius has been spared amidst contending empires, from the days of Pindar to those of Buffon; "the Historian of Nature's"château was preserved from this elevated feeling by Prince Schwartzenberg, as our MARLBOROUGH had performed the same glorious office in guarding thehallowed asylum of FENELON. [A] In the grandeur of Milton's verse weperceive the feeling he associated with this literary honour:

 The great Emathian conqueror bid spare The house of Pindarus when temple and tower Went to the ground--. 

[Footnote A: The printing office of Plantyn, at Antwerp, was guarded in asimilar manner during the great revolution that separated Holland andBelgium, when a troop of soldiers were stationed in its courtyard. See"Curiosities of Literature, " vol. I. P. 77, _note_. --ED. ]

And the meanest things, the very household stuff, associated with thememory of the man of genius, become the objects of our affections. At afestival, in honour of THOMSON the poet, the chair in which he composedpart of his "Seasons" was produced, and appears to have communicated someof the raptures to which he was liable who had sat in that chair. RABEIAIS, amongst his drollest inventions, could not have imagined thathis old cloak would have been preserved in the university of Montpelierfor future doctors to wear on the day they took their degree; nor couldSHAKSPEARE have supposed, with all his fancy, that the mulberry-tree whichhe planted would have been multiplied into relics. But in such instancesthe feeling is right, with a wrong direction; and while the populace areexhausting their emotions on an old tree, an old chair, and an old cloak, they are paying that involuntary tribute to genius which forms its pride, and will generate the race. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Influence of Authors on society, and of society on Authors. --Nationaltastes a source of literary prejudices. --True Genius always the organ ofits nation. --Master-writers preserve the distinct national character. --Genius the organ of the state of the age. --Causes of its suppression ina people. --Often invented, but neglected. --The natural gradations ofgenius. --Men of Genius produce their usefulness in privacy. --The publicmind is now the creation of the public writer. --Politicians affect to denythis principle. --Authors stand between the governors and the governed. --Aview of the solitary Author in his study. --They create an epoch inhistory. --Influence of popular Authors. --The immortality of thought. --TheFamily of Genius illustrated by their genealogy. 

Literary fame, which is the sole preserver of all other fame, participateslittle, and remotely, in the remuneration and the honours of professionalcharacters. All other professions press more immediately on the wants andattentions of men, than the occupations of LITERARY CHARACTERS, who fromtheir habits are secluded; producing their usefulness often at a lateperiod of life, and not always valued by their own generation. 

It is not the commercial character of a nation which inspires venerationin mankind, nor will its military power engage the affections of itsneighbours. So late as in 1700 the Italian Gemelli told all Europe that hecould find nothing among us but our _writings_ to distinguish us from apeople of barbarians. It was long considered that our genius partookof the density and variableness of our climate, and that we wereincapacitated even by situation from the enjoyments of those beautifularts which have not yet travelled to us--as if Nature herself had designedto disjoin us from more polished nations and brighter skies. 

At length we have triumphed! Our philosophers, our poets, and ourhistorians, are printed at foreign presses. This is a perpetual victory, and establishes the ascendancy of our genius, as much at least as thecommerce and the prowess of England. This singular revolution in thehistory of the human mind, and by its reaction this singular revolution inhuman affairs, was effected by a glorious succession of AUTHORS, who haveenabled our nation to arbitrate among the nations of Europe, and topossess ourselves of their involuntary esteem by discoveries in science, by principles in philosophy, by truths in history, and even by the gracesof fiction; and there is not a man of genius among foreigners who standsunconnected with our intellectual sovereignty. Even had our countrydisplayed more limited resources than its awful powers have opened, andhad the sphere of its dominion been enclosed by its island boundaries, ifthe same _national literary character_ had predominated, we should havestood on the same eminence among our Continental rivals. The small citiesof Athens and of Florence will perpetually attest the influence of theliterary character over other nations. The one received the tribute of themistress of the universe, when the Romans sent their youth to be educatedat the Grecian city, while the other, at the revival of letters, beheldevery polished European crowding to its little court. 

In closing this imperfect work by attempting to ascertain the realinfluence of authors on society, it will be necessary to notice somecurious facts in the history of genius. 

The distinct literary tastes of different nations, and the repugnance theymutually betray for the master-writers of each other, is an importantcircumstance to the philosophical observer. These national tastesoriginate in modes of feeling, in customs, in idioms, and all the numerousassociations prevalent among every people. The reciprocal influence ofmanners on taste, and of taste on manners--of government and religion onthe literature of a people, and of their literature on the nationalcharacter, with other congenial objects of inquiry, still require a moreample investigation. Whoever attempts to reduce this diversity, and thesestrong contrasts of national tastes to one common standard, by forcingsuch dissimilar objects into comparative parallels, or by trying them byconventional principles and arbitrary regulations, will often condemn whatin truth his mind is inadequate to comprehend, and the experience of hisassociations to combine. 

These attempts have been the fertile source in literature of what may becalled national prejudices. The French nation insists that the northernsare defective in taste--the taste, they tell us, which is established atParis, and which existed at Athens: the Gothic imagination of the northspurns at the timid copiers of the Latin classics, and interminabledisputes prevail in their literature, as in their architecture and theirpainting. Philosophy discovers a fact of which taste seems littleconscious; it is, that genius varies with the soil, and produces anationality of taste. The feelings of mankind indeed have the samecommon source, but they must come to us through the medium and by themodifications of society. Love is a universal passion, but the poetry oflove in different nations is peculiar to each; for every great poetbelongs to his country. Petrarch, Lope de Vega, Racine, Shakspeare, andSadi, would each express this universal passion by the most specificdifferences; and the style that would be condemned as unnatural by onepeople, might be habitual with another. The _concetti_ of the Italian, thefigurative style of the Persian, the swelling grandeur of the Spaniard, the classical correctness of the French, are all modifications of genius, relatively true to each particular writer. On national tastes critics arebut wrestlers: the Spaniard will still prefer his Lope de Vega to theFrench Racine, or the English his Shakspeare, as the Italian his Tasso andhis Petrarch. Hence all national writers are studied with enthusiasm bytheir own people, and their very peculiarities, offensive to others, withthe natives constitute their excellences. Nor does this perpetual contestabout the great writers of other nations solely arise from an associationof patriotic glory, but really because these great native writers havemost strongly excited the sympathies and conformed to the habitual tastesof their own people. 

Hence, then, we deduce that true genius is the organ of its nation. Thecreative faculty is itself created; for it is the nation which firstimparts an impulse to the character of genius. Such is the real source ofthose distinct tastes which we perceive in all great national authors. Every literary work, to ensure its success, must adapt itself to thesympathies and the understandings of the people it addresses. Hence thoseopposite characteristics, which are usually ascribed to the master-writersthemselves, originate with the country, and not with the writer. LOPE DEVEGA, and CALDEBON, in their dramas, and CERVANTES, who has left his nameas the epithet of a peculiar grave humour, were Spaniards before they weremen of genius. CORNEILLE, RACINE, and RABELAIS, are entirely of anopposite character to the Spaniards, having adapted their genius to theirown declamatory and vivacious countrymen. PETRARCH and TASSO display afancifulness in depicting the passions, as BOCCACCIO narrates hisfacetious stories, quite distinct from the inventions and style ofnorthern writers. SHAKSPEARE is placed at a wider interval from all ofthem than they are from each other, and is as perfectly insular in hisgenius as his own countrymen were in their customs, and their modes ofthinking and feeling. 

Thus the master-writers of every people preserve the distinct nationalcharacter in their works; and hence that extraordinary enthusiasm withwhich every people read their own favourite authors; but in which otherscannot participate, and for which, with all their national prejudices, they often recriminate on each other with false and even ludicrouscriticism. 

But genius is not only the organ of its nation, it is also that of thestate of the times; and a great work usually originates in the age. Certain events must precede the man of genius, who often becomes only thevehicle of public feeling. MACHIAVEL has been reproached for propagating apolitical system subversive of all human honour and happiness; but was itMachiavel who formed his age, or the age which created Machiavel? Livingamong the petty principalities of Italy, where stratagem and assassinationwere the practices of those wretched courts, what did that calumniatedgenius more than lift the veil from a cabinet of bandtiti? MACHIAVELalarmed the world by exposing a system subversive of all human virtue andhappiness, and, whether he meant it or not, certainly led the way topolitical freedom. On the same principle we may learn that BOCCACCIO wouldnot have written so many indecent tales had not the scandalous lives ofthe monks engaged public attention. This we may now regret; but the courtof Rome felt the concealed satire, and that luxurious and numerous classin society never recovered from the chastisement. 

MONTAIGNE has been censured for his universal scepticism, and for theunsettled notions he drew out on his motley page, which has beenattributed to his incapacity of forming decisive opinions. "Que sçais-je?"was his motto, The same accusation may reach the gentle ERASMUS, who alikeoffended the old catholics and the new reformers. The real source of theirvacillations we may discover in the age itself. It was one of controversyand of civil wars, when the minds of men were thrown into perpetualagitation, and opinions, like the victories of the parties, were every daychanging sides. 

Even in its advancement beyond the intelligence of its own age genius isbut progressive. In nature all is continuous; she makes no starts andleaps. Genius is said to soar, but we should rather say that geniusclimbs. Did the great VERULAM, or RAWLEIGH, or Dr. MORE, emancipatethemselves from all the dreams of their age, from the occult agency ofwitchcraft, the astral influence, and the ghost and demon creed?

Before a particular man of genius can appear, certain events must arise toprepare the age for him. A great commercial nation, in the maturity oftime, opened all the sources of wealth to the contemplation of ADAM SMITH. That extensive system of what is called political economy could not havebeen produced at any other time; for before this period the materials ofthis work had but an imperfect existence, and the advances which this sortof science had made were only partial and preparatory. If the principle ofAdam Smith's great work seems to confound the happiness of a nation withits wealth, we can scarcely reproach the man of genius, who we shall findis always reflecting back the feelings of his own nation, even in his mostoriginal speculations. 

In works of pure imagination we trace the same march of the humanintellect; and we discover in those inventions, which appear sealed bytheir originality, how much has been derived from the age and the peoplein which they were produced. Every work of genius is tinctured by thefeelings, and often originates in the events, of the times. The _Inferno_of DANTE was caught from the popular superstitions of the age, and hadbeen preceded by the gross visions which the monks had forged, usually fortheir own purposes. "La Cittá dolente, " and "la perduta gente, " werefamiliar to the imaginations of the people, by the monkish visions, and itseems even by ocular illusions of Hell, exhibited in Mysteries, withits gulfs of flame, and its mountains of ice, and the shrieks of thecondemned. [A] To produce the "Inferno" only required the giant step ofgenius, in the sombre, the awful, and the fierce, DANTE. When the age ofchivalry flourished, all breathed of love and courtesy; the great man wasthe great lover, and the great author the romancer. It was from his ownage that MILTON derived his greatest blemish--the introduction ofschool-divinity into poetry. In a polemical age the poet, as well as thesovereign, reflected the reigning tastes. 

[Footnote A: Sismondi relates that the bed of the river Arno, at Florence, was transformed into a representation of the Gulf of Hell, in the year1304; and that all the variety of suffering that monkish imagination hadinvented was apparently inflicted on real persons, whose shrieks andgroans gave fearful reality to the appalling scene. --ED. ]

There are accidents to which genius is liable, and by which it isfrequently suppressed in a people. The establishment of the Inquisition inSpain at one stroke annihilated all the genius of the country. Cervantessaid that the Inquisition had spoilt many of his most delightfulinventions; and unquestionably it silenced the wit and invention of anation whose proverbs attest they possessed them even to luxuriance. Allthe continental nations have boasted great native painters and architects, while these arts were long truly foreign to us. Theoretical critics, at aloss to account for this singularity, accused not only our climate, buteven our diet, as the occult causes of our unfitness to cultivate them. Yet Montesquieu and Winkelmann might have observed that the air of fensand marshes had not deprived the gross feeders of Holland and Flanders ofadmirable artists. We have teen outrageously calumniated. So far from anynational incapacity, or obtuse feelings, attaching to ourselves in respectto these arts, the noblest efforts had long been made, not only byindividuals, but by the magnificence of Henry VIII. , who invited to hiscourt Raphael and Titian; but unfortunately only obtained Holbein. A latersovereign, Charles the First, not only possessed galleries of pictures, and was the greatest purchaser in Europe, for he raised their value, buthe likewise possessed the taste and the science of the connoisseur. Something, indeed, had occurred to our national genius, which had thrownit into a stupifying state, from which it is yet hardly aroused. Couldthose foreign philosophers have ascended to moral causes, insteadof vapouring forth fanciful notions, they might have struck at thetrue cause of the deficiency in our national genius. The jealousy ofpuritanic fanaticism had persecuted these arts from the first rise of theReformation in this country. It had not only banished them from ourchurches and altar-pieces, but the fury of the people, and the "wisdom" ofparliament, had alike combined to mutilate and even efface what littleremained of painting and sculpture among us. Even within our own timesthis deadly hostility to art was not extinct; for when a proposal was madegratuitously to decorate our places of worship by a series of religiouspictures, and English artists, in pure devotion to Art, zealous to confutethe Continental calumniators, asked only for walls to cover, George theThird highly approved of the plan. The design was put aside, as some had anotion that the cultivation of the fine arts in our naked churches was areturn to Catholicism. Had this glorious plan been realized, the goldenage of English art might have arisen. Every artist would have invented asubject most congenial to his powers. REYNOLDS would have emulated Raphaelin the Virgin and Child in the manger, WEST had fixed on Christ raisingthe young man from the dead, BARRY had profoundly meditated on the Jewsrejecting Jesus. Thus did an age of genius perish before its birth! It wason the occasion of this frustrated project that BARRY, in the rage ofdisappointment, immortalised himself by a gratuitous labour of seven yearson the walls of the Society of Arts, for which, it is said, the Frenchgovernment under Buonaparte offered ten thousand pounds. 

Thus also it has happened, that we have possessed among ourselvesgreat architects, although opportunities for displaying their genius havebeen rare. This the fate and fortune of two Englishmen attest. Without thefire of London we might not have shown the world one of the greatestarchitects, in Sir CHRISTOPHER WREN; had not a St. Paul's been requiredby the nation he would have found no opportunity of displaying themagnificence of his genius, which even then was mutilated, as the originalmodel bears witness to the world. That great occasion served this noblearchitect to multiply his powers in other public edifices: and it is hereworth remarking that, had not Charles II. Been seized by apoplexy, the royal residence, which was begun at Winchester on a plan of SirChristopher Wren's, by its magnificence would have raised a Versailles forEngland. 

The fate of INIGO JONES is as remarkable as that of WREN. Whitehallafforded a proof to foreigners that among a people which, before thatedifice appeared, was reproached for their total deficiency of feelingfor the pure classical style of architecture, the true taste couldnevertheless exist. This celebrated piece of architecture, however, is buta fragment of a grander composition, by which, had not the civil warsintervened, the fame of Britain would have balanced the glory of Greece, or Italy, or France, and would have shown that our country is moredeficient in marble than in genius. Thus the fire of London produces a St. Paul's, and the civil wars suppress a Whitehall. Such circumstances in thehistory of art among nations have not always been developed by thosetheorists who have calumniated the artists of England. 

In the history of genius it is remarkable that its work is often invented, and lies neglected. A close observer of this age pointed out to me thatthe military genius of that great French captain, who so long appeared tohave conquered Europe, was derived from his applying the new principles ofwar discovered by FOLARD and GUIBERT. The genius of FOLARD observed that, among the changes of military discipline in the practice of war amongEuropean nations since the introduction of gunpowder, one of the ancientmethods of the Romans had been improperly neglected, and, in hisCommentaries on Polybius, Folard revived this forgotten mode of warfare. GUIBERT, in his great work, "Histoire de la Milice Française, " or ratherthe History of the Art of War, adopted Folard's system of charging bycolumns, and breaking the centre of the enemy, which seems to be thefamous plan of our Rodney and Nelson in their maritime battles. But thisfavourite plan became the ridicule of the military; and the boldness ofhis pen, with the high confidence of the author, only excited adversariesto mortify his pretensions, and to treat him as a dreamer. From thisperpetual opposition to his plans, and the neglect he incurred, GUIBEBTdied of "vexation of spirit;" and the last words on the death-bed of thisman of genius were, "One day they will know me!" FOLARD and GUIBERTcreated a BUONAPARTE, who studied them on the field of battle; and he whowould trace the military genius who so long held in suspense the fate ofthe world, may discover all that he performed in the neglected inventionsof preceding genius. 

Hence also may we deduce the natural gradations of genius. Many men ofgenius must arise before a particular man of genius can appear. BeforeHOMER there were other epic poets; a catalogue of their names and theirworks has come down to us. CORNEILLE could not have been the chiefdramatist of France had not the founders of the French drama preceded him, and POPE could not have preceded DRYDEN. It was in the nature of thingsthat a GIOTTO and a CIMABUE should have preceded a RAPHAEL and a MICHAELANGELO. 

Even the writings of such extravagant geniuses as BRUNO and CAEDAN gaveindications of the progress of the human mind; and had RAMUS not shakenthe authority of the _Organon_ of Aristotle we might not have had the_Novum Organon_ of BACON. Men slide into their degree in the scale ofgenius often by the exercise of a single quality which their predecessorsdid not possess, or by completing what at first was left imperfect. Truthis a single point in knowledge, as beauty is in art: ages revolve till aNEWTON and a LOCKE accomplish what an ARISTOTLE and a DESCARTES began. Theold theory of animal spirits, observes Professor Dugald Stewart, wasapplied by DESCARTES to explain the mental phenomena which led NEWTON intothat train of thinking, which served as the groundwork of HARTLEY'S theoryof vibrations. The learning of one man makes others learned, and theinfluence of genius is in nothing more remarkable than in its effects onits brothers. SELDEN'S treatise on the Syrian and Arabian Deities enabledMILTON to comprise, in one hundred and thirty beautiful lines, the twolarge and learned syntagma which Selden had composed on that abstractsubject. LELAND, the father of British antiquities, impelled STOWE to workon his "Survey of London;" and Stowe's "London" inspired CAMDEN'Sstupendous "Britannia. " Herodotus produced Thucydides, and ThucydidesXenophon. With us HUME, ROBERTSON, and GIBBON rose almost simultaneouslyby mutual inspiration. There exists a perpetual action and reaction in thehistory of the human mind. It has frequently been inquired why certainperiods seem to have been more favourable to a particular class of geniusthan another; or, in other words, why men of genius appear in clusters. Wehave theories respecting barren periods, which are only satisfactorilyaccounted for by moral causes. Genius generates enthusiasm and rivalry;but, having reached the meridian of its class, we find that there can beno progress in the limited perfection of human nature. All excellence inart, if it cannot advance, must decline. 

Important discoveries are often obtained by accident; but the single workof a man of genius, which has at length changed the character of a people, and even of an age, is slowly matured in meditation. Even the mechanicalinventions of genius must first become perfect in its own solitaryabode ere the world can possess them. Men of genius then produce theirusefulness in privacy; but it may not be of immediate application, and isoften undervalued by their own generation. 

The influence of authors is so great, while the author himself is soinconsiderable, that to some the cause may not appear commensurate to itseffect. When EPICURUS published his doctrines, men immediately began toexpress themselves with freedom on the established religion, and the darkand fearful superstitions of paganism, falling into neglect, moulderedaway. If, then, before the art of multiplying the productions of the humanmind existed, the doctrines of a philosopher in manuscript or by lecturecould diffuse themselves throughout a literary nation, it will baffle thealgebraist of metaphysics to calculate the unknown quantities of thepropagation of human thought. There are problems in metaphysics, as wellas in mathematics, which can never be resolved. 

A small portion of mankind appears marked out by nature and by study forthe purpose of cultivating their thoughts in peace, and of giving activityto their discoveries, by disclosing them to the people. "Could I, "exclaims MONTESQUIEU, whose heart was beating with the feelings of a greatauthor, "could I but afford new reasons to men to love their duties, theirking, their country, their laws, that they might become more sensible oftheir happiness under every government they live, and in every stationthey occupy, I should deem myself the happiest of men!" Such was the pureaspiration of the great author who studied to preserve, by ameliorating, the humane fabric of society. The same largeness of mind characterises allthe eloquent friends of the human race. In an age of religious intoleranceit inspired the President DE THOU to inculcate, from sad experience and ajuster view of human nature, the impolicy as well as the inhumanity ofreligious persecutions, in that dedication to Henry IV. , which LordMansfield declared he could never read without rapture. "I was not bornfor myself alone, but for my country and my friends!" exclaimed the geniuswhich hallowed the virtuous pages of his immortal history. 

Even our liberal yet dispassionate LOCKE restrained the freedom of hisinquiries, and corrected the errors which the highest intellect may fallinto, by marking out that impassable boundary which must probablyfor ever limit all human intelligence; for the maxim which LOCKEconstantly inculcates is that "Reason must be the last judge and guide ineverything. " A final answer to those who propagate their opinions, whatever they may be, with a sectarian spirit, to force the understandingsof other men to their own modes of belief, and their own variableopinions. This alike includes those who yield up nothing to the genius oftheir age to correct the imperfections of society, and those who, opposingall human experience, would annihilate what is most admirable in itsinstitutions. 

The public mind is the creation of the Master-Writers--an axiom asdemonstrable as any in Euclid, and a principle as sure in its operation asany in mechanics. BACON'S influence over philosophy, and GROTICS'S overthe political state of society, are still felt, and their principlespractised far more than in their own age. These men of genius, intheir solitude, and with their views not always comprehended by theircontemporaries, became themselves the founders of our science and ourlegislation. When LOCKE and MONTESQUIEU appeared, the old systems ofgovernment were reviewed, the principle of toleration was developed, andthe revolutions of opinion were discovered. 

A noble thought of VITRUVIUS, who, of all the authors of antiquity, seemsto have been most deeply imbued with the feelings of the literarycharacter, has often struck me by the grandeur and the truth of itsconception. "The sentiments of excellent writers, " he says, "althoughtheir persons be for ever absent, exist in future ages; and in councilsand debates are of greater authority than those of the persons who arepresent. "

But politicians affect to disbelieve that abstract principles possess anyconsiderable influence on the conduct of the subject. They tell us that"in times of tranquillity they are not wanted, and in times of confusionthey are never heard;" this is the philosophy of men who do not choosethat philosophy should disturb their fireside! But it is in leisure, whenthey are not wanted, that the speculative part of mankind create them, andwhen they are wanted they are already prepared for the active multitude, who come, like a phalanx, pressing each other with a unity of feeling andan integrity of force. PALEY would not close his eyes on what was passingbefore him; for, he has observed, that during the convulsions at Geneva, the political theory of ROUSSEAU was prevalent in their contests; while, in the political disputes of our country, the ideas of civil authoritydisplayed in the works of LOCKE recurred in every form. The character of agreat author can never be considered as subordinate in society; nor dopoliticians secretly think so at the moment they are proclaiming it to theworld, for, on the contrary, they consider the worst actions of men as offar less consequence than the propagation of their opinions. Politicianshave exposed their disguised terrors. Books, as well as their authors, have been tried and condemned. Cromwell was alarmed when he saw the"Oceana" of HARRINGTON, and dreaded the effects of that volume more thanthe plots of the Royalists; while Charles II. Trembled at an author onlyin his manuscript state, and in the height of terror, and to the honour ofgenius, it was decreed, that "Scribere est agere. "--"The book ofTelemachus, " says Madame de Staël, "was a courageous action. " To insistwith such ardour on the duties of a sovereign, and to paint with suchtruth a voluptuous reign, disgraced Fenelon at the court of Louis XIV. , but the virtuous author raised a statue for himself in all hearts. MASSILLON'S _Petit Carême_ was another of these animated recals of man tothe sympathies of his nature, which proves the influence of an author;for, during the contests of Louis XV. With the Parliaments, large editionsof this book were repeatedly printed and circulated through the kingdom. In such moments it is that a people find and know the value of a greatauthor, whose work is the mighty organ which convoys their voice to theirgovernors. 

But, if the influence of benevolent authors over society is great, it mustnot be forgotten that the abuse of this influence is terrific. Authorspreside at a tribunal in Europe which is independent of all the powers ofthe earth--the tribunal of Opinion! But since, as Sophocles has longdeclared, "Opinion is stronger than Truth, " it is unquestionable that thefalsest and the most depraved notions are, as long as these opinionsmaintain their force, accepted as immutable truths; and the mistakes ofone man become the crimes of a whole people. 

Authors stand between the governors and the governed, and form the singleorgan of both. Those who govern a nation cannot at the same time enlightenthe people, for the executive power is not empirical; and the governedcannot think, for they have no continuity of leisure. The great systems ofthought, and the great discoveries in moral and political philosophy, havecome from the solitude of contemplative men, seldom occupied in publicaffairs or in private employments. The commercial world owes to tworetired philosophers, LOCKE and SMITH, those principles which dignifytrade into a liberal pursuit, and connect it with the happiness and theglory of a people. A work in France, under the title of "L'Ami desHommes, " by the Marquis of MIRABEAU, first spread there a general passionfor agricultural pursuits; and although the national ardour carried all toexcess in the reveries of the "Economistes, " yet marshes were drained andwaste lands inclosed. The "Emilius" of ROUSSEAU, whatever may be itserrors and extravagances, operated a complete revolution in modern Europe, by communicating a bolder spirit to education, and improving the physicalforce and character of man. An Italian marquis, whose birth and habitsseemed little favourable to study, operated a moral revolution in theadministration of the laws. BECCARIA dared to plead in favour of humanityagainst the prejudices of many centuries in his small volume on "Crimesand Punishments, " and at length abolished torture; while the Frenchadvocates drew their principles from that book, rather than from theirnational code, and our Blackstone quoted it with admiration! LOCKE andVOLTAIRE, having written on "Toleration, " have long made us tolerant. Inall such cases the authors were themselves entirely unconnected with theirsubjects, except as speculative writers. 

Such are the authors who become universal in public opinion; and it thenhappens that the work itself meets with the singular fate which that greatgenius SMEATON said happened to his stupendous "Pharos:" "The noveltyhaving yearly worn off, and the greatest real praise of the edifice beingthat nothing has happened to it--nothing has occurred to keep thetalk of it alive. " The fundamental principles of such works, afterhaving long entered into our earliest instruction, become unquestionableas self-evident propositions; yet no one, perhaps, at this day can rightlyconceive the great merits of Locke's Treatises on "Education, " and on"Toleration;" or the philosophical spirit of Montesquieu, and works ofthis high order, which first diffused a tone of thinking over Europe. Theprinciples have become so incorporated with our judgment, and sointerwoven with our feelings, that we can hardly now imagine the fervourthey excited at the time, or the magnanimity of their authors in thedecision of their opinions. Every first great monument of genius raises anew standard to our knowledge, from which the human mind takes its impulseand measures its advancement. The march of human thought through agesmight be indicated by every great work as it is progressively succeeded byothers. It stands like the golden milliary column in the midst of Rome, from which all others reckoned their distances. 

But a scene of less grandeur, yet more beautiful, is the view of thesolitary author himself in his own study--so deeply occupied, thatwhatever passes before him never reaches his observation, while, workingmore than twelve hours every day, he still murmurs as the hour strikes;the volume still lies open, the page still importunes--"And whence allthis business?" He has made a discovery for us! that never has there beenanything important in the active world but what is reflected in theliterary--books contain everything, even the falsehoods and the crimeswhich have been only projected by men! This solitary man of genius isarranging the materials of instruction and curiosity from every countryand every age; he is striking out, in the concussion of new light, a neworder of ideas for his own times; he possesses secrets which men hide fromtheir contemporaries, truths they dared not utter, facts they dared notdiscover. View him in the stillness of meditation, his eager spirit busiedover a copious page, and his eye sparkling with gladness! He has concludedwhat his countrymen will hereafter cherish as the legacy of genius--yousee him now changed; and the restlessness of his soul is thrown into hisvery gestures--could you listen to the vaticinator! But the next age onlywill quote his predictions. If he be the truly great author, he will bebest comprehended by posterity, for the result of ten years of solitarymeditation has often required a whole century to be understood and to beadopted. The ideas of Bishop BERKELEY, in his "Theory of Vision, " werecondemned as a philosophical romance, and now form an essential part ofevery treatise of optics; and "The History of Oracles, " by FONTENELLE, says La Harpe, which, in his youth, was censured for its impiety, thecentenarian lived to see regarded as a proof of his respect for religion. 

"But what influence can this solitary man, this author of genius, have onhis nation, when he has none in the very street in which he lives? and itmay be suspected as little in his own house, whose inmates are hourlypractising on the infantine simplicity which marks his character, and thatfrequent abstraction from what is passing under his own eyes?"

This solitary man of genius is stamping his own character on the minds ofhis own people. Take one instance, from others far more splendid, in thecontrast presented by FRANKLIN and Sir WILLIAM JONES. The parsimonioushabits, the money-getting precepts, the wary cunning, the little scrupleabout means, the fixed intent upon the end, of Dr. FRANKLIN, imprintedthemselves on his Americans. Loftier feelings could not elevate a man ofgenius who became the founder of a trading people, and who retained theearly habits of a journeyman; while the elegant tastes of Sir WILLIAMJONES could inspire the servants of a commercial corporation to open newand vast sources of knowledge. A mere company of merchants, influenced bythe literary character, enlarges the stores of the imagination andprovides fresh materials for the history of human nature. 

FRANKLIN, with that calm good sense which is freed from the passion ofimagination, has himself declared this important truth relating to theliterary character:--"I have always thought that one man of tolerableabilities may work great changes and accomplish great affairs amongmankind, if he first forms a good plan; and cutting off all amusements, orother employments that would divert his attention, makes the execution ofthat same plan his sole study and business. " Fontenelle was of the sameopinion, for he remarks that "a single great man is sufficient toaccomplish a change in the taste of his age. " The life of GRANVILLE SHARPis a striking illustration of the solitary force of individual character. 

It cannot be doubted that the great author, in the solitude of hisstudy, has often created an epoch in the annals of mankind. A singleman of genius arose in a barbarous period in Italy, who gave birth notonly to Italian, but to European literature. Poet, orator, philosopher, geographer, historian, and antiquary, PETRARCH kindled a line oflight through his native land, while a crowd of followers hailed theirfather-genius, who had stamped his character on the age. DESCARTES, it hasbeen observed, accomplished a change in the taste of his age by theperspicacity and method for which he was indebted to his mathematicalresearches; and "models of metaphysical analysis and logical discussions"in the works of HUME and SMITH have had the same influence in the writingsof our own time. 

Even genius not of the same colossal size may aspire to add to theprogressive mass of human improvement by its own single effort. When anauthor writes on a national subject, he awakens all the knowledge whichslumbers in a nation, and calls around him, as it were, every man oftalent; and though his own fame may be eclipsed by his successors, yetthe emanation, the morning light, broke from his solitary study. Ournaturalist, RAY, though no man was more modest in his claims, delighted totell a friend that "Since the publication of his catalogue of Cambridgeplants, many were prompted to botanical studies, and to herbalise in theirwalks in the fields. " Johnson has observed that "An emulation of study wasraised by CHEKE and SMITH, to which even the present age perhaps owes manyadvantages, without remembering or knowing its benefactors. ROLLIN is onlya compiler of history, and to the antiquary he is nothing! But races yetunborn will be enchanted by that excellent man, in whose works 'the heartspeaks to the heart, ' and whom Montesquieu called 'The Bee of France'. " TheBACONS, the NEWTONS, and the LEIBNITZES were insulated by their owncreative powers, and stood apart from the world, till the dispersers ofknowledge became their interpreters to the people, opening a communicationbetween two spots, which, though close to each other, were long separated--the closet and the world! The ADDISONS, the FONTENELLES, and theFEYJOOS, the first popular authors in their nations who taught England, France, and Spain to become a reading people, while their fugitive pageimbues with intellectual sweetness every uncultivated mind, like theperfumed mould taken up by the Persian swimmer. "It was but a piece ofcommon earth, but so delicate was its fragrance, that he who found it, inastonishment asked whether it were musk or amber. 'I am nothing but earth;but roses were planted in my soil, and their odorous virtues havedeliciously penetrated through all my pores: I have retained the infusionof sweetness, otherwise I had been but a lump of earth!'"

I have said that authors produce their usefulness in privacy, and thattheir good is not of immediate application, and often unvalued by theirown generation. On this occasion the name of EVELYN always occurs to me. This author supplied the public with nearly thirty works, at a timewhen taste and curiosity were not yet domiciliated in our country; hispatriotism warmed beyond the eightieth year of his age, and in his dyinghand he held another legacy for his nation. EVELYN conveys a pleasing ideaof his own works and their design. He first taught his countrymen how toplant, then to build: and having taught them to be useful _without doors_, he then attempted to divert and occupy them _within doors_, by histreatises on chalcography, painting, medals, libraries. It was during thedays of destruction and devastation both of woods and buildings, the civilwars of Charles the First, that a solitary author was projecting to makethe nation delight in repairing their evil, by inspiring them withthe love of agriculture and architecture. Whether his enthusiasm wasintroducing to us a taste for medals and prints, or intent on purifyingthe city from smoke and nuisances, and sweetening it by plantations ofnative plants, after having enriched our orchards and our gardens, placedsummer-ices on our tables, and varied even the salads of our country;furnishing "a Gardener's Kalendar, " which, as Cowley said, was to last aslong "as months and years;" whether the philosopher of the Royal Society, or the lighter satirist of the toilet, or the fine moralist for active aswell as contemplative life--in all these changes of a studious life, thebetter part of his history has not yet been told. While Britain retainsher awful situation among the nations of Europe, the "Sylva" of EVELYNwill endure with her triumphant oaks. In the third edition of that workthe heart of the patriot expands at its result; he tells Charles II. "how many millions of timber trees, besides infinite others, have beenpropagated and planted _at the instigation and by the sole direction ofthis work_. " It was an author in his studious retreat who, casting aprophetic eye on the age we live in, secured the late victories of ournaval sovereignty. Inquire at the Admiralty how the fleets of Nelson havebeen constructed, and they can tell you that it was with the oaks whichthe genius of EVELYN planted. [A]

[Footnote A: Since this was first printed, the "Diary" of EVELYN hasappeared; and although it could not add to his general character, yet Iwas not too sanguine in my anticipations of the diary of so perfect aliterary character, who has shown how his studies were intermingled withthe business of life. ]

The same character existed in France, where DE SERRES, in 1599, composed awork on the cultivation of mulberry-trees, in reference to the art ofraising silkworms. He taught his fellow-citizens to convert a leafinto silk, and silk to become the representative of gold. Our authorencountered the hostility of the prejudices of his times, even from Sully, in giving his country one of her staple commodities; but I lately receiveda medal recently struck in honour of DE SERRES by the Agricultural Societyof the Department of the Seine. We slowly commemorate the intellectualcharacters of our own country; and our men of genius are still defraudedof the debt we are daily incurring of their posthumous fame. Let monumentsbe raised and let medals be struck! They are sparks of glory which mightbe scattered through the next age!

There is a singleness and unity in the pursuits of genius which is carriedon through all ages, and will for ever connect the nations of the earth. THE IMMORTALITY OF THOUGHT EXISTS FOR MAN! The veracity of HERODOTUS, after more than two thousand years, is now receiving a fresh confirmation. The single and precious idea of genius, however obscure, is eventuallydisclosed; for original discoveries have often been the developments offormer knowledge. The system of the circulation of the blood appears tohave been obscurely conjectured by SERVETUS, who wanted experimentalfacts to support his hypothesis: VESALIUS had an imperfect perceptionof the right motion of the blood: CÆSALPINUS admits a circulationwithout comprehending its consequences; at length our HARVEY, bypatient meditation and penetrating sagacity, removed the errors of hispredecessors, and demonstrated the true system. Thus, too, HARTLEYexpanded the hint of "the association of ideas" from LOCKE, and raised asystem on what LOCKE had only used for an accidental illustration. Thebeautiful theory of vision by BERKELEY, was taken up by him just whereLOCKE had dropped it: and as Professor Dugald Stewart describes, byfollowing out his principles to their remoter consequences, BERKELEYbrought out a doctrine which was as true as it seemed novel. LYDGATE'S"Fall of Princes, " says Mr. Campbell, "probably suggested to LordSACKVILLE the idea of his 'Mirror for Magistrates'. " The "Mirror forMagistrates" again gave hints to SPENSER in allegory, and may also "havepossibly suggested to SHAKSPEARE the idea of his historical plays. " Whenindeed we find that that great original, HOGARTH, adopted the idea of his"Idle and Industrious Apprentice, " from the old comedy of _Eastward Hoe_, we easily conceive that some of the most original inventions of genius, whether the more profound or the more agreeable, may thus be tracked inthe snow of time. 

In the history of genius therefore there is no chronology, for to itsvotaries everything it has done is PRESENT--the earliest attempt standsconnected with the most recent. This continuity of ideas characterizes thehuman mind, and seems to yield an anticipation of its immortal nature. 

There is a consanguinity in the characters of men of genius, and agenealogy may be traced among their races. Men of genius in theirdifferent classes, living at distinct periods, or in remote countries, seem to reappear under another name; and in this manner there exists inthe literary character an eternal transmigration. In the great march ofthe human intellect the same individual spirit seems still occupying thesame place, and is still carrying on, with the same powers, his great workthrough a line of centuries. It was on this principle that one great poethas recently hailed his brother as "the ARIOSTO of the North, " and ARIOSTOas "the SCOTT of the South. " And can we deny the real existence of thegenealogy of genius? Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton! this is asingle line of descent!

ARISTOTLE, HOBBES, and LOCKE, DESCARTES, and NEWTON, approximate more thanwe imagine. The same chain of intellect which ARISTOTLE holds, through theintervals of time, is held by them; and links will only be added by theirsuccessors. The naturalists PLINY, GESNER, ALDROVANDUS, and BUFFON, derivedifferences in their characters from the spirit of the times; but eachonly made an accession to the family estate, while he was the legitimaterepresentative of the family of the naturalists. ARISTOPHANES, MOLIERE, and FOOTE, are brothers of the family of national wits; the wit ofAristophanes was a part of the common property, and Molière and Foote wereAristophanic. PLUTARCH, LA MOTHE LE VAYER, and BAYLE, alike busied inamassing the materials of human thought and human action, with the samevigorous and vagrant curiosity, must have had the same habits of life. If Plutarch were credulous, La Mothe Le Vayer sceptical, and Baylephilosophical, all that can be said is, that though the heirs of thefamily may differ in their dispositions, no one will arraign the integrityof the lineal descent. VARRE did for the Romans what PAUSANIAS had donefor the Greeks, and MONTFAUCON for the French, and CAMDEN for ourselves. 

My learned and reflecting friend, whose original researches have enrichedour national history, has this observation on the character of WICKLIFFE:--"To complete our idea of the importance of Wickliffe, it is onlynecessary to add, that as his writings made John Huss the reformer ofBohemia, so the writings of John Huss led Martin Luther to be the reformerof Germany; so extensive and so incalculable are the consequences whichsometimes follow from human actions. "[A] Our historian has accompaniedthis by giving the very feelings of Luther in early life on his firstperusal of the works of John Huss; we see the spark of creation caught atthe moment: a striking influence of the generation of character! Thus afather-spirit has many sons; and several of the great revolutions in thehistory of man have been carried on by that secret creation of mindsvisibly operating on human affairs. In the history of the human mind, hetakes an imperfect view, who is confined to contemporary knowledge, aswell as he who stops short with the Ancients. Those who do not carryresearches through the genealogical lines of genius, mutilate their minds. 

Such, then, is the influence of AUTHORS!--those "great lights of theworld, " by whom the torch of genius has been successively seized andperpetually transferred from hand to hand, in the fleeting scene. DESCARTES delivers it to NEWTON, BACON to LOCKE; and the continuity ofhuman affairs, through the rapid generations of man, is maintained from, age to age!

[Footnote A: Turner's "History of England, " vol. Ii. P. 432. ]

LITERARY MISCELLANIES. 

 * * * * *

MISCELLANISTS. 

Miscellanists are the most popular writers among every people; forit is they who form a communication between the learned and the unlearned, and, as it were, throw a bridge between those two great divisions of thepublic. Literary Miscellanies are classed among philological studies. Thestudies of philology formerly consisted rather of the labours of aridgrammarians and conjectural critics, than of that more elegant philosophywhich has, within our own time, been introduced into literature, and which, by its graces and investigation, augment the beauties oforiginal genius. This delightful province has been termed in Germany the_Æsthetic_, from a Greek term signifying sentiment or feeling. Æstheticcritics fathom the depths, or run with the current of an author'sthoughts, and the sympathies of such a critic offer a supplement to thegenius of the original writer. Longinus and Addison are Æsthetic critics. The critics of the adverse school always look for a precedent, and if noneis found, woe to the originality of a great writer!

Very elaborate criticisms have been formed by eminent writers, in whichgreat learning and acute logic have only betrayed the absence of theÆsthetic faculty. Warburton called Addison an empty superficial writer, destitute himself of an atom of Addison's taste for the beautiful; andJohnson is a flagrant instance that great powers of reasoning are morefatal to the works of imagination than had ever been suspected. 

By one of these learned critics was Montaigne, the venerable father ofmodern Miscellanies, called "a bold ignorant fellow. " To thinking readers, this critical summary will appear mysterious; for Montaigne had imbibedthe spirit of all the moral writers of antiquity; and although he has madea capricious complaint of a defective memory, we cannot but wish thecomplaint had been more real; for we discover in his works such agathering of knowledge that it seems at times to stifle his own energies. Montaigne was censured by Scaliger, as Addison was censured by Warburton;because both, like Socrates, smiled at that mere erudition which consistsof knowing the thoughts of others and having no thoughts of our own. Toweigh syllables, and to arrange dates, to adjust texts, and to heapannotations, has generally proved the absence of the higher faculties. When a more adventurous spirit of this herd attempts some novel discovery, often men of taste behold, with indignation, the perversions of theirunderstanding; and a Bentley in his Milton, or a Warburton on a Virgil, had either a singular imbecility concealed under the arrogance of thescholar, or they did not believe what they told the public; the one in hisextraordinary invention of an interpolating editor, and the other in hismore extraordinary explanation of the Eleusinian mysteries. But what wasstill worse, the froth of the head became venom, when it reached theheart. 

Montaigne has also been censured for an apparent vanity, in making himselfthe idol of his lucubrations. If he had not done this, he had notperformed the promise he makes at the commencement of his preface. Anengaging tenderness prevails in these _naïve_ expressions which shall notbe injured by a version. "Je l'ay voué à la commodité particulière de mesparens et amis; à ce que m'ayans perdu (ce qu'ils out à faire bientost)ils y puissent retrouver quelques traicts de mes humeurs, et que par cemoyen ils nourrissent plus entière et plus vifue la conoissance qu'ils outeu de moi. "

Those authors who appear sometimes to forget they are writers, andremember they are men, will be our favourites. He who writes from theheart, will write to the heart; every one is enabled to decide on hismerits, and they will not be referred to learned heads, or a distant day. "Why, " says Boileau, "are my verses read by all? it is only because theyspeak truths, and that I am convinced of the truths I write. "

Why have some of our fine writers interested more than others, whohave not displayed inferior talents? Why is Addison still the firstof our essayists? he has sometimes been excelled in criticisms morephilosophical, in topics more interesting, and in diction more coloured. But there is a personal charm in the character he has assumed in hisperiodical Miscellanies, which is felt with such a gentle force, thatwe scarce advert to it. He has painted forth his little humours, hisindividual feelings, and eternised himself to his readers. Johnson andHawkesworth we receive with respect, and we dismiss with awe; we come fromtheir writings as from public lectures, and from Addison's as from privateconversations. Montaigne preferred those of the ancients, who appear towrite under a conviction of what they said; the eloquent Cicero declaimsbut coldly on liberty, while in the impetuous Brutus may be perceived aman who is resolved to purchase it with his life. We know little ofPlutarch; yet a spirit of honesty and persuasion in his works expresses aphilosophical character capable of imitating, as well as admiring, thevirtues he records. 

Sterne perhaps derives a portion of his celebrity from the same influence;he interests us in his minutest motions, for he tells us all he feels. Richardson was sensible of the power with which these minute strokes ofdescription enter the heart, and which are so many fastenings to which theimagination clings. He says, "If I give speeches and conversations, Iought to give them justly; for the humours and characters of personscannot be known, unless I repeat _what_ they say, and their _manner_ ofsaying. " I confess I am infinitely pleased when Sir William Templeacquaints us with the size of his orange-trees, and with the flavour ofhis peaches and grapes, confessed by Frenchmen to equal those of France;with his having had the honour to naturalise in this country four kinds ofgrapes, with his liberal distribution of them, because "he ever thoughtall things of this kind the commoner they are the better. " In a word, withhis passionate attachment to his garden, where he desired his heart to beburied, of his desire to escape from great employments, and having passedfive years without going to town, where, by the way, "he had a large housealways ready to receive him. " Dryden has interspersed many of these littleparticulars in his prosaic compositions, and I think that his characterand dispositions may be more correctly acquired by uniting these scatterednotices, than by any biographical account which can now be given of thisman of genius. 

From this agreeable mode of writing, a species of compositions may bediscriminated, which seems above all others to identify the reader withthe writer; compositions which are often discovered in a fugitive state, but to which their authors were prompted by the fine impulses of genius, derived from the peculiarity of their situation. Dictated by the heart, orpolished with the fondness of delight, these productions are impressed bythe seductive eloquence of genius, or attach us by the sensibility oftaste. The object thus selected is no task imposed on the mind of thewriter for the mere ambition of literature, but is a voluntary effusion, warm with all the sensations of a pathetic writer. In a word, theyare the compositions of genius, on a subject in which it is most deeplyinterested; which it revolves on all its sides, which it paints inall its tints, and which it finishes with the same ardour it began. Amongsuch works may be placed the exiled Bolingbroke's "Reflections uponExile;" the retired Petrarch and Zimmerman's Essays on "Solitude;" theimprisoned Boethius's "Consolations of Philosophy;" the oppressed PieriusValerianus's Catalogue of "Literary Calamities;" the deformed Hay's Essayon "Deformity;" the projecting De Foe's "Essays on Projects;" the liberalShenstone's Poem on "Economy. "

We may respect the profound genius of voluminous writers; they are a kindof painters who occupy great room, and fill up, as a satirist expressesit, "an acre of canvas. " But we love to dwell on those more delicatepieces, --a group of Cupids; a Venus emerging from the waves; a Psyche oran Aglaia, which embellish the cabinet of the man of taste. 

It should, indeed, be the characteristic of good Miscellanies, to bemultifarious and concise. Usbek, the Persian of Montesquieu, is one of theprofoundest philosophers, his letters are, however, but concise pages. Rochefoucault and La Bruyère are not superficial observers of humannature, although they have only written sentences. Of Tacitus it has beenfinely remarked by Montesquieu, that "he abridged everything because hesaw everything. " Montaigne approves of Plutarch and Seneca, because theirloose papers were suited to his dispositions, and where knowledge isacquired without a tedious study. "It is, " said he, "no great attempt totake one in hand, and I give over at pleasure, for they have no sequel orconnexion. " La Fontaine agreeably applauds short compositions:

 Les longs ouvrages me font peur; Loin d'épuiser une matière, On n'en doit prendre que la fleur;

and Old Francis Osborne has a coarse and ludicrous image in favour of suchopuscula; he says, "Huge volumes, like the ox roasted whole at Bartholomewfair, may proclaim plenty of labour and invention, but afford less of whatis delicate, savoury, and well concocted, than _smaller pieces_. " To quoteso light a genius as the enchanting La Fontaine, and so solid a mind asthe sensible Osborne, is taking in all the climates of the human mind; itis touching at the equator, and pushing on to the pole. 

Montaigne's works have been called by a cardinal "The Breviary of Idlers. "It is therefore the book of man; for all men are idlers; we have hourswhich we pass with lamentation, and which we know are always returning. Atthose moments miscellanists are conformable to all our humours. We dartalong their airy and concise page; and their lively anecdote or theirprofound observation are so many interstitial pleasures in our listlesshours. 

The ancients were great admirers of miscellanies; Aulus Gellius haspreserved a copious list of titles of such works. These titles are sonumerous, and include such gay and pleasing descriptions, that we mayinfer by their number that they were greatly admired by the public, and bytheir titles that they prove the great delight their authors experiencedin their composition. Among the titles are "a basket of flowers;" "anembroidered mantle;" and "a variegated meadow. " Such a miscellanist as wasthe admirable Erasmus deserves the happy description which Plutarch withan elegant enthusiasm bestows on Menander: he calls him the delight ofphilosophers fatigued with study; that they have recourse to his works asto a meadow enamelled with flowers, where the sense is delighted by apurer air; and very elegantly adds, that Menander has a salt peculiar tohimself, drawn from the same waters that gave birth to Venus. 

The Troubadours, Conteurs, and Jongleurs, practised what is yet called inthe southern parts of France, _Le guay Saber, _ or the gay science. Iconsider these as the Miscellanists of their day; they had their gravemoralities, their tragical histories, and their sportive tales; theirverse and their prose. The village was in motion at their approach; thecastle was opened to the ambulatory poets, and the feudal hypochondriaclistened to their solemn instruction and their airy fancy. I wouldcall miscellaneous composition LE GUAY SABER, and I would have everymiscellaneous writer as solemn and as gay, as various and as pleasing, asthese lively artists of versatility. 

Nature herself is most delightful in her miscellaneous scenes. When I holda volume of miscellanies, and run over with avidity the titles of itscontents, my mind is enchanted, as if it were placed among the landscapesof Valais, which Rousseau has described with such picturesque beauty. Ifancy myself seated in a cottage amid those mountains, those valleys, those rocks, encircled by the enchantments of optical illusion. I look, and behold at once the united seasons--"All climates in one place, allseasons in one instant. " I gaze at once on a hundred rainbows, and tracethe romantic figures of the shifting clouds. I seem to be in a templededicated to the service of the Goddess VARIETY. 

 * * * * *

PREFACES. 

I declare myself infinitely delighted by a preface. Is it exquisitelywritten? no literary morsel is more delicious. Is the author inveteratelydull? it is a kind of preparatory information, which may be very useful. It argues a deficiency in taste to turn over an elaborate preface unread;for it is the attar of the author's roses; every drop distilled at animmense cost. It is the reason of the reasoning, and the folly of thefoolish. 

I do not wish, however, to conceal that several writers, as well asreaders, have spoken very disrespectfully of this species of literature. That fine writer Montesquieu, in closing the preface to his "PersianLetters, " says, "I do not praise my 'Persians;' because it would be a verytedious thing, put in a place already very tedious of itself; I mean apreface. " Spence, in the preface to his "Polymetis, " informs us, that"there is not any sort of writing which he sits down to with so muchunwillingness as that of prefaces; and as he believes most people are notmuch fonder of reading them than he is of writing them, he shall get overthis as fast as he can. " Pelisson warmly protested against prefatorycomposition; but when he published the works of Sarrasin, was wise enoughto compose a very pleasing one. He, indeed, endeavoured to justify himselffor acting against his own opinions, by this ingenious excuse, that, likefuneral honours, it is proper to show the utmost regard for them whengiven to others, but to be inattentive to them for ourselves. 

Notwithstanding all this evidence, I have some good reasons for admiringprefaces; and barren as the investigation may appear, some literaryamusement can be gathered. 

In the first place, I observe that a prefacer is generally a mostaccomplished liar. Is an author to be introduced to the public? thepreface is as genuine a panegyric, and nearly as long a one, as that ofPliny's on the Emperor Trajan. Such a preface is ringing an alarum bellfor an author. If we look closer into the characters of these masters ofceremony, who thus sport with and defy the judgment of their reader, andwho, by their extravagant panegyric, do considerable injury to the causeof taste, we discover that some accidental occurrence has occasioned thisvehement affection for the author, and which, like that of another kind oflove, makes one commit so many extravagances. 

Prefaces are indeed rarely sincere. It is justly observed by Shenstone, inhis prefatory Essay to the "Elegies, " that "discourses prefixed to poetryinculcate such tenets as may exhibit the performance to the greatestadvantage. The fabric is first raised, and the measures by which weare to judge of it are afterwards adjusted. " This observation might beexemplified by more instances than some readers might choose to read. Itwill be sufficient to observe with what art both Pope and Fontenelle havedrawn up their Essays on the nature of Pastoral Poetry, that the rulesthey wished to establish might be adapted to their own pastorals. Hasaccident made some ingenious student apply himself to a subordinate branchof literature, or to some science which is not highly esteemed--look inthe preface for its sublime panegyric. Collectors of coins, dresses, andbutterflies, have astonished the world with eulogiums which would raisetheir particular studies into the first ranks of philosophy. 

It would appear that there is no lie to which a prefacer is not tempted. Ipass over the commodious prefaces of Dryden, which were ever adapted tothe poem and not to poetry, to the author and not to literature. 

The boldest preface-liar was Aldus Manutius, who, having printed anedition of Aristophanes, first published in the preface that SaintChrysostom was accustomed to place this comic poet under his pillow, thathe might always have his works at hand. As, in that age, a saint wassupposed to possess every human talent, good taste not excepted, Aristophanes thus recommended became a general favourite. The anecdotelasted for nearly two centuries; and what was of greater consequence toAldus, quickened the sale of his Aristophanes. This ingenious invention ofthe prefacer of Aristophanes at length was detected by Menage. 

The insincerity of prefaces arises whenever an author would disguise hissolicitude for his work, by appearing negligent, and even undesirous ofits success. A writer will rarely conclude such a preface withoutbetraying himself. I think that even Dr. Johnson forgot his sounddialectic in the admirable Preface to his Dictionary. In one part he says, "having laboured this work with so much application, I cannot but havesome degree of parental fondness. " But in his conclusion he tells us, "Idismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope fromcensure or from praise. " I deny the doctor's "frigidity. " This polishedperiod exhibits an affected stoicism, which no writer ever felt for theanxious labour of a great portion of life, addressed not merely to a classof readers, but to literary Europe. 

But if prefaces are rarely sincere or just, they are, notwithstanding, literary opuscula in which the author is materially concerned. A workwith a poor preface, like a person who comes with an indifferentrecommendation, must display uncommon merit to master our prejudices, andto please us, as it were, in spite of ourselves. Works ornamented by afinished preface, such as Johnson not infrequently presented to hisfriends or his booksellers, inspire us with awe; we observe a veteranguard placed in the porch, and we are induced to conclude from thisappearance that some person of eminence resides in the place itself. 

The public are treated with contempt when an author professes to publishhis puerilities. This Warburton did, in his pompous edition of Shakspeare. In the preface he informed the public, that his notes "were among his_younger amusements, _ when he turned over these _sort of writers. _" Thisungracious compliment to Shakspeare and the public, merited that perfectscourging which our haughty commentator received from the sarcastic"Canons of Criticism. "[A] Scudery was a writer of some genius, and greatvariety. His prefaces are remarkable for their gasconades. In his epicpoem of Alaric, he says, "I have such a facility in writing verses, andalso in my invention, that a poem of double its length would have cost melittle trouble. Although it contains only eleven thousand lines, I believethat longer epics do not exhibit more embellishments than mine. " And toconclude with one more student of this class, Amelot de la Houssaie, inthe preface to his translation of "The Prince" of Machiavel, instructs us, that "he considers his copy as superior to the original, because it iseverywhere intelligible, and Machiavel is frequently obscure. " I have seenin the play-bills of strollers, a very pompous description of thetriumphant entry of Alexander into Babylon; had they said nothing aboutthe triumph, it might have passed without exciting ridicule; and one mightnot so maliciously have perceived how ill the four candle-snuffers crawledas elephants, and the triumphal car discovered its want of a lid. Buthaving pre-excited attention, we had full leisure to sharpen our eye. Tothese imprudent authors and actors we may apply a Spanish proverb, whichhas the peculiar quaintness of that people, _Aviendo pregonado vino, venden vinagre:_ "Having cried up their wine, they sell us vinegar. "

[Footnote A: See the essay on Warburton and his disputes in "Quarrels ofAuthors, "--ED. ]

A ridiculous humility in a preface is not less despicable. Many idleapologies were formerly in vogue for publication, and formed a literarycant, of which now the meanest writers perceive the futility. A literaryanecdote of the Romans has been preserved, which is sufficiently curious. One Albinus, in the preface to his Roman History, intercedes for pardonfor his numerous blunders of phraseology; observing that they were themore excusable, as he had composed his history in the Greek language, withwhich he was not so familiar as his maternal tongue. Cato severely rallieshim on this; and justly observes, that our Albinus had merited the pardonhe solicits, if a decree of the senate had compelled him thus to havecomposed it, and he could not have obtained a dispensation. The avowal ofour ignorance of the language we employ is like that excuse which somewriters make for composing on topics in which they are little conversant. A reader's heart is not so easily mollified; and it is a melancholy truthfor literary men that the pleasure of abusing an author is generallysuperior to that of admiring him. One appears to display more criticalacumen than the other, by showing that though we do not choose to take thetrouble of writing, we have infinitely more genius than the author. Thesesuppliant prefacers are described by Boileau. 

 Un auteur à genoux dans une humble préface Au lecteur qu'il ennuie a beau demander grace; Il ne gagnera rien sur ce juge irrité, Qui lui fait son procès de pleine autorité. 

 Low in a humble preface authors kneel; In vain, the wearied reader's heart is steel. Callous, that irritated judge with awe, Inflicts the penalties and arms the law. 

The most entertaining prefaces in our language are those of Dryden; andthough it is ill-naturedly said, by Swift, that they were merely formed

 To raise the volume's price a shilling, yet these were the earliest commencements of English criticism, and thefirst attempt to restrain the capriciousness of readers, and to form anational taste. Dryden has had the candour to acquaint us with his secretof prefatory composition; for in that one to his Tales he says, "thenature of preface-writing is rambling; never wholly out of the way, nor init. This I have learnt from the practice of honest Montaigne. " There is nogreat risk in establishing this observation as an axiom in literature; forshould a prefacer loiter, it is never difficult to get rid of lamepersons, by escaping from them; and the reader may make a preface asconcise as he chooses. 

It is possible for an author to paint himself in amiable colours, in thisuseful page, without incurring the contempt of egotism. After a writer hasrendered himself conspicuous by his industry or his genius, his admirersare not displeased to hear something relative to him from himself. Hayley, in the preface to his poems, has conveyed an amiable feature in hispersonal character, by giving the cause of his devotion to literature asthe only mode by which he could render himself of some utility to hiscountry. There is a modesty in the prefaces of Pope, even when this greatpoet collected his immortal works; and in several other writers of themost elevated genius, in a Hume and a Robertson, which becomes their happysuccessors to imitate, and inferior writers to contemplate with awe. 

There is in prefaces a due respect to be shown to the publicand to ourselves. He that has no sense of self-dignity, willnot inspire any reverence in others; and the ebriety of vanitywill he sobered by the alacrity we all feel in disturbing thedreams of self-love. If we dare not attempt the ramblingprefaces of a Dryden, we may still entertain the reader, andsoothe him into good-humour, for our own interest. This, perhaps, will be best obtained by making the preface (like thesymphony to an opera) to contain something analogous to thework itself, to attune the mind into a harmony of tone. [A]

[Footnote A: See "Curiosities of Literature, " vol. I. , for an article onPrefaces. ]

 * * * * *

STYLE. 

Every period of literature has its peculiar style, derived from someauthor of reputation; and the history of a language, as an object oftaste, might be traced through a collection of ample quotations from themost celebrated authors of each period. 

To Johnson may be attributed the establishment of our present refinement, and it is with truth he observes of his "Rambler, " "That he had labouredto refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it fromcolloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations, andthat he has added to the elegance of its construction and to the harmonyof its cadence. " In this description of his own refinement in style andgrammatical accuracy, Johnson probably alluded to the happy carelessnessof Addison, whose charm of natural ease long afterwards he discovered. Butgreat inelegance of diction disgraced our language even so late as in1736, when the "Inquiry into the Life of Homer" was published. Thatauthor was certainly desirous of all the graces of composition, and hisvolume by its singular sculptures evinces his inordinate affection for hiswork. This fanciful writer had a taste for polished writing, yet heabounds in expressions which now would be considered as impure in literarycomposition. Such vulgarisms are common--the Greeks _fell to their oldtrade_ of one tribe expelling another--the scene is always at Athens, andall the _pother_ is some little jilting story--the haughty Roman _snuffed_at the suppleness. If such diction had not been usual with good writers atthat period, I should not have quoted Blackwall. Middleton, in his "Lifeof Cicero, " though a man of classical taste, and an historian of aclassical era, could not preserve himself from colloquial inelegances; thegreatest characters are levelled by the poverty of his style. Warburton, and his imitator Hurd, and other living critics of that school, are loadedwith familiar idioms, which at present would debase even the style ofconversation. 

Such was the influence of the elaborate novelty of Johnson, that everywriter in every class servilely copied the Latinised style, ludicrouslymimicking the contortions and re-echoing the sonorous nothings of ourgreat lexicographer; the novelist of domestic life, or the agriculturistin a treatise on turnips, alike aimed at the polysyllabic force, and thecadenced period. Such was the condition of English style for more thantwenty years. 

Some argue in favour of a natural style, and reiterate the opinion of manygreat critics that proper ideas will be accompanied by proper words;but though supported by the first authorities, they are not perhapssufficiently precise in their definition. Writers may think justly, andyet write without any effect; while a splendid style may cover a vacuityof thought. Does not this evident fact prove that style and thinking havenot that inseparable connexion which many great writers have pronounced?Milton imagined that beautiful thoughts produce beautiful expression. Hesays, Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move Harmonious numbers. 

Writing is justly called an art; and Rousseau says, it is not an arteasily acquired. Thinking may be the foundation of style, but it isnot the superstructure; it is the marble of the edifice, but not itsarchitecture. The art of presenting our thoughts to another, is oftena process of considerable time and labour; and the delicate task ofcorrection, in the development of ideas, is reserved only for writers offine taste. There are several modes of presenting an idea; vulgar readersare only susceptible of the strong and palpable stroke: but there are manyshades of sentiment, which to seize on and to paint is the pride and thelabour of a skilful writer. A beautiful simplicity itself is a species ofrefinement, and no writer more solicitously corrected his works than Hume, who excels in this mode of composition. The philosopher highly approves ofAddison's definition of fine writing, who says, that it consists ofsentiments which are natural, without being obvious. This is a definitionof thought rather than of composition. Shenstone has hit the truth; forfine writing he defines to be generally the effect of spontaneous thoughtsand a laboured style. Addison was not insensible to these charms, and hefelt the seductive art of Cicero when he said, that "there is as muchdifference in apprehending a thought clothed in Cicero's language and thatof a common author, as in seeing an object by the light of a taper, or bythe light of the sun. "

Mannerists in style, however great their powers, rather excite theadmiration than the affection of a man of taste; because their habitualart dissipates that illusion of sincerity, which we love to believe is theimpulse which places the pen in the hand of an author. Two eminentliterary mannerists are Cicero and Johnson. We know these great menconsidered their eloquence as a deceptive art; of any subject, it had beenindifferent to them which side to adopt; and in reading their elaborateworks, our ear is more frequently gratified by the ambitious magnificenceof their diction, than our heart penetrated by the pathetic enthusiasm oftheir sentiments. Writers who are not mannerists, but who seize theappropriate tone of their subject, appear to feel a conviction of whatthey attempt to persuade their reader. It is observable, that it isimpossible to imitate with uniform felicity the noble simplicity of apathetic writer; while the peculiarities of a mannerist are so far frombeing difficult, that they are displayed with nice exactness by middlingwriters, who, although their own natural manner had nothing interesting, have attracted notice by such imitations. We may apply to some monotonousmannerists these verses of Boileau:

 Voulez-vous du public mériter les amours? Sans cesse en écrivant variez vos discours. On lit peu ces auteurs nés pour nous ennuier, Qui toujours sur un ton semblent psalmodier. 

 Would you the public's envied favours gain? Ceaseless, in writing, variegate the strain; The heavy author, who the fancy calms, Seems in one tone to chant his nasal psalms. 

Every style is excellent, if it be proper; and that style is most properwhich can best convey the intentions of the author to his reader. And, after all, it is STYLE alone by which posterity will judge of a greatwork, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style; facts, scientific discoveries, and every kind of information, may be seized byall, but an author's diction cannot be taken from him. Hence very learnedwriters have been neglected, while their learning has not been lost to theworld, by having been given by writers with more amenity. It is thereforethe duty of an author to learn to write as well as to learn to think; andthis art can only be obtained by the habitual study of his sensations, andan intimate acquaintance with the intellectual faculties. These are thetrue prompters of those felicitous expressions which give a tone congruousto the subject, and which invest our thoughts with all the illusion, thebeauty, and motion of lively perception. 

 * * * * *

GOLDSMITH AND JOHNSON. 

We should not censure artists and writers for their attachment totheir favourite excellence. Who but an artist can value the ceaselessinquietudes of arduous perfection; can trace the remote possibilitiescombined in a close union; the happy arrangement and the novel variation?He not only is affected by the performance like the man of taste, but isinfluenced by a peculiar sensation; for while he contemplates the apparentbeauties, he traces in his own mind those invisible processes by which thefinal beauty was accomplished. Hence arises that species of comparativecriticism which one great author usually makes of his own manner with thatof another great writer, and which so often causes him to be stigmatisedwith the most unreasonable vanity. 

The character of GOLDSMITH, so underrated in his own day, exemplifies thisprinciple in the literary character. That pleasing writer, without anyperversion of intellect or inflation of vanity, might have contrasted hispowers with those of JOHNSON, and might, according to his own ideas, haveconsidered himself as not inferior to his more celebrated and learnedrival. 

Goldsmith might have preferred the felicity of his own genius, which likea native stream flowed from a natural source, to the elaborate powers ofJohnson, which in some respects may be compared to those artificial waterswhich throw their sparkling currents in the air, to fall into marblebasins. He might have considered that he had embellished philosophy withpoetical elegance; and have preferred the paintings of his descriptions, to the terse versification and the pointed sentences of Johnson. He mighthave been more pleased with the faithful representations of Englishmanners in his "Vicar of Wakefield, " than with the borrowed grandeur andthe exotic fancy of the Oriental Rasselas. He might have believed, whatmany excellent critics have believed, that in this age comedy requiresmore genius than tragedy; and with his audience he might have infinitelymore esteemed his own original humour, than Johnson's rhetoricaldeclamation. He might have thought, that with inferior literature hedisplayed superior genius, and with less profundity more gaiety. Hemight have considered that the facility and vivacity of his pleasingcompositions were preferable to that art, that habitual pomp, and thatostentatious eloquence, which prevail in the operose labours of Johnson. No one might be more sensible than himself, that he, according to thehappy expression of Johnson (when his rival was in his grave), "tetigit etornavit. " Goldsmith, therefore, without any singular vanity, might haveconcluded, from his own reasonings, that he was not an inferior writer toJohnson: all this not having been considered, he has come down toposterity as the vainest and the most jealous of writers; he whosedispositions were the most inoffensive, whose benevolence was the mostextensive, and whose amiableness of heart has been concealed by itsartlessness, and passed over in the sarcasms and sneers of a more eloquentrival, and his submissive partisans. 

 * * * * *

SELF-CHARACTERS. 

There are two species of minor biography which may be discriminated;detailing our own life and portraying our own character. The writing ourown life has been practised with various success; it is a delicateoperation, a stroke too much may destroy the effect of the whole. If oncewe detect an author deceiving or deceived, it is a livid spot whichinfects the entire body. To publish one's own life has sometimes been apoor artifice to bring obscurity into notice; it is the ebriety of vanity, and the delirium of egotism. When a great man leaves some memorial of hisdays, the grave consecrates the motive. There are certain things whichrelate to ourselves, which no one can know so well; a great genius obligesposterity when he records them. But they must be composed with calmness, with simplicity, and with sincerity; the biographic sketch of Hume, written by himself, is a model of Attic simplicity. The Life of LordHerbert is a biographical curiosity. The Memoirs of Sir William Jones, ofPriestley, and of Gibbon, offer us the daily life of the student; andthose of Colley Cibber are a fine picture of the self-painter. We havesome other pieces of self-biography, precious to the philosopher. [A]

[Footnote A: One of the most interesting is that of Grifford, appended tohis translation of Juvenal; it is a most remarkable record of thestruggles of its author in early life, told with candour and simplicity. --ED. ]

The other species of minor biography, that of portraying our owncharacter, could only have been invented by the most refined and thevainest nation. The French long cherished this darling egotism; and have acollection of these self-portraits in two bulky volumes. The brilliantFléchier, and the refined St. Evremond, have framed and glazed theirportraits. Every writer then considered his character as necessary as hispreface. The fashion seems to have passed over to our country; Farquharhas drawn his character in a letter to a lady; and others of our writershave given us their own miniatures. 

There was, as a book in my possession will testify, a certain verse-makerof the name of Cantenac, who, in 1662, published in the city of Paris avolume, containing some thousands of verses, which were, as his countrymenexpress it, _de sa façon, _ after his own way. He fell so suddenly into thedarkest and deepest pit of oblivion, that not a trace of his memory wouldhave remained, had he not condescended to give ample information of everyparticular relative to himself. He has acquainted us with his size, andtells us, "that it is rare to see a man smaller than himself. I have thatin common with all dwarfs, that if my head only were seen, I should bethought a large man. " This atom in creation then describes his oval andfull face; his fiery and eloquent eyes: his vermil lips; his robustconstitution, and his effervescent passions. He appears to have been amost petulant, honest, and diminutive being. 

The description of his intellect is the object of our curiosity. "I am asambitious as any person can be; but I would not sacrifice my honour tomy ambition. I am so sensible to contempt, that I bear a mortal andimplacable hatred against those who contemn me, and I know I could neverreconcile myself with them; but I spare no attentions for those I love; Iwould give them my fortune and my life. I sometimes lie; but generally inaffairs of gallantry, where I voluntarily confirm falsehoods by oaths, without reflection, for swearing with me is a habit. I am told that mymind is brilliant, and that I have a certain manner in turning a thoughtwhich is quite my own. I am agreeable in conversation, though I confess Iam often troublesome; for I maintain paradoxes to display my genius, whichsavour too much of scholastic subterfuges. I speak too often and too long;and as I have some reading, and a copious memory, I am fond of showingwhatever I know. My judgment is not so solid as my wit is lively. I amoften melancholy and unhappy; and this sombrous disposition proceeds frommy numerous disappointments in life. My verse is preferred to my prose;and it has been of some use to me in pleasing the fair sex; poetry is mostadapted to persuade women; but otherwise it has been of no service to me, and has, I fear, rendered me unfit for many advantageous occupations, inwhich I might have drudged. The esteem of the fair has, however, charmedaway my complaints. This good fortune has been obtained by me, at the costof many cares, and an unsubdued patience; for I am one of those who, inaffairs of love, will suffer an entire year, to taste the pleasures of oneday. "

This character of Cantenac has some local features; for an English poetwould hardly console himself with so much gaiety. The Frenchman'sattachment to the ladies seems to be equivalent to the advantageousoccupations he had lost. But as the miseries of a literary man, withoutconspicuous talents, are always the same at Paris as in London, there aresome parts of this character of Cantenac which appear to describe themwith truth. Cantenac was a man of honour; as warm in his resentment as hisgratitude; but deluded by literary vanity, he became a writer in prose andverse, and while he saw the prospects of life closing on him, probablyconsidered that the age was unjust. A melancholy example for certainvolatile and fervent spirits, who, by becoming authors, either submittheir felicity to the caprices of others, or annihilate the obscurecomforts of life, and, like him, having "been told that their mind isbrilliant, and that they have a certain manner in turning a thought, "become writers, and complain that they are "often melancholy, owing totheir numerous disappointments. " Happy, however, if the obscure, yet toosensible writer, can suffer an entire year, for the enjoyment of a singleday! But for this, a man must have been born in France. 

 * * * * *

ON READING. 

Writing is justly denominated an art; I think that reading claims the samedistinction. To adorn ideas with elegance is an act of the mind superiorto that of receiving them; but to receive them with a happy discriminationis the effect of a practised taste. 

Yet it will be found that taste alone is not sufficient to obtain theproper end of reading. Two persons of equal taste rise from the perusal ofthe same book with very different notions: the one will have the ideas ofthe author at command, and find a new train of sentiment awakened; whilethe other quits his author in a pleasing distraction, but of the pleasuresof reading nothing remains but tumultuous sensations. 

To account for these different effects, we must have recourse to a logicaldistinction, which appears to reveal one of the great mysteries in theart of reading. Logicians distinguish between perceptions and ideas. Perception is that faculty of the mind which notices the simple impressionof objects: but when these objects exist in the mind, and are theretreasured and arranged as materials for reflection, then they are calledideas. A perception is like a transient sunbeam, which just shows theobject, but leaves neither light nor warmth; while an idea is like thefervid beam of noon, which throws a settled and powerful light. 

Many ingenious readers complain that their memory is defective, and theirstudies unfruitful. This defect arises from their indulging the facilepleasures of perceptions, in preference to the laborious habit of formingthem into ideas. Perceptions require only the sensibility of taste, andtheir pleasures are continuous, easy, and exquisite. Ideas are an art ofcombination, and an exertion of the reasoning powers. Ideas are thereforelabours; and for those who will not labour, it is unjust to complain, ifthey come from the harvest with scarcely a sheaf in their hands. 

There are secrets in the art of reading which tend to facilitate itspurposes, by assisting the memory, and augmenting intellectual opulence. Some our own ingenuity must form, and perhaps every student has peculiarhabits of study, as, in sort-hand, almost every writer has a system of hisown. 

It is an observation of the elder Pliny (who, having been a voluminouscompiler, must have had great experience in the art of reading), thatthere was no book so bad but which contained something good. To read everybook would, however, be fatal to the interest of most readers; but it isnot always necessary, in the pursuits of learning, to read every bookentire. Of many books it is sufficient to seize the plan, and to examinesome of their portions. Of the little supplement at the close of a volume, few readers conceive the utility; but some of the most eminent writers inEurope have been great adepts in the art of index reading. I, for my part, venerate the inventor of indexes; and I know not to whom to yield thepreference, either to Hippocrates, who was the first great anatomiser ofthe human body, or to that unknown labourer in literature, who first laidopen the nerves and arteries of a book. Watts advises the perusal of theprefaces and the index of a book, as they both give light on its contents. 

The ravenous appetite of Johnson for reading is expressed in a strongmetaphor by Mrs. Knowles, who said, "he knows how to read better than anyone; he gets at the substance of a book directly: he tears out the heartof it. " Gibbon has a new idea in the "Art of Reading;" he says "we oughtnot to attend to the order of our books so much as of our thoughts. Theperusal of a particular work gives birth perhaps to ideas unconnected withthe subject it treats; I pursue these ideas, and quit my proposed plan ofreading. " Thus in the midst of Homer he read Longinus; a chapter ofLonginus led to an epistle of Pliny; and having finished Longinus, hefollowed the train of his ideas of the sublime and beautiful in the"Enquiry" of Burke, and concluded by comparing the ancient with the modernLonginus. 

There are some mechanical aids in reading which may prove of greatutility, and form a kind of rejuvenescence of our early studies. Montaigneplaced at the end of a book which he intended not to reperuse, the time hehad read it, with a concise decision on its merits; "that, " says he, "itmay thus represent to me the air and general idea I had conceived of theauthor, in reading the work. " We have several of these annotations. OfYoung the poet it is noticed, that whenever he came to a striking passagehe folded the leaf; and that at his death, books have been found in hislibrary which had long resisted the power of closing: a mode more easythan useful; for after a length of time they must be again read to knowwhy they were folded. This difficulty is obviated by those who note in ablank leaf the pages to be referred to, with a word of criticism. Nor letus consider these minute directions as unworthy the most enlarged minds:by these petty exertions, at the most distant periods, may learning obtainits authorities, and fancy combine its ideas. Seneca, in sending somevolumes to his friend Lucilius, accompanies them with notes of particularpassages, "that, " he observes, "you who only aim at the useful may bespared the trouble of examining them entire. " I have seen books noted byVoltaire with a word of censure or approbation on the page itself, whichwas his usual practice; and these volumes are precious to every man oftaste. Formey complained that the books he lent Voltaire were returnedalways disfigured by his remarks; but he was a writer of the oldschool. [A]

[Footnote A: The account of Oldys and his manuscripts, in the third volumeof the "Curiosities of Literature, " will furnish abundant proof of thevalue of such _disfigurations_ when the work of certain hands. --ED. ]

A professional student should divide his readings into a _uniform_ readingwhich is useful, and into a _diversified_ reading which is pleasant. GuyPatin, an eminent physician and man of letters, had a just notion of thismanner. He says, "I daily read Hippocrates, Galen, Fernel, and otherillustrious masters of my profession; this I call my profitable readings. I frequently read Ovid, Juvenal, Horace, Seneca, Tacitus, and others, andthese are my recreations. " We must observe these distinctions; for itfrequently happens that a lawyer or a physician, with great industry andlove of study, by giving too much into his diversified readings, mayutterly neglect what should be his uniform studies. 

A reader is too often a prisoner attached to the triumphal car of anauthor of great celebrity; and when he ventures not to judge for himself, conceives, while he is reading the indifferent works of great authors, that the languor which he experiences arises from his own defective taste. But the best writers, when they are voluminous, have a great deal ofmediocrity. 

On the other side, readers must not imagine that all the pleasures ofcomposition depend on the author, for there is something which a readerhimself must bring to the book that the book may please. There is aliterary appetite, which the author can no more impart than the mostskilful cook can give an appetency to the guests. When Cardinal Richelieusaid to Godeau, that he did not understand his verses, the honest poetreplied that it was not his fault. The temporary tone of the mind may beunfavourable to taste a work properly, and we have had many erroneouscriticisms from great men, which may often be attributed to thiscircumstance. The mind communicates its infirm dispositions to the book, and an author has not only his own defects to account for, but also thoseof his reader. There is something in composition like the game ofshuttlecock, where if the reader do not quickly rebound the feathered cockto the author, the game is destroyed, and the whole spirit of the workfalls extinct. 

A frequent impediment in reading is a disinclination in the mind to settleon the subject; agitated by incongruous and dissimilar ideas, it is withpain that we admit those of the author. But on applying ourselves with agentle violence to the perusal of an interesting work, the mind soonassimilates to the subject; the ancient rabbins advised their youngstudents to apply themselves to their readings, whether they felt aninclination or not, because, as they proceeded, they would find theirdisposition restored and their curiosity awakened. 

Readers may be classed into an infinite number of divisions; but an authoris a solitary being, who, for the same reason he pleases one, mustconsequently displease another. To have too exalted a genius is moreprejudicial to his celebrity than to have a moderate one; for we shallfind that the most popular works are not the most profound, but such asinstruct those who require instruction, and charm those who are not toolearned to taste their novelty. Lucilius, the satirist, said, that he didnot write for Persius, for Scipio, and for Rutilius, persons eminent fortheir science, but for the Tarentines, the Consentines, and the Sicilians. Montaigne has complained that he found his readers too learned, or tooignorant, and that he could only please a middle class, who have justlearning enough to comprehend him. Congreve says, "there is in true beautysomething which vulgar souls cannot admire. " Balzac complains bitterly ofreaders, --"A period, " he cries, "shall have cost us the labour of a day;we shall have distilled into an essay the essence of our mind; it may be afinished piece of art; and they think they are indulgent when theypronounce it to contain some pretty things, and that the style is notbad!" There is something in exquisite composition which ordinary readerscan never understand. 

Authors are vain, but readers are capricious. Some will only read oldbooks, as if there were no valuable truths to be discovered in modernpublications; while others will only read new books, as if some valuabletruths are not among the old. Some will not read a book, because they areacquainted with the author; by which the reader may be more injured thanthe author: others not only read the book, but would also read the man; bywhich the most ingenious author may be injured by the most impertinentreader. 

 * * * * *

ON HABITUATING OURSELVES TO AN INDIVIDUAL PURSUIT. 

Two things in human life are at continual variance, and without escapingfrom the one we must be separated from the other; and these are _ennui_and _pleasure_. Ennui is an afflicting sensation, if we may thus expressit, from a want of sensation; and pleasure is greater pleasure accordingto the quantity of sensation. That sensation is received in proportion tothe capacity of our organs; and that practice, or, as it has beensometimes called, "educated feeling, " enlarges this capacity, is evidentin such familiar instances as those of the blind, who have a finer tact, and the jeweller, who has a finer sight, than other men who are not sodeeply interested in refining their vision and their touch. Intenseattention is, therefore, a certain means of deriving more numerouspleasures from its object. 

Hence it is that the poet, long employed on a poem, has received aquantity of pleasure which no reader can ever feel. In the progress of anyparticular pursuit, there are a hundred fugitive sensations which are toointellectual to be embodied into language. Every artist knows that betweenthe thought that first gave rise to his design, and each one which appearsin it, there are innumerable intermediate evanescences of sensation whichno man felt but himself. These pleasures are in number according to theintenseness of his faculties and the quantity of his labour. 

It is so in any particular pursuit, from the manufacturing of pins to theconstruction of philosophical systems. Every individual can exert thatquantity of mind necessary to his wants and adapted to his situation; thequality of pleasure is nothing in the present question: for I think thatwe are mistaken concerning the gradations of human felicity. It does atfirst appear, that an astronomer rapt in abstraction, while he gazes on astar, must feel a more exquisite delight than a farmer who is conductinghis team; or a poet experience a higher gratification in modulating versesthan a trader in arranging sums. But the happiness of the ploughman andthe trader may be as satisfactory as that of the astronomer and the poet. Our mind can only he conversant with those sensations which surround us, and possessing the skill of managing them, we can form an artificialfelicity; it is certain that what the soul does not feel, no more affectsit than what the eye does not see. It is thus that the trader, habituatedto humble pursuits, can never be unhappy because he is not the general ofan army; for this idea of felicity he has never received. The philosopherwho gives his entire years to the elevated pursuits of mind, is neverunhappy because he is not in possession of an Indian opulence, for theidea of accumulating this exotic splendour has never entered the range ofhis combinations. Nature, an impartial mother, renders felicity as perfectin the school-boy who scourges his top, as in the astronomer who regulateshis star. The thing contained can only be equal to the container; a fullglass is as full as a full bottle; and a human soul may be as muchsatisfied in the lowest of human beings as in the highest. 

In the progress of an individual pursuit, what philosophers call theassociating or suggesting idea is ever busied, and in its beautifuleffects genius is most deeply concerned; for besides those trains ofthought the great artist falls into during his actual composition, adistinct habit accompanies real genius through life in the activity of hisassociating idea, when not at his work; it is at all times pressing andconducting his spontaneous thoughts, and every object which suggests them, however apparently trivial or unconnected towards itself, making what itwills its own, while instinctively it seems inattentive to whatever has notendency to its own purposes. 

Many peculiar advantages attend the cultivation of one master passion oroccupation. In superior minds it is a sovereign that exiles others, and in inferior minds it enfeebles pernicious propensities. It may renderus useful to our fellow-citizens, and it imparts the most perfectindependence to ourselves. It is observed by a great mathematician, that ageometrician would not be unhappy in a desert. 

This unity of design, with a centripetal force, draws all the rays of ourexistence; and often, when accident has turned the mind firmly to oneobject, it has been discovered that its occupation is another name forhappiness; for it is a mean of escaping from incongruous sensations. Itsecures us from the dark vacuity of soul, as well as from the whirlwind ofideas; reason itself is a passion, but a passion full of serenity. 

It is, however, observable of those who have devoted themselves to anindividual object, that its importance is incredibly enlarged to theirsensations. Intense attention magnifies like a microscope; but it ispossible to apologise for their apparent extravagance from theconsideration, that they really observe combinations not perceived byothers of inferior application. That this passion has been carried to acurious violence of affection, literary history affords numerousinstances. In reading Dr. Burney's "Musical Travels, " it would seem thatmusic was the prime object of human life; Richardson, the painter, in histreatise on his beloved art, closes all by affirming, that "_Raphael_ isnot only _equal_, but _superior_ to a _Virgil_, or a _Livy_, or a_Thucydides_, or a _Homer_!" and that painting can reform our manners, increase our opulence, honour, and power. Denina, in his "Revolutions ofLiterature, " tells us that to excel in historical composition requiresmore ability than is exercised by the excelling masters of any other art;because it requires not only the same erudition, genius, imagination, andtaste, necessary for a poet, a painter, or a philosopher, but thehistorian must also have some peculiar qualifications; this served as aprelude to his own history. [A] Helvetius, an enthusiast in the fine artsand polite literature, has composed a poem on Happiness; and imagines thatit consists in an exclusive love of the cultivation of letters and thearts. All this shows that the more intensely we attach ourselves to anindividual object, the more numerous and the more perfect are oursensations; if we yield to the distracting variety of opposite pursuitswith an equal passion, our soul is placed amid a continual shock of ideas, and happiness is lost by mistakes. 

[Footnote A: One of the most amusing modern instances occurs in thePreface to the late Peter Buchan's annotated edition of "Ancient Balladsand Songs of the North of Scotland" (2 vols. 8vo, Edin. 1828), in which hedeclares--"no one has yet conceived, nor has it entered the mind of man, what patience, perseverance, and general knowledge are necessary for aneditor of a Collection of Ancient Ballads. "--ED. ]

 * * * * *

ON NOVELTY IN LITERATURE. 

"All is said, " exclaims the lively La Bruyère; but at the same moment, byhis own admirable Reflections, confutes the dreary system he wouldestablish. An opinion of the exhausted state of literature has been apopular prejudice of remote existence; and an unhappy idea of a wiseancient, who, even in his day, lamented that "of books there is no end, "has been transcribed in many books. He who has critically examined anybranch of literature has discovered how little of original invention is tobe found even in the most excellent works. To add a little to hispredecessors satisfies the ambition of the first geniuses. The popularnotion of literary novelty is an idea more fanciful than exact. Many areyet to learn that our admired originals are not such as they mistake themto be; that the plans of the most original performances have beenborrowed; and that the thoughts of the most admired compositions are notwonderful discoveries, but only truths, which the ingenuity of the author, by arranging the intermediate and accessary ideas, has unfolded from thatconfused sentiment, which those experience who are not accustomed to thinkwith depth, or to discriminate with accuracy. This Novelty in Literatureis, as Pope defines it, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd. 

Novelty, in its rigid acceptation, will not be found in any judiciousproduction. 

Voltaire looked on everything as imitation. He observes that the mostoriginal writers borrowed one from another, and says that the instructionwe gather from books is like fire--we fetch it from our neighbours, kindleit at home, and communicate it to others, till it becomes the property ofall. He traces some of the finest compositions to the fountainhead; andthe reader smiles when he perceives that they have travelled in regularsuccession through China, India, Arabia, and Greece, to France and toEngland. 

To the obscurity of time are the ancients indebted for that originality inwhich they are imagined to excel, but we know how frequently they accuseeach other; and to have borrowed copiously from preceding writers was notconsidered criminal by such illustrious authors as Plato and Cicero. TheÆneid of Virgil displays little invention in the incidents, for it unitesthe plan of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. 

Our own early writers have not more originality than modern genius mayaspire to reach. To imitate and to rival the Italians and the Frenchformed their devotion. Chaucer, Gower, and Gawin Douglas, were allspirited imitators, and frequently only masterly translators. Spenser, thefather of so many poets, is himself the child of the Ausonian Muse. Miltonis incessantly borrowing from the poetry of his day. In the beautifulMasque of Comus he preserved all the circumstances of the work heimitated. Tasso opened for him the Tartarean Gulf; the sublime descriptionof the bridge may be found in Sadi, who borrowed it from the Turkishtheology; the paradise of fools is a wild flower, transplanted from thewilderness of Ariosto. The rich poetry of Gray is a wonderful tissue, woven on the frames, and composed with the gold threads, of others. ToCervantes we owe Butler; and the united abilities of three great wits, intheir _Martinus Scriblerus_, could find no other mode of conveyingtheir powers but by imitating at once Don Quixote and Monsieur Oufle. Pope, like Boileau, had all the ancients and moderns in his pay; thecontributions he levied were not the pillages of a bandit, but the taxesof a monarch. Swift is much indebted for the plans of his two veryoriginal performances: he owes the "Travels of Gulliver" to the "Voyagesof Cyrano de Bergerac to the Sun and Moon;" a writer, who, without theacuteness of Swift, has wilder flashes of fancy; Joseph Warton hasobserved many of Swift's strokes in Bishop Godwin's "Man in the Moon, "who, in his turn, must have borrowed his work from Cyrano. "The Tale of aTub" is an imitation of such various originals, that they are too numeroushere to mention. Wotton observed, justly, that in many places the author'swit is not his own. Dr. Ferriar's "Essay on the Imitations of Sterne"might be considerably augmented. Such are the writers, however, whoimitate, but remain inimitable!

Montaigne, with honest naïveté, compares his writings to a thread thatbinds the flowers of others; and that, by incessantly pouring the watersof a few good old authors into his sieve, some drops fall upon his paper. The good old man elsewhere acquaints us with a certain stratagem of hisown invention, consisting of his inserting whole sentences from theancients, without acknowledgment, that the critics might blunder, bygiving _nazardes_ to Seneca and Plutarch, while they imagined they tweakedhis nose. Petrarch, who is not the inventor of that tender poetry of whichhe is the model, and Boccaccio, called the father of Italian novelists, have alike profited by a studious perusal of writers, who are now onlyread by those who have more curiosity than taste. Boiardo has imitatedPulci, and Ariosto, Boiardo. The madness of Orlando Furioso, though itwears, by its extravagance, a very original air, is only imitated from SirLauncelot in the old romance of "Morte Arthur, " with which, Wartonobserves, it agrees in every leading circumstance; and what is theCardenio of Cervantes but the Orlando of Ariosto? Tasso has imitated the_Iliad_, and enriched his poem with episodes from the _Æneid_. It iscurious to observe that even Dante, wild and original as he appears, whenhe meets Virgil in the Inferno, warmly expresses his gratitude for themany fine passages for which he was indebted to his works, and on which hesays he had "long meditated. " Molière and La Fontaine are considered topossess as much originality as any of the French writers; yet the learnedMénage calls Molière "un grand et habile picoreur;" and Boileau tells usthat La Fontaine borrowed his style and matter from Marot and Rabelais, and took his subjects from Boccaccio, Poggius, and Ariosto. Nor was theeccentric Rabelais the inventor of most of his burlesque narratives; andhe is a very close imitator of Folengo, the inventor of the macaronicpoetry, and not a little indebted to the old _Facezie_ of the Italians. Indeed Marot, Villon, as well as those we have noticed, profited by theauthors anterior to the age of Francis I. La Bruyère incorporates wholepassages of Publius Syrus in his work, as the translator of the latterabundantly shows. To the "Turkish Spy" was Montesquieu beholden for his"Persian Letters, " and a numerous crowd are indebted to Montesquieu. Corneille made a liberal use of Spanish literature; and the pure waters ofRacine flowed from the fountains of Sophocles and Euripides. 

This vein of imitation runs through the productions of our greatestauthors. Vigneul de Marville compares some of the first writers to bankerswho are rich with the assembled fortunes of individuals, and would beoften ruined were they too hardly drawn on. 

 * * * * *

VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ

Pliny, in an epistle to Tuscus, advises him to intermix among his severerstudies the softening charms of poetry; and notices a species of poeticalcomposition which merits critical animadversion. I shall quote Pliny inthe language of his elegant translator. He says, "These pieces commonly gounder the title of poetical amusements; but these amusements havesometimes gained as much reputation to their authors as works of a moreserious nature. It is surprising how much the mind is entertained andenlivened by these little poetical compositions, as they turn uponsubjects of gallantry, satire, tenderness, politeness, and everything, inshort, that concerns life, and the affairs of the world. "

This species of poetry has been carried to its utmost perfection by theFrench. It has been discriminated by them, from the mass of poetry, under the apt title of "_Poésies légères, "_ and sometimes it has beensignificantly called "_Vers de Société_. " The French writers have formed abody of this fugitive poetry which no European nation can rival; and towhich both the language and genius appear to be greatly favourable. 

The "_Poésies légères_" are not merely compositions of a light and gayturn, but are equally employed as a vehicle for tender and patheticsentiment. They are never long, for they are consecrated to the amusementof society. The author appears to have composed them for his pleasure, notfor his glory; and he charms his readers, because he seems careless oftheir approbation. 

Every delicacy of sentiment must find its delicacy of expression, andevery tenderness of thought must be softened by the tenderest tones. Nothing trite or trivial must enfeeble and chill the imagination; nor mustthe ear be denied its gratification by a rough or careless verse. In theseworks nothing is pardoned; a word may disturb, a line may destroy thecharm. 

The passions of the poet may form the subjects of his verse. It is inthese writings he delineates himself; he reflects his tastes, hisdesires, his humours, his amours, and even his defects. In other poems thepoet disappears under the feigned character he assumes; here alone hespeaks, here he acts. He makes a confidant of the reader, interests him inhis hopes and his sorrows; we admire the poet, and conclude with esteemingthe man. The poem is the complaint of a lover, or a compliment to apatron, a vow of friendship, or a hymn of gratitude. 

These poems have often, with great success, displayed pictures of manners;for here the poet colours the objects with all the hues of social life. Reflection must not be amplified, for these are pieces devoted tothe fancy; a scene may be painted throughout the poem; a sentimentmust be conveyed in a verse. In the "Grongar Hill" of Dyer we discoversome strokes which may serve to exemplify this criticism. The poet, contemplating the distant landscape, observes--

 A step methinks may pass the stream, So little distant dangers seem; So we mistake the future's face, Eyed through Hope's deluding glass. 

It must not be supposed that, because these poems are concise, theyare of easy production; a poet's genius may not be diminutive becausehis pieces are so; nor must we call them, as a fine sonnet has beencalled, a difficult trifle. A circle may be very small, yet it may be asmathematically beautiful and perfect as a larger one. To such compositionswe may apply the observation of an ancient critic, that though a littlething gives perfection, yet perfection is not a little thing. 

The poet must be alike polished by an intercourse with the world as withthe studies of taste; one to whom labour is negligence, refinement ascience, and art a nature. 

Genius will not always be sufficient to impart that grace of amenity. Manyof the French nobility, who cultivated poetry, have therefore oftenerexcelled in these poetical amusements than more professed poets. Franceonce delighted in the amiable and ennobled names of Nivernois, Boufflers, and St. Aignan; they have not been considered as unworthy rivals ofChaulieu and Bernard, of Voltaire and Gresset. 

All the minor odes of Horace, and the entire Anacreon, are compositions ofthis kind; effusions of the heart, and pictures of the imagination, whichwere produced in the convivial, the amatory, and the pensive hour. Ournation has not always been successful in these performances; they have notbeen kindred to its genius. With Charles II. Something of a gayer and moreairy taste was communicated to our poetry, but it was desultory andincorrect. Waller, both by his habits and his genius, was well adapted toexcel in this lighter poetry; and he has often attained the perfectionwhich the state of the language then permitted. Prior has a variety ofsallies; but his humour is sometimes gross, and his versification issometimes embarrassed. He knew the value of these charming pieces, andhe had drunk of this Burgundy in the vineyard itself. He has sometranslations, and some plagiarisms; but some of his verses to Chloe areeminently airy and pleasing. A diligent selection from our fugitive poetrymight perhaps present us with many of these minor poems; but the "_Vers deSociété_" form a species of poetical composition which may still beemployed with great success. 

 * * * * *

THE GENIUS OF MOLIÈRE. 

The genius of comedy not only changes with the age, but appears differentamong different people. Manners and customs not only vary among Europeannations, but are alike mutable from one age to another, even in the samepeople. These vicissitudes are often fatal to comic writers; our oldschool of comedy has been swept off the stage: and our present uniformityof manners has deprived our modern writers of those rich sources ofinvention when persons living more isolated, society was less monotonous;and Jonson and Shadwell gave us what they called "_the humours_, "--thatis, the individual or particular characteristics of men. [A]

[Footnote A: Aubrey has noted this habit of our two greatest dramatists, when speaking of Shakspeare he says--"The humour of the constable in _AMidsummer Night's Dream_, he happened to take at Grendon in Bucks; whichis the roade from London to Stratford; and there was living that constablein 1642, when I first came to Oxon. Ben Jonson and he did gather humoursof men dayly, wherever they came. " Shadwell, whose best plays wereproduced in the reign of Charles II. , was a professed imitator of thestyle of Jonson; and so closely described the manners of his day that hewas frequently accused of direct personalities, and obliged to alter oneof his plays, _The Humorists_, to avoid an outcry raised against him. SirWalter Scott has recorded, in the Preface to his "Fortunes of Nigel, " theobligation he was under to Shadwell's comedy, _The Squire of Alsatia_, forthe vivid description it enabled him to give of the lawless denizens ofthe old Sanctuary of Whitefriars. --ED. ]

But however tastes and modes of thinking may be inconstant, and customsand manners alter, at bottom the groundwork is Nature's, in everyproduction of comic genius. A creative genius, guided by an unerringinstinct, though he draws after the contemporary models of society, willretain his pre-eminence beyond his own age and his own nation; what wastemporary and local disappears, but what appertains to universal natureendures. The scholar dwells on the grotesque pleasantries of the sarcasticAristophanes, though the Athenian manners, and his exotic personages, havelong vanished. 

MOLIÈRE was a creator in the _art of comedy_; and although his personageswere the contemporaries of Louis the Fourteenth, and his manners, in thecritical acceptation of the term, local and temporary, yet his admirablegenius opened that secret path of Nature, which is so rarely found amongthe great names of the most literary nations. CERVANTES remains single inSpain; in England SHAKSPEARE is a consecrated name; and centuries may passaway before the French people shall witness another MOLIÈRE. 

The history of this comic poet is the tale of powerful genius creatingitself amidst the most adverse elements. We have the progress of thatself-education which struck out an untried path of its own, from the timeMolière had not yet acquired his art to the glorious days when he gave hiscountry a Plautus in his farce, a Terence in his composition, and aMenander in his moral truths. But the difficulties overcome, and thedisappointments incurred, his modesty and his confidence, and, what wasnot less extraordinary, his own domestic life in perpetual conflict withhis character, open a more strange career, in some respects, than hashappened to most others of the high order of his genius. 

It was long the fate of Molière to experience that restless importunity ofgenius which feeds on itself, till it discovers the pabulum it seeks. Molière not only suffered that tormenting impulse, but it was accompaniedby the unhappiness of a mistaken direction. And this has been the lot ofsome who for many years have thus been lost to themselves and to thepublic. 

A man born among the obscure class of the people, thrown among theitinerant companies of actors--for France had not yet a theatre--occupiedto his last hours by too devoted a management of his own dramatic corps;himself, too, an original actor in the characters by himself created; withno better models of composition than the Italian farces _all' improvista_, and whose fantastic gaiety he, to the last, loved too well; becomes thepersonal favourite of the most magnificent monarch, and the intimate ofthe most refined circles. Thoughtful observer of these new scenes and newpersonages, he sports with the affected _précieuses_ and the flattering_marquises_ as with the _naïve_ ridiculousness of the _bourgeois, _ and thewild pride and egotism of the _parvenus_; and with more profound designsand a hardier hand unmasks the impostures of false _pretenders_ in allprofessions. His scenes, such was their verity, seem but the reflectionsof his reminiscences. His fertile facility when touching on transientfollies; his wide comprehension, and his moralising vein, in his moreelevated comedy, display, in this painter of man, the poet and thephilosopher, and, above all, the great moral satirist. Molière has shownthat the most successful reformer of the manners of a people is a greatcomic poet. 

The youth _Pocquelin_--this was his family name--was designed by the_tapissier_, his father, to be the heir of the hereditary honours of anancient standing, which had maintained the Pocquelins through fouror five generations by the articles of a furnishing upholsterer. Hisgrandfather was a haunter of the small theatres of that day, andthe boy often accompanied this venerable critic of the family to hisfavourite recreations. The actors were usually more excellent than theirpieces; some had carried the mimetic art to the perfection of eloquentgesticulation. In these loose scenes of inartificial and burlesque pieceswas the genius of Molière cradled and nursed. The changeful scenes of the_Théâtre de Bourgogne_ deeply busied the boy's imagination, to the greatdetriment of the _tapisserie_ of all the Pocquelins. 

The father groaned, the grandfather clapped, the boy remonstrated till, atfourteen years of age, he was consigned, as "un mauvais sujet" (so hisfather qualified him), to a college of the Jesuits at Paris, where theauthor of the "Tartuffe" passed five years, studying--for the bar!

Philosophy and logic were waters which he deeply drank; and sprinklings ofhis college studies often pointed the satire of his more finishedcomedies. To ridicule false learning and false taste one must be intimatewith the true. 

On his return to the metropolis the old humour broke out at therepresentation of the inimitable Scaramouch of the Italian theatre. Theirresistible passion drove him from his law studies, and cast youngPocquelin among a company of amateur actors, whose fame soon enabled themnot to play gratuitously. Pocquelin was the manager and the modeller, forunder his studious eye this company were induced to imitate Nature withthe simplicity the poet himself wrote. 

The prejudices of the day, both civil and religious, had made theseprivate theatres--no great national theatre yet existing--the resourceonly of the idler, the dissipated, and even of the unfortunate in society. The youthful adventurer affectionately offered a free admission to thedear Pocquelins. They rejected their _entrées_ with horror, and sent theirgenealogical tree, drawn afresh, to shame the truant who had wantoned intothe luxuriance of genius. To save the honour of the parental upholsterersPocquelin concealed himself under the immortal name of Molière. 

The future creator of French comedy had now passed his thirtieth year, andas yet his reputation was confined to his own dramatic corps--a pilgrim inthe caravan of ambulatory comedy. He had provided several temporarynovelties. Boileau regretted the loss of one, _Le Docteur Amoureux;_ andin others we detect the abortive conceptions of some of his future pieces. The severe judgment of Molière suffered his skeletons to perish; but, whenhe had discovered the art of comic writing, with equal discernment heresuscitated them. 

Not only had Molière not yet discovered the true bent of his genius, but, still more unfortunate, he had as greatly mistaken it as when he proposedturning _avocat_, for he imagined that his most suitable character wastragic. He wrote a tragedy, and he acted in a tragedy; the tragedy hecomposed was condemned at Bordeaux; the mortified poet flew to Grenoble;still the unlucky tragedy haunted his fancy; he looked on it with paternaleyes, in which there were tears. Long after, when Racine, a youth, offeredhim a very unactable tragedy, [A] Molière presented him with his own:--"Take this, for I am convinced that the subject is highly tragic, notwithstanding my failure. " The great dramatic poet of France opened hiscareer by recomposing the condemned tragedy of the comic wit in _LaThébaïde. _ In the illusion that he was a great tragic actor, deceived byhis own susceptibility, though his voice denied the tones of passion, heacted in one of Corneille's tragedies, and quite allayed the alarm of arival company on the announcement. It was not, however, so when theauthor-actor vivified one of his own native personages; then, inimitablycomic, every new representation seemed to be a new creation. 

[Footnote A: The tragedy written by Racine was called _Théagenè etChariclée_, and founded on the tale by Heliodorus. It was the firstattempt of its author, and submitted by him to Molière, while director ofthe Theatre of the Palais Royal; the latter had no favourable impressionof its success if produced, but suggested _La Thébaïde_ as a subject forhis genius, and advanced the young poet 100 louis while engaged on hiswork, which was successfully produced in 1664. --ED. ]

It is a remarkable feature, though not perhaps a singular one, in thecharacter of this great comic writer, that he was one of the most seriousof men, and even of a melancholic temperament. One of his lampooners wrotea satirical comedy on the comic poet, where he figures as "Molièrehypochondre. " Boileau, who knew him intimately, happily characterisedMolière as _le Contemplateur_. This deep pensiveness is revealed in hisphysiognomy. 

The genius of Molière, long undiscovered by himself, in its first attemptsin a higher walk did not move alone; it was crutched by imitation, and itoften deigned to plough with another's heifer. He copied whole scenes fromItalian comedies and plots from Italian novelists: his sole merit wastheir improvement. The great comic satirist, who hereafter was to peoplethe stage with a dramatic crowd who were to live on to posterity, had notyet struck at that secret vein of originality--the fairy treasure whichone day was to cast out such a prodigality of invention. His two firstcomedies, _L'Etourdi_ and _Le Dépit Amoureux_, which he had only venturedto bring out in a provincial theatre, were grafted on Italian and Spanishcomedy. Nothing more original offered to his imagination than the Roman, the Italian, and the Spanish drama; the cunning adroit slave of Terence;the tricking, bustling _Gracioso_ of modern Spain; old fathers, the dupesof some scapegrace, or of their own senile follies, with lovers sighing atcross-purposes. The germ of his future powers may, indeed, be discoveredin these two comedies, for insensibly to himself he had fallen into somescenes of natural simplicity. In _L'Etourdi, _ Mascarille, "le roi desserviteurs, " which Molière himself admirably personated, is one of thosedefunct characters of the Italian comedy no longer existing in society;yet, like our Touchstone, but infinitely richer, this new ideal personagestill delights by the fertility of his expedients and his perpetual andvigorous gaiety. In _Le Dépit Amoureux_ is the exquisite scene of thequarrel and reconciliation of the lovers. In this fine scene, thoughperhaps but an amplification of the well-known ode of Horace, _Donecgratus eram tibi_, Molière consulted his own feelings, and betrayed hisfuture genius. 

It was after an interval of three or four years that the provincialcelebrity of these comedies obtained a representation at Paris; theirsuccess was decisive. This was an evidence of public favour which didnot accompany Molière's more finished productions, which were so farunfortunate that they were more intelligible to the few; in fact, thefirst comedies of Molière were not written above the popular taste; thespirit of true comedy, in a profound knowledge of the heart of man, and inthe delicate discriminations of individual character, was yet unknown. Molière was satisfied to excel his predecessors, but he had not yetlearned his art. 

The rising poet was now earnestly sought after; a more extended circle ofsociety now engaged his contemplative habits. He looked around on livingscenes no longer through the dim spectacles of the old comedy, and heprojected a new species, which was no longer to depend on its conventionalgrotesque personages and its forced incidents; he aspired to please a morecritical audience by making his dialogue the conversation of society, andhis characters its portraits. 

Introduced to the literary coterie of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, a new viewopened on the favoured poet. To occupy a seat in this envied circle was adistinction in society. The professed object of this reunion of nobilityand literary persons, at the hôtel of the Marchioness of Rambouillet, wasto give a higher tone to all France, by the cultivation of the language, the intellectual refinement of their compositions, and last, but notleast, to inculcate the extremest delicacy of manners. The recent civildissensions had often violated the urbanity of the court, and a grossnessprevailed in conversation which offended the scrupulous. This criticalcircle was composed of both sexes. They were to be the arbiters of taste, the legislators of criticism, and, what was less tolerable, the models ofgenius. No work was to be stamped into currency which bore not themint-mark of the hôtel. 

In the annals of fashion and literature no coterie has presented a moreinstructive and amusing exhibition of the abuses of learning, and theaberrations of ill-regulated imaginations, than the Hôtel de Rambouillet, by its ingenious absurdities. Their excellent design to refine thelanguage, the manners, and even morality itself, branched out into everyspecies of false refinement; their science ran into trivial pedantries, their style into a fantastic jargon, and their spiritualising delicacyinto the very puritanism of prudery. Their frivolous distinction betweenthe mind and the heart, which could not always be made to go together, often perplexed them as much as their own jargon, which was not alwaysintelligible, even to the initiated. The French Academy is said to haveoriginated in the first meetings of the Hôtel de Rambouillet; and it isprobable that some sense and taste, in its earliest days, may have visitedthis society, for we do not begin such refined follies without some showof reason. 

The local genius of the hôtel was feminine, though the most glorious menof the literature of France were among its votaries. The great magnet wasthe famed Mademoiselle Scudery, whose voluminous romances were their code;and it is supposed these tomes preserve some of their lengthened_conversaziones_. In the novel system of gallantry of this great inventorof amorous and metaphysical "twaddle, " the ladies were to be approached asbeings nothing short of celestial paragons; they were addressed in alanguage not to be found in any dictionary but their own, and their habitswere more fantastic than their language: a sort of domestic chivalryformed their etiquette. Their baptismal names were to them profane, andtheir assumed ones were drawn from the folio romances--those Bibles oflove. At length all ended in a sort of Freemasonry of gallantry, which hadits graduated orders, and whoever was not admitted into the mysteries wasnot permitted to prolong his existence--that is, his residence amongthem. The apprenticeship of the craft was to be served under certain_Introducers to Ruelles_. 

Their card of invitation was either a rondeau or an enigma, which servedas a subject to open conversation. The lady received her visitors reposingon that throne of beauty, a bed placed in an alcove; the toilet wasmagnificently arranged. The space between the bed and the wall was calledthe _Ruelle_[A], the diminutive of _la Rue_; and in this narrow street, or"Fop's alley, " walked the favoured. But the chevalier who was graced bythe honorary title of _l'Alcoviste, _ was at once master of the householdand master of the ceremonies. His character is pointedly defined by St. Evremond, as "a lover whom the _Précieuse_ is to love without enjoyment, and to enjoy in good earnest her husband with aversion. " The scene offeredno indecency to such delicate minds, and much less the impassioned stylewhich passed between _les chères_, as they called themselves. Whateveroffered an idea, of what their jargon denominated _charnelle_, was treasonand exile. Years passed ere the hand of the elected maiden was kissed byits martyr. The celebrated Julia d'Angennes was beloved by the Duke deMontausier, but fourteen years elapsed ere she would yield a "yes. " Whenthe faithful Julia was no longer blooming, the Alcoviste duke gratefullytook up the remains of her beauty. 

[Footnote A: In a portion of the ancient Louvre, still preserved amid thechanges to which it has been subjected, is the old wainscoted bedroom ofthe great Henry IV. , with the carved recess, and the _ruelle_, asdescribed above: it is a most interesting fragment of regal domesticlife. --ED. ]

Their more curious project was the reform of the style of conversation, topurify its grossness, and invent novel terms for familiar objects. Ménagedrew up a "Petition of the Dictionaries, " which, by their severity oftaste, had nearly become superannuated. They succeeded better with the_marchandes des modes_ and the jewellers, furnishing a vocabularyexcessively _précieuse_, by which people bought their old wares with newnames. At length they were so successful in their neology, that with greatdifficulty they understood one another. It is, however, worth observation, that the orthography invented by the _précieuses_--who, for theirconvenience, rejected all the redundant letters in words--was adopted, andis now used; and their pride of exclusiveness in society introduced thesingular term _s'encanailler, _ to describe a person who haunted lowcompany, while their morbid purity had ever on their lips the word_obscénité_, terms which Molière ridicules, but whose expressiveness haspreserved them in the language. 

Ridiculous as some of these extravagances now appear to us, they had beenso closely interwoven with the elegance of the higher ranks, and sointimately associated with genius and literature, that the veil of fashionconsecrated almost the mystical society, since we find among its admirersthe most illustrious names of France. 

Into this elevated and artificial circle of society our youthful andunsophisticated poet was now thrown, with a mind not vitiated by anyprepossessions of false taste, studious of nature and alive to theridiculous. But how was the comic genius to strike at the follies of hisillustrious friends--to strike, but not to wound? A provincial poet andactor to enter hostilely into the sacred precincts of these Exclusives?Tormented by his genius Molière produced _Les Précieuses Ridicules_, butadmirably parried, in his preface, any application to them, by averringthat it was aimed at their imitators--their spurious mimics in thecountry. The _Précieuses Ridicules_ was acted in the presence of theassembled Hôtel de Rambouillet with immense applause. A central voice fromthe pit, anticipating the host of enemies and the fame of the reformer ofcomedy, exclaimed, "Take courage, Molière, this is true comedy. " Thelearned Ménage was the only member of the society who had the good senseto detect the drift; he perceived the snake in the grass. "We must now, "said this sensible pedant (in a remote allusion to the fate of idolatryand the introduction of Christianity) to the poetical pedant, Chapelain, "follow the counsel which St. Rémi gave to Clovis--we must burn all thatwe adored, and adore what we have burned. " The success of the comedy wasuniversal; the company doubled their prices; the country gentry flocked towitness the marvellous novelty, which far exposed that false taste, thatromance-impertinence, and that sickly affectation which had long disturbedthe quiet of families. Cervantes had not struck more adroitly at Spanishrodomontade. 

At this universal reception of the _Précieuses Ridicules_, Molière, it issaid, exclaimed--"I need no longer study Plautus and Terence, nor poach inthe fragments of Menander; I have only to study the world. " It may bedoubtful whether the great comic satirist at that moment caught the suddenrevelation of his genius, as he did subsequently in his _Tartuffe_, his_Misanthrope_, his _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, and others. The _PrécieusesRidicules_ was the germ of his more elaborate _Femmes Savantes_, which wasnot produced till after an interval of twelve years. 

Molière returned to his old favourite _canevas_, or plots of Italianfarces and novels, and Spanish comedies, which, being always at hand, furnished comedies of intrigue. _L'Ecole des Maris_ is an inimitable modelof this class. 

But comedies which derive their chief interest from the ingeniousmechanism of their plots, however poignant the delight of the artificeof the _denouement_, are somewhat like an epigram, once known, thebrilliant point is blunted by repetition. This is not the fate of thoserepresentations of men's actions, passions, and manners, in the moreenlarged sphere of human nature, where an eternal interest is excited, andwill charm on the tenth repetition. 

No! Molière had not yet discovered his true genius; he was not yetemancipated from his old seductions. A rival company was reputed to havethe better actors for tragedy, and Molière resolved to compose an heroicdrama on the passion of jealousy--a favourite one on which he wasincessantly ruminating. _Don Garcie de Navarre, ou Le Prince Jaloux_, thehero personated by himself, terminated by the hisses of the audience. 

The fall of the _Prince Jaloux_ was nearly fatal to the tender reputationof the poet and the actor. The world became critical: the marquises, and the précieuses, and recently the bourgeois, who were sore from_Sganarelle, ou Le Cocu Imaginaire_, were up in arms; and the rivaltheatre maliciously raised the halloo, flattering themselves that thecomic genius of their dreaded rival would be extinguished by the ludicrousconvulsed hiccough to which Molière was liable in his tragic tones, butwhich he adroitly managed in his comic parts. 

But the genius of Molière was not to be daunted by cabals, nor eveninjured by his own imprudence. _Le Prince Jaloux_ was condemned inFebruary, 1661, and the same year produced _L'Ecole des Maris_ and _LesFâcheux_. The happy genius of the poet opened on his Zoiluses a series ofdramatic triumphs. 

Foreign critics--Tiraboschi and Schlegel--have depreciated the Frenchman'sinvention, by insinuating that were all that Molière borrowed taken fromhim, little would remain of his own. But they were not aware of hisdramatic creation, even when he appropriated the slight inventions ofothers; they have not distinguished the eras of the genius of Molière, andthe distinct classes of his comedies. Molière had the art of amalgamatingmany distinct inventions of others into a single inimitable whole. Whatever might be the herbs and the reptiles thrown into the mysticalcaldron, the incantation of genius proved to be truly magical. 

Facility and fecundity may produce inequality, but, when a man of geniusworks, they are imbued with a raciness which the anxious diligence ofinferior minds can never yield. Shakspeare, probably, poured forth manyscenes in this spirit. The multiplicity of the pieces of Molière, theirdifferent merits, and their distinct classes--all written within the spaceof twenty years--display, if any poet ever did, this wonder-workingfaculty. The truth is, that few of his comedies are finished works; henever satisfied himself, even in his most applauded productions. Necessitybound him to furnish novelties for his theatre; he rarely printed anywork. _Les Fâcheux_, an admirable series of scenes, in three acts, and inverse, was "planned, written, rehearsed, and represented in a singlefortnight. " Many of his dramatic effusions were precipitated on the stage;the humorous scenes of _Monsieur de Pourceaugnac_ were thrown out toenliven a royal fête. 

This versatility and felicity of composition made everything with Molièrea subject for comedy. He invented two novelties, such as the stage hadnever before witnessed. Instead of a grave defence from the malice of hiscritics, and the flying gossip of the court circle, Molière found out theart of congregating the public to _The Quarrels of Authors_. He dramatisedhis critics. In a comedy without a plot, and in scenes which seemed ratherspoken than written, and with characters more real than personated, hedisplayed his genius by collecting whatever had been alleged to depreciateit; and _La Critique de L'Ecole des Femmes_ is still a delightfulproduction. This singular drama resembles the sketch-book of an artist, the _croquis_ of portraits--the loose hints of thoughts, many of which wediscover were more fully delineated in his subsequent pieces. With thesame rapid conception he laid hold of his embarrassments to furnishdramatic novelties as expeditiously as the king required. Louis XIV. Washimself no indifferent critic, and more than once suggested an incident ora character to his favourite poet. In _L'Impromptu de Versailles_, Molièreappears in his own person, and in the midst of his whole company, with allthe irritable impatience of a manager who had no piece ready. Amidst thisgreen-room bustle Molière is advising, reprimanding, and imploring, his"ladies and gentlemen. " The characters in this piece are, in fact, theactors themselves, who appear under their own names; and Molière himselfreveals many fine touches of his own poetical character, as well as hismanagerial. The personal pleasantries on his own performers, and the hintsfor plots, and the sketches of character which the poet incidentallythrows out, form a perfect dramatic novelty. Some of these he himselfsubsequently adopted, and others have been followed up by some dramatistswithout rivalling Molière. The _Figaro_ of Beaumarchais is a descendant ofthe _Mascarille_ of Molière; but the glory of rivalling Molière wasreserved for our own stage. Sheridan's _Critic, or a Tragedy Rehearsed, _is a congenial dramatic satire with these two pieces of Molière. 

The genius of Molière had now stepped out of the restricted limits of theold comedy; he now looked on the moving world with other eyes, and hepursued the ridiculous in society. These fresher studies were going on atall hours, and every object was contemplated with a view to comedy. Hismost vital characters have been traced to living originals, and some ofhis most ludicrous scenes had occurred in reality before they delightedthe audience. Monsieur Jourdain had expressed his astonishment, "qu'ilfaisait de la prose, " in the Count de Soissons, one of the uneducatednoblemen devoted to the chase. The memorable scene between Trissotin andVadius, their mutual compliments terminating in their mutual contempt, hadbeen rehearsed by their respective authors--the Abbé Cottin and Ménage. The stultified booby of Limoges, _Monsieur de Pourceaugnac_, and themystified millionaire, _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, were copied after life, as was _Sganarelle_, in _Le Médecin malgré lui_. The portraits in thatgallery of dramatic paintings, _Le Misanthrope_, have names inscribedunder them; and the immortal _Tartuffe_ was a certain bishop of Autun. Nodramatist has conceived with greater variety the female character; thewomen of Molière have a distinctness of feature, and are touched with afreshness of feeling. Molière studied nature, and his comic humour isnever checked by that unnatural wit where the poet, the more he discovershimself, the farther he removes himself from the personage of hiscreation. The quickening spell which hangs over the dramas of Molière isthis close attention to nature, wherein he greatly resembles ourShakspeare, for all springs from its source. His unobtrusive genius neveroccurs to us in following up his characters, and a whole scene leaves onour mind a complete but imperceptible effect. 

The style of Molière has often been censured by the fastidiousness of hisnative critics, as _bas_ and _du style familier_. This does not offend theforeigner, who is often struck by its simplicity and vigour. Molièrepreferred the most popular and naïve expressions, as well as the mostnatural incidents, to a degree which startled the morbid delicacy offashion and fashionable critics. He had frequent occasions to resist theirpetty remonstrances; and whenever Molière introduced an incident, or madean allusion of which he knew the truth, and which with him had a settledmeaning, this master of human life trusted to his instinct and his art. 

This pure and simple taste, ever rare at Paris, was the happy portion ofthe genius of this Frenchman. Hence he delighted to try his farcicalpieces, for we cannot imagine that they were his more elevated comedies, on his old maid-servant. This maid, probably, had a keen relish for comichumour, for once when Molière read to her the comedy of another writer ashis own, she soon detected the trick, declaring that it could not be hermaster's. Hence, too, our poet invited even children to be present on suchrehearsals, and at certain points would watch their emotions. Hence, too, in his character of manager, he taught his actors to study nature. Anactress, apt to speak freely, told him, "You torment us all; but younever speak to my husband. " This man, originally a candle-snuffer, was aperfect child of nature, and acted the Thomas Diaforius, in _Le MaladeImaginaire_. Molière replied, "I should be sorry to say a word to him; Ishould spoil his acting. Nature has provided him with better lessons toperform his parts than any which I could give him. " We may imagineShakspeare thus addressing his company, had the poet been also themanager. 

A remarkable incident in the history of the genius of Molière is thefrequent recurrence of the poet to the passion of jealousy. The "jaundicein the lover's eye, " he has painted with every tint of his imagination. "The green-eyed monster" takes all shapes, and is placed in every position. Solemn, or gay, or satirical, he sometimes appears in agony, but oftenscorns to make its "trifles light as air, " only ridiculous as a source ofconsolation. Was _Le Contemplateur_ comic in his melancholy, or melancholyin his comic humour?

The truth is, that the poet himself had to pass through those painfulstages which he has dramatised. The domestic life of Molière was itselfvery dramatic; it afforded Goldoni a comedy of five acts, to reveal thesecrets of the family circle of Molière; and l'Abbate Chiari, an Italiannovelist and playwright, has taken for a comic subject, _Molière, theJealous Husband_. 

The French, in their "petite morale" on conjugal fidelity, appear sotolerant as to leave little sympathy for the real sufferer. Why shouldthey else have treated domestic jealousy as a foible for ridicule, ratherthan a subject for deep passion? Their tragic drama exhibits no Othello, nor their comedy a Kitely, or a _Suspicious Husband_. Molière, while hisown heart was the victim, conformed to the national taste, by oftenplacing the object on its comic side. Domestic jealousy is a passion whichadmits of a great diversity of subjects, from the tragic or the pathetic, to the absurd and the ludicrous. We have them all in Molière. Molièreoften was himself "Le Cocu Imaginaire;" he had been in the position of theguardian in _L'Ecole des Maris_. Like Arnolphe in _L'Ecole des Femmes_, hehad taken on himself to rear a young wife who played the same part, thoughwith less innocence; and like the _Misanthrope_, where the scene betweenAlceste and Celimène is "une des plus fortes qui existant au théâtre, " hewas deeply entangled in the wily cruelties of scornful coquetry, and weknow that at times he suffered in "the hell of lovers" the torments of hisown _Jealous Prince_. 

When this poet cast his fate with a troop of comedians, as the manager, and whom he never would abandon, when at the height of his fortune, couldhe avoid accustoming himself to the relaxed habits of that gay andsorrowful race, who, "of imagination all compact, " too often partake ofthe passions they inspire in the scene? The first actress, Madame Béjard, boasted that, with the exception of the poet, she had never dispensed herpersonal favours but to the aristocracy. The constancy of Molière wasinterrupted by another actress, Du Parc; beautiful but insensible, sheonly tormented the poet, and furnished him with some severe lessons forthe coquetry of his Celimène, in _Le Misanthrope_. The facility of thetransition of the tender passion had more closely united the susceptiblepoet to Mademoiselle de Brie. But Madame Béjard, not content to be thechief actress, and to hold her partnership in "the properties, " to retainher ancient authority over the poet, introduced, suddenly, a blushingdaughter, some say a younger sister, who had hitherto resided at Avignon, and who she declared was the offspring of the count of Modena, by a secretmarriage. Armande Béjard soon attracted the paternal attentions of thepoet. She became the secret idol of his retired moments, while he fondlythought that he could mould a young mind, in its innocence, to his ownsympathies. The mother and the daughter never agreed. Armande sought hisprotection; and one day rushing into his study, declared that she wouldmarry her friend. The elder Béjard freely consented to avenge herself onDe Brie. De Brie was indulgent, though "the little creature, " sheobserved, was to be yoked to one old enough to be her father. Under thesame roof were now heard the voices of the three females, and Molièremeditating scenes of feminine jealousies. 

Molière was fascinated by his youthful wife; her lighter follies charmed:two years riveted the connubial chains. Molière was a husband who wasalways a lover. The actor on the stage was the very man he personated. Mademoiselle Molière, as she was called by the public, was the Lucile in_Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_. With what fervour the poet feels her neglect!with what eagerness he defends her from the animadversions of the friendwho would have dissolved the spell!

The poet was doomed to endure more poignant sorrows than slights. Mademoiselle had the art of persuading Molière that he was only his own"cocu imaginaire;" but these domestic embarrassments multiplied. Mademoiselle, reckless of the distinguished name she bore, while shegratified her personal vanity by a lavish expenditure, practised thatartful coquetry which attracted a crowd of loungers. Molière found norepose in his own house, and retreated to a country-house, where, however, his restless jealousy often drove him back to scenes which he trembled towitness. At length came the last argument of outraged matrimony--hethreatened confinement. To prevent a public rupture, Molière consented tolive under the same roof, and only to meet at the theatre. Weak only inlove, however divided from his wife, Molière remained her perpetual lover. He said, in confidence, "I am born with every disposition to tenderness. When I married, she was too young to betray any evil inclinations. Mystudies were devoted to her, but I soon discovered her indifference. Iascribed it to her temper; her foolish passion for Count Guiche made toomuch noise to leave me even this apparent tranquillity. I resolved to livewith her as an honourable man, whose reputation does not depend on the badconduct of his wife. My kindness has not changed her, but my compassionhas increased. Those who have not experienced these delicate emotions havenever truly loved. In her absence her image is before me; in her presence, I am deprived of all reflection; I have no longer eyes for her defects; Ionly view her amiable. Is not this the last extreme of folly? And are younot surprised that I, reasoning as I do, am only sensible of the weaknesswhich I cannot throw off?"

Few men of genius have left in their writings deeper impressions of theirpersonal feelings than Molière. With strong passions in a feeble frame, hehad duped his imagination that, like another Pygmalion, he would create awoman by his own art. In silence and agony he tasted the bitter fruits ofthe disordered habits of the life of a comedian, a manager, and a poet. His income was splendid; but he himself was a stranger to dissipation. Hewas a domestic man, of a pensive and even melancholy temperament. Silentand reserved, unless in conversation with that more intimate circle whoseliterature aided his genius, or whose friendship consoled for his domesticdisturbances, his habits were minutely methodical; the strictest order wasobserved throughout his establishment; the hours of dinner, of writing, ofamusement, were allotted, and the slightest derangement in his ownapartment excited a morbid irritability which would interrupt his studiesfor whole days. 

Who, without this tale of Molière, could conjecture, that one skilled inthe workings of our nature would have ventured on the perilous experimentof equalizing sixteen years against forty--weighing roses against greylocks--to convert a wayward coquette, through her capricious womanhood, into an attached wife? Yet, although Mademoiselle could cherish nopersonal love for the intellectual being, and hastened to change theimmortal name she bore for a more terrestrial man, she seems to have beenimpressed by a perfect conviction of his creative genius. When theArchbishop of Paris, in the pride of prelacy, refused the rites ofsepulture to the corpse of Molière THE ACTOR, it was her voice whichreminded the world of Molière THE POET, exclaiming--"Have they denied agrave to the man to whom Greece would have raised an altar!"

 * * * * *

THE SENSIBILITY OF RACINE. 

The "Memoirs of the poet Racine, " composed by his son, who was himself nocontemptible poet, may be classed among those precious pieces of biographyso delightful to the philosopher who studies human nature, and theliterary man whose curiosity is interested in the history of his republic. Such, works are rare, and rank in merit next to autobiographies. Suchbiographical sketches, like Boswell's of Johnson, contain what we oftenregret is wanting in the more regular life of a professed biographer. These desultory memoirs interest by their warmth, their more personalacquaintance with the hero, and abound with those minuter strokes whichgive so much life to the individual character. 

The prominent feature in the character of Racine was an excessivetenderness of feeling; his profound sensibility even to its infirmity, thetears which would cover his face, and the agony in his heart, were perhapsnational. But if this sensibility produced at times the softest emotions, if it made him the poet of lovers, and even the poet of imagination, italso rendered him too feelingly alive to criticism, it embittered hisdays with too keen a perception of the domestic miseries which all menmust alike undergo. 

During a dramatic performance at St. Cyr, the youthful representative ofEsther suddenly forgot her part; the agitated poet exclaimed, "Oh, mademoiselle, you are ruining my piece!" Terrified at this reprimand, theyoung actress wept; the poet flew to her, wiped away her tears, and withcontagious sympathy shed tears himself. "I do not hesitate, " says LouisRacine, "to relate such minute circumstances, because this facility ofshedding tears shows the goodness of the heart, according to theobservation of the ancients--

 [Greek:] "agathohi d aridakryes andres. "

This morbid state of feeling made his whole literary life uneasy; unjustcriticism affected him as much as the most poignant, and there was nothinghe dreaded more than that his son should become a writer of tragedies. "Iwill not dissimulate, " he says, addressing his son, "that in the heat ofcomposition we are not sometimes pleased with ourselves; but you maybelieve me, when the day after we look over our work, we are astonishednot to find that excellence we admired in the evening; and when we reflectthat even what we find good ought to be still better, and how distant weare still from perfection, we are discouraged and dissatisfied. Besidesall this, although the approbation I have received has been veryflattering, the least adverse criticism, even miserable as it might be, has always occasioned me more vexation than all the praise I receivedcould give me pleasure. " And, again, he endeavours to impress on him thatthe favour he received from the world he owed not to his verses. "Do notimagine that they are my verses that attract all these kindnesses. Corneille composes verses a hundred times finer than mine, but no oneregards him. His verses are only applauded from the mouths of the actors. I do not tire men of the world by reciting my works; I never allude tothem; I endeavour to amuse them with matters which please them. My talentin their company is, not to make them feel that I have any genius, but toshow them that they possess some themselves. When you observe the dukepass several hours with me, you would be surprised, were you present, thathe frequently quits me without my having uttered three words; butgradually I put him in a humour of chatting, and he leaves me moresatisfied with himself than with me. " When Rochefoucault said that Boileauand Racine had only one kind of genius, and could only talk about theirown poetry, it is evident that the observation should not have extended toRacine, however it might to Boileau. It was Racine's excessive sensibilitywhich made him the finest dramatic reciter. The celebrated actress, Mademoiselle Champmeslé, [A] the heroine of his tragedies, had no geniuswhatever for the stage, but she had beauty, voice, and memory. Racinetaught her first to comprehend the verses she was going to recite, showedher the appropriate gesture, and gave her the variable tones, which heeven sometimes noted down. His pupil, faithful to her lessons, though amere actress of art, on the stage seemed inspired by passion; and as she, thus formed and fashioned, naturally only played thus effectively in thedramas of her preceptor, it was supposed that love for the poet inspiredthe actress. 

[Footnote A: Racine first met this actress at the Marquis de Sevigné's_petit soupers_; so much lamented by his more famous mother in one of heradmirable letters, who speaks of "the Racines and the Despreaux's" whoassisted his prodigality. In one of Madame de Sevigné's letters, dated in1672, she somewhat rashly declares, "Racine now writes his dramas, not forposterity, but for Mademoiselle Champmeslé:" she had then forsaken themarquis for the poet, who wrote _Roxane_ in _Bajazet_ expressly for her. --ED. ]

When Racine read aloud he diffused his own enthusiasm once with Boileauand Nicole, amid a literary circle, they talked of Sophocles, whom Racinegreatly admired, but from whom he had never dared to borrow a tragicsubject. Taking up a Greek Sophocles, and translating the OEdipus, theFrench poet became so deeply imbued with the Greek tragedian, that hisauditors caught all the emotions of terror and pity. "I have seen, " saysone of those auditors, "our best pieces represented by our best actors, but never anything approached the agitation which then came over us; andto this distant day I have never lost the recollection of Racine, with thevolume in his hand, full of emotion, and we all breathlessly pressingaround him. "

It was the poet's sensibility that urged him to make the mostextraordinary sacrifice that ever poet made; he wished to get rid entirelyof that poetical fame to which he owed everything, and which was at oncehis pleasure, his pride, and his property. His education had been areligious one, in the Port-Royal;[A] but when Nicole, one of thatillustrious fraternity, with undistinguishing fanaticism, had onceasserted that all dramatic writers were public poisoners of souls, Racine, in the pride and strength of his genius, had eloquently repelled thedenouncement. But now, having yet only half run his unrivalled course, heturned aside, relinquished its glory, repented of his success, andresolved to write no more tragedies. [B] He determined to enter into theaustere order of the Chartreux; but his confessor, more rational than hispenitent, assured him that a character so feeling as his own, and so longaccustomed to the world, could not endure that terrible solitude. Headvised him to marry a woman of a serious turn, and that little domesticoccupations would withdraw him from the passion he seemed most to dread, that of writing verses. 

[Footnote A: For an account of this very celebrated religious foundation, its fortunes and misfortunes, see the "Curiosities of Literature, " vol. I. P. 94. --ED. ]

[Footnote B: Racine ultimately conceived an aversion for his dramaticoffspring, and could never be induced to edit a proper edition of hisworks, or even give a few lessons in declamation to a juvenile princess, who selected his _Andromaque_ for the subject, perhaps out of complimentto the poet, whose first visit became in consequence his last. --ED. ]

The marriage of Racine was an act of penance--neither love nor interesthad any share in the union. His wife was a good sort of woman, but perhapsthe most insensible of her sex; and the properest person in the world tomortify the passion of literary glory, and the momentary exultation ofliterary vanity. [A] It is scarcely credible, but most certainly true, since her own son relates the fact, that the wife of Racine had neitherseen acted, nor ever read, nor desired to read, the tragedies which hadrendered her husband so celebrated throughout Europe; she had only learnedsome of their titles in conversation. She was as insensible to fortune asto fame. One day, when Racine returned from Versailles, with the princelygift from Louis XIV. Of a purse of 1000 louis, he hastened to embrace hiswife, and to show her the treasure. But she was full of trouble, for oneof the children for two days had not studied. "We will talk of thisanother time, " exclaimed the poet; "at present let us be happy. " But sheinsisted he ought instantly to reprimand this child, and continued hercomplaints; while Boileau in astonishment paced to and fro, perhapsthinking of his Satire on Women, and exclaiming, "What insensibility! Isit possible that a purse of 1000 louis is not worth a thought!" Thisstoical apathy did not arise in Madame Racine from the grandeur, but thelittleness, of her mind. Her prayer-books and her children were the soleobjects that interested this good woman. Racine's sensibility was notmitigated by his marriage; domestic sorrows weighed heavily on hisspirits: when the illness of his children agitated him, he sometimesexclaimed, "Why did I expose myself to all this? Why was I persuaded notto be a Chartreux?"--His letters to his children are those of a father anda friend; kind exhortations, or pathetic reprimands; he enters into themost domestic detail, while he does not conceal from them the mediocrityof their fortune. "Had you known him in his family, " said Louis Racine, "you would be more alive to his poetical character, you would then knowwhy his verses are always so full of sentiment. He was never more pleasedthan when, permitted to be absent from the court, he could come among usto pass a few days. Even in the presence of strangers he dared to bea father, and used to join us in our sports. I well remember ourprocessions, in which my sisters were the clergy, I the rector, and theauthor of 'Athaliah, ' chanting with us, carried the cross. "

[Footnote A: The lady he chose was one Catherine de Romanet, whose familywas of great respectability but of small fortune. She is not described aspossessing any marked personal attractions. --ED. ]

At length this infirm sensibility abridged his days. He was naturally of amelancholic temperament, apt to dwell on objects which occasion pain, rather than on those which exhilarate. Louis Racine observes that hischaracter resembled Cicero's description of himself, more inclined todread unfortunate events, than to hope for happy ones; _semper magis ad__versos rerum exitus metuens quam sperans secundos_. In the last incidentof his life his extreme sensibility led him to imagine as present amisfortune which might never have occurred. 

Madame de Maintenon, one day in conversation with the poet, alluded to themisery of the people. Racine observed it was the usual consequence of longwars: the subject was animating, and he entered into it with all thatenthusiasm peculiar to himself. Madame de Maintenon was charmed with hiseloquent effusion, and requested him to give her his observations inwriting, assuring him they should not go out of her hand. She was readinghis memoir when the king entered her apartment; he took it up, and, afterhaving looked over a few pages, he inquired with great quickness who wasthe author. She replied it was a secret; but the king was peremptory, andthe author was named. The king asked with great dissatisfaction, "Is itbecause he writes the most perfect verses, that he thinks that he is ableto become a statesman?"

Madame de Maintenon told the poet all that had passed, and declined toreceive his visits for the present. Racine was shortly after attacked withviolent fever. In the languor of recovery he addressed Madame de Maintenonto petition to have his pension freed from some new tax; and he added anapology for his presumption in suggesting the cause of the miseries of thepeople, with an humiliation that betrays the alarms that existed in hismind. The letter is too long to transcribe, but it is a singular instancehow genius can degrade itself when it has placed all its felicity on thevarying smiles of those we call the great. Well might his friend Boileau, who had nothing of his sensibility nor imagination, exclaim, with his goodsense, of the court:--

 Quel séjour étranger, et pour vous et pour moi!

Racine afterwards saw Madame de Maintenon walking in the gardens ofVersailles; she drew aside into a retired allée to meet him; she exhortedhim to exert his patience and fortitude, and told him that all would endwell. "No, madam, " he replied, "never!" "Do you then doubt, " she said, "either my heart, or my influence?" He replied, "I acknowledge yourinfluence, and know your goodness to me; but I have an aunt who loves mein quite a different manner. That pious woman every day implores God tobestow on me disgrace, humiliation, and occasions for penitence, and shehas more influence than you. " As he said these words, the sound of acarriage was heard; "The king is coming!" said Madame de Maintenon; "hideyourself!"

To this last point of misery and degradation was this great geniusreduced. Shortly after he died, and was buried at the feet of his masterin the chapel of the studious and religious society of Port-Royal. 

The sacred dramas of _Esther_ and _Athaliah_ were among the latterproductions of Racine. The fate of _Athaliah_, his masterpiece, wasremarkable. The public imagined that it was a piece written only forchildren, as it was performed by the young scholars of St. Cyr, andreceived it so coldly that Racine was astonished and disgusted. [A]He earnestly requested Boileau's opinion, who maintained it was hiscapital work. "I understand these things, " said he, "and the public _yreviendra_. " The prediction was a true one, but it was accomplished toolate, long after the death of the author; it was never appreciated till itwas publicly performed. 

[Footnote A: They were written at the request of Madame de Maintenon, forthe pupils of her favourite establishment at St. Cyr; she was anxious thatthey should be perfect in declamation, and she tried them with the poet's_Andromaque_, but they recited it with so much passion and feeling thatthey alarmed their patroness, who told Racine "it was so well done thatshe would be careful they should never act that drama again, " and urgedhim to write plays on sacred subjects expressly for their use. He had notwritten a play for upwards of ten years; he now composed his _Esther_, making that character a flattering reflection of Maintenon's career. --ED. ]

Boileau and Racine derived little or no profit from the booksellers. Boileau particularly, though fond of money, was so delicate on this pointthat he gave all his works away. It was this that made him so bold inrailing at those authors _qui mettent leur Apollon aux gages d'unlibraire_, and he declared that he had only inserted these verses, Je sai qu'un noble esprit peut sans honte et sans crime Tirer de son travail un tribut légitime, to console Racine, who had received some profits from the printing of histragedies. Those profits were, however, inconsiderable; the truth is, theking remunerated the poets. 

Racine's first royal mark of favour was an order signed by Colbert for sixhundred livres, _to give him the means of continuing his studies of thebelles-lettres_. He received, by an account found among his papers, aboveforty thousand livres from the cassette of the king, by the hand of thefirst valet-de-chambre. Besides these gifts, Racine had a pension of fourthousand livres as historiographer, and another pension as a man ofletters. 

Which is the more honourable? to crouch for a salary brought by the handof the first valet-de-chambre, or to exult in the tribute offered by thepublic to an author?

 * * * * *

OF STERNE. 

Cervantes is immortal--Rabelais and STERNE have passed away to thecurious. 

These fraternal geniuses alike chose their subjects from their own times. Cervantes, with the innocent design of correcting a temporary folly of hiscountrymen, so that the very success of the design might have proved fatalto the work itself; for when he had cut off the heads of the Hydra, anextinct monster might cease to interest the readers of other times, andother manners. But Cervantes, with judgment equal to his invention, andwith a cast of genius made for all times, delighted his contemporaries andcharms his posterity. He looked to the world and collected other folliesthan the Spanish ones, and to another age than the administration of theduke of Lerma; with more genuine pleasantry than any writer from the daysof Lucian, not a solitary spot has soiled the purity of his page; whilethere is scarcely a subject in human, nature for which we might not findsome apposite illustration. His style, pure as his thoughts, is, however, a magic which ceases to work in all translations, and Cervantes is notCervantes in English or in French; yet still he retains his popularityamong all the nations of Europe; which is more than we can say even of ourShakspeare!

Rabelais and Sterne were not perhaps inferior in genius, and they wereread with as much avidity and delight as the Spaniard. "Le docte Rabelais"had the learning which the Englishman wanted; while unhappily Sterneundertook to satirise false erudition, which requires the knowledge of thetrue. Though the _Papemanes_, on whom Rabelais has exhausted his grotesquehumour and his caustic satire, have not yet walked off the stage, we pay aheavy price in the grossness of his ribaldry and his tiresome balderdashfor odd stories and flashes of witty humour. Rabelais hardly finds readerseven in France, with the exception of a few literary antiquaries. The dayhas passed when a gay dissolute abbe could obtain a rich abbey by gettingRabelais by heart, for the perpetual improvement of his patron--andRabelais is now little more than a Rabelais by tradition. [A]

[Footnote A: The clergy were not so unfavourable to Rabelais as mighthave been expected. He was through life protected by the CardinalJean du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, who employed him in various importantnegotiations; and it is recorded of him that he refused a scholaradmittance to his table because he had not read his works. Thisfamiliarity with his grotesque romance was also shared by Cardinal Duprat, who is said to have always carried a copy of it with him, as if it was hisbreviary. The anecdote of the priest who obtained promotion from aknowledge of his works is given in the "Curiosities of Literature, " vol. Ii. P. 10. --ED. ]

In my youth the world doted on Sterne! Martin Sherlock ranks him among"the luminaries of the century. " Forty years ago, young men in their mostfacetious humours never failed to find the archetypes of society in theShandy family--every good-natured soul was uncle Toby, every humorist wasold Shandy, every child of Nature was Corporal Trim! It may now be doubtedwhether Sterne's natural dispositions were the humorous or the pathetic:the pathetic has survived!

There is nothing of a more ambiguous nature than strong humour, and Sternefound it to be so; and latterly, in despair, he asserted that "the tastefor humour is the gift of heaven!" I have frequently observed how humour, like the taste for olives, is even repugnant to some palates, and havewitnessed the epicure of humour lose it all by discovering how some haveutterly rejected his favourite relish! Even men of wit may not tastehumour! The celebrated Dr. Cheyne, who was not himself deficient inoriginality of thinking with great learning and knowledge, once entrustedto a friend a remarkable literary confession. Dr. Cheyne assured him that"he could not read 'Don Quixote' with any pleasure, nor had any taste for'Hudibras' or 'Gulliver;' and that what we call _wit_ and _humour_ inthese authors he considered as false ornaments, and never to be found inthose compositions of the ancients which we most admire and esteem. "[A]Cheyne seems to have held Aristophanes and Lucian monstrously cheap! Theancients, indeed, appear not to have possessed that comic quality thatwe understand as _humour_, nor can I discover a word which exactlycorresponds with our term _humour_ in any language, ancient or modern. Cervantes excels in that sly satire which hides itself under the cloak ofgravity, but this is not the sort of humour which so beautifully playsabout the delicacy of Addison's page; and both are distinct from thebroader and stronger humour of Sterne. 

[Footnote A: This friend, it now appears, was Dr. King, of Oxford, whoseanecdotes have recently been published. This curious fact is given in astrange hodge-podge, entitled "The Dreamer;" a remarkable instance where awriter of learning often conceives that to be humour, which to others isnot even intelligible!]

The result of Dr. Cheyne's honest confession was experienced by Sterne, for while more than half of the three kingdoms were convulsed withlaughter at his humour, the other part were obdurately dull to it. Take, for instance, two very opposite effects produced by "Tristram Shandy" on aman of strong original humour himself, and a wit who had more delicacy andsarcasm than force and originality. The Rev. Philip Skelton declared that"after reading 'Tristram Shandy, ' he could not for two or three daysattend seriously to his devotion, it filled him with so many ludicrousideas. " But Horace Walpole, who found his "Sentimental Journey" verypleasing, declares that of "his tiresome 'Tristram Shandy, ' he could neverget through three volumes. "

The literary life of Sterne was a short one: it was a blaze of existence, and it turned his head. With his personal life we are only acquainted bytradition. Was the great sentimentalist himself unfeeling, dissolute, and utterly depraved? Some anecdotes which one of his companions[A]communicated to me, confirm Garrick's account preserved in Dr. Bumey'scollections, that "He was more dissolute in his conduct than his writings, and generally drove every female away by his ribaldry. He degenerated inLondon like an ill-transplanted shrub; the incense of the great spoiledhis head, and their ragouts his stomach. He grew sickly and proud--an invalid in body and mind. " Warburtou declared that "he was anirrecoverable scoundrel. " Authenticated facts are, however, wanting for ajudicious summary of the real character of the founder of sentimentalwriting. An impenetrable mystery hangs over his family conduct; he hasthrown many sweet domestic touches in his own memoirs and lettersaddressed to his daughter: but it would seem that he was often parted fromhis family. After he had earnestly solicited the return of his wife fromFrance, though she did return, he was suffered to die in utter neglect. 

[Footnote A: Caleb Whitefoord, the wit once famed for his invention ofcross-readings, which, appeared under the name of "Papirius Cursor. "]

His sermons have been observed to be characterised by an air of levity; heattempted this unusual manner. It was probably a caprice which induced himto introduce one of his sermons in "Tristram Shandy;" it was fixing adiamond in black velvet, and the contrast set off the brilliancy. But heseems then to have had no design of publishing his "Sermons. " One day, inlow spirits, complaining to Caleb Whitefoord of the state of his finances, Caleb asked him, "if he had no sermons like the one in 'Tristram Shandy?'"But Sterne had no notion that "sermons" were saleable, for two precedingones had passed unnoticed. "If you could hit on a striking title, take myword for it that they would go down. " The next day Sterne made hisappearance in raptures. "I have it!" he cried: "Dramatic Sermons byTorick. " With great difficulty he was persuaded to drop this allusion tothe church and the playhouse![A]

[Footnote A: He published these two volumes of discourses under the titleof "Yorick's Sermons, " because, as he stated in his preface, it would"best serve the booksellers' purpose, as Yorick's name is possibly of thetwo the more known;" but, fearing the censure of the world, he added asecond title-page with his own name, "to ease the minds of those who see ajest, and the danger which lurks under it, where no jest is meant. " Allthis did not free Sterne from much severe criticism. --ED. ]

We are told in the short addition to his own memoirs, that "he submittedto fate on the 18th day of March, 1768, at his lodgings in Bond-street. "But it does not appear to have been noticed that Sterne died withneither friend nor relation by his side! a hired nurse was the solecompanion of the man whose wit found admirers in every street, butwhose heart, it would seem, could not draw one to his death-bed. Wecannot say whether Sterne, who had long been dying, had resolved topractise his own principle, --when he made the philosopher Shandy, who hada fine saying for everything, deliver his opinion on death--that "there isno terror, brother Toby, in its looks, but what it borrows from groan? andconvulsions--and the blowing of noses, and the wiping away of tears withthe bottoms of curtains in a dying man's room. Strip it of these, what isit?" I find the moment of his death described in a singular book, the"Life of a Foot-man. " I give it with all its particulars. "In the month ofJanuary, 1768, we set off for London. We stopped for some time at Almack'shouse in Pall-Mall. My master afterwards took Sir James Gray's house inClifford-street, who was going ambassador to Spain. He now beganhouse-keeping, hired a French cook, a house-maid, and kitchen-maid, andkept a great deal of the best company. About this time, Mr Sterne, thecelebrated author, was taken ill at the silk-bag shop in Old Bond-street. He was sometimes called 'Tristram Shandy, ' and sometimes 'Yorick;' a verygreat favourite of the gentlemen's. One day my master had company todinner who were speaking about him: the Duke of Roxburgh, the Earl ofMarch, the Earl of Ossory, the Duke of Grafton, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Hume, and Mr. James. 'John, ' said my master, 'go and inquire how Mr. Sterne isto-day. ' I went, returned, and said, --I went to Mr. Sterne's lodging; themistress opened the door; I inquired how he did. She told me to go up tothe nurse; I went into the room, and he was just a-dying. I waited tenminutes; but in five he said, 'Now it is come!' He put up his hand as ifto stop a blow, and died in a minute. The gentlemen were all very sorry, and lamented him very much[A]. "

[Footnote A: "Travels in various parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, duringa series of thirty years and upwards, by John Macdonald, a cadet of thefamily of Kippoch, in Invernesshire, who after the ruin of his family, in1765, was thrown, when a child, on the wide world, &c. Printed for theauthor, 1790. "--He served a number of noblemen and gentlemen in the humblestation of a footman. There is such an air of truth and sinceritythroughout the work that I entertain no doubt of its genuineness. ]

Such is the simple narrative of the death of this wit[A]! Some letters andpapers of Sterne are now before me which reveal a piece of secret historyof our sentimentalist. The letters are addressed to a young lady of thename of De Fourmantel, whose ancestors were the Berangers de Fourmantel, who during the persecution of the French Protestants by Louis XIV. Emigrated to this country: they were entitled to extensive possessions inSt. Domingo, but were excluded by their Protestantism. The elder sisterbecame a Catholic, and obtained the estates; the younger adopted the nameof Beranger, and was a governess to the Countess of Bristol. The paperstates that Catherine de Fourmantel formed an attachment to Sterne, andthat it was the expectation of their friends that they would be united;but that on a visit Sterne became acquainted with a lady, whom he married, in the space of one month, after having paid his addresses to Miss deFourmantel for five years. The consequence was, the total derangement ofintellect of this young lady. She was confined in a private madhouse. Sterne twice saw her there; and from observation on her state drew the"Maria" whom he has so pathetically described. The elder sister, at theinstigation of the father of the communicator of these letters, came toEngland, and took charge of the unhappy Maria, who died at Paris. "Formany years, " says the writer of this statement, "my mother had the_handkerchief_ Sterne alludes to. " The anxious wish of Sterne was to havehis letters returned to him. In this he failed; and such as they are, without date, either of time or place, they are now before me. 

[Footnote A: Sterne was buried in the ground belonging to the parish ofSt. George's, Hanover Square, situated in the Bayswater Road. His funeralwas "attended only by two gentlemen in a mourning coach, no bell tolling;"and his grave has been described as "distinguished by a plain headstone, set up with an unsuitable inscription, by a tippling fraternity ofFreemasons. " In 1761, long before his death, was published a satire on thetendencies of his writings, mixed with a good deal of personal censure, ina pamphlet entitled "A Funeral Discourse, occasioned by the much lamenteddeath of Mr. Yorick, preached before a very mixed society of Jemmies, Jessamies, Methodists, and Christians, at a nocturnal meeting in PetticoatLane; by Christopher Flagellan, A. M. " As one of the minor "Curiosities ofLiterature" this tract is worth noting; its author, in a preface, saysthat "it has been _maliciously_, or rather _stupidly_, reported that thelate Mr. Sterne, alias Yorick, is not dead; but that, on the contrary, heis writing a fifth and sixth, and has carried his plan as far as afiftieth and sixtieth volume of the book called 'The Life and Opinions ofTristram Shandy;' but they are rather to be attributed to his ghastlyghost, which is said to walk the purlieus of Covent Garden and DruryLane. "--ED. ]

The billets-doux are unquestionably authentic, but the statement isinaccurate. I doubt whether the narrative be correct in stating thatSterne married after an acquaintance of one month; for he tells us in hisMemoirs that he courted his wife for two years; he, however, married in1741. The "Sermon of Elijah, " which he presents to Miss de Fourmantel inone of these letters, was not published till 1747. Her disordered mindcould not therefore have been occasioned by the _sudden_ marriage ofSterne. A sentimental intercourse evidently existed between them. Heperhaps sought in her sympathy, consolation for his domestic infelicity;he communicates to her the minutest events of his early fame; and theseletters, which certainly seem very like love-letters, present a picture ofhis life in town in the full flower of his fame eager with hope andflushed with success. 

LETTER I. 

"My dear Kitty, --I beg you will accept of the inclosed sermon, which I donot make you a present of merely because it was wrote by myself, butbecause there is a beautiful character in it of a tender and compassionatemind in the picture given of Elijah. Read it, my dear Kitty, and believeme when I assure you that I see something of the same kind and gentledisposition in your heart which I have painted in the prophet's, which hasattached me so much to you and your interests, that I shall live and die

"Your affectionate and faithful servant, "Laurence Sterne. 

"P. S. --If possible, I will see you this afternoon before I go to Mr. Fothergil's. Adieu, dear friend, --I had the pleasure to drink your healthlast night. "

LETTER II. 

"My dear Kitty, --If this billet catches you in bed, you are a lazy, sleepylittle slut, and I am a giddy, foolish, unthinking fellow, for keeping youso late up--but this Sabbath is a day of rest, at the same time that it isa day of sorrow; for I shall not see my dear creature to-day, unless youmeet me at Taylor's half an hour after twelve; but in this do as you like. I have ordered Matthew to turn thief, and steal you a quart of honey; whatis honey to the sweetness of thee, who art sweeter than all the flowers itcomes from! I love you to distraction, Kitty, and will love you on so toeternity--so adieu, and believe, what time will only prove me, that I am, "Yours. "

LETTER III. 

"My dear Kitty, --I have sent you a pot of sweetmeats and a pot of honey--neither of them half so sweet as yourself--but don't be vain upon this, or presume to grow sour upon this character of sweetness I give you; forif you do I shall send you a pot of pickles (by way of contraries) tosweeten you up, and bring you to yourself again--whatever changes happento you, believe me that I am unalterably yours, and according to yourmotto, such a one, my dear Kitty, "Qui ne changera pas qu'en mourant. 

"L. S. "

He came up to town in 1760, to publish the two first volumes of 'Shandy, 'of which the first edition had appeared at York the preceding year. 

LETTER IV. 

"_London, May 8. _

"My dear Kitty, --I have arrived here safe and sound--except for the holein my heart which you have made, like a dear enchanting slut as you are. --I shall take lodgings this morning in Piccadilly or the Haymarket, andbefore I send this letter will let you know where to direct a letter tome, which letter I shall wait for by the return of the post with greatimpatience. 

"I have the greatest honours paid me, and most civilities shown me thatwere ever known from the great; and am engaged already to ten noblemen andmen of fashion to dine. Mr. Garrick pays me all and more honour than Icould look for: I dined with him to-day, and he has prompted numbers ofgreat people to carry me to dine with them--he has given me an order forthe liberty of his boxes, and of every part of his house, for the wholeseason; and indeed leaves nothing undone that can do me either service orcredit. He has undertaken the whole management of the booksellers, andwill procure me a great price--but more of this in my next. 

"And now, my dear girl, let me assure you of the truest friendship for youthat ever man bore towards a woman--wherever I am, my heart is warmtowards you, and ever shall be, till it is cold for ever. I thank you forthe kind proof you gave me of your desire to make my heart easy inordering yourself to be denied to you know who--while I am so miserable tobe separated from my dear, dear Kitty, it would have stabbed my soul tohave thought such a fellow could have the liberty of coming near you. --Itherefore take this proof of your love and good principles most kindly--and have as much faith and dependence upon you in it, as if I was at yourelbow--would to God I was at this moment--for I am sitting solitary andalone in my bedchamber (ten o'clock at night after the play), and wouldgive a guinea for a squeeze of your hand. I send my soul perpetually outto see what you are a-doing--wish I could convey my body with it--adieu, dear and kind girl. Ever your kind friend and affectionate admirer. 

"I go to the oratorio this night. My service to your mamma. "

LETTER V. 

"My dear Kitty, --Though I have but a moment's time to spare, I would notomit writing you an account of my good fortune; my Lord Fauconberg hasthis day given me a hundred and sixty pounds a year, which I hold with allmy preferment; so that all or the most part of my sorrows and tears aregoing to be wiped away. --I have but one obstacle to my happiness now left--and what that is you know as well as I. [A]

"I long most impatiently to see my dear Kitty. I had a purse of guineasgiven me yesterday by a bishop--all will do well in time. 

"From morning to night my lodgings, which by the bye are the genteelest intown, [B] are full of the greatest company. --I dined these two days withtwo ladies of the bedchamber--then with Lord Buckingham, Lord Edgcumb, Lord Winchelsea, Lord Littleton, a bishop, &c. &c. 

"I assure you, my dear Kitty, that Tristram is the fashion. --Pray to God Imay see my dearest girl soon and well. --Adieu. 

"Your affectionate friend, "L. STERNE. "

[Footnote A: Can this allude to the death of his wife?--that very year hetells his daughter he had taken a house at York, "for your mother andyourself. "]

[Footnote B: They were the second house from St. Alban's Street, PallMall. ]

 * * * * *

HUME, ROBERTSON, AND BIRCH. 

The rarest of literary characters is such an historian as Gibbon; butwe know the price which he paid for his acquisitions--unbroken andundeviating studies. Wilkes, a mere wit, could only discover the drudgeryof compilation in the profound philosopher and painter of men and ofnations. A speculative turn of mind, delighting in generalising principlesand aggregate views, is usually deficient in that closer knowledge, without which every step we take is on the fairy-ground of conjecture andtheory, very apt to shift its unsubstantial scenes. The researchers arelike the inhabitants of a city who live among its ancient edifices, andare in the market-places and the streets: but the theorists, occupied byperspective views, with a more artist-like pencil may impose on us ageneral resemblance of things; but often shall we find in those shadowyoutlines how the real objects are nearly, if not wholly lost--for much isgiven which is fanciful, and much omitted which is true. 

Of our two popular historians, Hume and Robertson, alike in character butdifferent in genius, it is much to be lamented that neither came to theirtasks with the previous studies of half a life; and their speculative ortheoretical histories are of so much the less value whenever they aredeficient in that closer research which can be obtained only in one way;not the most agreeable to those literary adventurers, for such they are, however high they rank in the class of genius, who grasp at earlycelebrity, and depend more on themselves than on their researches. 

In some curious letters to the literary antiquary Dr. Birch, Eobertsonacknowledges "my chief object is to _adorn_, as far as I am capable ofadorning, the history of a period which deserves to be better known, " Heprobably took his lesson from Voltaire, the reigning author of that day, and a great favourite with Robertson. Voltaire indeed tells us, that nowriters, but those who have composed tragedies, can throw any interestinto a history; that we must know to paint and excite the passions; andthat a history, like a dramatic piece, must have situation, intrigue, andcatastrophe; an observation which, however true, at least shows that therecan be but a moderate quantity of truth in such agreeable narratives. Robertson's notion of _adorning_ history was the pleasing labour ofgenius--it was to amplify into vastness, to colour into beauty, andto arrange the objects of his meditation with a secret artifice ofdisposition. Such an historian is a sculptor, who, though he display acorrect semblance of nature, is not less solicitous to display themiracles of his art, and enlarges his figures to a colossal dimension. Such is theoretical history. 

The theoretical historian communicates his own character to his history;and if, like Robertson, he be profound and politic, he detects the secretmotives of his actors, unravels the webs of cabinet councils, explainsprojects that were unknown, and details stratagems which never took place. When we admire the fertile conceptions of the Queen Regent, of Elizabeth, and of Bothwell, we are often defrauding Robertson of whatever admirationmay be due to such deep policy. 

When Hume received from Dr. Birch Forbes's Manuscripts and Murdin'sState-papers, in great haste he writes to his brother historian:--"What Iwrote you with regard to Mary, &c. , was from the printed histories andpapers. But I am now sorry to tell you that by Murdin's State-papers, thematter is put beyond all question. I got these papers during the holidaysby Dr. Birch's means; and as soon as I read them _I ran to Millar_, anddesired him very earnestly to stop the publication of your history till Ishould write to you, and give you an opportunity of correcting a mistakeso important; but he absolutely refused compliance. He said that your bookwas now finished; that the whole narrative of Mary's trial must be wroteover again; that it was uncertain whether the new narrative could bebrought within the same compass with the old: that this change wouldrequire the cancelling a great many sheets; that there were scattered_passages through the volumes founded on your theory. _" What an interviewwas this of Andrew Millar and David Hume! truly the bibliopole shone togreater advantage than the _two theoretical historians_! And so the worldhad, and eagerly received, what this critical bookseller declared"required the new printing (that is, the new writing) of a great part ofthe edition!"

When this successful history of Scotland invited Robertson to pursue thisnewly-discovered province of philosophical or theoretical history, he waslong irresolute in his designs, and so unpractised in those researches hewas desirous of attempting, that his admirers would have lost his popularproductions, had not a fortunate introduction to Dr. Birch, whose life hadbeen spent in historical pursuits, enabled the Scottish historian to openmany a clasped book, and to drink of many a sealed fountain. Robertson waslong undecided whether to write the history of Greece, of Leo X. , that ofWilliam III. And Queen Anne, or that of Charles V. , and perhaps many othersubjects. 

We have a curious letter of Lord Orford's, detailing the purport of avisit Robertson paid to him to inquire after materials for the reigns ofWilliam and Anne; he seemed to have little other knowledge than what hehad taken upon trust. "I painted to him, " says Lord Orford, "thedifficulties and the want of materials--but the booksellers will out-argueme. " Both the historian and "the booksellers" had resolved on anotherhistory: and Robertson looked upon it as a task which he wished to haveset to him, and not a glorious toil long matured in his mind. But how didhe come prepared to the very dissimilar subjects he proposed? When heresolved to write the history of Charles V. , he confesses to Dr. Birch: "Inever had _access to any copious libraries_, and do not pretend to _anyextensive knowledge of authors_; but I have made a list of such as Ithought most essential to the subject, and have put them down _as I foundthem mentioned in any book I happened to read_. Your erudition andknowledge of hooks is infinitely superior to mine, and I doubt not but youwill be able to make such additions to my catalogue as may be of great useto me. I know very well, and to my sorrow, _how servilely historians copyfrom one another_, and how little is to be learned from reading manybooks; but at the same time, when one writes upon any particular period, it is both necessary and decent for him to consult every book relating toit upon which he can lay his hands. " This avowal proves that Robertsonknew little of the history of Charles V. Till he began the task; and hefurther confesses that "he had no knowledge of the Spanish or German, "which, for the history of a Spanish monarch and a German emperor, wassomewhat ominous of the nature of the projected history. 

Yet Robertson, though he once thus acknowledged, as we see, that he "neverhad access to any copious libraries, and did not _pretend to any extensiveknowledge of authors_, " seems to have acquired from his friend, Dr. Birch, who was a genuine researcher in manuscripts as well as printed books, ataste even for bibliographical ostentation, as appears by that pompous andvoluminous list of authors prefixed to his "History of America;" the mostobjectionable of his histories, being a perpetual apology for the SpanishGovernment, adapted to the meridian of the court of Madrid, rather than tothe cause of humanity, of truth, and of philosophy. I understand, fromgood authority, that it would not be difficult to prove that our historianhad barely examined them, and probably had never turned over half of thatdeceptive catalogue. Birch thought so, and was probably a little disturbedat the overwhelming success of our eloquent and penetrating historian, while his own historical labours, the most authentic materials of history, but not history itself, hardly repaid the printer. Birch's publicationsare either originals, that is, letters or state-papers; or they arenarratives drawn from originals, for he never wrote but from manuscripts. They are the true _materia historica_. 

Birch, however, must have enjoyed many a secret triumph over our popularhistorians, who had introduced their beautiful philosophical history intoour literature; the dilemma in which they sometimes found themselves musthave amused him. He has thrown out an oblique stroke at Bobertson's "pompof style, and fine eloquence, " "which too often tend to disguise the realstate of the facts. "[A] When he received from Robertson the present of his"Charles V. , " after the just tribute of his praise, he adds some regretthat the historian had not been so fortunate as to have seen Burghley'sState-papers, "published since Christmas, " and a manuscript trial of Mary, Queen of Scots, in Lord Boyston's possession. Alas! such is the fate of_speculative history_; a Christmas may come, and overturn the elaboratecastle in the air. Can we forbear a smile when we hear Robertson, who hadprojected a history of British America, of which we possess two chapters, when the rebellion and revolution broke out, congratulate himself that hehad not made any further progress? "It is lucky that my American Historywas not finished before this event; how many plausible theories that Ishould have been entitled to form are contradicted by what has nowhappened!" A fair confession!

[Footnote A: See "Curiosities of Literature, " vol. Iii. P. 387. ]

Let it not be for one moment imagined that this article is designed todepreciate the genius of Hume and Robertson, who are the noblest of ourmodern authors, and exhibit a perfect idea of the literary character. 

Forty-four years ago, I transcribed from their originals thecorrespondence of the historian with the literary antiquary. For thesatisfaction of the reader, I here preserve these literary relics. 

_Letters between Dr. Birch and Dr. W. Robertson, relative tothe Histories of Scotland and of Charles V. _

"TO DR. BIRCH. 

"_Gladsmuir, 19 Sept. 1757. _

"Reverent Sir, --Though I have not the good fortune to be known to youpersonally, I am so happy as to be no stranger to your writings, to whichI have been indebted for much useful instruction. And as I have heard frommy friends, Sir David Dalrymple and Mr. Davidson, that your disposition tooblige was equal to your knowledge, I now presume to write to you and toask your assistance without any apology. 

"I have been engaged for some time in writing the history of Scotland fromthe death of James V. To the accession of James VI. To the throne ofEngland. My chief object is to adorn (as far as I am capable of adorning)the history of a period which, on account of the greatness of the events, and their close connection with the transactions in England, deserves tobe better known. But as elegance of composition, even where a writer canattain that, is but a trivial merit without historical truth and accuracy, and as the prejudices and rage of factions, both religious and political, have rendered almost every fact, in the period which I have chosen, amatter of doubt or of controversy, I have therefore taken all the pains inmy power to examine the evidence on both sides with exactness. You knowhow copious the _materia, historian_ in this period is. Besides all thecommon historians and printed collections of papers, I have consultedseveral manuscripts which are to be found in this country. I am persuadedthat there are still many manuscripts worth my seeing to be met with inEngland, and for that reason I propose to pass some time in London thiswinter. I am impatient, however, to know what discoveries of this kind Imay expect, and what are the treasures before me, and with regard to thisI beg leave to consult you. 

"I was afraid for some time that Dr. Forbes's Collections had beenlost upon his death, but I am glad to find by your 'Memoirs' thatthey are in the possession of Mr. Yorke. I see likewise that the 'Dépêchesde Beaumont' are in the hands of the same gentleman. But I have noopportunity of consulting your 'Memoirs' at present, and I cannot rememberwhether the 'Dépêches de Fenelon' be still preserved or not. I see thatCarte has made a great use of them in a very busy period from 1563 to1576. I know the strength of Carte's prejudices so well, that I dare saymany things may be found there that he could not see, or would notpublish. May I beg the favour of you to let me know whether Fenelon'spapers be yet extant and accessible, and to give me some general idea ofwhat Dr. Forbes's Collections contain with regard to Scotland, and whetherthe papers they consist of are different from those published by Haynes, Anderson, &c. I am far from desiring that you should enter into any detailthat would be troublesome to you, but some short hint of the nature ofthese Collections would be extremely satisfying to my curiosity, and Ishall esteem it a great obligation laid upon me. 

"I have brought my work almost to a conclusion. If you would be so good asto suggest anything that you thought useful for me to know or to examineinto, I shall receive your directions with great respect and gratitude. 

"I am, with sincere esteem, "Rev'd Sir, Y'r m. Ob. & m. H. S'r, "Wm. ROBERTSON. "

TO DR. BIRCH. 

"_Edinburgh, 1 Jan. 1759. _

"Dear Sir, --If I had not considered a letter of mere compliment as animpertinent interruption to one who is so busy as you commonly are, Iwould long before this have made my acknowledgments to you for thecivilities which you was so good as to show me while I was in London. Ihad not only a proof of your obliging disposition, but I reaped the goodeffects of it. 

"The papers to which I got access by your means, especially those fromLord Royston, have rendered my work more perfect than it could haveotherwise been. My history is now ready for publication, and I havedesired Mr. Millar to send you a large paper copy of it in my name, whichI beg you may accept as a testimony of my regard and of my gratitude. Hewill likewise transmit to you another copy, which I must entreat you topresent to my Lord Royston, with such acknowledgments of his favourstoward me as are proper for me to make. I have printed a short appendix oforiginal papers. You will observe that there are several inaccuracies inthe press work. Mr. Millar grew impatient to have the book published, sothat it was impossible to send down the proofs to me. I hope, however, thepapers will be abundantly intelligible. I published them only to confirmmy own system, about particular facts, not to obtain the character of anantiquarian. If, upon perusing the book, you discover any inaccuracies, either with regard to style or facts, whether of great or of smallimportance, I will esteem it a very great favour if you'll be so good asto communicate them to me. I shall likewise be indebted to you, if you'lllet me know what reception the book meets with among the literati of youracquaintance. I hope you will be particularly pleased with the criticaldissertation at the end, which is the production of a co-partnershipbetween me and your friend Mr. Davidson. Both Sir D. Dalrymple and heoffer compliments to you. If Dean Tucker be in town this winter, I beg youwill offer my compliments to him. 

"I am, w. Great regard, Dr. Sir, "Y'r m. Obed't. & rust. O. Ser't. , "WILLIAM ROBERTSON. 

"My address is, one of the ministers of Ed. "

TO DR. BIRCH. 

"_Edinburgh, 13 Dec. 1759. _

"Dear Sir, --I beg leave once more to have recourse to your good nature andto your love of literature, and to presume upon putting you to a piece oftrouble. After considering several subjects for another history, I have atlast fixed upon the reign of Charles V. , which contains the firstestablishment of the present political system of Europe. I have begun tolabour seriously upon my task. One of the first things requisite was toform a catalogue of books which must be consulted. As I never had accessto very copious libraries, I do not pretend to any extensive knowledge ofauthors, but I have made a list of such as I thought most essential to thesubject, and have put them down just in the order which they occurred tome, or as I found them mentioned in any book I happened to read. I beg youwould be so good as to look it over, and as your erudition and knowledgeof books is infinitely superior to mine, I doubt not but you'll be able tomake such additions to my catalogue as may be of great use to me. I knowvery well, and to my sorrow, how servilely historians copy from oneanother, and how little is to be learned from reading many books, but atthe same time when one writes upon any particular period, it is bothnecessary and decent for him to consult every book relating to it, uponwhich he can lay his hands. I am sufficiently master of French andItalian; but have no knowledge of the Spanish or German tongues. I flattermyself that I shall not suffer much by this, as the two former languages, together with the Latin, will supply me with books in abundance. Mr. Walpole informed me some time ago, that in the catalogue of Harleian MSS. In the British Museum, there is a volume of papers relating to Charles V. , it is No. 295. I do not expect much from it, but it would be extremelyobliging if you would take the trouble of looking into it and of informingme in general what it contains. In the catalogue I have inclosed, thismark × is prefixed to all the books which I can get in this country; ifyou yourself, or any friend with whom you can use freedom, have any of theother books in my list, and will be so good as to send them to Mr. Millar, he will forward them to me, and I shall receive them with great gratitudeand return them with much punctuality. I beg leave to offer compliments toall our common friends, and particularly to Dean Tucker, if he be in townthis season. I wish it were in my power to confer any return for all thetrouble you have taken in my behalf--"

FROM DR. BIRCH TO THE REV. DR. ROBERTSON, AT EDINBURGH. 

"_London, 3 Jany. 1760. _

"Dear Sir, --Your letter of the 13 Dec'r. Was particularly agreeable to me, as it acquainted me with your resolution to resume your historic pen, andto undertake a subject which, from its importance and extent, and yourmanner of treating it, will be highly acceptable to the public. 

"I have perused your list of books to be consulted on this occasion; andafter transcribing it have delivered it to Mr. Millar; and shall now makesome additions to it. 

"The new 'Histoire d'Allemagne' by Father Barre, chancellor of theUniversity of Paris, published a few years ago in several volumes in 4^to. , is a work of very good credit, and to be perused by you; as is likewisethe second edition of 'Abrégé chronologique de l'Histoire & du Droitpublic d'Allemagne, ' just printed at Paris, and formed upon the plan ofPresident Henault's 'Nouvel Abrégé chronologique de l'Histoire de France, 'in which the reigns of Francis I. And Henry II. Will be proper to be seenby you. 

"The 'Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire du Cardinal Granvelle, ' by FatherRosper Levesque, a Benedictin monk, which were printed at Paris in twovol's. 12^o. In 1753, contain some particulars relating to Charles V. Butthis performance is much less curious than it might have been, consideringthat the author had the advantage of a vast collection, above an hundredvolumes of the Cardinal's original papers, at Besançon. Among these arethe papers of his eminence's father, who was chancellor and minister tothe Emperor Charles V. 

"Bishop Burnet, in the 'Summary of Affairs before the Restoration, 'prefixed to his 'History of his Own Time, ' mentions a life of FrederickElector Palatine, who first reformed the Palatinate, as curiously writtenby Hubert Thomas Leodius. This book, though a very rare one, is in mystudy and shall be sent to you. You will find in it many facts relating toyour Emperor. The manuscript was luckily saved when the library ofHeydelberg was plundered and conveyed to the Vatican after the taking ofthat city in 1622, and it was printed in 1624, at Francfort, in 4^to. The writer had been secretary and councillor to the elector. 

"Another book which I shall transmit to you is a valuable collection ofstate papers, made by Mons'r. Rivier, and printed at Blois, in 1665, intwo vols. F^o. They relate to the reigns of Francis I. , Henry II. , andFrancis II. Of France. The indexes will direct you to such passages asconcern the Emperor. 

"As Mons'r. Amelot de la Houssaic, who was extremely conversant in modernhistory, has, in the 1st. Tome of his 'Mémoires Historiques Politiques etLittéraires, ' from p. 156 to 193, treated of Charles V. , I shall add thatbook to my parcel. 

"Varillas's 'Life of Henry II. Of France' should be looked into, thoughthat historian has not at present much reputation for exactness andveracity. 

"Dr. Fiddes, in his 'Life of Cardinal Wolsey, ' has frequent occasion tointroduce the Emperor, his contemporary, of which Bayle in his Dictionarygives us an express article and not a short one, for it consists of eightof his pages. 

"Roger Ascham, Queen Elizabeth's preceptor, when he was secretary to S'r. Richard Morysin amb. From K. Edward VI. To the imperial court, wrote to afriend of his 'a report and discourse of the affairs and state of Germanyand the Emperor Charles's court. ' This was printed in the reign of QueenElizabeth; but the copies of that edition are now very rare. However thiswill be soon made public, being reprinted in an edition of all theauthor's English works now in the press. 

"The 'Epîtres des Princes, ' translated from the Italian by Belleforest, will probably supply you with some few things to your purpose. 

"Vol. 295 among the Harleian MSS. Contains little remarkable except someletters from Henry VIII's amb'r. In Spain, in 1518, of which, you may seean abstract in the printed catalogue. 

"In Dr. Hayne's 'Collection of State Papers in the Hatfield History, ' p. 56, is a long letter of the lord of the council of Henry VIII. , in 1546, to his amb'r. With the Emperor. "

TO DR. BIRCH. 

_Extract from a letter of Dr. Robertson, dated College of Edinburgh, Oct. 8, 1765. _

" . . . I have met with many interruptions in carrying on my 'Charles V. , 'partly from bad health, and partly from the avocations arising fromperforming the duties of my office. But I am now within sight of land. Thehistorical part of the work is finished, and I am busy with a preliminarybook, in which I propose to give a view of the progress in the state ofsociety, laws, manners, and arts, from the irruption of the barbarousnations to the beginning of the sixteenth century. This is a laboriousundertaking; but I flatter myself that I shall be able to finish it in afew months. I have kept the books you was so good as to send me, and shallreturn them carefully as soon as my work is done. "

 * * * * *

OF VOLUMINOUS WORKS INCOMPLETE BY THE DEATHS OF THE AUTHORS. 

In those "Dances of Death" where every profession is shown as taken bysurprise in the midst of their unfinished tasks, where the cook is viewedin flight, oversetting his caldron of soup, and the physician, whileinspecting his patient's urinal, is himself touched by the grim visitor, one more instance of poor mortality may be added in the writers of worksdesigned to be pursued through a long series of volumes. The French havean appropriate designation for such works, which they call "_ouvrages delongue haleine_, " and it has often happened that the _haleine_ has closedbefore the work. 

Works of literary history have been particularly subject to thismortifying check on intellectual enterprise, and human life has notyielded a sufficient portion for the communication of extensiveacquirement! After years of reading and writing, the literary historian, who in his innumerable researches is critical as well as erudite, hasstill to arbitrate between conflicting opinions; to resolve on thedoubtful, to clear up the obscure, and to grasp at remote researches:--buthe dies, and leaves his favourite volumes little more than a project!

Feelingly the antiquary Hearne laments this general forgetfulness of thenature of all human concerns in the mind of the antiquary, who is sobusied with other times and so interested for other persons than thoseabout him. "It is the business of a good antiquary, as of a good man, tohave mortality always before him. "

A few illustrious scholars have indeed escaped the fate reserved for mostof their brothers. A long life, and the art of multiplying that life notonly by an early attachment to study, but by that order and arrangementwhich shortens our researches, have sufficed for a MURATORI. With such astudent time was a great capital, which he knew to put out at compoundinterest; and this Varro of the Italians, who performed an infinite numberof things in the circumscribed period of ordinary life, appears not tohave felt any dread of leaving his voluminous labours unfinished, butrather of wanting one to begin. This literary Alexander thought he mightwant a world to conquer! Muratori was never perfectly happy unlessemployed in two large works at the same time, and so much dreaded thestate of literary inaction, that he was incessantly importuning hisfriends to suggest to him objects worthy of his future composition. Theflame kindled in his youth burned clear in his old age; and it was in hissenility that he produced the twelve quartos of his _Annali d'Italia_as an addition to his twenty-nine folios of his _Rerum ItalicarumScriptores_, and the six folios of the _Antiquitates Medii Ævi_! Yetthese vast edifices of history are not all which this illustrious Italianhas raised for his fatherland. Gibbon in his Miscellaneous Works has drawnan admirable character of Muratori. 

But such a fortunate result has rarely accompanied the labours of theliterary worthies of this order. TIRABOSCHI indeed lived to complete hisgreat national history of Italian literature; but, unhappily for us, WARTON, after feeling his way through the darker ages of our poetry, andjust conducting us to a brighter region, in planning the map of thecountry of which he had only a Pisgah view, expires amid his volumes! Ourpoetical antiquary led us to the opening gates of the paradise of ourpoetry, when, alas! they closed on him and on us! The most preciousportion of Warton's history is but the fragment of a fragment. 

Life passes away in collecting materials--the marble lies in blocks--andsometimes a colonnade is erected, or even one whole side of a palaceindicates the design of the architect. Count MAZZUCHELLI, early inlife, formed a noble but too mighty a project, in which, however, heconsiderably advanced. This was an historical and critical account of thememoirs and the writings of Italian authors; he even commenced thepublication in alphabetical order, but the six invaluable folios wepossess only contain the authors the initial letters of whose names are Aand B! This great literary historian had finished for the press othervolumes, which the torpor of his descendants has suffered to lie in adormant state. Rich in acquisition, and judicious in his decisions, thedays of the patriotic Mazzuchelli were freely given to the most curiousand elegant researches in his national literature; his correspondence issaid to consist of forty volumes; with eight of literary memoirs, besidesthe lives of his literary contemporaries;--but Europe has been defraudedof the hidden treasures. 

The history of BAILLET'S "Jugemens des Sçavans sur les Principaux Ouvragesdes Auteurs, " or Decisions of the Learned on the Learned, is a remarkableinstance how little the calculations of writers of research serve toascertain the period of their projected labour. Baillet passed his life inthe midst of the great library of the literary family of the Lamoignons, and as an act of gratitude arranged a classified catalogue in thirty-twofolio volumes; it indicated not only what any author had professedlycomposed on any subject, but also marked those passages relative to thesubject which other writers had touched on. By means of this catalogue, the philosophical patron of Baillet at a single glance discovered thegreat results of human knowledge on any object of his inquiries. Thiscatalogue, of equal novelty and curiosity, the learned came to study, andoften transcribed its precious notices. Amid this world of books, theskill and labour of Baillet prompted him to collect the critical opinionsof the learned, and from the experience he had acquired in the progress ofhis colossal catalogue, as a preliminary, sketched one of the mostmagnificent plans of literary history. This instructive project has beenpreserved by Monnoye in his edition. It consists of six large divisions, with innumerable subdivisions. It is a map of the human mind, and presentsa view of the magnitude and variety of literature, which few can conceive. The project was too vast for an individual; it now occupies seven quartos, yet it advanced no farther than the critics, translators, and poets, forming little more than the first, and a commencement of the second greatdivision; to more important classes the laborious projector never reached!

Another literary history is the "Bibliothèque Françoise" of GOUJET, leftunfinished by his death. He had designed a classified history of Frenchliterature; but of its numerous classes he has only concluded that of thetranslators, and not finished the second he had commenced, of the poets. He lost himself in the obscure times of French Literature, and consumedsixteen years on his eighteen volumes!

A great enterprise of the BENEDICTINES, the "Histoire Littéraire de laFrance, " now consists of twelve large quartos, which even its successivewriters have only been able to carry down to the close of the twelfthcentury![A]

[Footnote A: This work has been since resumed. ]

DAVID CLEMENT, a bookseller and a book-lover, designed the most extensivebibliography which had ever appeared; this history of books is not abarren nomenclature, the particulars and dissertations are sometimescurious: but the diligent life of the author only allowed him to proceedas far as the letter H! The alphabetical order which some writers haveadopted has often proved a sad memento of human life! The last edition ofour own "Biographia Britannica, " feeble, imperfect, and inadequate as thewriters were to the task the booksellers had chosen them to execute, remains still a monument which every literary Englishman may blush to seeso hopelessly interrupted. 

When LE GRAND D'AUSSY, whose "Fabliaux" are so well known, adopted, in the warmth of antiquarian imagination, the plan suggested by theMarquis de Paulmy, first sketched in the _Mélanges tirés d'une grandeBibliothèque_, of a picture of the domestic life of the French people fromtheir earliest periods, the subject broke upon him like a vision; it hadnovelty, amusement, and curiosity: "_le sujet m'en parut neuf, riche etpiquant_. " He revelled amid the scenes of their architecture, the interiordecorations of their houses, their changeable dress, their games, andrecreations; in a word, on all the parts which were most adapted to amusethe fancy. But when he came to compose the more detailed work, the fairyscene faded in the length, the repetition, and the never-ending labour andweariness; and the three volumes which we now possess, instead of sports, dresses, and architecture, exhibit only a very curious, but not always avery amusing, account of the food of the French nation. 

No one has more fully poured out his vexation of spirit--he may excite asmile in those who have never experienced this toil of books andmanuscripts--but he claims the sympathy of those who would discharge theirpublic duties so faithfully to the public. I shall preserve a strikingpicture of these thousand task-works, coloured by the literary pangs ofthe voluminous author, who is doomed never to finish his curious work:--

"Endowed with a courage at all proofs, with health which, till then, wasunaltered, and which excess of labour has greatly changed, I devotedmyself to write the lives of the learned of the sixteenth century. Renouncing all kinds of pleasure, working ten to twelve hours a-day, extracting, ceaselessly copying; after this sad life I now wished to drawbreath, turn over what I had amassed, and arrange it. I found myselfpossessed of many thousands of _bulletins_, of which the longest did notexceed many lines. At the sight of this frightful chaos, from which I wasto form a regular history, I must confess that I shuddered; I felt myselffor some time in a _stupor and depression of spirits_; and now actuallythat I have finished this work, _I cannot endure the recollection of thatmoment of alarm without a feeling of involuntary terror. _ What a businessis this, good God, of a compiler! In truth, it is too much condemned; itmerits some regard. At length I regained courage; I returned to myresearches: I have completed my plan, though every day I was forced to_add_, to _correct_, to _change my facts as well as my ideas_; SIX timeshas my hand _re-copied my work_; and, however fatiguing this may be, itcertainly is not that portion of my task which has cost me most. "

The history of the "Bibliotheca Britannica" of the late Dr. Watt may serveas a mortifying example of the length of labour and the brevity of life. To this gigantic work the patient zeal of the writer had devoted twentyyears; he had just arrived at the point of publication, when death foldeddown his last page; the son who, during the last four years, had toiledunder the direction of his father, was chosen to occupy his place. Thework was in the progress of publication, when the son also died; andstrangers now reap the fruits of their combined labours. 

One cannot forbear applying to this subject of voluminous designs, whichmust be left unfinished, the forcible reflection of Johnson on theplanting of trees: "There is a frightful interval between the seed andtimber. He that calculates the growth of trees has the unwelcomeremembrance of the shortness of life driven hard upon him. He knows thathe is doing what will never benefit himself; and, when he rejoices to seethe stem arise, is disposed to repine that another shall cut it down. "

 * * * * *

OF DOMESTIC NOVELTIES AT FIRST CONDEMNED. 

It is amusing enough to discover that things, now considered among themost useful and even agreeable acquisitions of domestic life, on theirfirst introduction ran great risks of being rejected, by the ridicule orthe invective which they encountered. The repulsive effect produced onmankind by the mere strangeness of a thing, which at length we findestablished among our indispensable conveniences, or by a practice whichhas now become one of our habits, must be ascribed sometimes to a proudperversity in our nature; sometimes to the crossing of our interests, andto that repugnance to alter what is known for that which has not beensanctioned by our experience. This feeling has, however, within the latterhalf century considerably abated; but it proves, as in higher matters, that some philosophical reflection is required to determine on theusefulness, or the practical ability, of every object which comes in theshape of novelty or innovation. Could we conceive that man had neverdiscovered the practice of washing his hands, but cleansed them as animalsdo their paws, he would for certain have ridiculed and protested againstthe inventor of soap, and as tardily, as in other matters, have adoptedthe invention. A reader, unaccustomed to minute researches, might besurprised, had he laid before him the history of some of the most familiardomestic articles which, in their origin, incurred the ridicule of thewits, and had to pass through no short ordeal of time in the strenuousopposition of the zealots against domestic novelties. The subject requiresno grave investigation; we will, therefore, only notice a few of universaluse. They will sufficiently demonstrate that, however obstinately manmoves in "the march of intellect, " he must be overtaken by that greatestof innovators--Time itself; and that, by his eager adoption of what he hadonce rejected, and by the universal use of what he once deemed unuseful, he will forget, or smile at the difficulties of a former generation, whowere baffled in their attempts to do what we all are now doing. 

Forks are an Italian invention; and in England were so perfect a noveltyin the days of Queen Bess, that Fynes Moryson, in his curious "Itinerary, "relating a bargain with the patrone of a vessel which was to convey himfrom Venice to Constantinople, stipulated to be fed at his table, and tohave "his glass or cup to drink in peculiar to himself, with his knife, spoon, _fork. "_ This thing was so strange that he found it necessary todescribe it. [A] It is an instrument "to hold the meat while he cuts it;for they hold it ill-manners that one should touch the meat with hishands. "[B] At the close of the sixteenth century were our ancestors eatingas the Turkish _noblesse_ at present do, with only the free use of theirfingers, steadying their meat and conveying it to their mouths by theirmere manual dexterity. They were, indeed, most indelicate in their habits, scattering on the table-cloth all their bones and parings. To purify theirtables, the servant bore a long wooden "voiding-knife, " by which hescraped the fragments from the table into a basket, called "a voider. "Beaumont and Fletcher describe the thing, They sweep the table with a wooden dagger. 

[Footnote A: Modern research has shown that forks were not so entirelyunknown as was imagined when the above was written. In vol. Xxvii. Of the"Archaeologia, " published by the Society of Antiquaries, is an engravingof a fork and spoon of the Anglo-Saxon era; they were found with fragmentsof ornaments in silver and brass, all of which had been deposited in abox, of which there were some decayed remains; together with about seventypennies of sovereigns from Coenwolf, King of Mercia (A. D. 796), toEthelstan (A. D. 878, 890). The inventories of royal and noble persons inthe middle ages often name forks. They were made of precious materials, and sometimes adorned with jewels like those named in the inventory of theDuke of Normandy, in 1363, "une cuiller d'or et une fourchette, et auxdeux fonts deux saphirs;" and in the inventory of Charles V. Of France, in1380, "une cuillier et une fourchette d'or, où il y a ij balays et Xperles. " Their use seems to have been a luxurious appendage to thedessert, to lift fruit, or take sops from wine. Thus Piers Gaveston, thecelebrated favourite of Edward III. , is described to have had three silverforks to eat pears with; and the Duchess of Orleans, in 1390, had one forkof gold to take sops from wine (à prendre la soupe où vin). They appear tohave been entirely restricted to this use, and never adopted as now, tolift meat at ordinary meals. They were carried about the person indecorated cases, and only used on certain occasions, and then only by thehighest classes; hence their comparative rarity. --Ed. ]

[Footnote B: Moryson's "Itinerary, " part i, p. 208. ]

Fabling Paganism had probably raised into a deity the little man who firsttaught us, as Ben Jonson describes its excellence--

 --the laudable use of forks, To the sparing of napkins. 

This personage is well-known to have been that odd compound, Coryat thetraveller, the perpetual butt of the wits. He positively claims thisimmortality. "I myself thought good to imitate the Italian fashion by thisFORKED _cutting of meat, _ not only while I was in Italy, but also inGermany, and oftentimes in England since I came home. " Here the use offorks was, however, long ridiculed; it was reprobated in Germany, wheresome uncleanly saints actually preached against the unnatural custom "asan insult on Providence, not to touch our meat with our fingers. " It is acurious fact, that forks were long interdicted in the Congregation de St. Maur, and were only used after a protracted struggle between the oldmembers, zealous for their traditions, and the young reformers, for theirfingers. [A] The allusions to the use of the fork, which we find in all thedramatic writers through the reigns of James the First and Charles theFirst, show that it was still considered as a strange affectation andnovelty. The fork does not appear to have been in general use before theRestoration! On the introduction of forks there appears to have been somedifficulty in the manner they were to be held and used. In _The Fox_, SirPolitic Would-be, counselling Peregrine at Venice, observes--

 --Then you must learn the use And handling of your silver fork at meals. 

[Footnote A: I find this circumstance concerning forks mentioned in the"Dictionnaire de Trevoux. "]

Whatever this art may be, either we have yet to learn it, or there is morethan one way in which it may be practised. D'Archenholtz, in his "Tableaude l'Angleterre" asserts that "an Englishman may be discovered anywhere, if he be observed at table, because he places his fork upon the left sideof his plate; a Frenchman, by using the fork alone without the knife; anda German, by planting it perpendicularly into his plate; and a Russian, byusing it as a toothpick. "

Toothpicks seem to have come in with forks, as younger brothers of thetable, and seem to have been borrowed from the nice manners of the statelyVenetians. This implement of cleanliness was, however, doomed to the sameanathema as the fantastical ornament of "the complete Signor, " theItalianated Englishman. How would the writers, who caught "the manners asthey rise, " have been astonished that now no decorous person would beunaccompanied by what Massinger in contempt calls

 Thy case of toothpicks and thy silver fork!

Umbrellas, in my youth, were not ordinary things; few but the macaroni'sof the day, as the dandies were then called, would venture to displaythem. For a long while it was not usual for men to carry them withoutincurring the brand of effeminacy; and they were vulgarly considered asthe characteristics of a person whom the mob then hugely disliked--namely, a mincing Frenchman. At first a single umbrella seems to have been kept ata coffee-house for some extraordinary occasion--lent as a coach or chairin a heavy shower--but not commonly carried by the walkers. The _FemaleTatler_ advertises "the young gentleman belonging to the custom-house, who, in fear of rain, borrowed _the umbrella from Wilks' Coffee-house, _shall the next time be welcome to the maid's _pattens_. " An umbrellacarried by a man was obviously then considered an extreme effeminacy. Aslate as in 1778, one John Macdonald, a footman, who has written his ownlife, informs us, that when he carried "a fine silk umbrella, which he hadbrought from Spain, he could not with any comfort to himself use it; thepeople calling out 'Frenchman! why don't you get a coach?'" The fact was, that the hackney-coachmen and the chairmen, joining with the true _espritde corps_, were clamorous against this portentous rival. This footman, in1778, gives us further Information:--"At this time there were no umbrellasworn in London, except in noblemen's and gentlemen's houses, where therewas a large one hung in the hall to hold over a lady or a gentleman, if itrained, between the door and their carriage. " His sister was compelled toquit his arm one day, from the abuse he drew down on himself by hisumbrella. But he adds that "he persisted for three months, till they tookno further notice of this novelty. Foreigners began to use theirs, andthen the English. Now it is become a great trade in London. "[A] The stateof our population might now, in some degree, be ascertained by the numberof umbrellas. 

[Footnote A: Umbrellas are, However, an invention of great antiquity, andmay be seen in the sculptures of ancient Egypt and Assyria. They are alsodepicted on early Greek vases. But the most curious fact connected withtheir use in this country seems to be the knowledge our Saxon ancestorshad of them; though the use, in accordance with the earliest custom, appears to have been as a shelter or mark of distinction for royalty. InCædmon's "Metrical Paraphrase of Parts of Scripture, " now in the BritishMuseum (Harleian MS. No. 603), an Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the tenthcentury, is the drawing of a king, who has an umbrella held over his headby an attendant, in the same way as it is borne over modern eastern kings. The form is precisely similar to those now in use, though, as noted above, they were an entire novelty when re-introduced in the last century. --Ed. ]

Coaches, on their first invention, offered a fruitful source ofdeclamation, as an inordinate luxury, particularly among the ascetics ofmonkish Spain. The Spanish biographer of Don John of Austria, describingthat golden age, the good old times, when they only used "carts drawn byoxen, riding in this manner to court, " notices that it was foundnecessary to prohibit coaches by a royal proclamation, "to such a heightwas this _infernal vice_ got, which has done so much injury to Castile. "In this style nearly every domestic novelty has been attacked. Theinjury inflicted on Castile by the introduction of coaches could onlyhave been felt by the purveyors of carts and oxen for a morning's ride. The same circumstances occurred in this country. When coaches began to bekept by the gentry, or were hired out, a powerful party found their"occupation gone!" Ladies would no longer ride on pillions behind theirfootmen, nor would take the air, where the air was purest, on the river. Judges and counsellors from their inns would no longer be conveyed bywater to Westminster Hall, or jog on with all their gravity on a poorpalfrey. Considerable bodies of men were thrown out of their habitualemployments--the watermen, the hackneymen, and the saddlers. Familieswere now jolted, in a heavy wooden machine, into splendour and ruin. Thedisturbance and opposition these coaches created we should hardly now haveknown, had not Taylor, the Water-poet[A] and man, sent down to us aninvective against coaches, in 1623, dedicated to all who are grieved with"the world running on wheels. "

[Footnote A: Taylor was originally a Thames waterman, hence the term"Water-poet" given him. His attack upon coaches was published with thisquaint title, "The world runnes on wheeles, or, odds, betwixt carts andcoaches. " It is an unsparing satire. --Ed. ]

Taylor, a humorist and satirist, as well as waterman, conveys someinformation in this rare tract of the period when coaches began to be moregenerally used--"Within our memories our nobility and gentry could ridewell-mounted, and sometimes walk on foot gallantly attended with fourscorebrave fellows in blue coats, which was a glory to our nation far greaterthan forty of these leathern timbrels. Then the name of a _coach_ washeathen Greek. Who ever saw, but upon extraordinary occasions, Sir PhilipSidney and Sir Francis Drake ride in a coach? They made small use ofcoaches; there were but few in those times, and they were deadly foes tosloth and effeminacy. It is in the memory of many when in the wholekingdom there was not one! It is a doubtful question whether the devilbrought _tobacco_ into England in _a coach_, for both appeared at the sametime. " It appears that families, for the sake of their exterior show, miserably contracted their domestic establishment; for Taylor, theWater-poet, complains that when they used formerly to keep from ten to ahundred proper serving-men, they now made the best shift, and for the sakeof their coach and horses had only "a butterfly page, a trotting footman, and a stiff-drinking coachman, a cook, a clerk, a steward, and a butler, which hath forced an army of tall fellows to the gatehouses, " or prisons. Of one of the evil effects of this new fashion of coach-riding thissatirist of the town wittily observes, that, as soon as a man wasknighted, his lady was lamed for ever, and could not on any account beseen but in a coach. As hitherto our females had been accustomed to robustexercise, on foot or on horseback, they were now forced to substitute adomestic artificial exercise in sawing billets, swinging, or rolling thegreat roller in the alleys of their garden. In the change of this newfashion they found out the inconvenience of a sedentary life passed intheir coaches. [A]

[Footnote A: Stow, in his "Chronicles, " has preserved the date of thefirst introduction of coaches into England, as well as the name of thefirst driver, and first English coachmaker. "In the year 1564 GuilliamBoonen, a Dutchman, became the queen's coachman, and was the first thatbrought the use of coaches into England. After a while divers greatladies, with as great jealousie of the queen's displeasure, made themcoaches, and rid in them up and down the country, to the great admirationof all the beholders; but then, by little and little, they grew usualamong the nobility and others of sorte, and within twenty years became agreat trade of coachmaking;" and he also notes that in the year of theirintroduction to England "Walter Rippon made a _coche_ for the Earl ofRutland, which was the first _coche_ that was ever made in England. "--ED. ]

Even at this early period of the introduction of coaches, they were notonly costly in the ornaments--in velvets, damasks, taffetas, silver andgold lace, fringes of all sorts--but their greatest pains were in matchingtheir coach-horses. "They must be all of a colour, longitude, latitude, cressitude, height, length, thickness, breadth (I muse they do not weighthem in a pair of balances); and when once matched with a great deal ofcare, if one of them chance to die, then is the coach maimed till a meetmate be found, whose corresponding may be as equivalent to the survivingpalfrey, in all respects, as like as a broom to a besom, barm to yeast, orcodlings to boiled apples. " This is good natural humour. He proceeds--"They use more diligence in matching their coach-horses than in themarriage of their sons and daughters. " A great fashion, in its novelty, isoften extravagant; true elegance and utility are never at first combined;good sense and experience correct its caprices. They appear to haveexhausted more cost and curiosity in their equipages, on their firstintroduction, than since they have become objects of ordinary use. Notwithstanding this humorous invective on the calamity of coaches, andthat "housekeeping never decayed till coaches came into England; and thata ten-pound rent now was scarce twenty shillings then, till the witchcraftof the coach quickly mounted the price of all things. " The Water-poet, were he now living, might have acknowledged that if, in the changes oftime, some trades disappear, other trades rise up, and in an exchange ofmodes of industry the nation loses nothing. The hands which, likeTaylor's, rowed boats, came to drive coaches. These complainers on allnovelties, unawares always answer themselves. Our satirist affords us amost prosperous view of the condition of "this new trade of coachmakers, as the gainfullest about the town. They are apparelled in sattins andvelvets, are masters of the parish, vestrymen, and fare like the EmperorHeliogabalus and Sardanapalus--seldom without their mackeroones, Parmisants (macaroni, with Parmesan cheese, I suppose), jellies andkickshaws, with baked swans, pastries hot or cold, red-deer pies, whichthey have from their debtors, worships in the country!" Such was thesudden luxurious state of our first great coachmakers! to the deadlymortification of all watermen, hackneymen, and other conveyancers of ourloungers, thrown out of employ!

Tobacco. --It was thought, at the time of its introduction, that thenation would be ruined by the use of tobacco. Like all novel tastes thenewly-imported leaf maddened all ranks among us, "The money spent in smokeis unknown, " said a writer of that day, lamenting over this "new trade oftobacco, in which he feared that there were more than seven thousandtobacco-houses. " James the First, in his memorable "Counterblast toTobacco, " only echoed from the throne the popular cry; but the blast wastoo weak against the smoke, and vainly his paternal majesty attempted toterrify his liege children that "they were making a sooty kitchen in theirinward parts, soiling and infecting them with an unctuous kind of soot, ashath been found in some great tobacco-eaters, that after their death wereopened. " The information was perhaps a pious fraud. This tract, which hasincurred so much ridicule, was, in truth, a meritorious effort to allaythe extravagance of the moment. But such popular excesses end themselves;and the royal author might have left the subject to the town-satirists ofthe day, who found the theme inexhaustible for ridicule or invective. 

Coal. --The established use of our ordinary fuel, coal, may be ascribed tothe scarcity of wood in the environs of the metropolis. Its recommendationwas its cheapness, however it destroys everything about us. It has formedan artificial atmosphere which envelopes the great capital, and it isacknowledged that a purer air has often proved fatal to him who, fromearly life, has only breathed in sulphur and smoke. Charles Fox once saidto a friend, "I cannot live in the country; my constitution is not strongenough. " Evelyn poured out a famous invective against "London Smoke. ""Imagine, " he cries, "a solid tentorium or canopy over London, what a massof smoke would then stick to it! This fuliginous crust now comes downevery night on the streets, on our houses, the waters, and is taken intoour bodies. On the water it leaves a thin web or pellicle of dust dancingupon the surface of it, as those who bath in the Thames discern, and bringhome on their bodies. " Evelyn has detailed the gradual destruction iteffects on every article of ornament and price; and "he heard in France, that those parts lying south-west of England, complain of being infectedwith smoke from our coasts, which injured their vines in flower. " I havemyself observed at Paris, that the books exposed to sale on stalls, however old they might be, retained their freshness, and were in noinstance like our own, corroded and blackened, which our coal-smoke neverfails to produce. There was a proclamation, so far back as Edward theFirst, forbidding the use of sea-coal in the suburbs, on a complaint ofthe nobility and gentry, that they could not go to London on account ofthe noisome smell and thick air. About 1550, Hollingshed foresaw thegeneral use of sea-coal from the neglect of cultivating timber. Coal fireshave now been in general use for three centuries. In the country theypersevered in using wood and peat. Those who were accustomed to thissweeter smell declared that they always knew a Londoner, by the smell ofhis clothes, to have come from coal-fires. It must be acknowledged thatour custom of using coal for our fuel has prevailed over good reasons whywe ought not to have preferred it. But man accommodates himself even to anoffensive thing whenever his interest predominates. 

Were we to carry on a speculation of this nature into graver topics, we should have a copious chapter to write of the opposition to newdiscoveries. Medical history supplies no unimportant number. On theimprovements in anatomy by Malpighi and his followers, the seniorprofessors of the university of Bononia were inflamed to such a pitch thatthey attempted to insert an additional clause in the solemn oath taken bythe graduates, to the effect that they would not permit the principles andconclusions of Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Galen, which had been approvedof so many ages, to be overturned by any person. In phlebotomy we have acurious instance. In Spain, to the sixteenth century, they maintained thatwhen the pain was on the one side they ought to bleed on the other. Agreat physician insisted on a contrary practice; a civil war of opiniondivided Spain; at length, they had recourse to courts of law; thenovelists were condemned; they appealed to the emperor, Charles the Fifth;he was on the point of confirming the decree of the court, when the Dukeof Savoy died of a pleurisy, having been legitimately bled. This puzzledthe emperor, who did not venture on a decision. 

The introduction of antimony and the jesuits' bark also provokedlegislative interference; decrees and ordinances were issued, and a civilwar raged among the medical faculty, of which Guy Patin is the copioushistorian. Vesalius was incessantly persecuted by the public prejudicesagainst dissection; Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood ledto so protracted a controversy, that the great discovery was hardlyadmitted even in the latter days of the old man; Lady Wortley Montague'sintroduction of the practice of inoculation met the same obstinateresistance as, more recently, that of vaccination startled the people. Thus objects of the highest importance to mankind, on their firstappearance, are slighted and contemned. Posterity smiles at the ineptitudeof the preceding age, while it becomes familiar with those objects whichthat age has so eagerly rejected. Time is a tardy patron of trueknowledge. 

A nobler theme is connected with the principle we have here but touchedon--the gradual changes in public opinion--the utter annihilation of falsenotions, like those of witchcraft, astrology, spectres, and many othersuperstitions of no remote date, the hideous progeny of imposture got onignorance, and audacity on fear. But one impostor reigns paramount, theplausible opposition to novel doctrines which may be subversive of someancient ones; doctrines which probably shall one day be as generallyestablished as at present they are utterly decried, and which theinterests of corporate bodies oppose with all their cumbrous machinery;but artificial machinery becomes perplexed in its movements when worn outby the friction of ages. 

 * * * * *

DOMESTICITY; OR, A DISSERTATION ON SERVANTS. 

The characteristics of servants have been usually known by the broadcaricatures of the satirists of every age, and chiefly by the mostpopular--the writers of comedy. According to these exhibitions, we mustinfer that the vices of the menial are necessarily inherent to hiscondition, and consequently that this vast multitude in society remainever in an irrecoverably ungovernable state. We discover only the cunningdepredator of the household; the tip-toe spy, at all corners--all ear, alleye: the parasitical knave--the flatterer of the follies, and even theeager participator of the crimes, of his superior. The morality ofservants has not been improved by the wonderful revelations of Swift's"Directions, " where the irony is too refined, while it plainly inculcatesthe practice. This celebrated tract, designed for the instruction of themasters, is more frequently thumbed in the kitchen, as a manual for theprofligate domestic. Servants have acknowledged that some of their basedoings have been suggested to them by their renowned satirist. 

Bentham imagined, that were all the methods employed by thieves and roguesdescribed and collected together, such a compilation of their artificesand villanies would serve to put us on our guard. The theorist oflegislation seems often to forget the metaphysical state of man. With thevitiated mind, that latent sympathy of evil which might never have beencalled forth but by the occasion, has often evinced how too close aninspection of crime may grow into criminality itself. Hence it is, thatwhen some monstrous and unusual crime has been revealed to the public, itrarely passes without a sad repetition. A link in the chain of theintellect is struck, and a crime is perpetrated which else had notoccurred. 

Listen to the counsels which one of the livery gives a brother, morestupid but more innocent than himself. I take the passage from thatextraordinary Spanish comedy, in twenty-five acts, the _Spanish Bawd_. Itwas no doubt designed to expose the arts and selfishness of the domestic, yet we should regret that the _Spanish Bawd_ was as generally read byservants as Swift's "Directions":--

"Serve not your master with this foolish loyalty and ignorant honesty, thinking to find firmness on a false foundation, as most of these mastersnow-a-days are. Gain friends, which is a during and lasting commodity;live not on hopes, relying on the vain promises of masters. The masterslove more themselves than their servants, nor do they amiss; and the likelove ought servants to bear to themselves. Liberality was lost long ago--rewards are grown out of date. Every one is now for himself, and makes thebest he can of his servant's service, serving his turn, and therefore theyought to do the same, for they are less in substance. Thy master is onewho befools his servants, and wears them out to the very stumps, lookingfor much service at their hands. Thy master cannot be thy friend, suchdifference is there of estate and condition between you two. "

This passage, written two centuries ago, would find an echo of itssentiments in many a modern domestic. These notions are sacred traditionsamong the livery. We may trace them from Terence and Plautus, as well asSwift and Mandeville. Our latter great cynic has left a frightful pictureof the state of the domestics, when it seems "they had experiencedprofessors among them, who could instruct the graduates in iniquity sevenhundred illiberal arts how to cheat, impose upon, and find out the blindside of their masters. " The footmen, in Mandeville's day, had entered intoa society together, and made laws to regulate their wages, and not tocarry burdens above two or three pounds weight, and a common fund wasprovided to maintain any suit at law against any rebellious master. Thisseems to be a confederacy which is by no means dissolved. 

Lord Chesterfield advises his son not to allow his upper man to doff hislivery, though this valet was to attend his person, when the toilet was aserious avocation requiring a more delicate hand and a nicer person thanhe who was to walk before his chair, or climb behind his coach. Thissearching genius of philosophy and _les petites moeurs_ solemnly warnedthat if ever this man were to cast off the badge of his order, he neverwould resume it. About this period the masters were menaced by a sort ofservile war. The famous farce of _High Life below Stairs_ exposed withgreat happiness the impudence and the delinquencies of the parti-colouredclans. It roused them into the most barefaced opposition; and, as everhappens to the few who press unjust claims on the many, in the resultworked the reform they so greatly dreaded. [A] One of the grievances insociety was then an anomalous custom, for it was only practised in ourcountry, of a guest being highly taxed in dining with a family whoseestablishment admitted of a numerous train. Watchful of the departure ofthe guest, this victim had to pass along a line of domestics, arranged inthe hall, each man presenting the visitor with some separate article, ofhat, gloves, coat and cane, claiming their "vails. " It would not have beensafe to refuse even those who, with nothing to present, still held out thehand, for their attentions to the diner-out. [B]

[Footnote A: The farce was produced in 1759, when it was the custom toadmit any servant in livery free to the upper gallery, as they weresupposed to be in attendance on their masters. Their foibles anddishonesty being so completely hit off in the play incensed them greatly;and they created such an uproar that it was resolved to exclude them infuture. In Edinburgh the opposition to the play produced still greaterscenes of violence, and the lives of some of the performers werethreatened. It at last became necessary for their masters to stop thisoutbreak on the part of their servants; and alter the whole system of thehousehold economy which led to such results. --ED. ]

[Footnote B: These _vails_, supposed to be the free gratuity of theinvited to the servants of the inviter, were ultimately so managed thatpersons paid servants by that mode only--levying a kind of black-mail ontheir friends, which ran through all society. "The wages are nothing, "says a noble lady's servant in one of Smollet's novels, "but the _vails_are enormous. " The consequence was, that masters and mistresses had littlecontrol over them; they are said in some instances to have paid for theirplaces, as some servants do at inns, where the situation was worth having, owing to the large parties given, and gaming, then so prevalent, beingwell-attended. It was ended by a mutual understanding all over the threekingdoms, after the riots which resulted from the production of the playnoted above. --ED. ]

When a slave was deemed not a person, but a thing marketable andtransferable, the single principle judged sufficient to regulate themutual conduct of the master and the domestic was, to command and to obey. It seems still the sole stipulation exacted by the haughty from themenial. But this feudal principle, unalleviated by the just sympathies ofdomesticity, deprives authority of its grace, and service of its zeal. Tobe served well, we should be loved a little; the command of an excellentmaster is even grateful, for the good servant delights to be useful. Theslave repines, and such is the domestic destitute of any personalattachment for his master. Whoever was mindful of the interests of himwhose beneficence is only a sacrifice to his pomp? The master dresses andwages highly his pampered train; but this is the calculated cost ofstate-liveries, of men measured by a standard, for a Hercules in the hall, or an Adonis for the drawing-room; but at those times, when the domesticceases to be an object in the public eye, he sinks into an object ofsordid economy, or of merciless caprice. His personal feelings arerecklessly neglected. He sleeps where there is neither light nor air; heis driven when he is already exhausted; he begins the work of midnight, and is confined for hours with men like himself, who fret, repine, andcurse. They have their tales to compare together; their unhallowed secretsto disclose. The masters and the mistresses pass by them in review, andlittle deem they how oft the malignant glance or the malicious whisperfollow their airy steps. To shorten such tedious hours, the servantsfamiliarise themselves with every vicious indulgence, for even theoccupation of such domestics is little more than a dissolute idleness. Acell in Newgate does not always contain more corruptors than a herd ofservants congregated in our winter halls. It is to be lamented that themodes of fashionable life demand the most terrible sacrifices of thehealth, the happiness, and the morals of servants. Whoever perceives thathe is held in no esteem stands degraded in his own thoughts. The heart ofthe simple throbs with this emotion; but it hardens the villain who wouldrejoice to avenge himself: it makes the artful only the more cunning; itextorts from the sullen a cold unwilling obedience, and it stings even thegood-tempered into insolence. 

South, as great a wit as a preacher, has separated, by an awful interval, the superior and the domestic. "A servant dwells remote from all knowledgeof his lord's purposes; he lives as a kind of foreigner under the sameroof; a domestic, yet a foreigner too. " This exhibits a picture of feudalmanners. But the progress of society in modern Europe has since passedthrough a mighty evolution. In the visible change of habits, of feelings, of social life, the humble domestic has approximated to, and communicatedmore frequently even with "his lord. " The domestic is now not always astranger to "his lord's purposes, " but often their faithful actor--theirconfidential counsellor--the mirror in which his lordship contemplates onhis wishes personified. 

This reflection, indeed, would have violated the dignity of the noblefriend of Swift, Lord Orrery. His lordship censures the laughter in"Rabelais' easy chair" for having directed such intense attention toaffairs solely relating to servants. "Let him jest with dignity, and lethim be ironical upon _useful_ subjects, leaving _poor slaves_ to eat theirporridge, or drink their small beer, in such vessels as they shall thinkproper. " This lordly criticism has drawn down the lightning of Sir WalterScott:--"The noble lord's feelings of dignity deemed nothing worthy ofattention that was unconnected with the highest orders of society. " Such, in truth, was too long the vicious principle of those monopolists ofpersonal distinction, the mere men of elevated rank. 

Metropolitan servants, trained in depravity, are incapacitated tocomprehend how far the personal interests of servants are folded up withthe interests of the house they inhabit. They are unconscious that theyhave any share in the welfare of the superior, save in the degree that theprosperity of the master contributes to the base and momentary purposes ofthe servant. But in small communities we perceive how the affections ofthe master and the domestic may take root. Look in an ancient retiredfamily, whose servants often have been born under the roof they inhabit, and where the son is serving where the father still serves; and sometimescall the sacred spot of their cradle and their grave by the proud andendearing term of "our house. " We discover this in whole countries whereluxury has not removed the classes of society at too wide distances fromeach other, to deaden their sympathies. We behold this in agresticSwitzerland, among its villages and its pastures; in France, among itsdistant provinces; in Italy, in some of its decayed cities; and inGermany, where simple manners and strong affections mark the inhabitantsof certain localities. Holland long preserved its primitive customs; andthere the love of order promotes subordination, though its freeinstitutions have softened the distinctions in the ranks of life, andthere we find a remarkable evidence of domesticity. It is not unusual inHolland for servants to call their masters uncle, their mistressesaunt, and the children of the family their cousins. These domesticsparticipating in the comforts of the family, become naturalized anddomiciliated; and their extraordinary relatives are often adopted by theheart. An heroic effort of these domestics has been recorded; it occurredat the burning of the theatre at Amsterdam, where many rushed into theflames, and nobly perished in the attempt to save their endeared families. 

It is in limited communities that the domestic virtues are most intense;all concentrating themselves in their private circles, in such localitiesthere is no public--no public which extorts so many sacrifices from theindividual. Insular situations are usually remarkable for the warmattachment and devoted fidelity of the domestic, and the personal regardof families for their servants. This genuine domesticity is strikinglydisplayed in the island of Ragusa, on the coast of Dalmatia: for therethey provide for the happiness of the humble friends of the house. Boys, at an early age, are received into families, educated in writing, reading, and arithmetic. Some only quit their abode, in which they were almostborn, when tempted by the stirring spirit of maritime enterprise. Theyform a race of men who are much sought after for servants; and the termapplied to them of "Men of the Gulf, " is a sure recommendation ofcharacter for unlimited trust and unwearying zeal. 

The mode of providing for the future comforts of their maidens is a littleincident in the history of benevolence, which we must regret is onlypractised in such limited communities. Malte-Brun, in his "Annales desVoyages, " has painted a scene of this nature, which may read like someromance of real life. The girls, after a service of ten years, on onegreat holiday, an epoch in their lives, receive the ample reward of theirgood conduct. On that happy day the mistress and all the friends of thefamily prepare for the maiden a sort of dowry or marriage-portion. Everyfriend of the house sends some article; and the mistress notes down thegifts, that she may return the same on a similar occasion. The donationsconsist of silver, of gowns, of handkerchiefs, and other useful articlesfor a young woman. These tributes of friendship are placed beside a silverbasin, which contains the annual wages of the servant; her relatives fromthe country come, accompanied by music, carrying baskets covered withribbons and loaded with fruits, and other rural delicacies. They arereceived by the master himself, who invites them to the feast, where thecompany assemble, and particularly the ladies. All the presents arereviewed. The servant introduced kneels to receive the benediction of hermistress, whose grateful task is then to deliver a solemn enumeration ofher good qualities, concluding by announcing to the maiden that, havingbeen brought up in the house, if it be her choice to remain, fromhenceforward she shall be considered as one of the family. Tears ofaffection often fall during this beautiful scene of true domesticity, which terminates with a ball for the servants, and another for thesuperiors. The relatives of the maiden return homewards with their joyousmusicians; and, if the maiden prefers her old domestic abode, she receivesan increase of wages, and at a succeeding period of six years anotherjubilee provides her second good fortune. Let me tell one more story ofthe influence of this passion of domesticity in the servant;--its meritequals its novelty. In that inglorious attack on Buenos Ayres, where ourbrave soldiers were disgraced by a recreant general, the negroes, slavesas they were, joined the inhabitants to expel the invaders. On this signaloccasion the city decreed a public expression of their gratitude to thenegroes, in a sort of triumph, and at the same time awarded the freedom ofeighty of their leaders. One of them, having shown his claims to the boon, declared, that to obtain his freedom had all his days formed the proudobject of his wishes: his claim was indisputable; yet now, however, to theamazement of the judges, he refused his proffered freedom! The reason healleged was a singular refinement of heartfelt sensibility:--"My kindmistress, " said the negro, "once wealthy, has fallen into misfortunes inher infirm old age. I work to maintain her, and at intervals of leisureshe leans on my arm to take the evening air. I will not be tempted toabandon her, and I renounce the hope of freedom that she may know shepossesses a slave who never will quit her side. "

Although I have been travelling out of Europe to furnish some strikingillustrations of the powerful emotion of domesticity, it is not that weare without instances in the private history of families among ourselves. I have known more than one where the servant has chosen to live withoutwages, rather than quit the master or the mistress in their decayedfortunes; and another where the servant cheerfully worked to support herold lady to her last day. 

Would we look on a very opposite mode of servitude, turn to the UnitedStates. No system of servitude was ever so preposterous. A crude notion ofpopular freedom in the equality of ranks abolished the very designation of"servant, " substituting the fantastic term of "helps. " If there be anymeaning left in this barbarous neologism, their aid amounts to little;their engagements are made by the week, and they often quit their domicilewithout the slightest intimation. 

Let none, in the plenitude of pride and egotism, imagine that they existindependent of the virtues of their domestics. The good conduct of theservant stamps a character on the master. In the sphere of domestic lifethey must frequently come in contact with them. On this subordinate class, how much the happiness and even the welfare of the master may rest! Thegentle offices of servitude began in his cradle, and await him at allseasons and in all spots, in pleasure or in peril. Feelingly observes SirWalter Scott--"In a free country an individual's happiness is moreimmediately connected with the personal character of his valet, than withthat of the monarch himself. " Let the reflection not be deemed extravagantif I venture to add, that the habitual obedience of a devoted servant is amore immediate source of personal comfort than even the delightfulness offriendship and the tenderness of relatives--for these are but periodical;but the unbidden zeal of the domestic, intimate with our habits, andpatient of our waywardness, labours for us at all hours. It is those feetwhich hasten to us in our solitude; it is those hands which silentlyadminister to our wants. At what period of life are even the great exemptfrom the gentle offices of servitude?

Faithful servants have never been commemorated by more heartfelt affectionthan by those whose pursuits require a perfect freedom from domesticcares. Persons of sedentary occupations, and undisturbed habits, abstracted from the daily business of life, must yield unlimited trust tothe honesty, while they want the hourly attentions and all the cheerfulzeal, of the thoughtful domestic. The mutual affections of the master andthe servant have often been exalted into a companionship of feelings. 

When Madame de Genlis heard that POPE had raised a monument not only tohis father and to his mother, but also to the faithful servant who hadnursed his earliest years, she was so suddenly struck by the fact, thatshe declared that "This monument of gratitude is the more remarkable forits singularity, as I know of no other instance. " Our churchyards wouldhave afforded her a vast number of tomb-stones erected by grateful mastersto faithful servants;[A] and a closer intimacy with the domestic privacyof many public characters might have displayed the same splendid examples. The one which appears to have so strongly affected her may be found on theeast end of the outside of the parish church of Twickenham. The stonebears this inscription:--

 To the memory of MARY BEACH, who died November 5, 1725, aged 78. ALEXANDER POPE, whom she nursed in his infancy, and constantly attended for thirty-eight years, Erected this stone In gratitude to a faithful Servant. 

[Footnote A: Even our modern cemeteries perpetuate this feeling, andexhibit many grateful EPITAPHS ON SERVANTS. ]

The original portrait of SHENSTONE was the votive gift of a master to hisservant, for, on its back, written by the poet's own hand, is thefollowing dedication:--"This picture belongs to Mary Cutler, given her byher master, William Shenstone, January 1st, 1754, in acknowledgment of hernative genius, her magnanimity, her tenderness, and her fidelity. --W. S. "We might refer to many similar evidences of the domestic gratitude of suchmasters to old and attached servants. Some of these tributes may befamiliar to most readers. The solemn author of the "Night Thoughts"inscribed an epitaph over the grave of his man-servant; the causticGIFFORD poured forth an effusion to the memory of a female servant, fraught with a melancholy tenderness which his muse rarely indulged. 

The most pathetic, we had nearly said, and had said justly, the mostsublime, development of this devotion of a master to his servant, is aletter addressed by that powerful genius MICHAEL ANGELO to his friendVasari, on the death of Urbino, an old and beloved servant. [A] Publishedonly in the voluminous collection of the letters of Painters, by Bottari, it seems to have escaped general notice. We venture to translate it indespair: for we feel that we must weaken its masculine yet tendereloquence. 

[Footnote A: It is delightful to note the warm affection displayed by thegreat sculptor toward his old servant on his death-bed. The man who wouldbeard princes and the pope himself, when he felt it necessary to asserthis independent character as an artist, and through life evinced asomewhat hard exterior, was soft as a child in affectionate attention tohis dying domestic, anticipating all his wants by a personal attendance athis bedside. This was no light service on the part of Michael Angelo, whowas himself at the time eighty-two years of age. --ED. ]

MICHAEL ANGELO TO VASARI. 

"My Dear George, --I can but write ill, yet shall not your letter remainwithout my saying something. You know how Urbino has died. Great was thegrace of God when he bestowed on me this man, though now heavy be thegrievance and infinite the grief. The grace was that when he lived he keptme living; and in dying he has taught me to die, not in sorrow and withregret, but with a fervent desire of death. Twenty and six years had heserved me, and I found him a most rare and faithful man; and now that Ihad made him rich, and expected to lean on him as the staff and the reposeof my old age, he is taken from me, and no other hope remains than that ofseeing him again in Paradise. A sign of God was this happy death to him;yet, even more than this death, were his regrets increased to leave me inthis world the wretch of many anxieties, since the better half of myselfhas departed with him, and nothing is left for me than this loneliness oflife. "

Even the throne has not been too far removed from this sphere of humblehumanity, for we discover in St. George's Chapel a mural monument erectedby order of one of our late sovereigns as the memorial of a female servantof a favourite daughter. The inscription is a tribute of domesticaffection in a royal bosom, where an attached servant became a cherishedinmate. 

 King George III. Caused to be interred near this place the body of MARY GASCOIGNE, Servant to the Princess Amelia; and this stone to be inscribed in testimony of his grateful sense of the faithful services and attachment of an amiable young woman to his beloved Daughter. 

This deep emotion for the tender offices of servitude is not peculiar tothe refinement of our manners, or to modern Europe; it is not the charityof Christianity alone which has hallowed this sensibility, and confessedthis equality of affection, which the domestic may participate: monumentalinscriptions, raised by grateful masters to the merits of their slaves, have been preserved in the great collections of Graevius and Gruter. [A]

[Footnote A: There are several instances of Roman heads of houses whoconsecrate "to themselves and their servants" the sepulchres they erect intheir own lifetime, as if in death they had no desire to be divided fromthose who had served them faithfully. An instance of affectionate regardto the memory of a deceased servant occurs in the collection at Nismes; itis an inscription by one Sextus Arius Varcis, to Hermes, "his bestservant" (servo optimo). Fabretti has preserved an inscription whichrecords the death of a child, T. Alfacius Scantianius, by one AlfaciusSeverus, his master, by which it appears he was the child of an oldservant, who was honoured by bearing the prenomen of the master, andwho is also styled in the epitaph "his sweetest freedman" (libertodulcissimo). --ED. ]

 * * * * *

PRINTED LETTERS IN THE VERNACULAR IDIOM. 

Printed Letters, without any attention to the selection, is so great aliterary evil, that it has excited my curiosity to detect the first modernwho obtruded such formless things on public attention. I conjectured that, whoever he might be, he would be distinguished for his egotism and hisknavery. My hypothetical criticism turned out to be correct. Nothing lessthan the audacity of the unblushing Pietro Aretino could have adventuredon this project; he claims the honour, and the critics do not deny it, ofbeing the first who published Italian letters. Aretino had the hardihoodto dedicate one volume of his letters to the King of England, another tothe Duke of Florence; a third to Hercules of Este, a relative of PopeJulius Third--evidently insinuating that his letters were worthy to beread by the royal and the noble. 

Among these letters there is one addressed to Mary, Queen of England, onher resuscitation of the ancient faith, which offers a very extraordinarycatalogue of the ritual and ceremonies of the Romish church. It isindeed impossible to translate into Protestant English the multipliednomenclature of offices which involve human life in never-ceasing service. As I know not where we can find so clear a perspective of this amazingcontrivance to fetter with religious ceremonies the freedom of the humanmind, I present the reader with an accurate translation of it:--

 "_Pietro Aretino to the Queen of England. _

"The voices of Psalms, the sound of Canticles, the breath of Epistles, andthe Spirit of Gospels, had need unloose the language of my words incongratulating your superhuman Majesty on having not only restoredconscience to the minds and hearts of Englishmen and taken deceitfulheresy away from them, but on bringing it to pass, when it was least hopedfor, that charity and faith were again born and raised up in them; onwhich sudden conversion triumphs our sovereign Pontiff Julius, theCollege, and the whole of the clergy, so that it seems in Rome as if theshades of the old Cæsars with visible effect showed it in their verystatues; meanwhile the pure mind of his most blessed Holiness canonizesyou, and marks you in the catalogue among the Catharines and Margarets, and dedicates you, " &c. 

"The stupor of so stupendous a miracle is not the stupefaction of stupidwonder; and all proceeds from your being in the grace of God in everydeed, whose incomprehensible goodness is pleased with seeing you, inholiness of life and innocence of heart, cause to be restored in thoseproud countries, solemnity to Easters, abstinence to Lents, sobriety toFridays, parsimony to Saturdays, fulfilment to vows, fasts to vigils, observances to seasons, chrism to creatures, unction to the dying, festivals to saints, images to churches, masses to altars, lights tolamps, organs to quires, benedictions to olives, robings to sacristies, and decencies to baptisms; and that nothing may be wanting (thanksto your pious and most entire nature), possession has been regained tooffices, of hours; to ceremonies, of incense; to reliques, of shrines; tothe confessed, of absolutions; to priests, of habits; to preachers, of pulpits; to ecclesiastics, of pre-eminences; to scriptures, ofinterpreters; to hosts, of communions; to the poor, of alms; to thewretched, of hospitals; to virgins, of monasteries; to fathers, ofconvents; to the clergy, of orders; to the defunct, of obsequies; totierces, noons, vespers, complins, ave-maries, and matins, the privilegesof daily and nightly bells. "

The fortunate temerity of Aretino gave birth to subsequent publications bymore skilful writers. Nicolo Franco closely followed, who had at firstbeen the amanuensis of Aretino, then his rival, and concluded his literaryadventures by being hanged at Rome; a circumstance which at the time musthave occasioned regret that Franco had not, in this respect also, been animitator of his original, a man equally feared, flattered, and despised. 

The greatest personages and the most esteemed writers of that age wereperhaps pleased to have discovered a new and easy path to fame; andsince it was ascertained that a man might become celebrated by writingsnever intended for the press, and which it was never imagined couldconfer fame on the writers, volumes succeeded volumes, and some authorsare scarcely known to posterity but as letter-writers. We have thetoo-elaborate epistles of BEMBO, secretary to Leo X. , and the more elegantcorrespondence of ANNIBAL CARO; a work which, though posthumous, andpublished by an affectionate nephew, and therefore too undiscerning apublisher, is a model of familiar letters. 

These collections, being found agreeable to the taste of their readers, novelty was courted by composing letters more expressly adapted to publiccuriosity. The subjects were now diversified by critical and politicaltopics, till at length they descended to one more level with thefaculties, and more grateful to the passions of the populace of readers--Love! Many grave personages had already, without being sensibleof the ridiculous, languished through tedious odes and starch sonnets. DONI, a bold literary projector, who invented a literary review both ofprinted and manuscript works, with not inferior ingenuity, published his_love-letters;_ and with the felicity of an Italian diminutive, he fondlyentitled them "Pistolette Amorose del Doni, " 1552, 8vo. These Pistole weredesigned to be little epistles, or billets-doux, but Doni was one of thosefertile authors who have too little time of their own to compose shortworks. Doni was too facetious to be sentimental, and his quill was notplucked from the wing of Love. He was followed by a graver pedant, whothrew a heavy offering on the altar of the Graces; PARABOSCO, who in sixbooks of "Lettere Amorose, " 1565, 8vo. Was too phlegmatic to sigh over hisinkstand. 

Denina mentions LEWIS PASQUALIGO of Venice as an improver of these amatoryepistles, by introducing a deeper interest and a more complicatenarrative. Partial to the Italian literature, Denina considers this authoras having given birth to those _novels_ in the form of _letters_, withwhich modern Europe has been inundated; and he refers the curious inliterary researches, for the precursors of these _epistolary novels_, tothe works of those Italian wits who flourished in the sixteenth century. 

"The Worlds" of DONI, and the numerous whimsical works of ORTENSIO LANDI, and the "Circe" of GELLI, of which we have more than one Englishtranslation, which, under their fantastic inventions, cover the mostprofound philosophical views, have been considered the precursors of thefiner genius of "The Persian Letters, " that fertile mother of a numerousprogeny, of D'Argens and others. 

The Italians are justly proud of some valuable collections of letters, which seem peculiar to themselves, and which may be considered as theworks of _artists_. They have a collection of "Lettere di Tredici UominiIllustri, " which appeared in 1571; another more curious, relating toprinces--"Lettere de' Principi le quali o si scrivono da Principi aPrincipi, o ragionano di Principi;" Tenezia, 1581, in 3 vols. Quarto. 

But a treasure of this kind, peculiarly interesting to the artist, hasappeared in mere recent times, in seven quarto volumes, consisting of theoriginal letters of the great painters, from the golden age of Leo X. , gradually collected by BOTTARI, who published them in separate volumes. They abound in the most interesting facts relative to the arts, anddisplay the characteristic traits of their lively writers. Every artistwill turn over with delight and curiosity these genuine effusions;chronicles of the days and the nights of their vivacious brothers. 

It is a little remarkable that he who claims to be the first satirist inthe English language, claims also, more justly perhaps, the honour ofbeing the first author who published familiar letters. In the dedicationof his Epistles to Prince Henry, the son of James the First, Bishop HALLclaims the honour of introducing "this new fashion of discourse byepistles, new to our language, usual to others; and as novelty is neverwithout plea of use, more free, more familiar. " Of these epistles, in sixdecades, many were written during his travels. We have a collection ofDonne's letters abounding with his peculiar points, at least witty, if notnatural. 

As we became a literary nation, familiar letters served as a vehicle forthe fresh feelings of our first authors. Howell, whose Epistolæ bears hisname, takes a wider circumference in "Familiar Letters, domestic andforeign, historical, political, and philosophical, upon emergentoccasions. " The "emergent occasions" the lively writer found in his longconfinement in the Fleet--that English Parnassus! Howell is a wit, who, inwriting his own history, has written that of his times; he is one of thefew whose genius, striking in the heat of the moment only current coin, produces finished medals for the cabinet. His letters are still published. The taste which had now arisen for collecting letters, induced Sir TobieMathews, in 1660, to form a volume, of which many, if not all, are genuineproductions of their different writers. 

The dissipated elegance of Charles II. Inspired freedom in letter-writing. The royal emigrant had caught the tone of Voiture. We have some fewletters of the wits of this court, but that school of writers, havingsinned in gross materialism, the reaction produced another of a morespiritual nature, in a romantic strain of the most refined sentiment. Volumes succeeded volumes from pastoral and heroic minds. KatherinePhilips, in the masquerade-dress of "The Matchless Orinda, " addressed SirCharles Cottrel, her grave "Poliarchus;" while Mrs. Behn, in her loosedress, assuming the nymph-like form of "Astræa, " pursued a gentleman, concealed in a domino, under the name of "Lycidas. "

Before our letters reached to nature and truth, they were strained by onemore effort after novelty; a new species appeared, "From the Dead to theLiving, " by Mrs. Rowe: they obtained celebrity. She was the first who, togratify the public taste, adventured beyond the Styx; the caprice ofpublic favour has returned them to the place whence they came. 

The letters of Pope were unquestionably written for the public eye. Partlyaccident, and partly persevering ingenuity, extracted from the familychests the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who long remained themodel of letter-writing. The letters of Hughes and Shenstone, of Gray, Cowper, Walpole, and others, self-painters, whose indelible colours havegiven an imperishable charm to these fragments of the human mind, mayclose our subject; printed familiar letters now enter into the history ofour literature. 

 AN INQUIRY

 INTO THE

 LITERARY AND POLITICAL CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST;

 INCLUDING A SKETCH OF HIS AGE. 

"The whole reign of James I. Has been represented by a late celebrated pen(Burnet) to have been a continued course of mean practices; and others, who have professedly given an account of it, have filled their works with_libel_ and _invective_, instead of _history_. Both King James and hisministers have met with a treatment from posterity highly unworthy ofthem, and those who have so liberally bestowed their censures wereentirely ignorant of the true springs and causes of the actions they haveundertaken to represent. "--SAWYER'S Preface to "Winwood's Memorials. "

"Il y auroit un excellent livre à faire sur les INJUSTICES, les OUBLIS, etles CALOMNIES HISTORIQUES. "--MADAME DE GENLIS. 

ADVERTISEMENT. 

 * * * * *

The present inquiry originates in an affair of literary conscience. Manyyears ago I set off in the world with the popular notions of the characterof James the First; but in the course of study, and with a more enlargedcomprehension of the age, I was frequently struck by the contrast of hisreal with his apparent character; and I thought I had developed thosehidden and involved causes which have so long influenced modern writers inridiculing and vilifying this monarch. 

This historical trifle is, therefore, neither a hasty decision, nor adesigned inquiry; the results gradually arose through successive periodsof time, and, were it worth the while, the history of my thoughts, in myown publications, might be arranged in a sort of chronologicalconviction. [A]

[Footnote A: I have described the progress of my opinions in "Curiositiesof Literature, " vol. I. P. 467, last edition. ]

It would be a cowardly silence to shrink from encountering all thatpopular prejudice and party feeling may oppose; this were incompatiblewith that constant search after truth which we may at least expect fromthe retired student. 

I had originally limited this inquiry to the _literary_ character of themonarch; but there was a secret connexion between that and his politicalconduct; and that again led me to examine the manners and temper of thetimes, with the effects which a peace of more than twenty years operatedon the nation. I hope that the freshness of the materials, often drawnfrom contemporary writings which have never been published, may in somerespect gratify curiosity. Of the _political_ character of James the Firstopposite tempers will form opposite opinions; the friends of peace andhumanity will consider that the greatest happiness of the people is thatof possessing a philosopher on the throne; let profounder inquirershereafter discover why those princes are suspected of being but weak men, who are the true fathers of their people; let them too inform us, whetherwe are to ascribe to James the First, as well as to Marcus Antoninus, thedisorders of their reign, or place them to the ingratitude and wantonnessof mankind. 

 AN INQUIRY

 INTO THE

 LITERARY AND POLITICAL CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST;

 INCLUDING A SKETCH OF HIS AGE. 

 * * * * *

If sometimes the learned entertain false opinions and traditionaryprejudices, as well as the people, they however preserve among themselvesa paramount love of truth, and the means to remove errors, which haveescaped their scrutiny. The occasion of such errors may be complicate, but, usually, it is the arts and passions of the few which find anindolent acquiescence among the many, and firm adherents among those whoso eagerly consent to what they do not dislike to hear. 

A remarkable instance of this appears in the character of James the First, which lies buried under a heap of ridicule and obloquy; yet James theFirst was a literary monarch at one of the great eras of Englishliterature, and his contemporaries were far from suspecting that histalents were inconsiderable, even among those who had their reasons not tolike him. The degradation which his literary character has suffered hasbeen inflicted by more recent hands; and it may startle the last echoer ofPope's "Pedant-reign" to hear that more wit and wisdom have beenrecorded of James the First than of any one of our sovereigns. An"Author-Sovereign, " as Lord Shaftesbury, in his anomalous but emphaticstyle, terms this class of writers, is placed between a double eminence ofhonours, and must incur the double perils; he will receive no favour fromhis brothers, the _Fainéants_, as a whole race of ciphers in succession onthe throne of France were denominated, and who find it much more easy todespise than to acquire; while his other brothers, the republicans ofliterature, want a heart to admire the man who has resisted the perpetualseductions of a court-life for the silent labours of his closet. Yet ifAlphonsus of Arragon be still a name endeared to us for his love ofliterature, and for that elegant testimony of his devotion to studyexpressed by the device on his banner of _an open book_, how much moreought we to be indulgent to the memory of a sovereign who has written onestill worthy of being opened?

We must separate the literary from the political character of thismonarch, and the qualities of his mind and temper from the ungracious andneglected manners of his personal one. And if we do not take a morefamiliar view of the events, the parties, and the genius of the times, theviews and conduct of James the First will still remain imperfectlycomprehended. In the reign of a prince who was no military character, wemust busy ourselves at home; the events he regulated may be numerous andeven interesting, although not those which make so much noise and show inthe popular page of history, and escape us in its general views. The wantof this sort of knowledge has proved to be one great source of the falsejudgments passed on this monarch. Surely it is not philosophical to decideof another age by the changes and the feelings through which our own haspassed. There is a chronology of human opinions which, not observing, anindiscreet philosopher may commit an anachronism in reasoning. 

When the Stuarts became the objects of popular indignation, a peculiarrace of libels was eagerly dragged into light, assuming the imposing formof history; many of these state-libels did not even pass through thepress, and may occasionally be discovered in their MS. State. Yet thesepublications cast no shade on the _talents_ of James the First. Hisliterary attainments were yet undisputed; they were echoing in the ear ofthe writers, and many proofs of his sagacity were still lively in theirrecollections. 

 * * * * *

THE FIRST MODERN ASSAILANTS OF THE CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 

Burnet, the ardent champion of a party so deeply concerned to oppose aswell the persons as the principles of the Stuarts, levelled the father ofthe race; we read with delight pages which warm and hurry us on, minglingtruths with rumours, and known with suggested events, with all the spiritof secret history. But the character of James I. Was to pass through thelengthened inquisitorial tortures of the sullen sectarianism of Harris. [A]It was branded by the fierce, remorseless republican Catharine Macaulay, and flouted by the light, sparkling Whig, Horace Walpole. [B] A senselesscry of pedantry had been raised against him by the eloquent invective ofBolingbroke, from whom doubtless Pope echoed it in verse which hasoutlived his lordship's prose:--

 Oh, cried the goddess, for some pedant reign! Some gentle James to bless the land again; To stick the doctor's chair into the throne, Give law to words, or war with words alone, Senates and courts with Greek and Latin rule, And turn the council to a grammar-school!

 _Dunciad_, book iv. Ver. 175. 

[Footnote A: The historical works of Dr. William Harris have been recentlyrepublished in a collected form, and they may now be considered asentering into our historical stores. 

HARRIS is a curious researcher; but what appears more striking in hishistorical character, is the impartiality with which he quotes authoritieswhich make against his own opinions and statements. Yet is Harris a writerlikely to impose on many readers. He announces in his title-pages that hisworks are "after the manner of Mr. Bayle. " This is but a literaryimposition, for Harris is perhaps the meanest writer in our language bothfor style and philosophical thinking. The extraordinary impartiality hedisplays in his faithful quotations from writers on opposite sides is onlythe more likely to deceive us; for by that unalterable party feeling, which never forsakes him, the facts against him he studiously weakens bydoubts, surmises, and suggestions; a character sinks to the level of hisnotions by a single stroke; and from the arguments adverse to his purpose, he wrests the most violent inferences. All party writers must submit topractise such mean and disingenuous arts if they affect to disguisethemselves under a cover of impartiality. Bayle, intent on collectingfacts, was indifferent to their results; but Harris is more intent on thedeductions than the facts. The truth is, Harris wrote to please hispatron, the republican Hollis, who supplied him with books, and everyfriendly aid. "It is possible for an ingenious man to be of a _party_without being _partial_" says Rushworth; an airy clench on the lips of asober matter-of-fact man looks suspicions, and betrays the weak pang of ahalf-conscience. ]

[Footnote B: Horace Walpole's character of James I. , in his "RoyalAuthors, " is as remarkable as his character of Sir Philip Sidney; he mighthave written both without any acquaintance with the works he has somaliciously criticised. In his account of Sidney he had silently passedover the "Defence of Poetry;" and in his second edition he makes thisinsolent avowal, that "he had forgotten it; a proof that I at least didnot think it sufficient foundation for so high a character as heacquired. " Every reader of taste knows the falseness of the criticism, andhow heartless the polished cynicism that could dare it. I repeat, what Ihave elsewhere said, that Horace Walpole had something in his compositionmore predominant than his wit, a cold, unfeeling disposition, whichcontemned all literary men, at the moment his heart secretly panted topartake of their fame. 

Nothing can be more imposing than his volatile and caustic criticisms onthe works of James I. ; yet it appears to me that he had never opened thatfolio volume he so poignantly ridicules. For he doubts whether these twopieces, "The Prince's Cabala" and "The Duty of a King in his RoyalOffice, " were genuine productions of James I. The truth is, they are bothnothing more than extracts printed with those separate titles, drawn fromthe King's "Basilicon Doron. " He had probably neither read the extractsnor the original. Thus singularity of opinion, vivacity of ridicule, andpolished epigrams in prose, were the means by which this noble writerstartled the world by his paradoxes, and at length lived to be mortifiedat a reputation which he sported with and lost. I refer the reader tothose extracts from his MS. Letters which are in "Calamities of Authors, "where he has made his literary confessions, and performs his act ofpenance. ]

 * * * * *

THE PEDANTRY OF JAMES THE FIRST. 

Few of my readers, I suspect, but have long been persuaded that James I. Was a mere college pedant, and that all his works, whatever they maybe, are monstrous pedantic labours. Yet this monarch of all things detestedpedantry, either as it shows itself in the mere form of Greek and Latin, or in ostentatious book-learning, or in the affectation of words of remotesignification: these are the only points of view in which I have beentaught to consider the meaning of the term pedantry, which is veryindefinite, and always a relative one. 

The age of James I. Was a controversial age, of unsettled opinions andcontested principles; an age, in which authority was considered asstronger than opinion; but the vigour of that age of genius was infusedinto their writings, and those citers, who thus perpetually crowded theirmargins, were profound and original thinkers. When the learning of apreceding age becomes less recondite, and those principles general whichwere at first peculiar, are the ungrateful heirs of all this knowledge toreproach the fathers of their literature with pedantry? Lord Bolingbrokehas pointedly said of James I. That "his pedantry was too much even forthe age in which he lived. " His lordship knew little of that glorious agewhen the founders of our literature flourished. It had been over-cloudedby the French court of Charles II. , a race of unprincipled wits, and therevolution-court of William, heated by a new faction, too impatient todiscuss those principles of government which they had established. It waseasy to ridicule what they did not always understand, and very rarely metwith. But men of far higher genius than this monarch, Selden, Usher, andMilton, must first be condemned before this odium of pedantry can attachitself to the plain and unostentatious writings of James I. , who, it isremarkable, has not scattered in them those oratorical periods, andelaborate fancies, which he indulged in his speeches and proclamations. These loud accusers of the pedantry of James were little aware that theking has expressed himself with energy and distinctness on this verytopic. His majesty cautions Prince Henry against the use of any "corruptleide, as _book-language_, and _pen-and-inkhorn termes_, and, least ofall, nignard and effeminate ones. " One passage may be given entire ascompletely refuting a charge so general, yet so unfounded. "I would alsoadvise you to write in _your own language_, for there is _nothing left tobe said in Greek and Latine already_; and, ynewe (enough) of pooreschollers would match you in these languages; and besides that it bestbecometh a _King_, to purifie and make famous _his owne tongue_;therein he may goe before all his subjects, as it setteth him well to doein all honest and lawful things. " No scholar of a pedantic taste couldhave dared so complete an emancipation from ancient, yet not obsoleteprejudices, at a time when many of our own great authors yet imaginedthere was no fame for an Englishman unless he neglected his maternallanguage for the artificial labour of the idiom of ancient Rome. Bacon hadeven his own domestic Essays translated into Latin; and the king found acourtier-bishop to perform the same task for his majesty's writings. Therewas something prescient in this view of the national language, by theking, who contemplated in it those latent powers which had not yet burstinto existence. It is evident that the line of Pope is false whichdescribes the king as intending to rule "senates and courts" by "turningthe council to a grammar-school. "

 * * * * *

HIS POLEMICAL STUDIES. 

 This censure of the pedantry of James is also connected with thosestudies of polemical divinity, for which the king has incurred muchridicule from one party, who were not his contemporaries; and suchvehement invective from another, who were; who, to their utter dismay, discovered their monarch descending into their theological gymnasium toencounter them with their own weapons. 

The affairs of religion and politics in the reign of James I. , as in thepreceding one of Elizabeth, [A] were identified together; nor yet have thesame causes in Europe ceased to act, however changed or modified. Thegovernment of James was imperfectly established while his subjects werewrestling with two great factions to obtain the predominance. TheCatholics were disputing his title to the crown, which they aimed to carryinto the family of Spain, and had even fixed on Arabella Stuart, to marryher to a Prince of Parma; and the Puritans would have abolished evensovereignty itself; these parties indeed were not able to take the field, but all felt equally powerful with the pen. Hence an age of doctrines. When a religious body has grown into power, it changes itself into apolitical one; the chiefs are flattered by their strength and stimulatedby their ambition; but a powerful body in the State cannot remainstationary, and a divided empire it disdains. Religious controversies havetherefore been usually coverings to mask the political designs of theheads of parties. 

We smile at James the First threatening the States-general by theEnglish Ambassador about Vorstius, a Dutch professor, who had espousedthe doctrines of Arminius, and had also vented some metaphysical notionsof his own respecting the occult nature of the Divinity. He was the headof the Remonstrants, who were at open war with the party called theContra-Remonstrants. The ostensible subjects were religious doctrines, butthe concealed one was a struggle between Pensionary Barnevelt, aided bythe French interest, and the Prince of Orange, supported by the English;even to our own days the same opposite interests existed, and betrayed theRepublic, although religious doctrines had ceased to be the pretext. [B]

[Footnote A: I have more largely entered into the history of the party whoattempted to subvert the government in the reign of Elizabeth, and whopublished their works under the assumed name of Martin Mar-prelate, thanhad hitherto been done. In our domestic annals that event and thosepersonages are of some importance and curiosity; but were imperfectlyknown to the popular writers of our history. --See "Quarrels of Authors, "p. 296, _et seq_. ]

[Footnote B: Pensionary Barnevelt, in his seventy-second year, was atlength brought to the block. Diodati, a divine of Geneva, made a miserablepun the occasion; he said that "the _Canons_ of the Synod of Dort hadtaken off the head of the advocate of Holland. " This pun, says Brandt inhis curious "History of the Reformation, " is very injurious to the Synod, since it intimates that the Church loves blood. It never entered into themind of these divines that Barnevelt fell, not by the Synod, but by theOrange and English party prevailing against the French. Lord Hardwicke, astatesman and a man of letters, deeply conversant with secret and publichistory, is a more able judge than the ecclesiastical historian or theSwiss divine, who could see nothing in the Synod of Dort but what appearedin it. It is in Lord Hardwicke's preface to Sir Dudley Carleton's"Letters" that his lordship has made this important discovery. ]

What was passing between the Dutch Prince and the Dutch Pensionary, wasmuch like what was taking place between the King of England and his ownsubjects. James I. Had to touch with a balancing hand the Catholics andthe Nonconformists, [A]--to play them one against another; but there was adistinct end in their views. "James I. , " says Barnet, "continued alwayswriting and talking against Popery, but acting for it. " The King and thebishops were probably more tolerant to monarchists and prelatists, than torepublicans and presbyters. When James got nothing but gunpowder andJesuits from Rome, he was willing enough to banish, or suppress, but theCatholic families were ancient and numerous; and the most determinedspirits which ever subverted a government were Catholic. [B] Yet what couldthe King expect from the party of the Puritans, and their "conceitedparity, " as he called it, should he once throw himself into their hands, but the fate his son received from them?

[Footnote A: James did all he could to weaken the Catholic partyby dividing them in opinion. When Dr. Reynolds, the head of theNonconformists, complained to the king of the printing and dispersing ofPopish pamphlets, the king answered, that this was done by a warrant fromthe Court, to nourish the schism between the Seculars and Jesuits, whichwas of great service, "Doctor, " added the king, "you are a betterclergyman than statesman. "--Neale's "History of the Puritans, " vol. I. P. 416, 4to. ]

[Footnote B: The character and demeanour of the celebrated Guy or GuidoFawkes, who appeared first before the council under the assumed name ofJohnson, I find in a MS. Letter of the times, which contains somecharacteristic touches not hitherto published. This letter is from SirEdward Hoby to Sir Thomas Edmondes, our ambassador at the court ofBrussels--dated 19th November, 1605. "One Johnson was found in the vaultwhere the Gunpowder Plot was discovered. He was asked if he was sorry! Heanswered that he was only sorry it had not taken place. He was threatenedthat he should die a worse death than he that killed the Prince of Orange;he answered, that he could bear it as well. When Johnson was brought tothe king's presence, the king asked him how he could conspire so hideous atreason against his children and so many innocent souls who had neveroffended him? He answered, that dangerous diseases required a desperateremedy; and he told some of the Scots that his intent was to have blownthem back again into Scotland!"--Mordacious Guy Fawkes!]

In the early stage of the Reformation, the Catholic still entered into thesame church with the Reformed; this common union was broken by theimpolitical impatience of the court of Rome, who, jealous of thetranquillity of Elizabeth, hoped to weaken her government by disunion;[A]but the Reformed were already separating among themselves by a new race, who, fancying that their religion was still too Catholic, were forreforming the Reformation. These had most extravagant fancies, and werefor modelling the government according to each particular man's notion. Were we to bend to the foreign despotism of the Roman Tiara, or that ofthe republican rabble of the Presbytery of Geneva?

[Footnote A: Sir Edward Coke, attorney-general, in the trial of Garnet theJesuit, says, "There were no Recusants in England--all came to churchhowsoever Popishly inclined, till the Bull of Pius V. Excommunicated anddeposed Elizabeth. On this the Papists refused to join in the publicservice. "--"State Trials, " vol. I. P. 242. 

The Pope imagined, by false impressions he had received, that the Catholicparty was strong enough to prevail against Elizabeth. Afterwards, when hefound his error, a dispensation was granted by himself and his successor, that all Catholics might show outward obedience to Elizabeth till ahappier opportunity. Such are Catholic politics and Catholic faith!]

 * * * * *

POLEMICAL STUDIES WERE POLITICAL. 

It was in these times that James I. , a learned prince, applied topolemical studies; properly understood, these were in fact politicalones. Lord Bolingbroke says, "He affected more learning than becamea king, which he broached on every occasion in such a manner as wouldhave misbecome a schoolmaster. " Would the politician then require ahalf-learned king, or a king without any learning at all? Our eloquentsophist appears not to have recollected that polemical studies had longwith us been considered as royal ones; and that from a slender volume ofthe sort our sovereigns still derive the regal distinction of "Defendersof the Faith. " The pacific government of James I. Required that the Kinghimself should be a master of these controversies to be enabled to balancethe conflicting parties; and none but a learned king could have exertedthe industry or attained to the skill. In the famous conference atHampton Court, which the King held with the heads of the Nonconformists, we see his majesty conversing sometimes with great learning and sense, but oftener more with the earnestness of a man, than some have imaginedcomported with the dignity of a crowned head. The truth is, James, like a true student, indulged, even to his dress, an utter carelessnessof parade, and there was in his character a constitutional warmthof heart and a jocundity of temper which did not always adapt it tostate-occasions; he threw out his feelings, and sometimes his jests. James, who had passed his youth in a royal bondage, felt that theseNonconformists, while they were debating small points, were reserving forhereafter their great ones; were cloaking their republicanism by theirtheology, and, like all other politicians, that their ostensible were nottheir real motives. [A] Harris and Neale, the organs of the Nonconformists, inveigh against James; even Hume, with the philosophy of the eighteenthcentury, has pronounced that the king was censurable "for enteringzealously into these frivolous disputes of theology. " Lord Bolingbrokedeclares that the king held this conference "in haste to show his parts. "Thus a man of genius substitutes suggestion and assertion for accuracy ofknowledge. In the present instance, it was an attempt of the Puritans totry the king on his arrival in England; they presented a petition for aconference, called "The Millenary Petition, "[B] from a thousand personssupposed to have signed it; the king would not refuse it; but so far frombeing "in haste to show his parts, " that when he discovered theirpretended grievances were so futile, "he complained that he had beentroubled with such importunities, when some more private course might havebeen taken for their satisfaction. "

[Footnote A: In political history we usually find that the heads of aparty are much wiser than the party themselves, so that, whatever theyintend to acquire, their first demands are small; but the honest souls whoare only stirred by their own innocent zeal, are sure to complain thattheir business is done negligently. Should the party at first succeed, then the bolder spirit, which they have disguised or suppressed throughpolicy, is left to itself; it starts unbridled and at full gallop. Allthis occurred in the case of the Puritans. We find that some of the rigidNonconformists did confess in a pamphlet, "The Christian's modest offer ofthe Silenced Ministers, " 1606, that those who were appointed to speak forthem at Hampton Court were _not of their nomination or judgment_; theyinsisted that these delegates should declare at once against the wholechurch establishment, &c. , and model the government to each particularman's notions! But these delegates prudently refused to acquaint the kingwith the conflicting opinions of their constituents. --_Lansdowne MSS_. 1056, 51. 

This confession of the Nonconformists is also acknowledged by theirhistorian Neale, vol. Ii. P. 419, 4to edit. ]

[Footnote B: The petition is given at length in Collier's "Eccles. Hist. , "vol. Ii. P. 672. At this time also the Lay Catholics of England printedat Donay, "A Petition Apologetical, " to James I. Their language isremarkable; they complained they were excluded "that supreme court ofparliament first founded by and for Catholike men, was furnished withCatholike prelates, peeres, and personages; and so continued till thetimes of _Edward VI. _ a _childe_, and Queen Elizabeth a _woman_. "--Dodd's"Church History. "]

The narrative of this once celebrated conference, notwithstanding theabsurdity of the topics, becomes in the hands of the entertaining Fuller apicturesque and dramatic composition, where the dialogue and the mannersof the speakers are after the life. 

In the course of this conference we obtain a familiar intercourse with theking; we may admire the capacity of the monarch whose genius was versatilewith the subjects; sliding from theme to theme with the ease which onlymature studies could obtain; entering into the graver parts of thesediscussions; discovering a ready knowledge of biblical learning, whichwould sometimes throw itself out with his natural humour, in apt andfamiliar illustrations, throughout indulging his own personal feelingswith an unparalleled _naïveté_. 

The king opened the conference with dignity; he said "he was happier thanhis predecessors, who had to alter what they found established, but heonly to confirm what was well settled. " One of the party made a notablediscovery, that the surplice was a kind of garment used by the priests ofIsis. The king observed that he had no notion of this antiquity, since hehad always heard from them that it was "a rag of popery. " "Dr. Reynolds, "said the king, with an air of pleasantry, "they used to wear hose andshoes in times of popery; have you therefore a mind to go bare-foot?"Reynolds objected to the words used in matrimony, "with my body I theeworship. " The king said the phrase was an usual English term, as a_gentleman of worship_, &c. , and turning to the doctor, smiling, said, "Many a man speaks of Robin Hood, who never shot in his bow; if you had agood wife yourself, you would think all the honour and worship you coulddo to her were well bestowed. " Reynolds was not satisfied on the 37tharticle, declaring that "the Bishop of Rome hath no authority in thisland, " and desired it should be added, "nor ought to have any. " InBarlow's narrative we find that on this his majesty heartily laughed--alaugh easily caught up by the lords; but the king neverthelesscondescended to reply sensibly to the weak objection. 

"What speak you of the pope's authority here? _Habemus jure quod habemus_;and therefore inasmuch as it is said he hath not, it is plain enough thathe ought not to have. " It was on this occasion that some "pleasantdiscourse passed, " in which "a Puritan" was defined to be "a Protestantfrightened out of his wits. " The king is more particularly vivacious whenhe alludes to the occurrences of his own reign, or suspects the Puritansof republican notions. On one occasion, to cut the gordian-knot, the kingroyally decided--"I will not argue that point with you, but answer askings in parliament, _Le Roy s'avisera"_

When they hinted at a Scottish Presbytery the king was somewhat stirred, yet what is admirable in him (says Barlow) without a show of passion. Theking had lived among the republican saints, and had been, as he said, "Aking without state, without honour, without order, where beardless boyswould brave us to our face; and, like the Saviour of the world, though helived among them, he was not of them. " On this occasion, although the kingmay not have "shown his passion, " he broke out, however, with a _naïve_effusion, remarkable for painting after the home-life a republicangovernment. It must have struck Hume forcibly, for he has preserved partof it in the body of his history. Hume only consulted Fuller. I give thecopious explosion from Barlow:--

"If you aim at a Scottish Presbytery, it agreeth as well with monarchy asGod and the devil. Then Jack, and Tom, and Will, and Dick, shall meet, andat their pleasure censure me and my council, and all our proceedings; thenWill shall stand up and say, It must be thus; then Dick shall reply, Nay, marry, but we will have it thus. And therefore here I must once morereiterate my former speech, _Le Roy s'avisera. _ Stay, I pray you, for oneseven years before you demand that of me, and if then you find me pursyand fat, I may hearken to you; for let that government once be up, I amsure I shall be kept in breath; then shall we all of us have work enough:but, Dr. Reynolds, till you find that I grow lazy, let that alone. "

The king added, "I will tell you a tale:--Knox flattered the queen-regent of Scotland thatshe was supreme head of all the church, if she suppressed the popishprelates. But how long, trow ye, did this continue? Even so long, till, byher authority, the popish bishops were repressed, and he himself, and hisadherents, were brought in and well settled. Then, lo! they began to makesmall account of her authority, and took the cause into their own hands. "

This was a pointed political tale, appropriately told in the person of amonarch. 

The king was never deficient in the force and quickness of his arguments. Even Neale, the great historian of the Puritans, complaining thatDean Barlow has cut off some of the king's speeches, is reluctantlycompelled to tax himself with a high commendation of the monarch, who, heacknowledges, on one of the days of this conference, spoke against thecorruptions of the church, and the practices of the prelates, insomuchthat Dr. Andrews, then dean of the chapel, said that his majesty did thatday wonderfully play the Puritan. [A] The king, indeed, was seriouslyinclined to an union of parties. More than once he silenced the angrytongue of Bancroft, and tempered the zeal of others; and even commendedwhen he could Dr. Reynolds, the chief of the Puritans; the king consentedto the only two important articles that side suggested; a new catechismadapted to the people--"Let the weak be informed and the wilful bepunished, " said the king; and that new translation of the Bible whichforms our present version. "But, " added the king, "it must be withoutmarginal notes, for the Geneva Bible is the worst for them, full ofseditious conceits; Asa is censured for _only deposing_ his mother foridolatry, and not _killing_ her. " Thus early the dark spirit of Machiavelhad lighted on that of the ruthless Calvin. The grievances of our firstdissenters were futile--their innovations interminable; and we discoverthe king's notions, at the close of a proclamation issued after thisconference: "Such is the desultory levity of some people, that they arealways languishing after change and novelty, insomuch that were theyhumoured in their inconstancy, they would expose the public management, and make the administration ridiculous. " Such is the vigorous style ofJames the First in his proclamations; and such is the political truth, which will not die away with the conference at Hampton Court. 

[Footnote A: The bishops of James I. Were, as Fuller calls one of them, "potent courtiers, " and too worldly-minded men. Bancroft was a man ofvehement zeal, but of the most grasping avarice, as appears by anepigrammatic epitaph on his death in Arthur Wilson--

 "Here lies his grace, in cold earth clad, Who died with want of what he had. "

We find a characteristic trait of this Bishop of London in thisconference. When Ellesmere, Lord Chancellor, observed that "livings ratherwant learned men, than learned men livings, many in the universitiespining for want of places. I wish therefore some may have _single coats_(one living) before others have _doublets_ (pluralities), and this methodI have observed in bestowing the king's benefices. " Bancroft replied, "Icommend your memorable _care_ that way; but a _doublet_ is necessary incold weather. " Thus an avaricious bishop could turn off, with a miserablejest, the open avowal of his love of pluralities. Another, Neile, Bishopof Lincoln, when any one preached who was remarkable for his piety, desirous of withdrawing the king's attention from truths he did not wishto have his majesty reminded of, would in the sermon-time entertain theking with a merry tale, which the king would laugh at, and tell those nearhim, that he could not hear the preacher for the old--bishop;prefixing an epithet explicit of the character of these merry tales. Kennet has preserved for us the "rank relation, " as he calls it; not, headds, but "we have had divers hammerings and conflicts within us to leaveit out. "--Kennet's "History of England, " ii. 729. ]

These studies of polemical divinity, like those of the ancientscholastics, were not to be obtained without a robust intellectualexercise. James instructed his son Charles, [A] who excelled in them; andto those studies Whitelocke attributes that aptitude of Charles I. Whichmade him so skilful a summer-up of arguments, and endowed him with soclear a perception in giving his decisions. 

[Footnote A: That the clergy were somewhat jealous of their sovereign'sinterference in these matters may be traced. When James charged thechaplains, who were to wait on the prince in Spain, to decline, as far aspossible, religious disputes, he added, that "should any happen, my son isable to moderate in them. " The king, observing one of the divines smile, grew warm, vehemently affirming, "I tell ye, Charles shall manage a pointin controversy with the best studied divine of ye all. " What the kingsaid was afterwards confirmed on an extraordinary occasion, in theconference Charles I. Held with Alexander Henderson, the old champion ofthe kirk. Deprived of books, which might furnish the sword and pistol ofcontroversy, and without a chaplain to stand by him as a second, CharlesI. Fought the theological duel; and the old man, cast down, retired withsuch a sense of the learning and honour of the king, in maintaining theorder of episcopacy in England, that his death, which soon followed, isattributed to the deep vexation of this discomfiture. The veteran, who hadsucceeded in subverting the hierarchy in Scotland, would not be apt to dieof a fit of conversion; but vexation might be apoplectic in an old andsturdy disputant. The king's controversy was published; and nearly all thewriters agree he carried the day. Yet some divines appear more jealousthan grateful: Bishop Kennet, touched by the _esprit du corps_, honestlytells us, that "some thought the king had been better able to _protect_the Church, if he had not _disputed_ for it. " This discovers all theardour possible for the _establishment_, and we are to infer that anEnglish sovereign is only to _fight_ for his churchmen. But there is anobler office for a sovereign to perform in ecclesiastical history--topromote the learned and the excellent, and repress the dissolute and theintolerant. ]

 * * * * *

THE WORKS OF JAMES THE FIRST. 

We now turn to the writings of James the First. He composed a treatise ondemoniacs and witches; those dramatic personages in courts of law. Jamesand his council never suspected that those ancient foes to mankindcould be dismissed by a simple _Nolle prosequi_. "A Commentary on theRevelations, " which was a favourite speculation then, and on which greatergeniuses have written since his day. "A Counterblast to Tobacco!" thetitle more ludicrous than the design. [A] His majesty terrified "thetobacconists, " as the patriarchs of smoking-clubs were called, and whowere selling their very lands and houses in an epidemical madness for "astinking weed, " by discovering that "they were making a sooty kitchen intheir inward parts. "[B] And the king gained a point with the greatmajority of his subjects, when he demonstrated to their satisfaction thatthe pope was antichrist. Ridiculous as these topics are to us, the worksthemselves were formed on what modern philosophers affect to term theprinciple of utility; a principle which, with them indeed, includeseverything they approve of, and nothing they dislike. 

[Footnote A: Not long before James composed his treatise on "Dæmonologie, "the learned Wierus had published an elaborate work on the subject. "_De præstigiis Dæmonum et incantationibus et Veneficiis_, " &c. , 1568. He advanced one step in philosophy by discovering that many of thesupposed cases of incantation originated in the imagination of thesesorcerers--but he advanced no farther, for he acknowledges the realdiabolical presence. The physician, who pretended to cure the disease, washimself irrecoverably infected. Yet even this single step of Wierus wasstrenuously resisted by the learned Bodin, who, in his amusing volume of"Demonomanie des Sorciers, " 1593, refutes Wierus. These are the leadingauthors of the times; who were followed by a crowd. Thus James I. Neitherwanted authorities to quote nor great minds to sanction his "Dæmonologie, "first published in 1597. To the honour of England, a single individual, Reginald Scot, with a genius far advanced beyond his age, denied the veryexistence of those witches and demons in the curious volume of his"Discovery of Witchcraft, " 1584. His books were burned! and the author washimself not quite out of danger; and Voetius, says Bayle, complains thatwhen the work was translated into Dutch, it raised up a number oflibertines who laughed at all the operations and the apparitions ofdevils. Casaubon and Glanvil, who wrote so much later, treat Scot withprofound contempt, assuring us his reasonings are childish, and hisphilosophy absurd! Such was the reward of a man of genius combating withpopular prejudices! Even so late as 1687, these popular superstitions wereconfirmed by the narrations and the philosophy of Glanvil, Dr. More, &c. The subject enters into the "Commentaries on the Laws of England. " Anedict of Louis XIV, and a statute by George II, made an end of the whole_Diablerie_. Had James I. Adopted the system of Reginald Scot, the kinghad probably been branded as an atheist king!]

[Footnote B: Harris, with systematic ingenuity against James I. , afterabusing this tract as a wretched performance, though himself probably hadwritten a meaner one--quotes the curious information the king gives of theenormous abuse to which the practice of smoking was carried, expressinghis astonishment at it. Yet, that James may not escape bitter censure, heabuses the king for levying a heavy tax on it to prevent this ruinousconsumption, and his silly policy in discouraging such a branch of ourrevenues, and an article so valuable to our plantations, &c. As if JamesI. Could possibly incur censure for the discoveries of two centuriesafter, of the nature of this plant! James saw great families ruined by theepidemic madness, and sacrificed the revenues which his crown might derivefrom it, to assist its suppression. This was patriotism in the monarch. ]

It was a prompt honesty of intention to benefit his people, which seems tohave been the urgent motive that induced this monarch to become an author, more than any literary ambition; for he writes on no prepared or permanenttopic, and even published anonymously, and as he once wrote "post-haste, "what he composed or designed for practical and immediate use; and even inthat admirable treatise on the duties of a sovereign, which he addressedto Prince Henry, a great portion is directed to the exigencies of thetimes, the parties, and the circumstances of his own court. Of the worksnow more particularly noticed, their interest has ceased with themelancholy follies which at length have passed away; although thephilosophical inquirer will not choose to drop this chapter in the historyof mankind. But one fact in favour of our royal author is testified by thehonest Fuller and the cynical Osborne. On the king's arrival in England, having discovered the numerous impostures and illusions which he had oftenreferred to as authorities, he grew suspicious of the whole systemof "Dæmonologie, " and at length recanted it entirely. With the sameconscientious zeal James had written the book, the king condemned it; andthe sovereign separated himself from the author, in the cause of truth;but the clergy and the parliament persisted in making the imaginary crimefelony by the statute, and it is only a recent act of parliament which hasforbidden the appearance of the possessed and the spae-wife. 

But this apology for having written these treatises need not rest on thisfact, however honourably it appeals to our candour. Let us place it onhigher ground, and tell those who asperse this monarch for his credulityand intellectual weakness, that they themselves, had they lived in thereign of James I. , had probably written on the same topics, and felt asuneasy at the rumour of a witch being a resident in their neighbourhood!

 * * * * *

POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE AGE. 

This and the succeeding age were the times of omens and meteors, prognostics and providences--of "day-fatality, " or the superstition offortunate and unfortunate days, and the combined powers of astrology andmagic. It was only at the close of the century of James I. That Baylewrote a treatise on comets, to prove that they had no influence in thecabinets of princes; this was, however, done with all the precautionimaginable. The greatest minds were then sinking under such popularsuperstitions: and whoever has read much of the private history ofthis age will have smiled at their ludicrous terrors and bewilderedreasonings. The most ordinary events were attributed to an interpositionof Providence. In the unpublished memoirs of that learned antiquary, SirSymouds D'Ewes, such frequently occur. When a comet appeared, and D'Ewes, for exercise at college, had been ringing the great bell, and entangledhimself in the rope, which had nearly strangled him, he resolves not toring while the comet is in the heavens. When a fire happened at the SixClerks' Office, of whom his father was one, he inquires into the mostprominent sins of the six clerks: these were the love of the world, anddoing business on Sundays: and it seems they thought so themselves; forafter the fire the office-door was fast closed on the Sabbath. When theThames had an unusual ebb and flow, it was observed, that it had neverhappened in their recollection, but just before the rising of the Earl ofEssex in Elizabeth's reign, --and Sir Symonds became uneasy at thepolitical aspect of affairs. 

All the historians of these times are very particular in marking thebearded beams of blazing stars; and the first public event that occurs isalways connected with the radiant course. Arthur Wilson describes onewhich preceded the death of the simple queen of James I. It was generallyimagined that "this great light in the heaven was sent as a flambeaux toher funeral;" but the historian discovers, while "this blaze was burning, the fire of war broke out in Bohemia. " It was found difficult to decidebetween the two opinions; and Rushworth, who wrote long afterwards, carefully chronicles both. 

The truth is, the greatest geniuses of the age of James I. Were as deeplyconcerned in these investigations as his Majesty. Had the great Verulamemancipated himself from all the dreams of his age? He speaks indeedcautiously of witchcraft, but does not deny its occult agency; and ofastrology he is rather for the improvement than the rejection. The boldspirit of Rawleigh contended with the superstitions of the times; but howfeeble is the contest where we fear to strike! Even Rawleigh is prodigalof his praise to James for the king's chapter on magic. The great mind ofRawleigh perceived how much men are formed and changed by _education;_but, were this principle admitted to its extent, the _stars_ wouldlose their influence! In pleading for the free agency of man, he wouldescape from the pernicious tendency of predestination, or the astralinfluence, which yet he allows. To extricate himself from the dilemma, he invents an analogical reasoning of a royal power of dispensingwith the laws in extreme cases; so that, though he does not deny "thebinding of the stars, " he declares they are controllable by the will ofthe Creator. In this manner, fettered by prevalent opinions, he satisfiesthe superstitions of an astrological age, and the penetration of his owngenius. At a much later period Dr Henry More, a writer of genius, confirmed the ghost and demon creed, by a number of facts, as marvellouslypleasant as any his own poetical fancy could have invented. Other greatauthors have not less distinguished themselves. When has there appeared asingle genius who at once could free himself of the traditional prejudicesof his contemporaries--nay, of his own party? Genius, in its advancementbeyond the intelligence of its own age, is but progressive; it isfancifully said to soar, but it only climbs. Yet the minds of some authorsof this age are often discovered to be superior to their work; because themind is impelled by its own inherent powers, but the work usuallyoriginates in the age. James I, once acutely observed, how "the author maybe wise, but the work foolish. "

Thus minds of a higher rank than our royal author had not yet clearedthemselves out of these clouds of popular prejudices. We now proceed tomore decisive results of the superior capacity of this much ill-usedmonarch. 

 * * * * *

THE HABITS OF JAMES THE FIRST THOSE OF A MAN OF LETTERS. 

The habits of life of this monarch were those of a man of letters. Hisfirst studies were soothed by none of their enticements. If James lovedliterature, it was for itself; for Buchanan did not tinge the rim of thevase with honey; and the bitterness was tasted not only in the draught, but also in the rod. In some princes, the harsh discipline James passedthrough has raised a strong aversion against literature. The Dauphin, forwhose use was formed the well-known edition of the classics, looked on thevolumes with no eye of love. To free himself of his tutor, Huet, heeagerly consented to an early marriage. "Now we shall see if Mr. Huetshall any more keep me to ancient geography!" exclaimed the Dauphin, rejoicing in the first act of despotism. This ingenuous sally, it is said, too deeply affected that learned man for many years afterwards. Huet'szealous gentleness (for how could Huet be too rigid?) wanted the art whichBuchanan disdained to practise. But, in the case of the prince ofScotland, a constitutional timidity combining with an ardour for study, and therefore a veneration for his tutor, produced a more remarkableeffect. Such was the terror which the remembrance of this illustrious butinexorable republican left on the imagination of his royal pupil, thateven so late as when James was seated on the English throne, once theappearance of his frowning tutor in a dream greatly agitated the king, who in vain attempted to pacify him in this portentous vision. Thisextraordinary fact may be found in a manuscript letter of that day. [A]

[Footnote A: The learned Mede wrote the present letter soon after another, which had not been acknowledged, to his friend Sir M. Stuteville; and thewriter is uneasy lest the political secrets of the day might bring theparties into trouble. It seems he was desirous that letter should be readand then burnt. 

"_March 31, 1622. _

"I hope my letter miscarried not; if it did I am in a sweet pickle. Idesired to hear from you of the receipt and extinction of it. Though thereis no danger in my letters whilst report is so rife, yet when it isforgotten they will not be so safe; but your danger is as great as mine--

"Mr. Downham was with we, now come from London. He told me that it wasthree years ago since those verses were delivered to the king in a dream, by his Master Buchanan, who seemed to _check him severely, as he used todo_; and his Majesty, in his dream, seemed desirous to pacify him, but he, _turning away with a frowning countenance_, would utter those verses, which his Majesty, perfectly remembering, repeated the next day, and manytook notice of them. Now, by occasion of the late soreness in his arm, andthe doubtfulness what it would prove; especially having, by mischance, fallen into the fire with that arm, the remembrance of the verses began totrouble him. "

It appears that these verses were of a threatening nature, since, in amelancholy fit, they were recalled to recollection after an interval ofthree years; the verses are lost to us, with the letter which containedthem. ]

James, even by the confession of his bitter satirist, Francis Osborne, "dedicated rainy weather to his standish, and fair to his hounds. " Hislife had the uniformity of a student's; but the regulated life of alearned monarch must have weighed down the gay and dissipated with thedeadliest monotony. Hence one of these courtiers declared that, if he wereto awake after a sleep of seven years' continuance, he would undertake toenumerate the whole of his Majesty's occupations, and every dish that hadbeen placed on the table during the interval. But this courtier was notaware that the monotony which the king occasioned him was not so much inthe king himself as in his own volatile spirit. 

The table of James I. Was a trial of wits, says a more learned courtier, who often partook of these prolonged conversations: those genial andconvivial conferences were the recreations of the king, and the meansoften of advancing those whose talents had then an opportunity ofdiscovering themselves. A life so constant in its pursuits was to havebeen expected from the temper of him who, at the view of the Bodleianlibrary, exclaimed, "Were I not a king, I would be an university man; andif it were so that I must be a prisoner, I would have no other prison thanthis library, and be _chained together_ with all these goodly authors. "[A]

[Footnote A: In this well-known exclamation of James I. , a witty allusionhas been probably overlooked. The king had in his mind the then prevalentcustom of securing books by fastening them to the shelves by _chains_ longenough to reach to the reading-desks under them. ]

Study, indeed, became one of the businesses of life with our contemplativemonarch; and so zealous was James to form his future successor, that heeven seriously engaged in the education of both his sons. James I. Offersthe singular spectacle of a father who was at once a preceptor and amonarch: it was in this spirit the king composed his "Basilicon Doron; or, His Majesty's Instructions to his dearest Son Henry the Prince, " a work ofwhich something more than the intention is great; and he directed thestudies of the unfortunate Charles. That both these princes were no commonpupils may be fairly attributed to the king himself. Never did thecharacter of a young prince shoot out with nobler promises than Henry; anenthusiast for literature and arms, that prince early showed a great andcommanding spirit. Charles was a man of fine taste: he had talents andvirtues, errors and misfortunes; but he was not without a spirit equal tothe days of his trial. 

 * * * * *

FACILITY AND COPIOUSNESS OF HIS COMPOSITION. 

The mind of James I. Had at all times the fulness of a student's, delighting in the facility and copiousness of composition. The king wrotein one week one hundred folio pages of a monitory address to the Europeansovereigns; and, in as short a time, his apology, sent to the pope andcardinals. These he delivered to the bishops, merely as notes for theiruse; but they were declared to form of themselves a complete answer. "_Quafelicitate_ they were done, let others judge; but _Qua celeritate_, I cantell, " says the courtly bishop who collected the king's works, and who ishere quoted, not for the compliment he would infer, but for the fact hestates. The week's labour of his majesty provoked from Cardinal Perronabout one thousand pages in folio, and replies and rejoinders from thelearned in Europe. [A]

[Footnote A: Mr. Lodge, in his "Illustrations of British History, " praisesand abuses James I. For the very same treatises. Mr. Lodge, dropping thesober character of the antiquary for the smarter one of the critic, tellsus, "James had the good fortune to gain the two points he principallyaimed at in the publication of these _dull treatises_--the reputation ofan acute disputant, and the honour of having Cardinal Bellarmin for anantagonist. " Did Mr. Lodge ever read these "dull treatises?" I declare Inever have; but I believe these treatises are not dull, from the inferencehe draws from them: for how any writer can gain the reputation of "anacute disputant" by writing "dull treatises, " Mr. Lodge only can explain. It is in this manner, and by unphilosophical critics, that the literaryreputation of James has been flourished down by modern pens. It was suregame to attack James I. !]

 * * * * *

HIS ELOQUENCE. 

The eloquence of James is another feature in the literary character ofthis monarch. Amid the sycophancy of the court of a learned sovereign sometruths will manifest themselves. Bishop Williams, in his funeral eulogy ofJames I. , has praised with warmth the eloquence of the departed monarch, whom he intimately knew; and this was an acquisition of James's, somanifest to all, that the bishop made eloquence essential to the dignityof a monarch; observing, that "it was the want of it that made Moses, in amanner, refuse all government, though offered by God. "[A] He wouldnot have hazarded so peculiar an eulogium, had not the monarch beendistinguished by that talent. 

[Footnote A: This funeral sermon, by laying such a stress on the_eloquence_ of James I. , it is said, occasioned the disgrace of thezealous bishop; perhaps, also, by the arts of the new courtiers practisingon the feelings of the young monarch. It appears that Charles betrayedfrequent symptoms of impatience. 

This allusion to the _stammering_ of Moses was most unlucky; for Charleshad this defect in his delivery, which he laboured all his life tocorrect. In the first speech from the throne, he alludes to it: "Now, because _I am unfit for much speaking_, I mean to bring up the fashion ofmy predecessors, to have my lord-keeper speak for me in most things. " Andhe closed a speech to the Scottish parliament by saying, that "he does notoffer to endear himself by words, _which, indeed is not my way_. " This, however, proved to be one of those little circumstances which produce amore important result than is suspected. By this substitution of alord-keeper instead of the sovereign, he failed in exciting the personalaffections of his parliament. Even the most gracious speech from the lipsof a lord-keeper is but formally delivered, and coldly received; andCharles had not yet learned that there are no deputies for our feelings. ]

Hume first observed of James I. , that "the speaker of the House of Commonsis usually an eminent man; yet the harangue of his Majesty will always befound much superior to that of the speaker in every parliament during thisreign. " His numerous proclamations are evidently wrought by his own hand, and display the pristine vigour of the state of our age of genius. Thatthe state-papers were usually composed by himself, a passage in the Lifeof the Lord-keeper Williams testifies; and when Sir Edward Conway, who hadbeen bred a soldier, and was even illiterate, became a viscount, and aroyal secretary, by the appointment of Buckingham, the king, who in factwanted no secretary, would often be merry over his imperfect scrawls inwriting, and his hacking of sentences in reading, often breaking out inlaughter, exclaiming, "Stenny has provided me with a secretary who canneither write nor read, and a groom of my bedchamber who cannot truss mypoints, "--this latter person having but one hand! It is evident, sinceLord Conway, the most inefficient secretary ever king had--and I havemyself seen his scrawls--remained many years in office, that James I. Required no secretary, and transacted his affairs with his own mind andhand. These habits of business and of study prove that James indulged muchless those of indolence, for which he is so gratuitously accused. 

 * * * * *

HIS WIT. 

Amid all the ridicule and contempt in which the intellectual capacity ofJames I. Is involved, this college-pedant, who is imagined to have givenin to every species of false wit, and never to have reached beyondquibbles, puns, conceits, and quolibets, --was in truth a great wit; quickin retort, and happy in illustration; and often delivering opinions with asententious force. More wit and wisdom from his lips have descended to usthan from any other of our sovereigns. One of the malicious writers of hissecret history, Sir Anthony Weldon, not only informs us that he was witty, but describes the manner: "He was very witty, and had as many witty jestsas any man living: at which he would not smile himself, but deliver themin a grave and serious manner. " Thus the king was not only witty, but adextrous wit: nor is he one of those who are recorded as having only saidone good thing in their lives; for his vein was not apt to dry. 

His conversations, like those of most literary men, he loved to prolong attable. We find them described by one who had partaken of them:

"The reading of some books before him was very frequent, while he was athis repast; and otherwise he collected knowledge by variety of questions, which he carved out to the capacity of different persons. Methought hishunting humour was not off, while the learned stood about him at hisboard; he was ever in chase after some disputable doubts, which he wouldwind and turn about with the most stabbing objections that ever I heard;and was as pleasant and fellow-like, in all these discourses, as with hishuntsman in the field. Those who were ripe and weighty in their answerswere ever designed for some place of credit or profit. "[A]

[Footnote A: Hacket's curious "Life of the Lord-keeper Williams, " p. 38, Part 11. ]

 * * * * *

SPECIMENS OF HIS HUMOUR, AND OBSERVATIONS ON HUMAN LIFE. 

The relics of witticisms and observations on human life, on state affairs, in literature and history, are scattered among contemporary writers, andsome are even traditional; I regret that I have not preserved many whichoccurred in the course of reading. It has happened, however, that a man ofgenius has preserved for posterity some memorials of the wit, thelearning, and the sense of the monarch. [A]

[Footnote A: In the Harl. MSS. 7582, Art. 3, one entitled "Crumms fallenfrom King James's Table; or his Table-Talk, taken by Sir Thomas Overbury. The original being in his own handwriting. " This MS. Has been, perhaps, imperfectly printed in "The Prince's Cabala, or Mysteries of State, " 1715. This Collection of Sir Thomas Overbury was shortened by his unhappy fate, since he perished early in the reign. --Another Harl. MS. Contains things"as they were at sundrie times spoken by James I. " I have drawn othersfrom the Harl. MSS. 6395. We have also printed, "Wittie Observations, gathered in King James's Ordinary Discourse, " 1643; "King James hisApothegmes or Table-Talk as they were by him delivered occasionally, andby the publisher, his quondam servant, carefully received, by B. A. Gent. 4^to. In eight leaves, 1643. " The collector was Ben'n. Agar, who hadgathered them in his youth; "Witty Apothegmes, delivered at several timesby King James, King Charles, the Marquis of Worcester, " &c. , 1658. 

The collection of Apothegms formed by Lord Bacon offers many instances ofthe king's wit and sense. See Lord Bacon's Apothegms new and old; they arenumbered to 275 in the edition 1819. Basil Montague, in his edition, hasseparated what he distinguishes as the spurious ones. ]

In giving some loose specimens of the wit and capacity of a man, if theyare too few, it may be imagined that they are so from their rarity;and if too many, the page swells into a mere collection. But truth is notover-nice to obtain her purpose, and even the common labours she inspiresare associated with her pleasures. 

Early in life James I. Had displayed the talent of apt allusion, and hisclassical wit on the Spaniards, that "He expected no other favour fromthem than the courtesy of Polyphemus to Ulysses--to be the last devoured, "delighted Elizabeth, and has even entered into our history. ArthurWilson, at the close of his "Life of James I. , " has preserved one of hisapothegms, while he censures him for not making timely use of it! "Letthat prince, who would beware of conspiracies, be rather jealous of suchwhom his extraordinary favours have advanced, than of those whom hisdispleasure have discontented. _These_ want means to execute theirpleasures, but _those_ have means at pleasure to execute their desires. "--Wilson himself ably develops this important state-observation, byadding, that "Ambition to rule is more vehement than malice to revenge. " Apointed reflection, which rivals a maxim of Rochefoucault. 

The king observed that, "Very wise men and very fools do little harm; itis the mediocrity of wisdom that troubleth all the world. "--He described, by a lively image, the differences which rise in argument: "Men, inarguing, are often carried by the force of words farther asunder thantheir question was at first; like two ships going out of the same haven, their landing is many times whole countries distant. "

One of the great national grievances, as it appeared both to thegovernment and the people, in James's reign, was the perpetual growth ofthe metropolis; and the nation, like an hypochondriac, was ludicrouslyterrified that their head was too monstrous for their body, and drewall the moisture of life from the remoter parts. It is amusing toobserve the endless and vain precautions employed to stop all newbuildings, and to force persons out of town to reside at their countrymansions. Proclamations warned and exhorted, but the very interference ofprohibition rendered the crowded town more delightful. One of itsattendant calamities was the prevalent one of that day, the plague; andone of those state libels, which were early suppressed, or never printed, entitled, "Balaam's Ass, " has this passage: "In this deluge of newbuildings, we shall be all poisoned with breathing in one another's faces;and your Majesty has most truly said, England will shortly be London, andLondon, England. " It was the popular wish, that country gentlemen shouldreside more on their estates, and it was on this occasion the king madethat admirable allusion, which has been in our days repeated in the Houseof Commons: "Gentlemen resident on their estates were like ships in port--their value and magnitude were felt and acknowledged; but, when ata distance, as their size seemed insignificant, so their worth andimportance were not duly estimated. " The king abounded with similarobservations; for he drew from life more than even from books. 

James is reproached for being deficient in political sagacity;notwithstanding that he somewhat prided himself on what he denominated"king's-craft. " This is the fate of a pacific and domestic prince!

"A king, " said James, "ought to be a preserver of his people, as well oftheir fortunes as lives, and not a destroyer of his subjects. Were I tomake such a war as the King of France doth, with such tyranny on his ownsubjects--with Protestants on one side, and his soldiers drawn toslaughter on the other, --I would put myself in a monastery all my daysafter, and repent me that I had brought my subjects to such misery. "

That James was an adept in his "king's-craft, " by which term he meantthe science of politics, but which has been so often misinterpreted in anill sense, even the confession of such a writer as Sir Anthony Weldontestifies; who acknowledges that "no prince living knew how to make use ofmen better than King James. " He certainly foresaw the spirit of theCommons, and predicted to the prince and Buckingham, events which occurredafter his death. When Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, whom James considereda useful servant, Buckingham sacrificed, as it would appear, to theclamours of a party, James said, "You are making a rod for your own back;"and when Prince Charles was encouraging the frequent petitions ofthe Commons, James told him, "You will live to have your bellyful ofpetitions. " The following anecdote may serve to prove his politicalsagacity:--When the Emperor of Germany, instigated by the Pope and his ownstate-interests, projected a crusade against the Turks, he solicited fromJames the aid of three thousand Englishmen; the wise and pacific monarch, in return, advised the emperor's ambassador to apply to France and Spain, as being more nearly concerned in this project: but the ambassador veryingeniously argued, that, James being a more remote prince, would moreeffectually alarm the Turks, from a notion of a general armament ofthe Christian princes against them. James got rid of the importunateambassador by observing, that "three thousand Englishmen would do no morehurt to the Turks than fleas to their skins: great attempts may do good bya destruction, but little ones only stir up anger to hurt themselves. "

His vein of familiar humour flowed at all times, and his facetiousnesswas sometimes indulged at the cost of his royalty. In those unhappydifferences between him and his parliament, one day mounting his horse, which, though usually sober and quiet, began to bound andprance, --"Sirrah!" exclaimed the king, who seemed to fancy that hisfavourite prerogative was somewhat resisted on this occasion, "if you benot quiet, I'll send you to the five hundred kings in the lower house:they'll quickly tame you. " When one of the Lumleys was pushing on hislineal ascent beyond the patience of the hearers, the king, to cut shortthe tedious descendant of the Lumleys, cried out, "Stop mon! thou needstno more: now I learn that Adam's surname was Lumley!" When Colonel Gray, a military adventurer of that day, just returned from Germany, seemedvain of his accoutrements, on which he had spent his all, --the king, staring at this buckled, belted, sworded, and pistolled, but ruined, martinet, observed, that "this town was so well fortified, that, were itvictualled, it might be impregnable. "

 * * * * *

EVIDENCES OF HIS SAGACITY IN THE DISCOVERY OF TRUTH. 

Possessing the talent of eloquence, the quickness of wit, and thediversified knowledge which produced his "Table-talk, " we find also manyevidences of his sagacity in the discovery of truth, with that patientzeal so honourable to a monarch. When the shipwrights, jealous of Pett, our great naval architect, formed a party against him, the king wouldjudge with his own eyes. Having examined the materials depreciated byPett's accusers, he declared that "the cross-grain was in the men, not inthe timber. " The king, on historical evidence, and by what he saidin his own works, claims the honour of discovering the gunpowder plot, bythe sagacity and reflection with which he solved the enigmatical andungrammatical letter sent on that occasion. The train of his thoughts haseven been preserved to us; and, although a loose passage, in a privateletter of the Earl of Salisbury, contradicted by another passage in thesame letter, would indicate that the earl was the man; yet even Mrs. Macaulay acknowledges the propriety of attributing the discovery to theking's sagacity. Several proofs of his zeal and reflection in thedetection of imposture might be adduced; and the reader may, perhaps, beamused at these. 

There existed a conspiracy against the Countess of Exeter by Lady Lake, and her daughter, Lady Ross. They had contrived to forge a letter in theCountess's name, in which she confessed all the heavy crimes they accusedher of, which were incest, witchcraft, &c. ;[A] and, to confirm itsauthenticity, as the king was curious respecting the place, the time, andthe occasion, when the letter was written, their maid swore it was at thecountess's house at Wimbledon, and that she had written it at the window, near the upper end of the great chamber; and that she (the maid) was hidbeneath the tapestry, where she heard the countess read over the letterafter writing. The king appeared satisfied with this new testimony; but, unexpectedly, he visited the great chamber at Wimbledon, observed thedistance of the window, placed himself behind the hangings, and made thelords in their turn: not one could distinctly hear the voice of a personplaced at the window. The king further observed, that the tapestry was twofeet short of the ground, and that any one standing behind it mustinevitably be discovered. "Oaths cannot confound my sight, " exclaimed theking. Having also effectuated other discoveries with a confession of oneof the parties, and Sir Thomas Lake being a faithful servant of James, ashe had been of Elizabeth, the king, who valued him, desired he would notstand the trial with his wife and daughter; but the old man pleaded thathe was a husband and a father, and must fall with them. "It is a fall!"said the king: "your wife is the serpent; your daughter is Eve; and you, poor man, are Adam!"[B]

[Footnote A: Camden's "Annals of James I. , Kennet II. , 652. "]

[Footnote B: The suit cost Sir Thomas Lake 30, 000_l_. ; the fines in thestar-chamber were always heavy in all reigns. Harris refers to this causeas an evidence of the tyrannic conduct of James I. , as if the king wasalways influenced by personal dislike; but he does not give the story. ]

The sullen Osborne reluctantly says, "I must confess he was the promptestman living in detecting an imposture. " There was a singular impostor inhis reign, of whom no one denies the king the merit of detecting thedeception--so far was James I. From being credulous, as he is generallysupposed to have been. Ridiculous as the affair may appear to us, it hadperfectly succeeded with the learned fellows of New College, Oxford, andafterwards with heads as deep; and it required some exertion of the king'sphilosophical reasoning to pronounce on the deception. 

One Haddock, who was desirous of becoming a preacher, but had a stutteringand slowness of utterance, which he could not get rid of, took tothe study of physic; but recollecting that, when at Winchester, hisschoolfellows had told him that he spoke fluently in his sleep, he tried, affecting to be asleep, to form a discourse on physic. Finding that hesucceeded, he continued the practice: he then tried divinity, and spoke agood sermon. Having prepared one for the purpose, he sat up in his bed anddelivered it so loudly that it attracted attention in the next chamber. Itwas soon reported that Haddock preached in his sleep; and nothing washeard but inquiries after the _sleeping preacher_, who soon found it hisinterest to keep up the delusion. He was now considered as a man trulyinspired; and he did not in his own mind rate his talents at less worththan the first vacant bishopric. He was brought to court, where thegreatest personages anxiously sat up through the night by his bedside. They tried all the maliciousness of Puck to pinch and to stir him: he waswithout hearing or feeling; but they never departed without an orderlytext and sermon; at the close of which, groaning and stretching himself, he pretended to awake, declaring he was unconscious of what had passed. "The king, " says Wilson, no flatterer of James, "privately handled him solike a chirurgeon, that he found out the sore. " The king was present atone of these sermons, and forbade them; and his reasonings, on thisoccasion, brought the sleeping preacher on his knees. The king observed, that things studied in the day-time may be dreamed of in the night, butalways irregularly, without order; not, as these sermons were, good andlearned: as particularly the one preached before his Majesty in his sleep--which he first treated physically, then theologically; "and I observed, "said the king, "that he always preaches best when he has the most crowdedaudience. " "Were he allowed to proceed, all slander and treason might passunder colour of being asleep, " added the king, who, notwithstanding hispretended inspiration, awoke the sleeping preacher for ever afterwards. 

 * * * * *

BASILICON DORON. 

That treatise of James I. , entitled "Basilicon Doron; or, His Majesty'sInstructions to his dearest Son Henry the Prince, " was composed by theking in Scotland, in the freshness of his studious days; a work, addressedto a prince by a monarch which, in some respects, could only have comefrom the hands of such a workman. The morality and the politics oftenretain their curiosity and their value. Our royal author has drawn hisprinciples of government from the classical volumes of antiquity; for thenpoliticians quoted Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. His waters had, indeed, flowed over those beds of ore;[A] but the growth and vigour of the workcomes from the mind of the king himself: he writes for the Prince ofScotland, and about the Scottish people. On its first appearance Camdenhas recorded the strong sensation it excited: it was not only admired, butit entered into and won the hearts of men. Harris, forced to acknowledge, in his mean style and with his frigid temper, that "this book containssome tolerable things, " omits not to hint that "it might not be his own:"but the claims of James I. Are evident from the peculiarity of the style;the period at which it was composed; and by those particular passagesstamped with all the individuality of the king himself. The style isremarkable for its profuse sprinkling of Scottish and French words, wherethe Doric plainness of the one, and the intelligent expression of theother, offer curious instances of the influence of manners over language;the diction of the royal author is a striking evidence of the intermixtureof the two nations, and of a court which had marked its divided interestsby its own chequered language. 

[Footnote A: James, early in life, was a fine scholar, and a lover ofthe ancient historians, as appears from an accidental expression ofBuchanan's, in his dedication to James of his "Baptistes;" referring toSallust, he adds, _apud_ TUUM _Salustium_. ]

This royal manual still interests a philosophical mind; like one of thoseantique and curious pictures we sometimes discover in a cabinet, --studiedfor the costume; yet where the touches of nature are true, although thecolouring is brown and faded; but there is a force, and sometimes even acharm, in the ancient simplicity, to which even the delicacy of taste mayreturn, not without pleasure. The king tells his son:--

"Sith all people are naturally inclined to follow their prince's example, in your own person make your wordes and deedes to fight together; and letyour own life be a law-book and a mirror to your people, that therein theymay read the practice of their own lawes, and see by your image what lifethey should lead. 

"But vnto one faulte is all the common people of this kingdome subject, aswell burgh as land; which is, to judge and speak rashly of their prince, setting the commonweale vpon foure props, as wee call it; euer wearying ofthe present estate, and desirous of nouelties. " The remedy the kingsuggests, "besides the execution of laws that are to be vsed againstvnreuerent speakers, " is so to rule, as that "the subjects may not onlylive in suretie and wealth, but be stirred up to open their mouthes inyour iust praise. "

 * * * * *

JAMES THE FIRST'S IDEA OF A TYRANT AND A KING. 

The royal author distinguishes a king from a tyrant on their firstentrance into the government:--

"A tyrant will enter like a saint, till he find himself fast under foot, and then will suffer his unruly affections to burst forth. " He advises theprince to act contrary to Nero, who, at first, "with his tender-heartedwish, _vellem nescire literas_, " appeared to lament that he was to executethe laws. He, on the contrary, would have the prince early show "theseveritie of justice, which will settle the country, and make them knowthat ye can strike: this would be but for a time. If otherwise ye kyth(show) your clemencie at the first the offences would soon come to suchheapes, and the contempt of you grow so great, that when ye would fall topunish the number to be punished would exceed the innocent; and ye would, against your nature, be compelled then to wracke manie, whom thechastisement of few in the beginning might have preserved. In this my owndear-bought experience may serve you for a different lesson. For Iconfess, where I thought (by being gracious at the beginning) to gain allmen's heart to a loving and willing obedience, I by the contrarie foundthe disorder of the countrie, and the loss of my thanks, to be all myreward. "

James, in the course of the work, often instructs the prince by his ownerrors and misfortunes; and certainly one of these was an excess of thekinder impulses in granting favours; there was nothing selfish in hishappiness; James seemed to wish that every one around him shouldparticipate in the fulness of his own enjoyment. His hand was always opento scatter about him honours and wealth, and not always on unworthyfavourites, but often on learned men whose talents he knew well toappreciate. There was a warmth in the king's temper which once he himselfwell described; he did not like those who pride themselves on their tepiddispositions. "I love not one that will never be angry, for as he that iswithout sorrow is without gladness, so he that is without anger is withoutlove. Give me the heart of a man, and out of that all his actions shall beacceptable. " The king thus addresses the prince:--

_On the Choice of Servants and Associates_. 

"Be not moved with importunities; for the which cause, as also foraugmenting your Maiestie, be not so facile of access-giving at all times, as I have been. "--In his minority, the choice of his servants had beenmade by others, "recommending servants unto me, more for serving, ineffect, their friends that put them in, than their maister that admittedthem, and used them well, at the first rebellion raised against me. Chuseyou your own servantes for your own vse, and not for the vse of others;and, since ye must be _communis parens_ to all your people, chuseindifferentlie out of all quarters; not respecting other men's appetites, but their own qualities. For as you must command all, so reason would yeshould be served of all. --Be a daily watchman over your own servants, thatthey obey your laws precisely: for how can your laws be kept in thecountry, if they be broken at your eare!--Bee homelie or strange withthem, as ye think their behaviour deserveth and their nature may bearill. --Employ every man as ye think him qualified, but use not one in allthings, lest he wax proud, and be envied by his fellows. --As for the othersort of your companie and servants, they ought to be of perfect age, seethey be of a good fame; otherwise what can the people think but that yehave chosen a companion unto you according to your own humour, and so havepreferred those men for the love of their vices and crimes, that ye knewthem to be guiltie of. For the people, that see you not within, cannotjudge of you but according to the outward appearance of your actions andcompany, which only is subject to their sight. "

 * * * * *

THE REVOLUTIONISTS OF THAT AGE. 

James I. Has painted, with vivid touches, the Anti-Monarchists, or revolutionists, of his time. 

He describes "their imagined democracie, where they fed themselves withthe hope to become _tribunî plebi_; and so, in a popular government, byleading the people by the nose, to bear the sway of all the rule. --Everyfaction, " he adds, "always joined them. I was ofttimes calumniated intheir popular sermons, not for any evill or vice in me, [A] but because Iwas a king, which they thought the highest evill; and, because they wereashamed to professe this quarrel, they were busie to look narrowly in allmy actions, pretending to distinguish the lawfulness of the office fromthe vice of the person; yet some of them would snapper out well grosslywith the trewth of their intentions, informing the people that all kingsand princes were naturally enemies to the liberties of the Church; wherebythe ignorant were emboldened (as bayards), [B] to cry the learned andmodest out of it: but their parity is the mother of confusion, and enemieto vnitie, which is the mother of order. " And it is not without eloquencehis Majesty describes these factious Anti-Monarchists, as "Men, whom nodeserts can oblige, neither oaths nor promises bind; breathing nothing butsedition and calumnies, aspiring without measure, railing without reason, and making their own imaginations the square of their conscience. Iprotest, before the great God, and, since I am here as vpon my testament, it is no place for me to lie in, that ye shall never find with anyHie-land, or Border theeves, greater ingratitude, and more lies and vileperjuries: ye may keep them for trying your patience, as Socrates did anevill wife. "

[Footnote A: The conduct of James I. In Scotland has even extorted praisefrom one of his bitterest calumniators; for Mrs. Macaulay has said--"Hisconduct, when King of Scotland, was in many points unexceptionable. "]

[Footnote B: An old French word, expressing, "A man that gapes or gazesearnestly at a thing; a fly-catcher; a greedy and unmannerly beholder. "--COTGRAVE. ]

 * * * * *

OF THE NOBILITY OF SCOTLAND. 

The king makes three great divisions of the Scottish people: the church, the nobility, and the burghers. 

Of the nobility, the king counsels the prince to check

"A fectless arrogant conceit of their greatness and power, drinking inwith their very nourish-milk. Teach your nobilitie to keep your lawes, asprecisely as the meanest; fear not their orping, or being discontented, aslong as ye rule well: for their pretended reformation of princes takethnever effect, but where evil government proceedeth. Acquaint yourself sowith all the honest men of your barone and gentlemen, giving access soopen and affable, to make their own suites to you themselves, and not toemploy the great lordes, their intercessours; so shall ye bring to ameasure their monstrous backes. And for their barbarous feîdes (feuds), put the laws to due execution made by mee there-anent; beginning everrathest at him that yee love best, and is oblished vnto you, to make himan example to the rest. Make all your reformations to begin at your elbow, and so by degrees to the extremities of the land. "

He would not, however, that the prince should highly contemn the nobility:"Remember, howe that error brake the king, my grandfather's heart. Consider that vertue followeth oftest noble blood: the more frequentlythat your court can be garnished with them, as peers and fathers of yourland, thinke it the more your honour. "

He impresses on the mind of the prince ever to embrace the quarrel of thepoor and the sufferer, and to remember the honourable title given to hisgrandfather, in being called "The poor man's king. "

 * * * * *

OF COLONISING. 

James I. Had a project of improving the state of those that dwelt inthe isles, "who are so utterly barbarous, " by intermixing some of thesemi-civilised Highlanders, and planting colonies among them of inlandsubjects. 

"I have already made laws against the over-lords, and the chief of theirclannes, and it would be no difficultie to danton them; so rooting out, ortransporting the barbarous and stubborn sort, and planting civilised intheir rooms. "

This was as wise a scheme as any modern philosopher could have suggested, and, with the conduct he subsequently pursued in Ireland, may be referredto as splendid proofs of the kingly duties so zealously performed by thismonarch. 

 * * * * *

OF MERCHANTS. 

Of merchants, as this king understood the commercial character, he had nohonourable notion. 

He says, "They think the whole commonwealth ordained for raising them up, and accounting it their lawful gain to enrich themselves upon the lossesof the rest of the people. "

We are not to censure James I. For his principles of political economy, which then had not assumed the dignity of a science; his rude and simpleideas convey popular truths. 

 * * * * *

REGULATIONS FOR THE PRINCE'S MANNERS AND HABITS. 

The last portion of the "Basilicon Doron" is devoted to domesticregulations for the prince, respecting his manners and habits; which theking calls "the indifferent actions of a man. "

"A king is set as one on a stage, whose smallest actions and gestures allthe people gazinglie do behold; and, however just in the discharge of hisoffice, yet, if his behaviour be light or dissolute, in indifferentactions, the people, who see but the outward part, conceive pre-occupiedconceits of the king's inward intention, which, although with time, thetrier of truth, will evanish by the evidence of the contrarie effect, yet_interim patitur justus_, and pre-judged conceits will, in the meantime, breed contempt, the mother of rebellion and disorder. Besides, " the kingadds, "the indifferent actions and behaviour of a man have a certainholding and dependence upon vertue or vice, according as they are used orruled. "

The prince is not to keep regular hours, "That any time in the four and twentie hours may be alike to you; therebyyour diet may be accommodated to your affairs, and not your affairs toyour diet. "

The prince is to eat in public, "to shew that he loves not to hauntcompanie, which is one of the marks of a tyrant, and that he delights notto eat privatelie, ashamed of his gluttonie. " As a curious instance of themanners of the times, the king advises the prince "to use mostly to eat ofreasonablie-grosse and common-meats; not only for making your bodie strongfor travel, as that ye may be the hartlier received by your meane subiectsin their houses, when their cheere may suffice you, which otherwaies wouldbe imputed to you for pride, and breed coldness and disdain in them. "

I have noticed his counsel against the pedantry or other affectations ofstyle in speaking. 

He adds, "Let it be plaine, natural, comelie, cleane, short, andsententious. "

In his gestures "he is neither to look sillily, like a stupid pedant; norunsettledly, with an uncouth morgue, like a new-come-over cavalier; notover sparing in your courtesies, for that will be imputed to incivilitieand arrogance; nor yet over prodigal in jowking or nodding at every step, for that forme of being popular becometh better aspiring Absaloms thanlawful kings; forming ever your gesture according to your present action;looking gravely, and with a majestie, when ye sit upon judgment, or giveaudience to embassadors; homely, when ye are in private with your ownservants; merrily, when ye are at any pastime, or merry discourse; and letyour countenance smell of courage and magnanimity when at the warres. Andremember (I say again) to be plaine and sensible in your language; forbesides, it is the tongue's office to be the messenger of the mind; it maybe thought a point of imbecilitie of spirit in a king to speak obscurely, much more untrewely, as if he stood in awe of any in uttering histhoughts. "

Should the prince incline to be an author, the king adds--

"If your engine (genius) spur you to write any workes, either in prose orverse, I cannot but allow you to practise it; but take no longsome worksin hande, for distracting you from your calling. "

He reminds the prince with dignity and truth, "Your writes (writings) will remain as the true picture of your minde, toall posterities; if yee would write worthelie, chuse subjects worthie ofyou. " His critical conception of the nature of poetry is its bestdefinition. "If ye write in verse, remember that it is not the principalpart of a poem to rime right, and flow well with many prettie wordes; butthe chief commendation of a poem is, that when the verse shall bee takensundry in prose, it shall be found so ritch in quick inventions andpoetick floures, and in fair and pertinent comparisons, as it shall retainthe lustre of a poem although in prose. "

The king proceeds touching many curious points concerning the prince'sbodily exercises and "house-pastimes. " A genuine picture of the customsand manners of the age: our royal author had the eye of an observer, andthe thoughtfulness of a sage. 

The king closes with the hope that the prince's "natural inclination willhave a happie simpathie with these precepts; making the wise man'sschoolmaister, which is the example of others, to be your teacher; and notthat overlate repentance by your own experience, which is theschoolmaister of fools. "

Thus have I opened the book, and I believe, the heart of James I. Thevolume remains a perpetual witness to posterity of the intellectualcapacity and the noble disposition of the royal author. 

But this monarch has been unfairly reproached both by the political andreligious; as far as these aspersions connect themselves with hischaracter, they enter into our inquiry. 

His speeches and his writings are perpetually quoted by democraticwriters, with the furious zeal of those who are doing the work of a party;they never separate the character of James from his speculative principlesof government; and, such is the odium they have raised against him, thatthis sovereign has received the execration, or the ridicule, even of thosewho do not belong to their party. James maintained certain abstractdoctrines of the times, and had written on "The Prerogative Royal, " and"The Trew Laws of Free Monarchies, " as he had on witches and devils. Allthis verbal despotism is artfully converted into so many acts of despotismitself; and thus they contrive their dramatic exhibition of a blusteringtyrant, in the person of a father of his people, who exercised his powerwithout an atom of brutal despotism adhering to it. 

 * * * * *

THE KING'S IDEA OF THE ROYAL PREROGATIVE. 

When James asserted that a king is above the laws, he did not understandthis in the popular sense; nor was he the inventor or the reviver ofsimilar doctrines. In all his mysterious flights on the nature of "ThePrerogative Royal, " James only maintained what Elizabeth and all theTudors had, as jealously, but more energetically exercised. [A] Elizabethleft to her successor the royal prerogative strained to its highest pitch, with no means to support a throne which in the succeeding reign was foundto be baseless. The king employed the style of absolute power, and, asHarris says, "entertained notions of his prerogative amazingly great, andbordering on impiety. " It never occurred to his calumniators, who arealways writing, without throwing themselves back into the age of theirinquiries, that all the political reveries, the abstract notions, and themetaphysical fancies of James I. Arose from his studious desire of beingan English sovereign, according to the English constitution--for fromthence he derived those very ideas. 

[Footnote A: In Sir Symund D'Ewes's "Journals of the Parliament, " and inTownshend's "Historical Collections, " we trace in some degree Elizabeth'sarbitrary power concealed in her prerogative, which she always consideredas the dissolving charm in the magical circle of our constitution. But Ipossess two letters of the French ambassador to Charles IX. , written fromour court in her reign; who, by means of his secret intercourse with thoseabout her person, details a curious narrative of a royal interview grantedto some deputies of the parliament, at that moment refractory, stronglydepicting the exalted notions this great sovereign entertained of theprerogative, and which she asserted in stamping her foot. ]

 * * * * *

THE LAWYERS' IDEA OF THE ROYAL PREROGATIVE. 

The truth is, that lawyers, in their anxiety to define, or to defend theshadowy limits of the royal prerogative, had contrived some strange andclumsy fictions to describe its powers; their flatteries of the imaginarybeing, whom they called the sovereign, are more monstrous than all theharmless abstractions of James I. 

They describe an English sovereign as a mysterious being, invested withabsolute perfection, and a fabulous immortality, whose person wasinviolable by its sacredness. A king of England is not subject to death, since the sovereign is a corporation, expressed by the awful plural theOUR and the WE. His majesty is always of full age, though in infancy; andso unlike mortality, the king can do no wrong. Such his ubiquity, that heacts at the same moment in different places; and such the force of histestimony, that whatever the sovereign declares to have passed in hispresence, becomes instantly a perpetual record; he serves for his ownwitness, by the simple subscription of _Teste me ipso_; and he is soabsolute in power, beyond the laws, that he quashes them by his negativevoice. [A] Such was the origin of the theoretical prerogative of an idealsovereign which James I. Had formed: it was a mere curious abstraction ofthe schools in the spirit of the age, which was perpetually referring tothe mysteries of state and the secrets of empires, and not a principle hewas practising to the detriment of the subject. 

[Footnote A: Such are the descriptions of the British sovereign, to befound in Cowell's curious book, entitled "The Interpreter. " The reader mayfurther trace the modern genius of Blackstone, with an awful reverence, dignifying the venerable nonsense--and the commentator on Blackstonesometimes labouring to explain the explanations of his master; so obscure, so abstract, and so delicate is the phantom which our ancient lawyersconjured up, and which the moderns cannot lay. ]

James I. While he held for his first principle that a sovereign is onlyaccountable to God for the sins of his government, an harmless and even anoble principle in a religious prince, at various times acknowledged that"a king is ordained for procuring the prosperity of his people. " In hisspeech, 1603, he says, "If you be rich I cannot be poor; if you be happy I cannot but befortunate. My worldly felicity consists in your prosperity. And that I ama servant is most true, as I am a head and governour of all the people inmy dominions. If we take the people as one body, then as the head isordained for the body and not the body for the head, so must a righteousking know himself to be ordained for his people, and not his people forhim. "

The truth is always concealed by those writers who are cloaking theirantipathy against monarchy, in their declamations against the writings ofJames I. Authors, who are so often influenced by the opinions of theirage, have the melancholy privilege of perpetuating them, and of beingcited as authorities for those very opinions, however erroneous. 

At this time the true principles of popular liberty, hidden in theconstitution, were yet obscure and contested; involved in contradiction, in assertion and recantation;[A] and they have been established as much bythe blood as by the ink of our patriots. Some noble spirits in the Commonswere then struggling to fix the vacillating principles of our government;but often their private passions were infused into their public feelings;James, who was apt to imagine that these individuals were instigated by apersonal enmity in aiming at his mysterious prerogative, and at the sametime found their rivals with equal weight opposing the novel opinions, retreated still farther into the depths and arcana of the constitution. Modern writers have viewed the political fancies of this monarch throughoptical instruments not invented in his days. 

[Footnote A: Cowell, equally learned and honest, involved himself incontradictory positions, and was alike prosecuted by the King and theCommons, on opposite principles. The overbearing Coke seems to have aimedat his life, which the lenity of James saved. His work is a testimony ofthe unsettled principles of liberty at that time; Cowell was compelled toappeal to one part of his book to save himself from the other. ]

When Sir Edward Coke declared that the king's royal prerogative beingunlimited and undefined, "was a great overgrown monster;" and, on oneoccasion, when Coke said before the king, that "his Majesty was defendedby the laws, "--James, in anger, told him he spoke foolishly, and he saidhe was not defended by the laws, but by God (alluding to his "divineright"); and sharply reprimanded him for having spoken irreverently of SirThomas Crompton, a civilian; asserting, that Crompton was as good a man asCoke. The fact is, there then existed a rivalry between the civil and thecommon lawyers. Coke declared that the common law of England was inimminent danger of being perverted; that law which he has enthusiasticallydescribed as the perfection of all sense and experience. Coke wasstrenuously opposed by Lord Bacon and by the civilians, and was at lengthcommitted to the Tower (according to a MS. Letter of the day, for thecause is obscure in our history), "charged with speaking so in parliamentas tended to stir up the subjects' hearts against their sovereign. "[A] Yetin all this we must not regard James as the despot he is represented: heacted as Elizabeth would have acted, for the sacredness of his own person, and the integrity of the constitution. In the same manuscript letter Ifind that, when at Theobalds, the king, with his usual openness, wasdiscoursing how he designed to govern; and as he would sometimes, like thewits of all nations and times, compress an argument into a play onwords, --the king said, "I will govern according to the good of the_common-weal_, but not according to the _common-will!_"

[Footnote A: The following anecdotes of Lord Chief Justice Coke have notbeen published. They are extracts from manuscript letters of the times: onthat occasion, at first, the patriot did not conduct himself with thefirmness of a great spirit. 

_Nov. 19, 1616. _

"The thunderbolt hath fallen on the Lord Coke, which hath overthrown himfrom the very roots. The supersedeas was carried to him by Sir GeorgeCoppin, who, at the presenting of it, received it with dejection andtears. _Tremor et successio non cadunt in fortem et constantem_. I sendyou a distich on the Lord Coke--

 "Jus condere Cocus potuit, sed condere jure Non potuit; potuit condere jura cocis. "

It happened that the name of Coke, or rather Cook, admitted of beingpunned on, both in Latin and in English: for he was lodged in the Tower, in a room that had once been a kitchen, and as soon as he arrived, one hadwritten on the door, which he read at his entrance--

 "This room has long wanted a Cook. "

"The Prince interceding lately for _Edward Coke_, his Majesty answered, 'He knew no such man. ' When the Prince interceded by the name of Mr. Coke, his Majesty still answered, 'He knew none of that name neither; but heknew there was one Captain Coke, the leader of the faction inparliament. '"

In another letter, Coke appears with greater dignity. When Lord Arundelwas sent by the king to Coke, a prisoner in the Tower, to inform him thathis Majesty would allow him to consult with eight of the best learned inthe law to advise him for his cause, Coke thanked the king, but he knewhimself to be accounted to have as much skill in the law as any man inEngland, and therefore needed no such help, nor feared to be judged by thelaw. He knew his Majesty might easily find, in such a one as he, wherebyto take away his head; but for this he feared not what could be said. 

"I have heard you affirm, " said Lord Arundel, "that by law, he that shouldgo about to withdraw the subjects' hearts from their king was a traitor. "Sir Edward answered, "That he held him an arch-traitor. "

James I. Said of Coke, "That he had so many shifts that, throw him whereyou would, he still fell upon his legs. "

This affair ended with putting Sir Edward Coke on his knees before thecouncil-table, with an order to retire to a private life, to correct hisbook of Reports, and occasionally to consult the king himself. Thispart of Coke's history is fully opened in Mr. Alexander Chalmers's"Biographical Dictionary. "]

 * * * * *

THE KING'S ELEVATED CONCEPTION OF THE KINGLY CHARACTER. 

But what were the real thoughts and feelings of this presumed despotconcerning the duties of a sovereign? His Platonic conceptions inspiredthe most exalted feelings; but his gentle nature never led to one act ofunfeeling despotism. His sceptre was wreathed with the roses of his fancy:the iron of arbitrary power only struck into the heart in the succeedingreign. James only menaced with an abstract notion; or, in anger, with hisown hand would tear out a protestation from the journals of the Commons:and, when he considered a man as past forgiveness, he condemned him to aslight imprisonment; or removed him to a distant employment; or, if anauthor, like Coke and Cowell, sent him into retirement to correct hisworks. 

In a great court of judicature, when the interference of the royalauthority was ardently solicited, the magnanimous monarch replied:--

"Kings ruled by their laws, as God did by the laws of nature; and ought asrarely to put in use their supreme authority as God does his power ofworking miracles. "

Notwithstanding his abstract principles, his knowledge and reflectionshowed him that there is a crisis in monarchies and a period in empires;and in discriminating between a king and a tyrant, he tells the prince--

"A tyranne's miserable and infamous life armeth in end his own subjects tobecome his burreaux; and although this rebellion be ever unlawful on theirpart, yet is the world so wearied of him, that his fall is little meaned(minded) by the rest of his subjects, and smiled at by his neighbours. "

And he desires that the prince, his son, should so perform his royalduties, that, "In case ye fall in the highway, yet it should be with thehonourable report and just regret of all honest men. " In the dedicatorysonnet to Prince Henry of the "Basilicon Doron, " in verses not withoutelevation, James admonishes the prince to

 Represse the proud, maintaining aye the right; Walk always so, as ever in his sight, Who guards the godly, plaguing the prophane. 

The poems of James I. Are the versifications of a man of learning andmeditation. Such an one could not fail of producing lines which reflectthe mind of their author. I find in a MS. These couplets, which condensean impressive thought on a favourite subject:--

 Crownes have their compasse, length of daies their date, Triumphs their tombes, Felicitie her fate; Of more than earth, can earth make none partaker; But knowledge makes the king most like his Maker. [A]

[Footnote A: "Harl. MSS. , " 6824. ]

These are among the elevated conceptions the king had formed of thecharacter of a sovereign, and the feeling was ever present in his mind. James has preserved an anecdote of Henry VIII. , in commenting on it, whichserves our purpose:--

"It was strange, " said James I. , "to look into the life of Henry VIII. , how like an epicure he lived! Henry once asked, whether he might be saved?He was answered, 'That he had no cause to fear, having lived so mighty aking. ' 'But, oh!' said he, 'I have lived too like a king. ' He shouldrather have said, not like a king--for the office of a king is to dojustice and equity; but he only served his sensuality, like a beast. "

Henry VII. Was the favourite character of James I. ; and it was to gratifythe king that Lord Bacon wrote the life of this wise and prudent monarch. It is remarkable of James I. , that he never mentioned the name ofElizabeth without some expressive epithet of reverence; such as, "The latequeen of famous memory;" a circumstance not common among kings, who do notlike to remind the world of the reputation of a great predecessor. But itsuited the generous temper of that man to extol the greatness he admired, whose philosophic toleration was often known to have pardoned the libel onhimself for the redeeming virtue of its epigram. In his forgiving temper, James I. Would call such effusions "the superfluities of idle brains. "

 * * * * *

"THE BOOK OF SPORTS. "

But while the mild government of this monarch has been covered with thepolitical odium of arbitrary power, he has also incurred a religious one, from his design of rendering the Sabbath a day for the poor alike ofdevotion and enjoyment, hitherto practised in England, as it is stillthroughout Europe. Plays were performed on Sundays at court, inElizabeth's reign; and yet "the Protestants of Elizabeth" was theusual expressive phrase to mark those who did most honour to the reformed. The king, returning from Scotland, found the people in Lancashirediscontented, from the unusual deprivation of their popular recreations onSundays and holidays, after the church service. "With our own ears weheard the general complaint of our people. " The Catholic priests werebusily insinuating among the lower orders that the reformed religion was asullen deprivation of all mirth and social amusements, and thus "turningthe people's hearts. " But while they were denied what the king terms"lawful recreations, "[A] they had substituted more vicious ones: alehouseswere more frequented--drunkenness more general--tale-mongery and sedition, the vices of sedentary idleness, prevailed--while a fanatical gloom wasspreading over the country. 

[Footnote A: These are enumerated to consist of dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting, May-games, Whitsun-ales, Morris-dances, and the setting up ofMay-poles, and other manly sports. ]

The king, whose gaiety of temper instantly sympathised with the multitude, and perhaps alarmed at this new shape which puritanism was assuming, published what is called "The Book of Sports, " and which soon obtained thecontemptuous term of "The Dancing Book. "

On this subject our recent principles have governed our decisions:with our habits formed, and our notions finally adjusted, this singularstate-paper has been reprobated by piety; whose zeal, however, is notsufficiently historical. It was one of the state maxims of thisphilosophic monarch, in his advice to his son, "To allure the common people to a common amitie among themselves; and thatcertain daies in the yeere should be appointed for delighting the peoplewith public spectacles of all honest games and exercise of arms; makingplayes and lawful games in Maie, and good cheare at Christmas; as also forconvening of neighbours, for entertaining friendship and heartliness, byhonest feasting and merriness; so that the sabbothes be kept holie, and nounlawful pastime be used. This form of contenting the people's minds hathbeen used in all well-governed republics. "

James, therefore, was shocked at the sudden melancholy among the people. In Europe, even among the reformed themselves, the Sabbath, afterchurch-service, was a festival-day; and the wise monarch, could discoverno reason why, in his kingdom, it should prove a day of penance andself-denial: but when once this unlucky "Book of Sports" was thrown amongthe nation, they discovered, to their own astonishment, that everythingconcerning the nature of the Sabbath was uncertain. 

 * * * * *

THE SABBATARIAN CONTROVERSY. 

And, because they knew nothing, they wrote much. The controversy wascarried to an extremity in the succeeding reign. The proper hour of theSabbath was not agreed on: Was it to commence on the Saturday-eve? Othersthought that time, having a circular motion, the point we begin at was notimportant, provided the due portion be completed. Another declared, in his"Sunday no Sabbath, " that it was merely an ecclesiastical day which may bechanged at pleasure; as they were about doing it, in the Church of Geneva, to Thursday, --probably from their antipathy to the Catholic Sunday, as theearly Christians had anciently changed it from the Jewish Saturday. Thishad taken place, had the Thursday voters not formed the minority. Anotherasserted, that Sunday was a working day, and that Saturday was theperpetual Sabbath. [A] Some deemed the very name of Sunday profaned theChristian mouth, as allusive to the Saxon idolatry of that day beingdedicated to the Sun; and hence they sanctified it with the "Lord's-day. "Others were strenuous advocates for closely copying the austerity of theJewish Sabbath, in all the rigour of the Levitical law; forbidding meat tobe dressed, houses swept, fires kindled, &c. , --the day of rest was to be aday of mortification. But this spread an alarm, that "the old rottenceremonial law of the Jews, which had been buried in the grave of Jesus, "was about to be revived. And so prone is man to the reaction of opinion, that, from observing the Sabbath with a Judaic austerity, some were forrejecting "Lord's-days" altogether; asserting, they needed not any;because, in their elevated holiness, all days to them were Lord's-days. [B]A popular preacher at the Temple, who was disposed to keep alive acheerful spirit among the people, yet desirous that the sacred day shouldnot pass like any other, moderated between the parties. He declared it wasto be observed with strictness only by "persons of quality. "[C]

[Footnote A: Collier's "Ecclesiastical History, " vol. Ii. P. 758. ]

[Footnote B: Fuller's "Church History, " book xi. P. 149. One of the mostcurious books of this class is Heylin's "History of the Sabbath, " a workabounding with uncommon researches; it was written in favour of Charles'sdeclaration for reviving lawful sports on Sundays. Warton, in the _first_edition of Milton's "Juvenile Poems, " observed in a note on the lady'sspeech, in Comus, verse 177, that "it is owing to the Puritans ever sinceCromwell's time that _Sunday_ has been made in England a day of gravityand severity: and many a staunch observer of the rites of the Church ofEngland little suspects that he is conforming to the _Calvinism_ of an_English Sunday_. " It is probable this gave unjust offence to grave headsunfurnished with their own national history, for in the _second edition_Warton cancelled the note. Truth is thus violated. The Puritans, disgustedwith the levities and excesses of the age of James and Charles, as isusual on these points, vehemently threw themselves into an oppositedirection; but they perhaps advanced too far in converting the Sabbath-dayinto a sullen and gloomy reserve of pharisaical austerity. Adam Smith, andPaley, in his "Moral and Political Philosophy, " vol. Ii. P. 73, have takenmore enlightened views on this subject. ]

[Footnote C: "Let servants, " he says, "whose hands are ever working, whilst their eyes are waking; let such who all the foregoing week hadtheir cheeks moistened with sweat, and their hands hardened with labour, let such have some recreations on the Lord's-day indulged to them; whilst_persons of quality_, who may be said to keep Sabbath all the week long--Imean, who rest from hard labour--are concerned in conscience to observethe Lord's-day with the greater abstinence from recreations. "]

One of the chief causes of the civil war is traced to the revival ofthis "Book of Sports. " Thus it happened that from the circumstance of ourgood-tempered monarch discovering the populace in Lancashire discontented, being debarred from their rustic sports--and, exhorting them, out of his_bonhomie_ and "fatherly love, which he owed to them all" (as he said), torecover their cheerful habits--he was innocently involving the country indivinity, and in civil war. James I. Would have started with horror at the"Book of Sports, " could he have presciently contemplated the archbishop, and the sovereign who persisted to revive it, dragged to the block. Whatinvisible threads suspend together the most remote events!

The parliament's armies usually chose Sundays for their battles, that theprofanation of the day might be expiated by a field-sacrifice, and thatthe Sabbath-breakers should receive a signal punishment. The opinions ofthe nature of the Sabbath were, even in the succeeding reign, so oppositeand novel, that plays were performed before Charles on Sundays. James I. , who knew nothing of such opinions, has been unjustly aspersed by those wholive in more settled times, when such matters have been more wiselyestablished than ever they were discussed. [A]

[Footnote A: It is remarkable of James I. That he never pressed for theperformance of any of his proclamations; and his facile disposition madehim more tolerant than appears in our history. At this very time, theconduct of a lord mayor of London has been preserved by Wilson, as a proofof the city magistrate's piety, and, it may be added, of his wisdom. It ishere adduced as an evidence of the king's usual conduct:--

The king's carriages, removing to Theobalds on the Sabbath, occasioned agreat clatter and noise in the time of divine service. The lord-mayorcommanded them to be stopped, and the officers of the carriages, returningto the king, made violent complaints. The king, in a rage, swore hethought there had been no more kings in England than himself; and sent awarrant to the lord-mayor to let them pass, which he obeyed, observing--"While it was in my power, I did my duty; but that being taken away by ahigher power, it is my duty to obey. " The good sense of the lord-mayor sohighly gratified James, that the king complimented him, and thanked himfor it. Of such gentleness was the arbitrary power of James composed!]

 * * * * *

MOTIVES OF THE KING'S AVERSION TO WAR. 

The king's aversion to war has been attributed to his pusillanimity--as ifpersonal was the same thing as political courage, and as if a king placedhimself in a field of battle by a proclamation for war. The idle tale thatJames trembled at the mere view of a naked sword, which is produced as aninstance of the effects of sympathy over the infant in the womb from hismother's terror at the assassination of Rizzio, is probably not true, yetit serves the purpose of inconsiderate writers to indicate his excessivepusillanimity; but there is another idle tale of an opposite nature whichis certainly true:--In passing from Berwick into his new kingdom, theking, with his own hand, "shot out of a cannon so fayre and with so greatjudgment" as convinced the cannoniers of the king's skill "in greatartillery, " as Stowe records. It is probable, after all, that James I. Was not deficient in personal courage, although this is not of consequencein his literary and political character. Several instances are recordedof his intrepidity. But the absurd charge of his pusillanimity andhis pedantry has been carried so far, as to suppose that it affectedhis character as a sovereign. The warm and hasty Burnet says at once ofJames I. :--"He was despised by all abroad as a pedant without truejudgment, courage, or steadiness. " This "pedant, " however, had "the truejudgment and steadiness" to obtain his favourite purpose, which was thepreservation of a continued peace. If James I. Was sometimes despised byforeign powers, it was because an insular king, who will not consume theblood and treasure of his people (and James had neither to spare), may belittle regarded on the Continent; the Machiavels of foreign cabinets willlook with contempt on the domestic blessings a British sovereign wouldscatter among his subjects; his presence with the foreigners is only feltin his armies; and they seek to allure him to fight their battles, and toinvolve him in their interests. 

James looked with a cold eye on the military adventurer: he said, "No mangains by war but he that hath not wherewith to live in peace. " But therewas also a secret motive, which made the king a lover of peace, and whichhe once thus confidentially opened:--

"A king of England had no reason but to seek always to decline a war; forthough the sword was indeed in his hand, the purse was in the people's. One could not go without the other. Suppose a supply were levied to beginthe fray, what certainty could he have that he should not want sufficientto make an honourable end? If he called for subsidies, and did not obtain, he must retreat ingloriously. He must beg an alms, with such conditions aswould break the heart of majesty, through capitulations that _some memberswould make, who desire to improve the reputation of their wisdom, byretrenching the dignity of the crown in popular declamations_, and thus hemust buy the soldier's pay, or fear the danger of a mutiny. "[A]

[Footnote A: Hacket's "Life of Lord-Keeper Williams, " p. 80. The whole isdistinguished by italics, as the king's own words. ]

 * * * * *

JAMES ACKNOWLEDGES HIS DEPENDENCE ON THE COMMONS. THEIR CONDUCT. 

Thus James I. , perpetually accused of exercising arbitrary power, confesses a humiliating dependence on the Commons; and, on the whole, at atime when prerogative and privilege were alike indefinite and obscure, theking received from them hard and rigorous usage. A king of peace claimedthe indulgence, if not the gratitude, of the people; and the sovereign whowas zealous to correct the abuses of his government, was not distinguishedby the Commons from him who insolently would perpetuate them. 

When the Commons were not in good humour with Elizabeth, or James, theycontrived three methods of inactivity, running the time to waste--_nihilagendo_, or _aliud agendo_, or _malè agendo_; doing nothing, doingsomething else, or doing evilly. [A] In one of these irksome moments, waiting for subsidies, Elizabeth anxiously inquired of the Speaker, "Whathad passed in the Lower House?" He replied, "If it please your Majesty--seven weeks. " On one of those occasions, when the queen broke into apassion when they urged her to a settlement of the succession, oneof the deputies of the Commons informed her Majesty, that "the Commonswould never _speak_ about a subsidy, or any other matter whatever; andthat hitherto nothing but the most trivial discussions had passed inparliament: which was, therefore, a great assembly rendered entirelyuseless, --and all were desirous of returning home. "[B]

[Footnote A: I find this description in a MS. Letter of the times. ]

[Footnote B: From a MS. Letter of the French ambassador, La Mothe Fenelon, to Charles IX. , then at the court of London, in my possession. ]

But the more easy and open nature of James I. Endured greater hardships:with the habit of studious men, the king had an utter carelessness ofmoney and a generosity of temper, which Hacket, in his Life of theLord-Keeper Williams, has described. "The king was wont to give like aking, and for the most part to keep one act of liberality warm withthe covering of another. " He seemed to have had no distinct notions oftotal amounts; he was once so shocked at the sight of the money he hadgranted away, lying in heaps on a table, that he instantly reduced it tohalf the sum. It appears that Parliament never granted even the ordinarysupplies they had given to his predecessors; his chief revenue was drawnfrom the customs; yet his debts, of which I find an account in theParliamentary History, after a reign of twenty-one years, did not amountto 200, 000_l. _[A] This monarch could not have been so wasteful of hisrevenues as it is presumed. James I. Was always generous, and leftscarcely any debts. He must have lived amidst many self-deprivations; norwas this difficult to practise for this king, for he was a philosopher, indifferent to the common and imaginary wants of the vulgar of royalty. Whenever he threw himself into the arms of his Parliament, they left himwithout a feeling of his distress. In one of his speeches he says--

"In the last Parliament I laid open the true thoughts of my heart; but Imay say, with our Saviour, 'I have piped to you, and you have not danced;I have mourned, and you have not lamented. ' I have reigned eighteen years, in which time you have had peace, and I have received far less supply thanhath been given to any king since the Conquest. "

[Footnote A: "Parliamentary History, " vol. V. P. 147. ]

Thus James, denied the relief he claimed, was forced on wretchedexpedients, selling patents for monopolies, craving benevolences, or freegifts, and such expedients; the monopolies had been usual in Elizabeth'sreign; yet all our historians agree, that his subjects were nevergrievously oppressed by such occasional levies; this was even theconfession of the contemporaries of this monarch. They were every daybecoming wealthier by those acts of peace they despised the monarch formaintaining. "The kingdom, since his reign began, was luxuriant in goldand silver, far above the scant of our fathers who lived before us, " arethe words of a contemporary. [A] All flourished about the king, except theking himself. James I. Discovered how light and hollow was his boasted"prerogative-royal, " which, by its power of dissolving the Parliament, could only keep silent those who had already refused their aid. 

[Footnote A: Hacket's "Life of Lord-Keeper Williams. "]

A wit of the day described the Parliaments of James by this ludicrousdistich:

 Many faults complained of, few things amended, A subsidy granted, the Parliament ended. 

But this was rarely the fact. Sometimes they addressed James I. By whatthe king called a "stinging petition;" or, when the minister, passing overin silence the motion of the Commons, pressed for supplies, the heads of aparty replied, that to grant them were to put an end to Parliament. Butthey practised expedients and contrivances, which comported as little withthe dignity of an English senate, as with the majesty of the sovereign. 

At a late hour, when not a third part of the house remained, and those whorequired a fuller house, amid darkness and confusion, were neither seennor heard, they made a protest, --of which the king approved as little ofthe ambiguous matter, as the surreptitious means; and it was then, that, with his own hand, he tore the leaf out of the journal. [A] In the sessionsof 1614 the king was still more indignant at their proceedings. He and theScotch had been vilified by their invectives; and they were menaced by twolawyers, with a "Sicilian vespers, or a Parisian matins. " They aimed toreduce the king to beggary, by calling in question a third part of hisrevenue, contesting his prerogative in levying his customs. On thisoccasion I find that, publicly in the Banqueting-house at Whitehall, theking tore all their bills before their faces; and, as not a single act waspassed, in the phrase of the day this was called an _addle_ Parliament. [B]Such unhappy proceedings indicated the fatal divisions of the succeedingreign. A meeting of a different complexion, once occurred in 1621, late inJames's reign. The monopolies were then abolished. The king and the princeshed reciprocal tears in the house; and the prince wept when he brought anaffectionate message of thanks from the Commons. The letter-writer says, "It is a day worthy to be kept holiday; some say it shall, but I believethem not. " It never was; for even this parliament broke up with the criesof "some tribunitial orators, " as James designated the pure and the impuredemocratic spirits. Smollett remarks in his margin, that the kingendeavoured to _cajole_ the Commons. Had he known of the royal tears, hehad still heightened the phrase. Hard fate of kings! Should ever theirtears attest the warmth of honest feelings, they must be thrown out of thepale of humanity: for Francis Osborne, that cynical republican, declares, that "there are as few abominable princes as tolerable kings; becauseprinces must court the public favour before they attain supreme power, andthen change their nature!" Such is the egotism of republicanism!

[Footnote A: "Rushworth, " vol. I. P. 54. ]

[Footnote B: From a MS. Of the times. ]

 * * * * *

SCANDALOUS CHRONICLES. 

The character of James I. Has always been taken from certain scandalouschronicles, whose origin requires detection. It is this mud which hasdarkened and disturbed the clear stream of history. The reigns ofElizabeth and James teemed with libels in church and state from oppositeparties: the idleness of the pacific court of James I. Hatched a viperousbrood of a less hardy, but perhaps of a more malignant nature, than theMartin Mar-prelates of the preceding reign. Those boldly at once wrotetreason, and, in some respects, honestly dared the rope which could onlysilence Penry and his party; but these only reached to _scandalummagnatum_, and the puny wretches could only have crept into a pillory. Inthe times of the Commonwealth, when all things were agreeable whichvilified our kings, these secret histories were dragged from their lurkingholes. The writers are meagre Suetoniuses and Procopiuses; a set ofself-elected spies in the court; gossipers, lounging in the same circle;eaves-droppers; pryers into corners; buzzers of reports; and punctualscribes of what the French (so skilful in the profession) technically term_les on dit_; that is, things that might never have happened, althoughthey are recorded: registered for posterity in many a scandalouschronicle, they have been mistaken for histories; and include so manytruths and falsehoods, that it becomes unsafe for the historian either tocredit or to disbelieve them. [A]

[Footnote A: Most of these works were meanly printed, and were usuallyfound in a state of filth and rags, and would have perished in their ownmerited neglect, had they not been recently splendidly reprinted by SirWalter Scott. Thus the garbage has been cleanly laid on a fashionableepergne, and found quite to the taste of certain lovers of authentichistory! Sir Anthony Weldon, clerk of the king's kitchen, in his "Court ofKing James" has been reproached for gaining much of his scandalouschronicle from the purlieus of the court. For this work and some similarones, especially "The None-Such Charles, " in which it would appear that hehad procured materials from the State Paper Office, and for other zealousservices to the Parliament, they voted him a grant of 500_l_. "The FiveYears of King James, " which passes under the name of Sir Fulk Greville, the dignified friend of the romantic Sir Philip Sidney, and is frequentlyreferred to by grave writers, is certainly a Presbyterian's third day'shash--for there are parts copied from Arthur Wilson's "History of JamesI. , " who was himself the pensioner of a disappointed courtier; yet thiswriter never attacks the personal character of the king, though chargedwith having scraped up many tales maliciously false. Osborne is amisanthropical politician, who cuts with the most corroding pen that everrottened a man's name. James was very negligent in dress; gracefulappearances did not come into his studies. Weldon tells us how the kingwas trussed on horseback, and fixed there like a pedlar's pack or a lumpof inanimate matter; the truth is, the king had always an infirmity in hislegs. Further, we are told that this ridiculous monarch allowed his hat toremain just as it chanced to be placed on his head. Osborne once saw thisunlucky king "in a green hunting-dress, with a feather in his cap, and ahorn, instead of a sword, by his side; how suitable to his age, calling, or person, I leave others to judge from his pictures:" and this hebitterly calls "leaving him dressed for posterity!" This is the stylewhich passes for history with some readers. Hume observes that "hunting, "which was James's sole recreation, necessary for his health, as asedentary scholar, "is the cheapest a king can indulge;" and, indeed, theempty coffers of this monarch afforded no other. 

These pseudo-histories are alluded to by Arthur Wilson as "monstroussatires against the king's own person, that haunted both court andcountry, " when, in the wantonness of the times, "every little miscarriage, exuberantly branched, so that evil report did often perch on them. " Fullerhas designated these suspicious scribes as "a generation of the peoplewho, like _moths_, have lurked under the carpets of the council-table, andeven like _fleas_, have leaped into pillows of the prince's bed-chamber;and, to enhance the reputation of their knowledge, thence derived that ofall things which were, or were not, ever done or thought of. "--_ChurchHistory, _ book x. P. 87. ]

Such was the race generated in this court of peace and indolence! AndHacket, in his "Life of the Lord-Keeper Williams, " without disguising thefact, tells us that the Lord-Keeper "spared not for cost to purchase themost certain intelligence, by his fee'd pensioners, of _every hour'soccurrences at court_; and was wont to say that no man could be astatesman without a great deal of money. "

We catch many glimpses of these times in another branch of the samefamily. When news-books, as the first newspapers were called, did not yetexist to appease the hungering curiosity of the country, a voluminouscorrespondence was carried on between residents in the metropolis andtheir country friends: these letters chiefly remain in their MS. State. [A]Great men then employed a scribe who had a talent this way, and sometimesa confidential friend, to convey to them the secret history of the times;and, on the whole, they are composed by a better sort of writers; for, asthey had no other design than to inform their friends of the true stateof passing events, they were eager to correct, by subsequent accounts thelies of the day they sometimes sent down. They have preserved somefugitive events useful in historical researches, but their pens aregarrulous; and it requires some experience to discover the character ofthe writers, to be enabled to adopt their opinions and their statements. Little things were, however, great matters to these diurnalists; much timewas spent in learning of those at court, who had quarrelled, or were onthe point; who were seen to have bit their lips, and looked downcast; whowas budding, and whose full-blown flower was drooping: then we have thesudden reconcilement and the anticipated fallings out, with a deal of the_pourquoi_ of the _pourquoi_. [B]

[Footnote A: Mr. Lodge's "Illustrations of British History" is an eminentand elegant work of the _minutiæ historicæ_; as are the more recentvolumes of Sir Henry Ellis's valuable collections. ]

[Footnote B: Some specimens of this sort of correspondence of the idlenessof the times may amuse. The learned Mede, to his friend Sir MartinStuteville, chronicles a fracas:--"I am told of a great falling outbetween my Lord Treasurer and my Lord Digby, insomuch that they came to_pedlar's blood_, and _traitor's blood_. It was about some money which myLord Digby should have had, which my Lord Treasurer thought too much forthe charge of his employment, and said himself could go in as good afashion for half the sum. But my Lord Digby replies that he could not_peddle_ so well as his lordship. "

A lively genius sports with a fanciful pen in conveying the same kind ofintelligence, and so nice in the shades of curiosity, that he can describea quarrel before it takes place. 

"You know the _primum mobile_ of our court (Buckingham), by whose motionall the other spheres must move, or else stand still: the bright sun ofour firmament, at whose splendour or glooming all our marygolds of thecourt open or shut. There are in higher spheres as great as he, but noneso glorious. But the king is in progress, and we are far from court. Nowto hear certainties. It is told me that my Lord of Pembroke and my Lord ofRochester are so far out, as it is almost come to a quarrel; I know nothow true this is, but Sir Thomas Overbury and my Lord of Pembroke havebeen long jarring, and therefore the other is likely. "

Among the numerous MS. Letters of this kind, I have often observed thewriter uneasy at the scandal he has seasoned his letter with, andconcluding earnestly that his letter, after perusal, should be thrown tothe flames. A wish which appears to have been rarely complied with; andthis may serve as a hint to some to restrain their tattling pens, if theyregard their own peace; for, on most occasions of this nature, the lettersare rather preserved with peculiar care. ]

Such was this race of gossipers in the environs of a court, where, steepedin a supine lethargy of peace, corrupting or corrupted, every man stoodfor himself through a reckless scene of expedients and of compromises. 

 * * * * *

A PICTURE OF THE AGE FROM A MS. OF THE TIME. 

A long reign of peace, which had produced wealth in that age, engenderedthe extremes of luxury and want. Money traders practised the art ofdecoying the gallant youths of the day into their nets, and transforming, in a certain time, the estates of the country gentlemen into skins ofparchment, The wax continuing hard, the acres melting. 

 MASSINGER. 

Projectors and monopolists who had obtained patents for licensing all theinns and alehouses--for being the sole vendors of manufactured articles, such as gold lace, tobacco-pipes, starch, soap, &c. , were grinding andcheating the people to an extent which was not at first understood, although the practice had existed in the former reign. The gentry, whosefamily pride would vie with these _nouveaux riches_, exhausted themselvesin rival profusion; all crowded to "upstart London, " deserting theircountry mansions, which were now left to the care of "a poor alms-woman, or a bed-rid beadsman. "

In that day, this abandonment of the ancient country hospitality for themetropolis, and this breaking-up of old family establishments, crowdedLondon with new and distinct races of idlers, or, as they would now becalled, unproductive members of society. From a contemporary manuscript, one of those spirited remonstrances addressed to the king, which it wasprobably thought not prudent to publish, I shall draw some extracts, as aforcible picture of the manners of the age. [A] Masters of ancientfamilies, to maintain a mere exterior of magnificence in dress andequipage in the metropolis, were really at the same time hiding themselvesin penury: they thrust themselves into lodgings, and "five or six knights, or justices of peace, " with all their retinue, became the inmates of ashopkeeper; yet these gentlemen had once "kept the rusty chimneys of twoor three houses smoking, and had been the feeders of twenty or fortyserving-men: a single page, with a guarded coat, served their turn now. "

[Footnote A: The MS. Is entitled "Balaam's Ass, or a True Discoverietouching the Murmurs and Feared Discontents of the Times, directed to KingJames. "--Lansdowne Collection, 209. The writer, throughout, speaks of theking with the highest respect. ]

"Every one strives to be a Diogenes in his house and an emperor in thestreets; not caring if they sleep in a tub, so they may be hurried in acoach; giving that allowance to horses and mares that formerly maintainedhouses full of men; pinching many a belly to paint a few backs, andburying all the treasures of the kingdom into a few citizens' coffers. 

"There are now, " the writer adds, "twenty thousand masterless men turnedoff, who know not this night where to lodge, where to eat to-morrow, andready to undertake any desperate course. "

Yet there was still a more turbulent and dangerous race of idlers, in

"A number of younger brothers, of ancient houses, who, nursed up infulness, pampered in their minority, and left in charge to their elderbrothers, who were to be fathers to them, followed them in despair toLondon, where these untimely-born youths are left so bare, that theirwhole life's allowance was consumed in one year. "

The same manuscript exhibits a full and spirited picture of manners inthis long period of peace. 

"The gentry are like owls, all feathers and no flesh; all show, and nosubstance; all fashion, and no feeding; and fit for no service but masksand May-games. The citizens have dealt with them as it is said theIndians are dealt with; they have given them counterfeit brooches andbugle-bracelets for gold and silver;[A] pins and peacock feathers forlands and tenements; gilded coaches and outlandish hobby-horses for goodlycastles and ancient mansions; their woods are turned into wardrobes, theirleases into laces; and their goods and chattels into guarded coats andgaudy toys. Should your Majesty fly to them for relief, you would farelike those birds that peek at painted fruits; all outside. " The writerthen describes the affected penurious habits of the grave citizens, whowere then preying on the country gentlemen:--"When those big swolnleeches, that have thus sucked them, wear rags, eat roots, speak likejugglers that have reeds in their mouths; look like spittle-men, especially when your Majesty hath occasion to use them; their fat lies intheir hearts, their substance is buried in their bowels, and he that willhave it must first take their lives. Their study is to get, and theirchiefest care to conceal; and most from yourself, gracious sir; not acommodity comes from their hand, but you pay a noble in the pound for_booking_, which they call _forbearing_[B] They think it lost time if theydouble not their principal in two years. They have attractive powders todraw these flies into their claws; they will entice men with honey intotheir hives, and with wax entangle them;[C] they pack the cards, and theirconfederates, the lords, deal, by which means no other men have ever goodgame. They have in a few years laid up riches for many, and yet can neverbe content to say--_Soul, take thy rest, or hand receive no more; do nomore wrong:_ but still they labour to join house to house, and land toland. What want they of being kings, but the name? Look into the shiresand counties, where, with their purchased lordships and manors, one oftheir private letters has equal power with your Majesty's privy seal. [D]It is better to be one of their hinds, than your Majesty's gentlemanusher; one of their grooms, than your guards. What care they, if it becalled tribute or no, so long as it comes in termly: or whether theirchamber be called Exchequer, or the dens of cheaters, so that the money beleft there. "

[Footnote A: Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir James Mitchell had the monopoliesof gold lace, which they sold in a counterfeit state; and not only cheatedthe people, but, by a mixture of copper, the ornaments made of it are saidto have rotted the flesh. As soon as the grievance was shown to James, heexpressed his abhorrence of the practice, and even declared that no personconnected with the villanous fraud should escape punishment. The brotherof his favourite, Buckingham, was known to be one, and with Sir GilesOverreach (as Massinger conceals the name of Mompesson), was compelled tofly the country. The style of James, in his speech, is indeed differentfrom kings' speeches in parliament: he speaks as indignantly as anyindividual who was personally aggrieved: "Three patents at this time havebeen complained of, and thought great grievances; my purpose is to strikethem all dead, and, that time may not be lost, I will have it donepresently. Had these things been complained of to me, before theparliament, I could have done the office of a just king, and have punishedthem; peradventure more than now ye intend to do. No private personwhatsoever, were he ever so dear unto me, shall be respected by me by manydegrees as the public good; and I hope, my lords, that ye will do me thatright to publish to my people this my heart purposes. Proceed judicially;spare none, where ye find just cause to punish: but remember that lawshave not their eyes in their necks, but in their foreheads. "--Rushworth, vol. I. P. 26. ]

[Footnote B: The credit which these knavish traders gave their customers, who could not conveniently pay their money down, was carried to anexorbitant charge; since, even in Elizabeth's reign, it was one of thepopular grievances brought into Parliament--it is there called, "A billagainst _Double Payments_ of Book Debts. " One of the country members, whomade a speech consisting entirely of proverbs, said, "Pay the reckoningovernight, and you shall not be troubled in the morning. "]

[Footnote C: In the life of a famous usurer of that day, who died worth400, 000_l_. , an amazing sum at that period, we find numberless expedientsand contrivances of the money trader, practised on improvident landholdersand careless heirs, to entangle them in his nets. He generally contrivedto make the wood pay for the land, which he called "making the featherspay for the goose. " He never pressed hard for his loans, but fondlycompared his bonds "to infants, which battle best by sleeping;" to battle, is to be nourished--a term still retained in the battle-book of theuniversity. I have elsewhere preserved the character and habits of themoney-dealer in the age of James I. --See "Curiosities of Literature, " 11thEdit. P. 228. ]

[Footnote D: It is observed, in the same life, that his mortgages, andstatutes, and his judgments were so numerous, that his papers would havemade a good map of England. A view of the chamber of this usurer ispreserved by Massinger, who can only be understood by the modern reader inMr. Gifford's edition:--

 Here lay A manor, bound fast in a skin of parchment; Here a sure deed of gift for a market-town, If not redeem'd this day, which is not in The unthrift's purse; there being scarce one shire In Wales or England, where my monies are not Lent out at usury, the certain hook To draw in more. 

 MASSINGER'S _City Madam_. ]

This crushing usury seemed to them a real calamity; for although in thepresent extraordinary age of calculations and artificial wealth, we cansuffer "a dunghill-breed of men, " like Mompesson and his contemptiblepartner of this reign, to accumulate in a rapid period more than a ducalfortune, without any apparent injury to the public welfare, the result wasdifferent then; the legitimate and enlarged principles of commerce werenot practised by our citizens in the first era of their prosperity; theirabsorbing avarice rapidly took in all the exhausting prodigality of thegentry, who were pushed back on the people to prey in their turn on them;those who found their own acres disappearing, became enclosers of commons;this is one of the grievances which Massinger notices, while the writer ofthe "Five Years of King James" tells us that these discontents between thegentry and the commonalty grew out into a petty rebellion; and it appearsby Peyton that "divers of the people were hanged up. "

 * * * * *

ANECDOTES OF THE MANNERS OF THE AGE. 

The minute picture of the domestic manners of this age exhibits theresults of those extremes of prodigality and avarice which struckobservers in that contracted circle which then constituted society. Theking's prodigal dispensations of honours and titles seem at first to havebeen political; for James was a foreigner, and designed to create anobility, as likewise an inferior order, who might feel a personalattachment for the new monarch; but the facility by which titles wereacquired, was one cause which occasioned so many to crowd to themetropolis to enjoy their airy honour by a substantial ruin; knighthoodhad become so common, that some of the most infamous and criminalcharacters of this age we find in that rank. [A] The young females, drivento necessity by the fashionable ostentation of their parents, were broughtto the metropolis as to a market; "where, " says a contemporary, "theyobtained pensions, or sometimes marriages, by their beauty. " WhenGondomar, the Spanish ambassador, passed to his house, the ladies were attheir balconies on the watch, to make themselves known to him; and itappears that every one of those ladies had sold their favours at a dearrate. Among these are some, "who pretending to be _wits_, as they calledthem, " says Arthur Wilson, [B] "or had handsome nieces or daughters, drew agreat resort to their houses. " And it appears that Gondomar, to preventthese conversaziones from too freely touching on Spanish politics, sweetened their silence by his presents. [C] The same grossness of mannerswas among the higher females of the age; when we see that grave statesman, Sir Dudley Carleton, narrating the adventures of a bridal night, and all"the petty sorceries, " the romping of the "great ladies, who were madeshorter by the skirts, " we discover their coarse tastes; but when we findthe king going to the bed of the bride in his nightgown, to give areveille-matin, and remaining a good time in or upon the bed, "Choosewhich you will believe;" this bride was not more decent than the ladieswho publicly, on their balconies, were soliciting the personal notice ofGondomar. 

[Footnote A: A statesman may read with advantage Sir Edward Walker on "Theinconveniences that have attended the frequent promotions to Titles, sinceKing James came to the crown. " Sir Edward appears not to disapprove ofthese promotions during the first ten years of his reign, but "whenalliance to a favourite, riches though gotten in a shop, persons ofprivate estates, and of families whose fathers would have thoughtthemselves highly honoured to have been but knights in Queen Elizabeth'stime, were advanced, then the fruits began to appear. The greaternobility were undervalued; the ancient baronage saw inferior familiestake precedency over them; nobility lost its respect, and a parity inconversation was introduced which in English dispositions begot contempt;the king could not employ them all; some grew envious, some factious, someingrateful, however obliged, by being once denied. "--P. 302. ]

[Footnote B: One may conjecture, by this expression, that the term of"wits" was then introduced, in the sense we now use it. ]

[Footnote C: Wilson has preserved a characteristic trait of one of thelady wits. When Gondomar one day, in Drury-lane, was passing Lady Jacob'shouse, she, exposing herself for a salutation from him, he bowed, but inreturn she only opened her mouth, gaping on him. This was again repeatedthe following day, when he sent a gentleman to complain of her incivility. She replied, that he had purchased some favours of the ladies at a dearrate, and she had a mouth to be stopped as well as others. ]

This coarseness of manners, which still prevailed in the nation, as it hadin the court of Henry VIII. And Elizabeth, could not but influence thefamiliar style of their humour and conversation. James I. , in the Edict onDuels, employs the expression of _our dearest bedfellow_ to designate thequeen; and there was no indelicacy attached to this singular expression. Much of that silly and obscene correspondence of James with Buckingham, while it adds one more mortifying instance of "the follies of the wise, "must be attributed to this cause. [A] Are not most of the dramatic works ofthat day frequently unreadable from this circumstance? As an historian, itwould be my duty to show how incredibly gross were the domestic languageand the domestic familiarities of kings, queens, lords, and ladies, whichwere much like the lowest of our populace. We may felicitate ourselves onhaving escaped the grossness, without, however, extending too far theseself-congratulations. 

[Footnote A: Our wonder and surmises have been often raised at the strangesubscriptions of Buckingham to the king, --"Your dog, " and James asingenuously calling him "dog Steenie. " But this was not peculiar toBuckingham; James also called the grave Cecil his "little beagle. " TheEarl of Worcester, writing to Cecil, who had succeeded in his search afterone Bywater, the earl says, "If the _king's beagle_ can hunt by land aswell as he hath done _by water_, we will leave capping of _Jowler_, andcap the _beagle_. " The queen, writing to Buckingham to intercede with theking for Rawleigh's life, addresses Buckingham by "My kind Dog. " Jamesappears to have been always playing on some whimsical appellative by whichhe characterised his ministers and favourites, analogous to the notions ofa huntsman. Many of our writers, among them Sir Walter Scott, havestrangely misconceived these playful appellatives, unconscious of theorigin of this familiar humour. The age was used to the coarseness. We didnot then excel all Europe, as Addison set the model, in the delicacy ofhumour; indeed, even so late as Congreve's time, they were discussing itsessential distinction from wit. ]

The men were dissolved in all the indolence of life and its wantonness;they prided themselves in traducing their own innocence rather thansuffer a lady's name to pass unblemished. [B] The marriage-tie lostits sacredness amid these disorders of social life. The luxuriousidlers of that day were polluted with infamous vices; and Drayton, in the"Moon-calf, " has elaborately drawn full-length pictures of the lady andthe gentleman of that day, which seem scarcely to have required thedarkening tints of satire to be hideous--in one line the Muse describes"the most prodigious birth"--

 He's too much woman and She's too much man. 

[Footnote B. The expression of one of these gallants, as preserved byWilson, cannot be decently given, but is more expressive, p. 147. ]

The trades of foppery, in Spanish fashions, suddenly sprung up in thisreign, and exhibited new names and new things. Now silk and gold-laceshops first adorned Cheapside, which the continuator of Stowe calls "thebeauty of London;" the extraordinary rise in price of these fashionablearticles forms a curious contrast with those of the preceding reign. Scarfs, in Elizabeth's time, of thirty shillings value, were now wroughtup to as many pounds; and embroidered waistcoats, which in the queen'sreign no workman knew how to make worth five pounds, were now so rich andcurious as to be cheapened at forty. Stowe has recorded a revolution inshoe-buckles, portentously closing in shoe-roses, which were puffed knotsof silk, or of precious embroidery, worn even by men of mean rank, at the cost of more than five pounds, who formerly had worn gilt coppershoe-buckles. 

In the new and ruinous excess of the use of tobacco, many consumed threeor four hundred pounds a year. James, who perceived the inconveniences ofthis sudden luxury in the nation, tried to discountenance it, although thepurpose went to diminish his own scanty revenue. Nor was this attack onthe abuse of tobacco peculiar to his majesty, although he has been soridiculed for it; a contemporary publication has well described the maniaand its consequences: "The smoak of fashion hath quite blown away thesmoak of hospitalitie, and turned the chimneys of their forefathers intothe noses of their children. "[A] The king also reprobated the finicalembarrassments of the new fashions, and seldom wore new clothes. When theybrought him a Spanish hat, he flung it away with scorn, swearing he neverloved them nor their fashions; and when they put roses on his shoes, heswore too, "that they should not make him a ruffe-footed dove; a yard ofpenny ribbon would serve that turn. "

[Footnote A: The "Peace-Maker, " 1618. ]

The sudden wealth which seems to have rushed into the nation in thisreign of peace, appeared in massy plate and jewels, and in "prodigalmarriage-portions, which were grown in fashion among the nobility andgentry, as if the skies had rained plenty. " Such are the words of Hacket, in his "Memorial of the Lord-Keeper Williams. " Enormous wealth was oftenaccumulated. An usurer died worth 400, 000_l_. ; Sir Thomas Compton, acitizen, left, it is said, 800, 000_l_. , and his heir was so overcome withthis sudden irruption of wealth, that he lost his senses; and Cranfield, acitizen, became the Earl of Middlesex. 

The continued peace, which produced this rage for dress, equipage, andmagnificence, appeared in all forms of riot and excess; corruption bredcorruption. The industry of the nation was not the commerce of the many, but the arts of money-traders, confined to the suckers of the state; andthe unemployed and dissipated, who were every day increasing thepopulation in the capital, were a daring petulant race, described by acontemporary as "persons of great expense, who, having run themselves intodebt, were constrained to run into faction; and defend themselves from thedanger of the law. "[A] These appear to have enlisted under some show ofprivilege among the nobility; and the metropolis was often shaken byparties, calling themselves Roaring-boys, Bravadoes, Roysters, andBonaventures. [B] Such were some of the turbulent children of peace, whosefiery spirits, could they have found their proper vent, had been soldiersof fortune, as they were younger brothers, distressed often by their ownrelatives; and wards ruined by their own guardians;[C] all these wereclamorous for bold piracies on the Spaniards: a visionary island, and asecret mine, would often disturb the dreams of these unemployed youths, with whom it was no uncommon practice to take a purse on the road. Suchfelt that--

 --in this plenty And fat of peace, our young men ne'er were train'd To martial discipline, and our ships unrigg'd Rot in the harbour. 

 MASSINGER. 

[Footnote A: "Five Years of King James. " Harl. Misc. ]

[Footnote B: A. Wilson's "Hist. Of James I. " p. 28. ]

[Footnote C: That ancient oppressive institution of the Court of Wardsthen existed; and Massinger, the great painter of our domestic manners inthis reign, has made it the subject of one of his interesting dramas. ]

The idleness which rusts quiet minds effervesces in fiery spirits pent uptogether; and the loiterers in the environs of a court, surfeiting withpeace, were quick at quarrel. It is remarkable, that in the pacific reignof James I. Never was so much blood shed in brawls, nor duels sotremendously barbarous. Hume observed this circumstance, and attributes itto "the turn that the romantic chivalry, for which the nation was formerlyso renowned, had lately taken. " An inference probably drawn from theextraordinary duel between Sir Edward Sackville, afterwards Lord Dorset, and the Lord Bruce. [A] These two gallant youths had lived as brothers, yetcould resolve not to part without destroying each other; the narrative sowonderfully composed by Sackville, still makes us shudder at each blowreceived and given. Books were published to instruct them by a system ofquarrelling, "to teach young gentlemen when they are beforehand and whenbehindhand;" thus they incensed and incited those youths of hope andpromise, whom Lord Bacon, in his charge on duelling, calls, in thelanguage of the poet, _Auroræ filii, _ the sons of the morning, --who oftenwere drowned in their own blood! But, on a nearer inspection, when wediscover the personal malignity of these hasty quarrels, the coarseness oftheir manners, and the choice of weapons and places in their mode ofbutchering each other, we must confess that they rarely partake of thespirit of chivalry. One gentleman biting the ear of a Templar, orswitching a poltroon lord; another sending a challenge to fight in asaw-pit; or to strip to their shirts, to mangle each other, weresanguinary duels, which could only have fermented in the disorders of thetimes, amid that wanton pampered indolence which made them so petulant andpugnacious. Against this evil his Majesty published a voluminous edict, which exhibits many proofs that it was the labour of his own hand, for thesame dignity, the same eloquence, the same felicity of illustration, embellish the state-papers;[B] and to remedy it, James, who rarelyconsented to shed blood, condemned an irascible lord to suffer theignominy of the gallows. 

[Footnote A: It may be found in the popular pages of the "Guardian;" therefirst printed from a MS. In the library of the Harleys. ]

[Footnote B: "A publication of his Majestie's edict and seuere censureagainst private combats and combatants, &c. " 1613. It is a volume of about150 pages. As a specimen of the royal style, I transcribe two passages:--

"The pride of humours, the libertie of times, the conniuencie ofmagistrates, together with a kind of prescription of impunity, hath bredouer all this kingdome, not only an opinion among the weakest, but aconstant beleefe among many that desire to be reputed among the wisest, ofa certain freedome left to all men vpon earth by nature, as their_birth-right_ to defend their reputations with their swords, and to takereuenge of any wrong either offered or apprehended, in that measure whichtheir owne inward passion or affection doth suggest, without any furtherproofe; so as the challenge be sent in a civil manner, though withoutleave demanded of the _sovereign_, " &c. 

The king employs a bold and poetical metaphor to describe duelling--toturn this hawk into a singing-bird, clip its wings, and cage it. "Bycomparing forraine mischiefes with home-bred accidents, it will not behard to judge into what region this bolde bird of audacious presumption, in dealing blowes so confidently, will mount, if it bee once let flie, from the breast wherein it lurkes. And therefore it behoveth justice bothto keep her still in her own close cage, with care that she learn neuerany other dittie then _Est bene_; but withall, that for preuention of theworst that may fall out, wee clippe her wings, that they grow not toofast. For according to that of the proverb, _It is labour lost to lay netsbefore the eyes of winged fowles, "_ &c. P. 13. ]

But, while extortion and monopoly prevailed among the monied men, and ahollow magnificence among the gentry, bribery had tainted even the lords. All were hurrying on in a stream of venality, dissipation, and want;and the nation, amid the prosperity of the kingdom in a long reign ofpeace, was nourishing in its breast the secret seeds of discontent andturbulence. 

From the days of Elizabeth to those of the Charleses, Cabinet transmittedto Cabinet the caution to preserve the kingdom from the evils of anovergrown metropolis. A political hypochondriacism: they imaginedthe head was becoming too large for the body, drawing to itself all themoisture of life from the middle and the extremities. A statute againstthe erection of new buildings was passed by Elizabeth; and from James tohis successors proclamations were continually issued to forbid any growthof the city. This singular prohibition may have originated in theirdread of infection from the plague, but it certainly became the policyof a weak and timid government, who dreaded, in the enlargement ofthe metropolis, the consequent concourse of those they designated as"masterless men, "--sedition was as contagious as the plague among themany. But proclamations were not listened to nor read; houses werecontinually built, for they were in demand, --and the esquires, with theirwives and daughters, hastened to gay or busy London, for a knighthood, amarriage, or a monopoly. The government at length were driven to thedesperate "Order in Council" to pull down all new houses within ten milesof the metropolis--and further, to direct the Attorney-General to indictall those sojourners in town who had country houses, and mulct them inruinous fines. The rural gentry were "to abide in their own counties, andby their housekeeping in those parts were to guide and relieve the meanerpeople _according to the ancient usage of the English nation_. " TheAttorney-General, like all great lawyers, looking through the spectaclesof his books, was short-sighted to reach to the new causes and the neweffects which were passing around. The wisest laws are but foolish whenTime, though not the lawyers, has annulled them. The popular sympathy was, however, with the Attorney-General, for it was imagined that the countrywas utterly ruined and depopulated by the town. 

And so in the view it appeared, and so all the satirists chorused! for inthe country the ancient hospitality was not kept up; the crowd ofretainers had vanished, the rusty chimneys of the mansion-house hardlysmoked through a Christmas week, while in London all was exorbitantlyprosperous; masses of treasure were melted down into every object ofmagnificence. "And is not this wealth drawn from our acres?" was theoutcry of the rural censor. Yet it was clear that the country in no waywas impoverished, for the land rose in price; and if manors sometimeschanged their lords, they suffered no depreciation. A sudden wealth wasdiffused in the nation; the arts of commerce were first advancing; thefirst great ship launched for an Indian voyage, was then named the"Trade's Increase. " The town, with its multiplied demands, opened aperpetual market for the country. The money-traders were breeding theirhoards as the graziers their flocks; and while the goldsmiths' shopsblazed in Cheap, the agriculturists beheld double harvests cover the soil. The innumerable books on agriculture published during these twenty yearsof peace is an evidence of the improvement of the country--sustained bythe growing capitals of the men in trade. In this progress of domesticconveniency to metropolitan luxury, there was a transition of manners; newobjects and new interests, and new modes of life, yet in their incipientstate. 

The evils of these luxuriant times were of quick growth; and, as fast asthey sprung, the Father of his people encountered them by hisproclamations, which, during long intervals of parliamentary recess, wereto be enforced as laws: but they passed away as morning dreams over ahappy, but a thoughtless and wanton people. 

 * * * * *

JAMES THE FIRST DISCOVERS THE DISORDERS AND DISCONTENTS OF A PEACE OF MORETHAN TWENTY YEARS. 

The king was himself amazed at the disorders and discontents he at lengthdiscovered; and, in one of his later speeches, has expressed a mournfuldisappointment:

"And now, I confess, that when I looked before upon the face of thegovernment, _I thought, as every man would have done_, that the peoplewere never so happy as in my time; but even, as at divers times I havelooked upon many of my coppices, riding about them, and they appeared, onthe outside, very thick and well-grown unto me, but, when I turned intothe midst of them, I found them all bitten within, and full of plains andbare spots; like the apple or pear, fair and smooth without, but when youcleave it asunder, you find it rotten at heart. Even so this kingdom, the_external_ government being as good as ever it was, and I am sure aslearned judges as ever it had, and I hope as honest administering justicewithin it; and for peace, both at home and abroad, more settled, andlonger lasting, than ever any before; together with as great plenty asever: so as it may be thought, every man might sit in safety under his ownvine and fig-tree, " &c. &c. [A]

But while we see this king of peace surrounded by national grievances, andthat "this fair coppice was very thick and well-grown, " yet loud inmurmurs, to what cause are we to attribute them? Shall we exclaim withCatharine Macaulay against "the despotism of James, " and "the intoxicationof his power?"--a monarch who did not even enforce the proclamations oredicts his wisdom dictated;[B] and, as Hume has observed, while vauntinghis prerogative, had not a single regiment of guards to maintain it. Mustwe agree with Hume, and reproach the king with his indolence and lore ofamusement--"particularly of hunting?"[C]

[Footnote A: Rushworth, vol. I. P. 29; sub anno 1621. ]

[Footnote B: James I. Said, "I will never offer to bring a new custom uponmy people without the people's consent; like a good physician, tell themwhat is amiss, if they will not concur to amend it, yet I have dischargedmy part. " Among the difficulties of this king was that of being aforeigner, and amidst the contending factions of that day the "BritishSolomon" seems to have been unjustly reproached for his Scottishpartialities. ]

[Footnote C: La Boderie, the French Ambassador, complains of the king'sfrequent absences; but James did not wish too close an intercourse withone who was making a French party about Prince Henry, and whose soleobject was to provoke a Spanish war: the king foiled the French intriguer;but has incurred his contempt for being "timid and irresolute. " James'scautious neutrality was no merit in the Frenchman's eye. 

La Boderie resided at our court from 1606 to 1611, and his "Ambassades, "in 5 vols. , are interesting in English history. The most satiricalaccounts of the domestic life of James, especially in his unguarded hoursof boisterous merriment, are found in the correspondence of the Frenchambassadors. They studied to flavour their dish, made of spy and gossip, to the taste of their master. Henry IV. Never forgave James for hisadherence to Spain and peace, instead of France and warlike designs. ]

 * * * * *

THE KING'S PRIVATE LIFE IN HIS OCCASIONAL RETIREMENTS. 

The king's occasional retirements to Royston and Newmarket have even beensurmised to have borne some analogy to the horrid Capræa of Tiberius; buta witness has accidentally detailed the king's uniform life in theseoccasional seclusions. James I. Withdrew at times from public life, butnot from public affairs; and hunting, to which he then gave alternatedays, was the cheap amusement and requisite exercise of his sedentaryhabits: but the chase only occupied a few hours. A part of the day wasspent by the king in his private studies; another at his dinners, where hehad a reader, and was perpetually sending to Cambridge for books ofreference: state affairs were transacted at night; for it was observed, atthe time, that his secretaries sat up later at night, in those occasionalretirements, than when they were at London. [A] I have noticed, that thestate papers were composed by himself; that he wrote letters on importantoccasions without consulting any one; and that he derived little aid fromhis secretaries. James was probably never indolent; but the uniform lifeand sedentary habits of literary men usually incur this reproach fromthose real idlers who bustle in a life of nothingness. While no one lovedmore the still-life of peace than this studious monarch, whose habitsformed an agreeable combination of the contemplative and the active life, study and business--no king more zealously tried to keep down the growingabuses of his government, by personally concerning himself in theprotection of the subject. [B]

[Footnote A: Hacket's Scrinia Reserata, Part I. P. 27. ]

[Footnote B: As evidences of this zeal for reform, I throw into this notesome extracts from the MS. Letters of contemporaries. --Of the king'sinterference between the judges of two courts about prohibitions, SirDudley Carleton gives this account:--"The king played the best part incollecting arguments on both sides, and concluded that he saw muchendeavour to draw water to their several mills; and advised them to takemoderate courses, whereby the good of the subject might be more respectedthan their particular jurisdictions. The king sat also at the Admiralty, to look himself into certain disorders of government there; he told thelawyers 'he would leave hunting of hares, and hunt them in their quirksand subtilities, with which the subject had been too long abused. '"--MS. Letter of Sir Dudley Carleton. 

In "Winwood's Memorials of State" there is a letter from Lord Northampton, who was present at one of these strict examinations of the king; and hislanguage is warm with admiration: the letter being a private one, canhardly be suspected of court flattery. "His Majesty hath in person, withthe greatest dexterity of wit and strength of argument that mine ears everheard, compounded between the parties of the civil and ecclesiasticalcourts, who begin to comply, by the king's sweet temper, on points thatwere held to be incompatible. "--Winwood's Mem. Iii. P. 54. 

In his progresses through the country, if any complained of havingreceived injury from any of the court, the king punished, or hadsatisfaction made to the wronged, immediately. ]

 * * * * *

DISCREPANCIES OF OPINION AMONG THE DECRIERS OF JAMES THE FIRST. 

Let us detect, among the modern decriers of the character of James I. , those contradictory opinions, which start out in the same page; for theconviction of truth flashed on the eyes of those who systematicallyvilified him, and must often have pained them; while it embarrassed andconfused those, who, being of no party, yet had adopted the popularnotions. Even Hume is at variance with himself; for he censures James forhis indolence, "which prevented him making any progress in the practice offoreign politics, and diminished that regard which all the neighbouringnations had paid to England during the reign of his predecessor, " p. 29. Yet this philosopher observes afterwards, on the military character ofPrince Henry, at p. 63, that "had he lived, he had probably promoted _theglory; perhaps not the felicity, of his people_. The unhappy prepossessionof men in favour of ambition, &c. , engages them into such pursuits _asdestroy their own peace, and that of the rest of mankind_. " This is truephilosophy, however politicians may comment, and however the military maycommand the state. Had Hume, with all the sweetness of his temper, been aphilosopher on the throne, himself had probably incurred the censure hepassed on James I. Another important contradiction in Hume deservesdetection. The king, it seems, "boasted of his management of Ireland ashis masterpiece. " According to the accounts of Sir John Davies, whosepolitical works are still read, and whom Hume quotes, James I. "in thespace of nine years made greater advances towards the reformation of thatkingdom than had been effected in more than four centuries;" on thisHume adds that the king's "_vanity_ in this particular was not withoutfoundation. " Thus in describing that wisest act of a sovereign, theart of humanising his ruder subjects by colonisation, so unfortunate isJames, that even his most skilful apologist, influenced by popularprepossessions, employs a degrading epithet--and yet he, who had indulgeda sarcasm on the _vanity_ of James, in closing his general view of hiswise administration in Ireland, is carried away by his nobler feelings. --"Such were the arts, " exclaims the historian, "by which James introducedhumanity and justice among a people who had ever been buried in the mostprofound barbarism. Noble cares! much superior to the vain and criminalglory of conquests. " Let us add, that had the genius of James the Firstbeen warlike, had he commanded a battle to be fought and a victory to becelebrated, popular historians, the panders of ambition, had adorned theirpages with bloody trophies; but the peace the monarch cultivated; thewisdom which dictated the plan of civilisation; and the persevering artswhich put it into practice--these are the still virtues which give nomotion to the _spectacle_ of the historian, and are even forgotten in hispages. 

What were the painful feelings of Catharine Macaulay, in summing up thecharacter of James the First. The king has even extorted from her aconfession, that "his conduct in Scotland was unexceptionable, " but"despicable in his Britannic government. " To account for this seemingchange in a man who, from his first to his last day, was always the same, required a more sober historian. She tells us also, he affected "asententious wit;" but she adds, that it consisted "only of quaint andstale conceits. " We need not take the word of Mrs. Macaulay, since we haveso much of this "sententious wit" recorded, of which probably she knewlittle. Forced to confess that James's education had been "a more learnedone than is usually bestowed on princes, " we find how useless it is toeducate princes at all; for this "more learned education" made this prince"more than commonly deficient in all the points he pretended to have anyknowledge of. " This incredible result gives no encouragement for a prince;having a Buchanan for his tutor. Smollett, having compiled the popularaccusations of the "vanity, the prejudices, the littleness of soul, " ofthis abused monarch, surprises one in the same page by discovering enoughgood qualities to make something more than a tolerable king. "His reign, though ignoble to himself, was happy to his people, who were enriched bycommerce, felt no severe impositions, while they made considerableprogress in their liberties. " So that, on the whole, the nation appearsnot to have had all the reason they have so fully exercised in deridingand vilifying a sovereign, who had made them prosperous at the price ofmaking himself contemptible! I shall notice another writer, of an amiablecharacter, as an evidence of the influence of popular prejudice, and theeffect of truth. 

When James went to Denmark to fetch his queen, he passed part of his timeamong the learned; but such was his habitual attention in studying theduties of the sovereign, that he closely attended the Danish courts ofjustice; and Daines Barrington, in his curious "Observations on theStatutes, " mentions, that the king borrowed from the Danish code threestatutes for the punishment of criminals. But so provocative of sarcasm isthe ill-used name of this monarch, that our author could not but shrewdlyobserve, that James "spent more time in those courts than in attendingupon his destined consort. " Yet this is not true: the king was jovialthere, and was as indulgent a husband as he was a father. Osborne evencensures James for once giving marks of his uxoriousness![A] But whileDaines Barrington degrades, by unmerited ridicule, the honourableemployment of the "British Solomon, " he becomes himself perplexed at thetruth that flashes on his eyes. He expresses the most perfect admirationof James the First, whose statutes he declares "deserve much to beenforced; nor do I find any one which hath the least tendency to extendthe prerogative, or abridge the liberties and rights of his subjects. " Hewho came to scoff remained to pray. Thus a lawyer, in examining the lawsof James the First, concludes by approaching nearer to the truth: the stepwas a bold one! He says, "_It is at present a sort of fashion_ to supposethat this king, because he was a pedant, had no real understanding, ormerit. " Had Daines Barrington been asked for proofs of the pedantry ofJames the First, he had been still more perplexed; but what can be moreconvincing than a lawyer, on a review of the character of James the First, being struck, as he tells us, by "his desire of being instructed in theEnglish law, and holding frequent conferences for this purpose with themost eminent lawyers, --as Sir Edward Coke, and others!" Such was themonarch whose character was perpetually reproached for indolent habits, and for exercising arbitrary power! Even Mr. Brodie, the vehementadversary of the Stuarts, quotes and admires James's prescient decision onthe character of Laud in that remarkable conversation with Buckingham andPrince Charles recorded by Hacket. [B]

[Footnote A: See "Curiosities of Literature, " vol. Iii. P. 334. ]

[Footnote B: Brodie's "History of British Empire, " vol. Ii. P. 244, 411. ]

But let us leave these moderns perpetuating traditional prejudices, andoften to the fiftieth echo, still sounding with no voice of its own, tolearn what the unprejudiced contemporaries of James I. Thought of thecause of the disorders of their age. They were alike struck by the wisdomand the zeal of the monarch, and the prevalent discontents of this longreign of peace. At first, says the continuator of Stowe, all ranks butthose "who were settled in piracy, " as he designates the cormorants ofwar, and curiously enumerates their classes, "were right joyful of thepeace; but, in a few years afterwards, all the benefits were generallyforgotten, and the happiness of the general peace of the most partcontemned. " The honest annalist accounts for this unexpected result by thenatural reflection--"Such is the world's corruption, and man's vileingratitude. "[A] My philosophy enables me to advance but little beyond. Alearned contemporary, Sir Symond D'Ewes, in his manuscript diary, noticesthe death of the monarch, whom he calls "our learned and peaceablesovereign. "--"It did not a little amaze me to see all men generally slightand disregard the loss of so mild and gentle a prince, which made me evento feel, that the ensuing times might yet render his loss more sensible, and his memory more dear unto posterity. " Sir Symond censures the king fornot engaging in the German war to support the Palsgrave, and maintain "thetrue church of God;" but deeper politicians have applauded the king foravoiding a war, in which he could not essentially have served theinterests of the rash prince who had assumed the title of King ofBohemia. [B] "Yet, " adds Sir Symond, "if we consider his virtues and hislearning, his augmenting the liberties of the English, rather than hisoppressing them by any unlimited or illegal taxes and corrosions, hisdeath deserved more sorrow and condolement from his subjects than itfound. "[C]

[Footnote A: Stowe's Annals, p. 845. ]

[Footnote B: See Sir Edward Walker's "Hist. Discourses, " p. 321; andBarrington's "Observ. On the Statutes, " who says, "For this he deservesthe highest praise and commendation from a nation of islanders. "]

[Footnote C: Harl. MSS. 646. ]

Another contemporary author, Wilson, has not ill-traced the generationsof this continued peace--"peace begot plenty, plenty begot ease andwantonness, and ease and wantonness begot poetry, and poetry swelled outinto that bulk in this king's time which begot monstrous satyrs. " Suchwere the laseivious times, which dissolving the ranks of society in ageneral corruption, created on one part the imaginary and unlimited wantsof prosperity; and on the other produced the riotous children ofindolence, and the turbulent adventurers of want. The rank luxuriance ofthis reign was a steaming hot-bed of peace, which proved to be theseed-plot of that revolution which was reserved for the unfortunate son. 

In the subsequent reign a poet seems to have taken a retrospective view ofthe age of peace of James I. Contemplating on its results in his owndisastrous times--

 --States that never know A change but in their growth, which a long peace Hath brought unto perfection, are like steel, Which being neglected will consume itself With its own rust; so doth Security Eat through the hearts of states, while they are sleeping And lulled into false quiet. 

 NABB'S _Hannibal and Scipio_. 

 * * * * *

SUMMARY OF HIS CHARACTER. 

Thus the continued peace of James I. Had calamities of its own! Are we toattribute them to the king? It has been usual with us, in the solemnexpiations of our history, to convert the sovereign into the scape-goatfor the people; the historian, like the priest of the Hebrews, laying hishands on Azazel, [A] the curses of the multitude are heaped on that devotedhead. And thus the historian conveniently solves all ambiguous events. 

[Footnote A: The Hebrew name, which Calmet translates _Bouc Emissaire_, and we _Scape Goat_, or rather _Escape Goat_. ]

The character of James I. Is a moral phenomenon, a singularity of acomplex nature. We see that we cannot trust to those modern writers whohave passed their censures upon him, however just may be those verycensures; for when we look narrowly into their representations, as surelywe find, perhaps without an exception, that an invective never closeswithout some unexpected mitigating circumstance, or qualifying abatement. At the moment of inflicting the censure, some recollection in oppositionto what is asserted passes in the mind, and to approximate to Truth, theyoffer a discrepancy, a self-contradiction. James must always be condemnedon a system, while his apology is only allowed the benefit of aparenthesis. 

How it has happened that our luckless crowned philosopher has been thecommon mark at which so many quivers have been emptied, should be quiteobvious when so many causes were operating against him. The shiftingpositions into which he was cast, and the ambiguity of his character, willunriddle the enigma of his life. Contrarieties cease to be contradictionswhen operated on by external causes. 

James was two persons in one, frequently opposed to each other. He was anantithesis in human nature--or even a solecism. We possess ample evidenceof his shrewdness and of his simplicity; we find the lofty regal stylemingled with his familiar bonhommie. Warm, hasty, and volatile, yet withthe most patient zeal to disentangle involved deception; such gravity insense, such levity in humour; such wariness and such indiscretion; suchmystery and such openness--all these must have often thrown his Majestyinto some awkward dilemmas. He was a man of abstract speculation in thetheory of human affairs; too witty or too aphoristic, he never seemed at aloss to decide, but too careless, perhaps too infirm, ever to come to adecision, he leaned on others. He shrunk from the council-table; he hadthat distaste for the routine of business which studious sedentary men aretoo apt to indulge; and imagined that his health, which he said was thehealth of the kingdom, depended on the alternate days which he devoted tothe chase; Royston and Theobalds were more delectable than a deputationfrom the Commons, or the Court at Whitehall. 

It has not always been arbitrary power which has forced the people intothe dread circle of their fate, seditions, rebellions, and civil wars; noralways oppressive taxation which has given rise to public grievances. Suchwere not the crimes of James the First. Amid the full blessings of peace, we find how the people are prone to corrupt themselves, and how aphilosopher on the throne, the father of his people, may live withoutexciting gratitude, and die without inspiring regret--unregarded, unremembered!

INDEX. 

ABERNETHY'S opinion of enthusiasm, 145. 

ABSTRACTION of mind in great men, 133-136. 

ACTORS, traits of character in great, 137. 

ADRIAN VI. , Pope, persecutes literary men, 18. 

ÆSTHETIC Critics, 282. 

AKENSIDE on the nature of genius, 30. 

ALFIERI, childhood of, 32; loneliness of his character, 96; excited by Plutarch's works, 141. 

ANGELO, Michael, illustrates Dante, 21; his ideas of intellectual labour, 85; his reason for a solitary life, 111; his picture of battle of Pisa destroyed by Bandinelli, 158; his elevated character, 252; his letter to Vasari describing the death of his servant, 373. 

ANTIPATHIES of men of genius, 160-163. 

ANXIETY of genius, 74; of authors and artists over their labours, 80-88. 

ARISTOPHANES, popularised by a false preface, 287. 

ART FRIENDSHIPS, 209-210. 

ARTISTS, "Studies, " or first thoughts, 131; their mutual jealousies, 156-158. 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY, its interest, 295. 

BARRY the painter, his love of ancient literature, 23; his general enthusiasm, 60; his rude eloquence, 107. 

BAILLET and his catalogue, 352. 

BEATTIE describes the powerful effect on himself of metaphysical study, 147. 

BIRCH, Dr. , and Robertson the Historian, 342-350. 

BOCCACCIO'S friendship for Petrarch, 212-214. 

BOOK COLLECTORS, 227-231. 

BOOKSELLERS, the test of public opinion, 194. 

BOSIUS, his researches in the Roman catacombs, 144. 

BOYLE on the disposition of childhood, 31; his advertisement against visitors, _n_, 113; his idea of a literary retreat, 188. 

BRUCE the traveller disbelieved, 78. 

BUFFON gives a reason for his fame, 92. 

BUONAPARTE revives old military tactics, 266. 

BURNS'S diary of the heart, 71. 

BURTON, his constitutional melancholy, 220. 

BUNYAN a self-taught genius, 60. 

BYRON'S loneliness of feeling, _n. _, 96. 

CALUMNY frequently attacks genius, 185. 

CANTENAC and his autobiography, 296. 

CARACCI, the, their unfortunate jealousies, 157. 

CASTAGNO murders a rival artist, 157. 

CHARLES V. , friendship for Titian, 253; Robertson's life of, 343. 

CHATELET, Madame de, a female philosopher and friend of Voltaire, 95. 

CHATHAM, Earl of, his constancy of study, 96. 

CHENIER a literary fratricide, 173. 

CICERO on youthful influence, 32. 

CLARENDON, his love of retirement, 111. 

COACHES, their first invention, 359. 

COAL, its first use as fuel, 362. 

COMA VIGIL, a disease produced by study, 147. 

COMPOSITION, its toils, 80-81. 

CONTEMPORARY criticism, frequently unjust, 75. 

CONVERSATIONS of men of genius, 99-109; those who converse well seldom write well, 104. 

COTIN, Abbé, troubled by wealth, 188. 

CRACHERODE, Rev. C. M. , his collections of art and literature, _n. _, 13. 

CRITICISM not always just, 65-75. 

CURRIE, his idea of the power of genius, 26. 

CUVIER'S discoveries in natural history, 145. 

DANTE, his great abstraction of mind, 134. 

DEATHS of literary men, 243. 

DEPRECIATION, theory of, 160. 

DIARIES, their value, 122. 

DISEASE induced by severe study, 147. 

DOMENICHINO poisoned by rivals, 158. 

DOMESTIC Novelties at first condemned, 355-364. 

DOMESTIC life of literary men, 173-186. 

DREAMS of eminent men, 127-128. 

DROUAIS an enthusiastic painter, 153. 

ENGLAND and its tastes, 264. 

FAMILY affection an incentive to genius, 179-182. 

FENELON'S early enthusiasm for Greece, 151. 

FIRST STUDIES of great men, 55-59; first thoughts for great works, 129-133. 

FORKS, when first used, 356. 

FRANKLIN, Dr. , notes the calming of the sea, 133; his influence on American manners, 272. 

FUSELI'S imaginative power, 151. 

GALILEO invents the pendulum, 132. 

GALVANISM first discovered, 133. 

GESNER recommends a study of literature to artists, 22; on enthusiasm, 154; his wife a model for those of literary men, 206-208. 

GLEIM and his portrait gallery, 211. 

GOLDSMITH contrasted with Johnson, 294. 

GOLDONI overworks his mind, 147. 

GOVERNMENT of the thoughts, 117. 

GRAY'S excitement in composing verse, 141;

GUIBERT, his great work on military tactics, 265. 

HABITUAL PURSUITS, their power over the mind, 302-304. 

HALLUCINATIONS of genius, 148; realities with some minds, 150. 

HAYDN, his regulation of his time, 92. 

HELMONT'S (Van) love of study, 152. 

HERBERT of Cherbury, Lord, questions the Deity as to the publication of his book, 148. 

HOBBES, theory to explain his terror, 150. 

HOGARTH, attacks on, _n. _ 87. 

HOLLIS, his miserable celibacy, 201. 

HONOURS awarded literary men, 249-258. 

HORNE (Bishop), his love of literary labour, 135. 

HUME the historian, his irritability, 86; unfitted for gay life, 99; gives his reason for literary labour, _n. _ 177; endeavours to correct Robertson, 342. 

HUNTER, Dr. , fraternal jealousy, 156. 

HYPOCHONDRIA, its cause and effect, 150. 

IDEALITY defined, 137; its power, 138-154. 

INCOMPLETED books, 350-355. 

INDUSTRY of great writers, 125. 

INFLUENCE of authors, 267-270; 273-277. 

INTELLECTUAL nobility, 250. 

IMITATION in literature, 305-307. 

IRRITABILITY of genius, 70, 86-88. 

ISOCRATES' belief in native character, 32. 

JAMES I. , a critical disquisition on the character of, 385-455. 

JULIAN, Emperor, anecdotes of, 97. 

JEALOUSY in art and literature, 154-159; of honours paid to literary men, 251. 

JOHNSON, Dr. , defines the literary character, 12; his moral dignity, 192; his metaphysical loves, 200; anecdotes of him and Goldsmith, 294. 

JUVENILE WORKS, their value, 67. 

LABOUR endured by great authors, 75; a pleasure to some minds, 176-177. 

LETTERS in the vernacular idiom, 375-379. 

LINNÆUS sensitive to ridicule, 75; honours awarded to, 191. 

LITERARY FRIENDSHIP, 209-217. 

LITERATURE an avenue to glory, 248. 

LOCKE'S simile of the human mind, 25. 

MANNERISTS in literature, 293. 

MARCO Polo ridiculed unjustly, _n. _ 79. 

MATRIMONIAL STATE in literature and art, 198-208. 

MAZZUCHELLI a great literary historian, 352. 

MEDITATION, value of, 129. 

MEMORY, as an art, 120, 122. 

MENDELSSOHN, Moses, his remarkable history, 61-64. 

MEN of LETTERS, their definition, 226-238. 

METASTASIO a bad sportsman, 38; his susceptibility, 140. 

MILTON, his high idea of the literary character, 12; his theory of genius, 25; his love of study, 135; sacrifices sight to poetry, 152. 

MISCELLANISTS and their works, 282-286. 

MODES OF STUDY used by great men, 125. 

MOLIERE, his dramatic career, 310-325. 

MONTAIGNE, his personal traits, 223. 

MORE, Dr. , on enthusiasm of genius, 149. 

MORERI devotes a life to literature, 152. 

MORTIMER the artist, his athletic exercises, 39. 

MURATORI, his literary industry, 351. 

NATIONAL tastes in literature, 260. 

NECESSITY, its influence on literature, 193-194. 

OBSCURE BIRTHS of great men, 248-249. 

OLD AGE of literary men, 238-244. 

PECULIAR habits of authors, 119-120. 

PEIRESC, his early bias toward literature, 234; his studious career, 235. 

PERSONAL CHARACTER differs from the literary one, 217-226. 

PETRARCH'S remarkable conversation on his melancholy, 68; his mode of life, 114. 

POPE, his anxiety over his Homer, 81; severity of his early studies, 147. 

POUSSIN fears trading in art, 193. 

POVERTY of literary men, 186; sometimes a choice, 188-190. 

PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE of life wanting in studious men, 183-185. 

PRAYERS of great men, 146. 

PRECIEUSES, 315-318. 

PREDISPOSITION of the mind, 118. 

PREFACES, their interest, 286; their occasional falsehood, 287; vanity of authors in, 288; idle apologies in, 289; Dryden's interesting, 290. 

PREJUDICES, literary, 160-163. 

PUBLIC TASTE formed by public writers, 268. 

RACINE, sensibility of, 83; 325-332. 

RAMBOUILLET, Hotel de, 315-317. 

READING analyzed, 298-302. 

RECLUSE manners in great authors, 98-99. 

RELICS of men of genius, 255-258. 

REMUNERATION of literature, 194-195. 

RESIDENCES of literary men, 255-257. 

REYNOLDS, Sir J. , his "automatic system, " 26; discovers its inconsistencies, 27. 

RIDICULE the terror of genius, 94

ROBERTSON the historian, 341-350. 

ROLAND, Madame, anecdote of the power of poetry on, 141. 

ROMNEY, his anxiety over his picture of the Tempest, 81-82. 

ROUSSEAU'S expedient to endure society, 73; his domestic infelicity, 175. 

ROYAL SOCIETY, attacks on, _n. _ 14. 

RUBENS' transcripts of the poets, 21. 

SANDWICH, Lord, his first idea of a stratagem at sea, 132. 

SCUDERY, Mademoiselle, 316. 

SENSITIVENESS of genius, 72, 78, 78; 139-140. 

SELF-IMMOLATION of genius to labour, 152. 

SELF-PRAISE of genius, 162-170. 

SERVANTS, a dissertation on, 364-374. 

SHEE, Sir M. A. , relations of poetry and painting, _n. _, 21. 

SHENSTONE, his early love, 199. 

SIDDONS, Mrs. , anecdote of, 137. 

SINGLENESS of genius, 245-247. 

SOCIETY, artificial, an injury to genius, 90. 

SOLITUDE loved by men of genius, 35-40; 109-115. 

STEAM first discovered, 133. 

STUDIES of advanced life, 241-243. 

STERNE, anecdotes of, 332-340. 

STYLE and its peculiarities, 291-294. 

SUSCEPTIBILITY of men of genius, 170-172. 

SUGGESTIONS of one mind perfected by another, 275-276. 

TASSO uneasy in his labours, 84. 

TAYLOR, Dr. Brooke, his torpid melancholy, 175. 

TEMPLE, Sir W. , his love of gardens, 283. 

THEORETICAL history, 342. 

THOMSON, his sensitiveness to grand poetry, 142; irritability over false criticisms, 65. 

TOBACCO, its introduction to England, 362. 

TOOTHPICKS, origin of, 358. 

TOWNLEY Gallery of Sculpture, _n. _, 13. 

TROUBADOURS, their influence, 285. 

UMBRELLAS, their history, 358. 

UTILITARIANISM and its narrow view of literature, 15. 

UNIVERSALITY Of genius, 244. 

VAN PRAUN refuses to part with his collection to an emperor, 229. 

VERNET sketches in a storm, 144. 

VERS DE SOCIETE, 308-310. 

VINDICTIVENESS of genius, 170-173. 

VISIONARIES of genius, 148. 

VISITORS disliked by literary men, 112-113. 

VOLTAIRE, anecdote of his visit to a country house, 95; his universal genius, 245. 

WALPOLE's, Horace, opinion of Gray, 91; of Burke, _ib. _

WATSON neglects research in his professorship, 17. 

WERNER'S discoveries in science, 145. 

WILKES desirous of literary glory, 17. 

WIT sometimes mechanical, 126. 

WIVES of literary men, 202-208. 

WORKS intended, but not executed, 123. 

WOOD, Anthony, sacrifices all to study, 152. 

YOUNG the poet, his want of sympathy, 185. 

YOUTH of great men, 34-54. 

THE END. 

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