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 great work. The minister alluded to in the text was M. de Pomponne, Secretary of State to Louis XIV. until the year 1679.—ED.]

The same enthusiasm inspires the pupils of art consumed by their own ardour. The young and classical sculptor who raised the statue of Charles II., placed in the centre of the Royal Exchange, was, in the midst of his work, advised by his medical friends to desist; for the energy of his labour, with the strong excitement of his feelings, already had made fatal inroads in his constitution: but he was willing, he said, to die at the foot of his statue. The statue was raised, and the young sculptor, with the shining eye and hectic flush of consumption, beheld it there—returned home—and died. DROUAIS, a pupil of David, the French painter, was a youth of fortune, but the solitary pleasure of his youth was his devotion to Raphael; he was at his studies from four in the morning till night. "Painting or nothing!" was the cry of this enthusiast of elegance; "First fame, then amusement," was another. His sensibility was great as his enthusiasm; and he cut in pieces the picture for which David declared he would inevitably obtain the prize. "I have had my reward in your approbation; but next year I shall feel more certain of deserving it," was the reply of this young enthusiast. Afterwards he astonished Paris with his "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 and KIRKE WHITE were the early victims of the enthusiasm of study, and are mourned 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 excessive study, was entreated to abandon it, and in the scholastic language of the day, not to perdere substantiam propter accidentia. With a smile the martyr 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 than life 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 hours he employs to cultivate it be not for him the most delicious ones of his life; if study become not his true existence and his first happiness; if the society of his brothers in art be not that which most pleases him; if even in the night-time the ideas of his art do not occupy his vigils or his dreams; if in the morning he fly not to his work, impatient to recommence what he left unfinished. These are the marks of him who labours for true glory and posterity; but if he seek only to please the taste of his age, his works will not kindle the desires nor touch the hearts of those who love the arts and the artists."

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



CHAPTER XIII.

Of the jealousy of Genius.—Jealousy often proportioned to the degree of genius.—A perpetual fever among Authors and Artists.—Instances of its incredible 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 fiercely rages among the senators as well as among the people. In that curious self-description which LINNAEUS comprised in a single page, written with the precision of a naturalist, that great man discovered that his constitution was liable to be afflicted with jealousy. Literary jealousy seems often proportioned to the degree of genius, and the shadowy and equivocal claims of literary honour is the real cause of this terrible fear; for in cases where the object is more palpable and definite than intellectual excellence, jealousy does not appear so strongly to affect the claimant for admiration. The most beautiful woman, in the season of beauty, is more haughty than jealous; she rarely encounters a rival; and while her claims exist, who can contend with a fine feature or a dissolving glance? But a man of genius has no other existence than in the opinion of the world; a divided empire would obscure him, and a contested one might prove his annihilation.

The lives of authors and artists exhibit a most painful disease in that jealousy which is the perpetual fever of their existence. Why does PLATO never 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 to differ from the doctrines of his master PLATO while he was following them, led him into ambiguities and contradictions which have been remarked. The two fathers of our poetry, CHAUCER and GOWER, suffered their friendship to be interrupted towards the close of their lives. Chaucer bitterly reflects on his friend for the indelicacy of some of his tales: "Of all such cursed stories I say fy!" and GOWER, evidently in return, erased those verses in praise of his friend which he had inserted in the first copy of his "Confessio Amantis." Why did CORNEILLE, tottering to the grave, when RACINE consulted him on his first tragedy, advise the author never to write another? Why does VOLTAIRE continually detract from the sublimity of Corneille, the sweetness of Racine, and the fire of Crebillon? Why did DRYDEN never speak of OTWAY with kindness but when in his grave, then acknowledging that Otway excelled him in the pathetic? Why did LEIBNITZ speak slightingly of LOCKE's Essay, and meditate on nothing less than the complete overthrow of NEWTON'S system? Why, when Boccaccio sent to PETRARCH a copy of DANTE, declaring that the work was like a first light which had illuminated his mind, did Petrarch boldly observe that he had not been anxious to inquire after it, for intending himself to compose in the vernacular idiom, he had no wish to be considered as a plagiary? and he only allows Dante's superiority from having written in the vulgar idiom, which he did not consider an enviable merit. Thus frigidly Petrarch could behold the solitary AEtna before him, in the "Inferno," while he shrunk into himself with the painful consciousness of the existence of another poet, obscuring his own majesty. It is curious to observe Lord SHAFTESBURY treating with the most acrimonious contempt the great writers of his own times—Cowley, Dryden, Addison, and Prior. We cannot imagine that his lordship was so entirely destitute of every feeling of wit and genius as would appear by this damnatory criticism on all the wit and genius of his age. It is not, indeed, difficult to comprehend a different motive for this extravagant censure in the jealousy which even a great writer often experiences when he comes in contact with his living rivals, and hardily, if not impudently, practises those arts of critical detraction to raise a moment's delusion, which can gratify no one but himself.

The moral sense has often been found too weak to temper the malignancy of literary jealousy, and has impelled some men of genius to an incredible excess. A memorable example offers in the history of the two brothers, Dr. WILLIAM and JOHN HUNTER, both great characters fitted to be rivals; but Nature, it was imagined, in the tenderness of blood, had placed a bar to rivalry. John, without any determined pursuit in his youth, was received by his brother at the height of his celebrity; the doctor initiated him into his school; they performed their experiments together; and William Hunter was the first to announce to the world the great genius of his brother. After this close connexion in all their studies and discoveries, Dr. William Hunter published his magnificent work—the proud favourite of his heart, the assertor of his fame. Was it credible that the genius of the celebrated anatomist, which had been nursed under the wing of his brother, should turn on that wing to clip it? John Hunter put in his claim to the chief discovery; it was answered by his brother. The Royal Society, to whom they appealed, concealed the documents of this unnatural feud. The blow was felt, and the jealousy of literary honour for ever separated the brothers—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, and who, during the time their academy existed, worked together, combining their separate powers.[A] The learning and the philosophy of Agostino assisted the invention of the master genius, Annibal; but Annibal was jealous of the more literary and poetical character of Agostino, and, by his sarcastic humour, frequently mortified his learned brother. Alike great artists, when once employed on the same work, Agostino was thought to have excelled his brother. Annibal, sullen and scornful, immediately broke with him; and their patron, Cardinal Farnese, was compelled to separate the brothers. Their fate is striking: Agostino, divided from his brother Annibal, sunk into dejection and melancholy, and perished by a premature death, while Annibal closed his days not long after in a state of 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 of Literature." vol. ii.]

The history of artists abounds with instances of jealousy, perhaps more than that of any other class of men of genius. HUDSON, the master of REYNOLDS, could not endure the sight of his rising pupil, and would not suffer him to conclude the term of his apprenticeship; while even the mild and elegant Reynolds himself became so jealous of WILSON, that he took every opportunity of depreciating his singular excellence. Stung by the madness of jealousy, BARRY one day addressing Sir Joshua on his lectures, burst out, "Such poor flimsy stuff as your discourses!" clenching his fist in the agony of the convulsion. After the death of the great artist, BARRY bestowed on him the most ardent eulogium, and deeply grieved over the past. But the race of genius born too "near the sun" have found their increased sensibility flame into crimes of a deeper dye—crimes attesting the treachery and the violence of the professors of an art which, it appears, in softening the souls of others, does not necessarily mollify those of the artists themselves. The dreadful story of ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO seems not doubtful. Having been taught the discovery of painting in oil by Domenico Venetiano, yet, still envious of the merit of the generous friend who had confided that great secret to him, Andrea with his own hand secretly assassinated him, that he might remain without a rival. The horror of his crime only appeared in his confession on his death-bed. DOMENICHINO seems to have been poisoned for the preference he obtained over the Neapolitan artists, which raised them to a man against him, and reduced him to the necessity of preparing his food With his own hand. On his last return to Naples, Passeri says, "Non fu mai piu veduto da buon occhio da quelli Napoletani: e li Pittori lo detestavano perche egli era ritornato—mori con qualche sospetto di veleno, e questo non e inverisimile perche l'interesso e un perfido tiranno." So that the Neapolitans honoured Genius at Naples by poison, which they might have forgotten had it flourished at Rome. The famous cartoon of the battle of Pisa, a work of Michael Angelo, which he produced in a glorious competition with the Homer of painting, Leonardo da Vinci, and in which he had struck out the idea of a new style, is only known by a print which has preserved the wonderful composition; for the original, it is said, was cut into pieces by the mad jealousy of BACCIO BANDINELLI, whose whole life was made miserable by his consciousness of a superior rival.

In the jealousy of genius, however, there is a peculiar case where the fever silently consumes the sufferer, without possessing the malignant character of the disease. Even the gentlest temper declines under its slow wastings, and this infection may happen among dear friends, whenever a man of genius loses that self-opinion which animates his solitary labours and constitutes his happiness. Perhaps when at the height of his class, he suddenly views himself eclipsed by another genius—and that genius his friend! This is the jealousy, not of hatred, but of despair. Churchill observed the feeling, but probably included in it a greater degree of malignancy 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 next lines—

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 to his friends, always at his own expense, exhibit a singular mixture of the sensibility and the frankness of true genius, which Swift himself has honestly 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 intercourse with POPE, to whose rising celebrity he soon became too jealously alive.[B] It was more tenderly, but not less keenly, felt by the Spanish artist CASTILLO, a man distinguished by every amiable disposition. He was the great painter of Seville; but when some of his nephew MURILLO'S paintings were shown to him, he stood in meek astonishmont before them, and turning away, he exclaimed with a sigh—"Ya murio Castillo!" Castillo is no more! Returning home, the stricken genius relinquished his pencil, and pined away, in hopelessness. The same occurrence happened to PIETRO PERUGINO, the master of Raphael, whose general character as a painter was so entirely eclipsed by his far-renowned scholar; yet, while his real excellences in the ease of his attitudes and the mild grace of his female countenances have been passed over, it is probable that Raphael himself might have caught from them his first feelings of ideal beauty.

[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 deficiency of analogous ideas.—It is not always envy or jealousy which induces men of genius to undervalue each other.

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

Every man of genius has a manner of his own; a mode of thinking and a habit of style, and usually decides on a work as it approximates or varies from his own. When one great author depreciates another, his depreciation has often no worse source than his own taste. The witty Cowley despised the natural Chaucer; the austere classical Boileau the rough sublimity of Creibillon; the refining Marivaux the familiar Moliere. Fielding ridiculed Richardson, whose manner so strongly contrasted with his own; and Richardson contemned Fielding, and declared he would not last. Cumberland escaped a fit of unforgiveness, not living to read his own character by Bishop Watson, whose logical head tried the lighter elegancies of that polished man by his own nervous genius, destitute of the beautiful in taste. 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 more than there was in Gray himself when he sunk the poetical character of Shenstone, and debased his simplicity and purity of feeling by an image of ludicrous contempt. I have heard that WILKES, a mere wit and elegant scholar, used to treat GIBBON as a mere bookmaker; and applied to that philosophical historian the verse by which Voltaire described, with so much caustic facetiousness, the genius of the Abbe Trablet—

Il a compile, compile, compile.

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

The same principle operates still more strikingly in the remarkable contempt of men of genius for those pursuits which require talents distinct from their own, and a cast of mind thrown by nature into another mould. Hence we must not be surprised at the poetical antipathies of Selden and Locke, as well as Longuerue and Buffon. Newton called poetry "ingenious nonsense." On the other side, poets undervalue the pursuits of the antiquary, the naturalist, and the metaphysician, forming their estimate by their own favourite scale of imagination. As we can only understand in the degree we comprehend, and feel in the degree in which we sympathize, we may be sure that in both these cases the parties will be found altogether deficient in those qualities of genius which constitute the excellence of the other. To this cause, rather than to the one the friends of MICKLE ascribed to ADAM SMITH, namely, a personal dislike to the poet, may we place the severe mortification which the unfortunate translator of Camoens suffered from the person to whom he dedicated "The Lusiad." The Duke of Buccleugh was the pupil of the great political economist, and so little valued an epic poem, that his Grace had not even the curiosity to open the leaves of the presentation copy.

A professor of polite literature condemned the study of botany, as adapted to mediocrity of talent, and only demanding patience; but LINNAEUS showed how a man of genius becomes a creator even in a science which seems to depend only on order and method. It will not be a question with some whether a man must be endowed with the energy and aptitude of genius, to excel in antiquarianism, in natural history, and similar pursuits. The prejudices raised against the claims of such to the honours of genius have probably arisen from the secluded nature of their pursuits, and the little knowledge which the men of wit and imagination possess of these persons, who live in a society of their own. On this subject a very curious circumstance has been revealed respecting PEIRESC, whose enthusiasm for science was long felt throughout Europe. His name was known in every country, and his death was lamented in forty languages; yet was this great literary character unknown to several men of genius in his own country; Rochefoucauld declared he had never heard of his name, and Malherbe wondered why his death created so universal a sensation.

Madame DE STAEEL was an experienced observer of the habits of the literary character, and she has remarked how one student usually revolts from the other when their occupations are different, because they are a reciprocal annoyance. The scholar has nothing to say to the poet, the poet to the naturalist; and even among men of science, those who are differently occupied avoid each other, taking little interest in what is out of their own circle. Thus we see the classes of literature, like the planets, revolving as distinct worlds; and it would not be less absurd for the inhabitants of Venus to treat with contempt the powers and faculties of those of Jupiter, than it is for the men of wit and imagination those of the men of knowledge and curiosity. The wits are incapable of exerting the peculiar qualities which give a real value to these pursuits, and therefore they must remain ignorant of their nature and their result.

It is not then always envy or jealousy which induces men of genius to undervalue each other; the want of sympathy will sufficiently account for the want of judgment. Suppose NEWTON, QUINAULT, and MACHIAVEL accidentally meeting together, and unknown to each other, would they not soon have desisted from the vain attempt of communicating their ideas? The philosopher would have condemned the poet of the Graces as an intolerable trifler, and the author of "The Prince" as a dark political spy. Machiavel would have conceived Newton to be a dreamer among the stars, and a mere almanack-maker among men; and the other a rhymer, nauseously doucereux. Quinault might have imagined that he was seated between two madmen. Having annoyed each other for some time, they would have relieved their ennui by reciprocal contempt, and each have parted with a determination to avoid henceforward two such disagreeable companions.



CHAPTER XV.

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

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

He who exults in himself is at least in earnest; but he who refuses to receive that praise in public for which he has devoted so much labour in his privacy, is not; for he is compelled to suppress the very instinct of his nature. We censure no man for loving fame, but only for showing us how much he is possessed by the passion: thus we allow him to create the appetite, but we deny him its aliment. Our effeminate minds are the willing dupes of what is called the modesty of genius, or, as it has been termed, "the polished reserve of modern times;" and this from the selfish principle that it serves at least to keep out of the company its painful pre-eminence. But this "polished reserve," like something as fashionable, the ladies' rouge, at first appearing with rather too much colour, will in the heat of an evening die away till the true complexion come out. What subterfuges are resorted to by these pretended modest men of genius, to extort that praise from their private circle which is thus openly denied them! They have been taken by surprise enlarging their own panegyric, which might rival Pliny's on Trajan, for care and copiousness; or impudently veiling themselves with the transparency of a third person; or never prefixing their name to the volume, which they would not easily forgive a friend to pass unnoticed.

Self-love is a principle of action; but among no class of human beings has nature so profusely distributed this principle of life and action as through the whole sensitive family of genius. It reaches even to a feminine susceptibility. The love of praise is instinctive in their nature. Praise with them is the evidence of the past and the pledge of the future. The generous qualities and the virtues of a man of genius are really produced by the applause conferred on him. "To him whom the world admires, the happiness of the world must be dear," said Madame DE STAeEL. ROMNEY, the painter, held as a maxim that every diffident artist required "almost a daily portion of cheering applause." How often do such find their powers paralysed by the depression of confidence or the appearance of neglect! When the North American Indians, amid their circle, chant their 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 the shout of his own name, he answers by a cry of pleasure and of pride. The savage and the man of genius are here true to nature, but pleasure and pride in his own name must raise no emotion in the breast of genius amidst a polished circle. To bring himself down to their usual mediocrity, he must start at an expression of regard, and turn away even from one of his own votaries. Madame De Staeel, an exquisite judge of the feelings of the literary character, was aware of this change, which has rather occurred in our manners than in men of genius themselves. "Envy," says that eloquent writer, "among the Greeks, existed sometimes between rivals; it has now passed to the spectators; and by a strange singularity the mass of men are jealous of the efforts which are tried to add to their pleasures or to merit their approbation."

But this, it seems, is not always the case with men of genius, since the accusation we are noticing has been so often reiterated. Take from some that supreme confidence in themselves, that pride of exultation, and you crush the germ of their excellence. Many vast designs must have perished in the conception, had not their authors breathed this vital air of self-delight, this creative spirit, so operative in great undertakings. We have recently seen this principle in the literary character unfold itself in the life of the late Bishop of Landaff. Whatever he did, he felt it was done as a master: whatever he wrote, it was, as he once declared, the best work on the subject yet written. With this feeling he emulated Cicero in retirement or in action. "When I am dead, you will not soon meet with another JOHN HUNTER," said the great anatomist to one of his garrulous friends. An apology is formed by his biographer for relating the fact, but the weakness is only in the apology. When HOGARTH was engaged in his work of the Marriage a-la-Mode, he said to Reynolds, "I shall very soon gratify the world with such a sight as they have never seen equalled." —"One of his foibles," adds Northcote, "it is well known, was the excessive high opinion he had of his own abilities." So pronounced Northcote, who had not an atom of his genius. Was it a foible in Hogarth to cast the glove, when he always more than redeemed the pledge? CORNEILLE has given a very noble full-length of the sublime egotism which accompanied him through life;[A] but I doubt, if we had any such author in the present day, whether he would dare to be so just to himself, and so hardy to the public. The self-praise of BUFFON at least equalled his genius; and the inscription beneath his statue in the library of the Jardin des Plantes, which I have been told was raised to him in his lifetime, exceeds all panegyric; it places him alone in nature, as the first and the last interpreter of her works. He said of the great geniuses of modern ages, that "there were not more than five; Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and Myself." With this spirit he conceived and terminated his great works, and sat in patient meditation at his desk for half a century, till all Europe, even in a state of war, bowed to the modern 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 the internal force of genius. No one felt this self-exultation more potent than our HOBBES; who has indeed, in his controversy with Wallis, asserted that there may be nothing more just than self-commendation.[A] There is a curious passage in the "Purgatorio" of DANTE, where, describing the transitory nature of literary fame, and the variableness of human opinion, the poet alludes with confidence to his own future greatness. Of two authors of the name of Guido, the one having eclipsed the other, the poet writes:—

Cosi ha tolto l'uno all'altro Guido La gloria della lingua; e forse e nato Chi l'uno e l'altro caccera 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 his own life, composed in the third person, has surprised and somewhat puzzled the critics, by that frequent distribution of self-commendation which they knew not how to reconcile with the modesty and gravity with which the President was so amply endowed. After his great and solemn labour, amidst the injustice of his persecutors, this eminent man had sufficient experience of his real worth to assert it. KEPLER, amidst his sublime discoveries, looks down like a superior being on other men. He breaks forth in glory and daring egotism: "I dare insult mankind by confessing that I am he who has turned science to advantage. If I am pardoned, I shall rejoice; if blamed, I shall endure. The die is cast; I have written this book, and whether it be read by posterity or by my contemporaries is of no consequence; it may well wait for a reader during one century, when God himself during six thousand years has not sent an observer like myself." He truly predicts that "his discoveries would be verified in succeeding ages," and prefers his own glory to the possession of the electorate of Saxony. It was this solitary majesty, this futurity of their genius, which hovered over the sleepless pillow of Bacon, of Newton, and of Montesquieu; of Ben Jonson, of Milton, and Corneille; and of Michael Angelo. Such men anticipate their contemporaries; they know they are creators, long before they are hailed as such by the tardy consent of the public. These men stand on Pisgah heights, and for them the sun shines on a land which none can view but themselves.

There is an admirable essay in Plutarch, "On the manner by which we may praise ourselves without exciting envy in others." The sage seems to consider self-praise as a kind of illustrious impudence, and has one very striking image: he compares these eulogists to famished persons, who finding no other food, in their rage have eaten their own flesh, and thus shockingly nourished themselves by their own substance. He allows persons in high office to praise themselves, if by this they can repel calumny and accusation, as did Pericles before the Athenians: but the Romans found fault with Cicero, who so frequently reminded them of his exertions in the conspiracy of Catiline; while, when Scipio told them that "they should not presume to judge of a citizen to whom they owed the power of judging all men," the people covered themselves with flowers, and followed him to the capitol to join in a thanksgiving to Jove. "Cicero," adds Plutarch, "praised himself without necessity. Scipio was in personal danger, and this took away what is odious in self-praise." An author seems sometimes to occupy the situation of a person in high office; and there may be occasions when with a noble simplicity, if he appeal to his works, of which all men may judge, he may be permitted to assert or to maintain his claims. It has at least been the practice of men of genius, for in this very essay we find Timotheus, Euripides, and Pindar censured, though they deserved 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 conspiracy of Catiline, and to publish quickly, that while he yet lived he might taste the sweetness of his glory. HORACE and OVID wore equally sensible to their immortality; but what modern poet would be tolerated with such an avowal? Yet DRYDEN honestly declares that it was better for him to own this failing of vanity, than the world to do it for him; and adds, "For what other reason have I spent my life in so unprofitable a study? Why am I grown old in seeking so barren a reward as fame? The same parts and application which have made me a poet might have raised me to any honours of the gown." Was not CERVANTES very sensible to his own merits when a rival started up? and did he not assert them too, and distinguish his own work by a handsome compliment? LOPE DE VEGA celebrated his own poetic powers under the pseudonyme of a pretended editor, Thomas Barguillos. I regret that his noble biographer, than whom no one can more truly sympathise with the emotions of genius, has censured the bard for his querulous or his intrepid tone, and for the quaint conceit of his title-page, where his detractor is introduced as a beetle in a vega or garden, attacking its flowers, but expiring in the very sweetness he would injure. The inscription under BOILEAU'S portrait, which gives a preference to the French satirist over Juvenal and Horace, is known to have been written by himself. Nor was BUTLER less proud of his own merits; for he has done ample justice to his "Hudibras," and traced out, with great self-delight, its variety of excellences. RICHARDSON, the novelist, exhibits one of the most striking instances of what is called literary vanity, the delight of an author in his works; he has pointed out all the beauties of his three great works, in various manners.[A] He always taxed a visitor by one of his long letters. It was this intense self-delight which 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 high conception of their own talents; and who must, as some animals appear to do, furnish the means of life out of their own substance. These men of genius open their career with peculiar tastes, or with a predilection for some great work of no immediate interest; in a word, with many unpopular dispositions. Yet we see them magnanimous, though defeated, proceeding with the public feeling against them. At length we view them ranking with their rivals. Without having yielded up their peculiar tastes or their incorrigible viciousness, they have, however, heightened their individual excellences. No human opinion can change their self-opinion. Alive to the consciousness of their powers, their pursuits are placed above impediment, and their great views can suffer no contraction; possunt quia posse videntur. Such was the language Lord BACON once applied to himself when addressing a king. "I know," said the great philosopher, "that I am censured of some conceit of my ability or worth; but I pray your majesty impute it to desire—possunt quia posse videntur." These men of genius bear a charmed mail on their breast; "hopeless, not heartless," may be often the motto of their ensign; and if they do not always possess reputation, they still look onwards for fame; for these do not necessarily accompany 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 less sensible to his defects than most of his readers. The author not only comprehends his merits better, because they have passed through a long process in his mind, but he is familiar with every part, while the reader has but a vague notion of the whole. Why does an excellent work, by repetition, rise in interest? Because in obtaining this gradual intimacy with an author, we appear to recover half the genius which we had lost on a first perusal. The work of genius too is associated, in the mind of the author, with much more than it contains; and the true supplement, which he only can give, has not always accompanied the work itself. We find great men often greater than the books they write. Ask the man of genius if he have written all that he wished to have written? Has he satisfied himself in this work, for which you accuse his pride? Has he dared what required intrepidity to achieve? Has he evaded difficulties which he should have overcome? The mind of the reader has the limits of a mere recipient, while that of the author, even after his work, is teeming with creation. "On many occasions, my soul seems to know more than it can say, and to be endowed 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 of Genius, be it remembered, that the sense of their own sufficiency is assumed by men at their own risk. The great man who thinks greatly of himself, is not diminishing that greatness in heaping fuel on his fire. It is indeed otherwise with his unlucky brethren, with whom an illusion of literary vanity may end in the aberrations of harmless madness; as it happened to PERCIVAL STOCKDALE. After a parallel between himself and Charles XII. of Sweden, he concludes that "some parts will be to his advantage, and some to mine;" but in regard to fame, the main object between himself and Charles XII., Percival imagined that "his own will not probably take its fixed and immovable station, and shine with its expanded and permanent splendour, till it consecrates his ashes, till it illumines his tomb." After this the reader, who may never have heard of the name of Percival Stockdale, must be told that there exist his own "Memoirs of his Life and Writings."[A] The memoirs of a scribbler who saw the prospects of life close on him while he imagined that his contemporaries were unjust, are instructive to literary men. To correct, and to be corrected, should be their daily practice, that they may be taught not only to exult in themselves, 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 which they are so apt to be liberal to others. Are they not accused of the meanest adulations? When a young writer experiences the notice of a person of some eminence, he has expressed himself in language which transcends that of mortality. A finer reason than reason itself inspires it. The sensation 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 has left such honourable traces of his private affections; from LOCKE, whose dedication of his great work is more adulative than could be imagined from a temperate philosopher, to CHURCHILL, whose warm eulogiums on his friends beautifully contrast with his satire. Even in advanced age, the man of genius 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 yet a youth, it is said that Cicero heard one of his eclogues, and exclaimed with his accustomed warmth,

Magna spes altera Romae!

"The second hope of mighty Rome!" intending by the first either himself or Lucretius. The words of Cicero were the secret honey on which the imagination of Virgil fed for many a year; for in one of his latest productions, the twelfth book of the AEneid, he applies these very words to Ascanius. So long had the accents of Cicero's praise lingered in the poet's ear!

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

But this fatal susceptibility is the cause of that strange facility which has often astonished the world, by the sudden transitions of sentiment which literary characters have frequently exhibited. They have eulogised men and events which they had reprobated, and reprobated what they had eulogised. The recent history of political revolutions has furnished some monstrous examples of this subservience to power. Guicciardini records one of his own times, which has been often repeated in ours. JOVIANUS PONTANUS, the secretary of Ferdinand, King of Naples, was also selected to be the tutor of the prince, his son. When Charles VIII. of France invaded Naples, Pontanus was deputed to address the French conqueror. To render himself agreeable to the enemies of his country, he did not avoid expatiating on the demerits of his expelled patrons: "So difficult it is," adds the grave and dignified historian, "for ourselves to observe that moderation and those precepts which no man knew better than Pontanus, who was endowed with such copious literature, and composed with such facility in moral philosophy, and possessed such acquirements in universal erudition, that he had made himself a prodigy to the eye of the world."[B] The student, occupied by abstract pursuits, may not indeed always take much interest in the change of dynasties; and perhaps the famous cancelled dedication to Cromwell, by the learned orientalist Dr. CASTELL,[C] who supplied its place by another to Charles II., ought not to be placed to the account of political tergiversation. But the versatile adoration of the continental savans of the republic or the monarchy, the consul or the emperor, has inflicted an unhealing wound on the literary character; since, like PONTANUS, to gratify their new master, they had not the greatness of mind to save themselves from ingratitude to their old.

[Footnote A: In the article entitled "Anecdotes of Censured Authors," in vol. i. of "Curiosities of Literature."]

[Footnote B: Guicciardini, Book II.]

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

Their vengeance, as quickly kindled, lasts as long. Genius is a dangerous gift of nature. The same effervescent passions form a Catiline or a Cicero. Plato lays great stress on his man of genius possessing the most vehement passions, but he adds reason to restrain them. It is Imagination which by their side stands as their good or evil spirit. Glory or infamy is but a different direction of the same passion.

How are we to describe symptoms which, flowing from one source, yet show themselves in such opposite forms as those of an intermittent fever, a silent delirium, or a horrid hypochondriasm? Have we no other opiate to still the agony, no other cordial to warm the heart, than the great ingredient in the recipe of Plato's visionary man of genius—calm reason? Must men, who so rarely obtain this tardy panacea, remain with all their tortured and torturing passions about them, often self-disgusted, self-humiliated? The enmities of genius are often connected with their morbid imagination. These originate in casual slights, or in unguarded expressions, or in hasty opinions, or in witty derision, or even in the obtruding goodness of tender admonition. The man of genius broods over the phantom that darkens his feelings: he multiplies a single object; he magnifies the smallest; and suspicions become certainties. It is in this unhappy 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 the Count de Charolois, afterwards Duke of Burgundy, one day returning from hunting, with inconsiderate jocularity sat down before the Count, and ordered the prince to pull off his boots. The Count would not affect greatness, and having executed his commission, in return for the princely amusement, the Count dashed the boot on Comines' nose, which bled; and from that time, he was mortified at the court of Burgundy, by retaining the nickname of the booted head. The blow rankled in the heart of the man 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 distilled on their lasting page, as we have recently witnessed in Lord Waldegrave's "Memoirs." Swift's perpetual malevolence to Dryden originated in that great poet's prediction, that "cousin Swift would never be a poet;" a prediction which the wit never could forget. I have elsewhere fully written a tale of literary hatred, where is seen a man of genius, in the character of GILBERT STUART, devoting a whole life to harassing the industry 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, and although the pontiff accepted the volume, he did not forbear a severity of remark which could not fall unheeded by the modern poet; for on this occasion, repeating some verses of Metastasio, his holiness drily added, "No one now-a-days writes like that great poet." Never was this to be erased from memory: the stifled resentment of MONTI vehemently broke forth at the moment the French carried off Pius VI. from Rome. Then the long indignant secretary poured forth an invective more severe "against the great harlot," than was ever traced by a Protestant pen—MONTI now invoked the rock of Sardinia: the poet bade it fly from its base, that the last of monsters might not find even a tomb to shelter him. Such was the curse of 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 the summit of power, a monstrous imagination seized him; he projected razing the city of Lyons and massacring its inhabitants. He had even the heart to commence, and to continue this conspiracy against human nature; the ostensible crime was royalism, but the secret motive is said to have been literary vengeance! As wretched a poet and actor as a man, D'Herbois had been hissed off the theatre at Lyons, and to avenge that ignominy, he had meditated over this vast and remorseless crime. Is there but one Collot D'Herbois in the universe? Long since this was written, a fact has been recorded of CHENIER, the French dramatic poet, which parallels the horrid tale of Collot D'Herbois, which some have been willing to doubt from its enormity. It is said, that this monster, in the revolutionary period, when he had the power to save the life of his brother Andre, while his father, prostrate before a wretched son, was imploring for the life of an innocent brother, remained silent; it is further said that he appropriated to himself a tragedy which he found among his brother's manuscripts. "Fratricide from literary jealousy," observes the relator of this anecdote, "was a crime reserved for a modern French revolutionist."[A] There are some pathethic stanzas which Andre was composing in his last moments, when awaiting his fate; the most pathetic of all stanzas is that one which he left unfinished—

Peut-etre, avant que l'heure en cercle promenee Ait pose, sur l'email brillant, Dans les soixante pas ou sa route est bornee, Son pied sonore et vigilant, Le sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupiere—

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 to domestic infelicities.—The home of the literary character should be the abode of repose and silence.—Of the Father.—Of the Mother.—Of family genius.—Men of genius not more respected than other men in their domestic circle.—The cultivators of science and art do not meet on equal terms with others, in domestic life.—Their neglect of those around them.—Often accused of imaginary crimes.

When the temper and the leisure of the literary character are alike broken, even his best works, the too faithful mirrors of his state of mind, will participate in its inequalities; and surely the incubations of genius, in its delicate and shadowy combinations, are not less sensible in their operation than the composition of sonorous bodies, where, while the warm metal is settling in the mould, even an unusual vibration of the air during the moment of fusion will injure the tone.

Some of the conspicuous blemishes of several great compositions may be attributed to the domestic infelicities of their authors. The desultory life of CAMOENS is imagined to be perceptible in the deficient connexion of his epic; and MILTON'S blindness and divided family prevented that castigating criticism, which otherwise had erased passages which have escaped from his revising hand. He felt himself in the situation of his Samson Agonistes, whom he so pathetically describes—

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

Even LOCKE complains of his "discontinued way of writing," and "writing by incoherent parcels," from the avocations of a busy and unsettled life, which undoubtedly produced a deficiency of method in the disposition of the materials of his great work. The careless rapid lines of DRYDEN are justly attributed to his distress, and indeed he pleads for his inequalities from his domestic circumstances. JOHNSON often silently, but eagerly, corrected the "Ramblers" in their successive editions, of which so many had been despatched in haste. The learned GREAVES offered some excuses for his errors in his edition of "Abulfeda," from "his being five years encumbered with lawsuits, and diverted from his studies." When at length he returned to them, he expresses his surprise "at the pains he had formerly undergone," but of which he now felt himself "unwilling, he knew not how, of again undergoing." GOLDONI, when at the bar, abandoned his comic talent for several years; and having resumed it, his first comedy totally failed: "My head," says he, "was occupied with my professional employment; I was uneasy in mind and in bad humour." A lawsuit, a bankruptcy, a domestic feud, or an indulgence in criminal or in foolish pursuits, have chilled the fervour of imagination, scattered into fragments many a noble design, and paralysed the finest genius. The distractions of GUIDO'S studies from his passion for gaming, and of PARMEGIANO'S for alchemy, have been traced in their works, which are often hurried over and unequal. It is curious to observe, that CUMBERLAND attributes the excellence of his comedy, The West Indian, to the peculiarly happy situation in which he found himself at the time of its composition, free from the incessant avocations which had crossed him in the 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. The calls of office, the cavillings of angry rivals, and the gibings of newspaper critics, could not reach me on the banks of the Shannon, where all within-doors was love and affection. In no other period of my life have the same happy circumstances combined to cheer me in any of my literary labours."

The best years of MENGS' life were embittered by his father, a poor artist, and who, with poorer feelings, converted his home into a prison-house, forced his son into the slavery of stipulated task-work, while bread and water were the only fruits of the fine arts. In this domestic persecution, the son contracted those morose and saturnine habits which in after-life marked the character of the ungenial MENGS. ALONSO CANO, a celebrated Spanish painter, would have carried his art to perfection, had not the unceasing persecution of the Inquisitors entirely deprived him of that tranquillity so necessary to the very existence of art. OVID, in exile on the barren shores of Tomos, deserted by his genius, in his copious Tristia loses much of the luxuriance of his fancy.

We have a remarkable evidence of domestic unhappiness annihilating the very faculty of genius itself, in the case of Dr. BROOK TAYLOR, the celebrated author of the "Linear Perspective." This great mathematician in early life distinguished himself as an inventor in science, and the most sanguine hopes of his future discoveries were raised both at home and abroad. Two unexpected events in domestic life extinguished his inventive faculties. After the loss of two wives, whom he regarded with no common affection, he became unfitted for profound studies; he carried his own personal despair into his favourite objects of pursuit, and abandoned them. The inventor of the most original work suffered the last fifteen years of his life to drop away, without hope, and without exertion; nor is this a solitary instance, where a man of genius, deprived of the idolised partner of his existence, has no longer been able to find an object in his studies, and where even fame itself has ceased to interest. The reason which ROUSSEAU alleges for the cynical spleen which so frequently breathes forth in his works, shows how the domestic character of the man of genius leaves itself in his productions. After describing the infelicity of his domestic affairs, occasioned by the mother of Theresa, and Theresa herself, both women of the lowest class and the worst dispositions, he adds, on this wretched marriage, "These unexpected disagreeable events, in a state of my own choice, plunged me into literature, to give a new direction and diversion to my mind; and in all my first works I scattered that bilious humour which had occasioned this very occupation." Our author's character in his works was the very opposite to the one in which he appeared to these low people. Feeling his degradation among them, for they treated his simplicity as utter silliness, his personal timidity assumed a tone of boldness and originality in his writings, while a strong personal sense of shame heightened his causticity, and he delighted to contemn that urbanity in which he had never shared, and which he knew not how to practise. His miserable subservience to these people was the real cause of his oppressed spirit calling out for some undefined freedom in society; and thus the real Rousseau, with all his disordered feelings, only appeared in his writings. The secrets of his heart were confided to his pen.

"The painting-room must be like Eden before the Fall; no joyless turbulent passions must enter there"—exclaims the enthusiast RICHARDSON. The home of the literary character should be the abode of repose and of silence. There must he look for the feasts of study, in progressive and alternate labours; a taste "which," says GIBBON, "I would not exchange for the treasures of India." ROUSSEAU had always a work going on, for rainy days and spare hours, such as his "Dictionary of Music:" a variety of works never tired; it was the single one which exhausted. METASTASIO looks with delight on his variety, which resembled the fruits in the garden 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 literary character to hold an unwearied pen. Another equally powerful exists, which must remain inexplicable to him who knows not to escape from the listlessness of life—it is the passion for literary occupation. He whose eye can only measure the space occupied by the voluminous labours of the elder Pliny, of a Mazzuchelli, a Muratori, a Montfaucon, and a Gough, all men who laboured from the love of labour, and can see nothing in that space but the industry which filled it, is like him who only views a city at a distance—the streets and the edifices, and all the life and population within, he can never know. These literary characters projected their works as so many schemes to escape from uninteresting pursuits; and, in these folios, how many evils of life did they bury, while their happiness expanded with their volume! Aulus Gellius desired to live no longer than he was able to retain the faculty of writing and observing. The literary character must grow as impassioned with his subject as AElian-with his "History of Animals;" "wealth and honour I might have obtained at the courts of princes; but I preferred the delight of multiplying my knowledge. I am aware that the avaricious and the ambitious will accuse me of folly; but I have always found most pleasure in observing the nature of animals, studying their character, and writing their history."

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

[Footnote A: This appears in one of his interesting letters first published in the Literary Gazette, Oct. 20, 1821.—[It is addressed to Adam Smith, dated July 28, 1759, and he says, "I signed an agreement with Mr. Millar, where I mention that I proposed to write the History of England from the beginning till the accession of Henry VII.,; and he engages to give me 1400l. for the copy. This is the first previous agreement ever I made with a bookseller. I shall execute the work at leisure, without fatiguing myself by such ardent application as I have hitherto employed. It is chiefly as a resource against idleness that I shall undertake the work, for as to money I have enough: and as to reputation what I have wrote already will be sufficient, if it be good; if not, it is not likely I shall now write better."]]

Amidst the repose and silence of study, delightful to the literary character, are the soothing interruptions of the voices of those whom he loves, recalling him from his abstractions into social existence. These re-animate his languor, and moments of inspiration are caught in the emotions of affection, when a father or a friend, a wife, a daughter, or a sister, become the participators of his own tastes, the companions of his studies, and identify their happiness with his fame. A beautiful incident in the domestic life of literature is one which Morellet has revealed of MARMONTEL. In presenting his collected works to his wife, she discovered that the author had dedicated his volumes to herself; but the dedication was not made painful to her modesty, for it was not a public one. Nor was it 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 the gratitude of their father, and know the character of their mother, when the writer should be no more. Many readers were perhaps surprised to find in NECKER's Comte rendu au Roi, a political and financial work, a great and lovely character of domestic excellence in his wife. This was more obtrusive than Marmontel's private dedication; yet it was not the less sincere. If NECKER failed in the cautious reserve of private feelings, who will censure? Nothing seems misplaced which the heart dictates.

If HORACE were dear to his friends, he declares they owed him to his father:—

—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 the propensity of Horace's mind; for he removed the boy of genius from a rural seclusion to the metropolis, anxiously attending on him to his various masters. GROTIUS, like Horace, celebrated in verse his gratitude to his excellent father, who had formed him not only to be a man of learning, but a great character. VITRUVIUS pours forth a grateful prayer to the memory of his parents, who had instilled into his soul a love for literary and philosophical subjects; and it is an amiable trait in PLUTARCH to have introduced his father in the Symposiacs, as an elegant critic and moralist, and his brother Lamprias, whose sweetness of disposition, inclining to cheerful raillery, the Sage of Cheronaea has immortalised. The father of GIBBON urged him to literary distinction, and the dedication of the "Essay on Literature" to that father, connected with his subsequent labour, shows the force of the excitement. The father of POPE lived long enough 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. "It will do you honour," observed the Gallic sage.[B] And when that son in the revolution was led to the guillotine, he ascended in silence, so impressed with his father's fame, that he only told the people, "I am the son of Buffon!"

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

[Footnote B: It still exists in the gardens of the old chateau at Montbard. It is a pillar of marble bearing this inscription:—"Excelsae turris humilia columna, Parenti suo filius Buffon. 1785."—ED.]

Fathers absorbed in their occupations can but rarely attract their offspring. The first durable impressions of our moral existence come from the mother. The first prudential wisdom to which Genius listens falls from her lips, and only her caresses can create the moments of tenderness. The earnest discernment of a mother's love survives in the imagination of manhood. The mother of Sir WILLIAM JONES, having formed a plan for the education of her son, withdrew from great connexions that she might live only for that son. Her great principle of education, was to excite by curiosity; the result could not fail to be knowledge. "Read, and you will know," she constantly replied to her filial pupil. And we have his own acknowledgment, that to this maxim, which produced the habit of study, he was indebted for his future attainments. KANT, the German metaphysician, was always fond of declaring that he owed to the ascendancy of his mother's character the severe inflexibility of his moral principles. The mother 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, the religious feelings which he confesses he inherited from her. The mother of EDGEWORTH, confined through life to her apartment, was the only person who studied his constitutional volatility. When he hastened to her death-bed, the last imperfect accents of that beloved voice reminded him of the past and warned him of the future, and he declares that voice "had a happy influence on his habits,"—as happy, at least, as his own volatile nature would 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 the mother."

There is this remarkable in the strong affections of the mother in the formation of the literary character, that, without even partaking of, or sympathising with the pleasures the child is fond of, the mother will often cherish those first decided tastes merely from the delight of promoting the happiness of her son; so that that genius, which some would produce on a preconceived system, or implant by stratagem, or enforce by application, with her may be only the watchful labour of love.[A] One of our most eminent antiquaries has often assured me that his great passion, and I may say his genius, for his curious knowledge and his vast researches, he attributes to maternal affection. When his early taste for these studies was thwarted by the very different one of his father, the mother silently supplied her son with the sort of treasures he languished for, 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 in not only fostering his genius, but in watching its too rapid development. He says:—"If at any time my imagination was overheated, my mother always contrived to select something for my evening reading which might moderate this 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 of genius is diffused an electrical atmosphere, and his own pre-eminence strikes out talents in all. "The active pursuits of my father," says the daughter of EDGEWORTH, "spread an animation through the house by connecting children with all that was going on, and allowing them to join in thought and conversation; sympathy and emulation excited mental exertion in the most agreeable manner." EVELYN, in his beautiful retreat at Saye's Court, had inspired his family with that variety of taste which he himself was spreading throughout the nation. His son translated Rapin's "Gardens," which poem the father proudly preserved in his "Sylva;" his lady, ever busied in his study, excelled in the arts her husband loved, and designed the frontispiece to his "Lucretius:" she was the cultivator of their celebrated garden, which served as "an example" of his great work on "forest trees." Cowley, who has commemorated Evelyn's love of books and gardens, has delightfully applied them to his lady, in whom, says the bard, 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 the arts, and the votaries were his own family. The universal acquirements of Haller were possessed in some degree by every one under his roof; and their studious delight in transcribing manuscripts, in consulting authors, in botanising, drawing and colouring the plants under his eye, formed occupations which made the daughters happy and the sons eminent.[A] The painter STELLA inspired his family to copy his fanciful inventions, and the playful graver of Claudine Stella, his niece, animated his "Sports of Children." I have seen a print of COYPEL in his studio, and by his side his little daughter, who is intensely watching the progress of her father's pencil. The artist has represented himself in the act of suspending his labour to look on his child. At that moment, his thoughts were divided between two objects of his love. The character and the works of the late ELIZABETH HAMILTON were formed entirely by her brother. Admiring the man she loved, she imitated what she admired; and while the brother was arduously completing the version of the Persian Hedaya, the sister, who had associated with his morning tasks and his evening conversations, was recalling all the ideas, and pourtraying her fraternal master in her "Hindoo Rajah."

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

Nor are there wanting instances where this FAMILY GENIUS has been carried down through successive generations: the volume of the father has been continued by a son, or a relative. The history of the family of the ZWINGERS is a combination of studies and inherited tastes. Theodore published, in 1697, a folio herbal, of which his son Frederic gave an enlarged edition in 1744; and the family was honoured by their name having been given to a genus of plants dedicated to their memory, and known in botany by the name of the Zwingera. In history and in literature, the family 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 the historians of Italy, it is delightful to contemplate this family genius transmitting itself with unsullied probity among the three VILLANIS, and the MALASPINIS, and the two PORTAS. The history of the learned family of the STEPHENS presents a dynasty of literature; and to distinguish the numerous members, they have been designated as Henry I. and Henry II.,—as Robert I., the II., and the III.[A] Our country may exult in having possessed many literary families—the WARTONS, the father and two sons: the BURNEYS, more in number; and the nephews of Milton, whose humble torch at least was lighted at the altar of the great bard.[B]

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

[Footnote B: The Phillips.]

No event in literary history is more impressive than the fate of QUINTILIAN; it was in the midst of his elaborate work, which was composed to form the literary character of a son, that he experienced the most terrible affliction in the domestic life of genius—the successive deaths of his wife and his only child. It was a moral earthquake with a single survivor amidst the ruins. An awful burst of parental and literary affliction breaks forth in Quintilian's lamentation,—"My wealth, and my writings, the fruits of a long and painful life, must now be reserved only for strangers; all I possess is for aliens, and no longer mine!" We feel the united agony of the husband, the father, and the man of genius!

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

In domestic life, the Abbe DE ST. PIERRE enlarged its moral vocabulary, by fixing in his language two significant words. One served to explain the virtue most familiar to him—bienfaisance; and that irritable vanity which magnifies its ephemeral fame, the sage reduced to a mortifying diminutive—la gloriole!

It has often excited surprise that men of genius are not more reverenced than other men in their domestic circle. The disparity between the public and the private esteem of the same man is often striking. In privacy we discover that the comic genius is not always cheerful, that the sage is sometimes ridiculous, and the poet seldom delightful. The golden hour of invention must terminate like other hours, and when the man of genius returns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, and the amusements of life, his companions behold him as one of themselves—the creature of habits and infirmities.

In the business of life, the cultivators of science and the arts, with all their simplicity of feeling and generous openness about them, do not meet on equal terms with other men. Their frequent abstractions calling off the mind to whatever enters into its lonely pursuits, render them greatly inferior to others in practical and immediate observation. Studious men have been reproached as being so deficient in the knowledge of the human character, that they are usually disqualified for the management of public business. Their confidence in their friends has no bound, while they become the easy dupes of the designing. A friend, who was in office with the late Mr. CUMBERLAND, assures me, that he was so intractable to the forms of business, and so easily induced to do more or to do less than he ought, that he was compelled to perform the official business of this literary man, to free himself from his annoyance; and yet Cumberland could not be reproached with any deficiency in a knowledge of the human character, which he was always touching with caustic pleasantry.

ADDISON and PRIOR were unskilful statesmen; and MALESHERBES confessed, a few days before his death, that TURGOT and himself, men of genius and philosophers, from whom the nation had expected much, had badly administered the affairs of the state; for "knowing men but by books, and unskilful in business, we could not form the king to the government." A man 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 one in 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 the minor cares of life. Hence it becomes a victim to common fools and vulgar villains. "I love my family's welfare, but I cannot be so foolish as to make myself the slave to the minute affairs of a house," said MONTESQUIEU. The story told of a man of learning is probably true, however ridiculous it may appear. Deeply occupied in his library, one, rushing in, informed him that the house was on fire: "Go to my wife—these matters belong to her!" pettishly replied the interrupted student. BACON sat at one end of his table wrapt in many a reverie, while at the other the creatures about him were trafficking with his honour, and ruining his good name: "I am better 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 play a part."

BUFFON, who consumed his mornings in his old tower of Montbard, at the end of his garden,[A] with all nature opening to him, formed all his ideas of what was passing before him from the arts of a pliant Capuchin, and the comments of a perruquier on the scandalous chronicle of the village. These humble confidants he treated as children, but the children were commanding the great man! YOUNG, whose satires give the very anatomy of human foibles, was wholly governed by his housekeeper. She thought and acted for him, which probably greatly assisted the "Night Thoughts," but his curate exposed the domestic economy of a man of genius by a satirical novel. If I am truly informed, in that gallery of satirical portraits in his "Love of Fame," YOUNG has omitted one of the most striking—his OWN! While the poet's eye was glancing from "earth to heaven," he totally overlooked the lady whom he married, and who soon became the object of his contempt; and not only his wife, but his only son, who when he returned home for the vacation from Winchester school, was only admitted into the presence of his poetical father on the first and the last day; and whose unhappy life is attributed to this unnatural neglect:[B]—a lamentable domestic catastrophe, which, I fear, has too frequently occurred amidst the ardour and occupations of literary glory. Much, too much, of the tender domesticity of life is violated by literary characters. All that lives under their eye, all that should be guided by their hand, the recluse and abstracted men of genius must leave to their own direction. But let it not be forgotten, that, if such neglect others, they also neglect themselves, and are deprived of those family enjoyments for which few men have warmer sympathies. While the literary character burns with the ambition of raising a great literary name, he is too often forbidden to taste of this domestic intercourse, or to indulge the versatile curiosity of his private amusements—for he is chained to his great labour. ROBERTSON felt this while employed on his histories, and he at length rejoiced when, after many years of devoted toil, he returned to the luxury of reading for his own amusement and to the conversation of his friends. "Such a sacrifice," observes his philosophical biographer, "must be more or less made by all who devote themselves to letters, whether with a view to emolument or to fame; nor would it perhaps be easy to make it, were it not for the prospect (seldom, alas! realised) of earning by their exertions that learned and honourable leisure which he was so fortunate as to attain."

[Footnote A: For some account of this place, see the chapter on "Literary Residences" in vol. iii. p. 395, of "Curiosities of Literature."]

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

But men of genius have often been accused of imaginary crimes. Their very eminence attracts the lie of calumny, which tradition often conveys beyond the possibility of refutation. Sometimes they are reproached as wanting in affection, when they displease their fathers by making an obscure name celebrated. The family of DESCARTES lamented, as a blot in their escutcheon, that Descartes, who was born a gentleman, should become a philosopher; and this elevated genius was refused the satisfaction of embracing an unforgiving parent, while his dwarfish brother, with a mind diminutive as his person, ridiculed his philosophic relative, and turned to advantage his philosophic disposition. The daughter of ADDISON was educated with a perfect contempt of authors, and blushed to bear a name more illustrious than that of all the Warwicks, on her alliance to which noble family she prided herself. The children of MILTON, far from solacing the age of their blind parent, became impatient for his death, embittered his last hours with scorn and disaffection, and combined to cheat and rob him. Milton, having enriched our national poetry by two immortal epics, with patient grief blessed the single female who did not entirely abandon him, and the obscure fanatic who was pleased with his poems because they were religious. What felicities! what laurels! And now we have recently learned, that the daughter of Madame DE SEVIGNE lived on ill terms with her mother, of whose enchanting genius she appears to have been insensible! The unquestionable documents are two letters hitherto cautiously secreted. The daughter was in the house of her mother when an extraordinary letter was addressed to her from the chamber of Madame de Sevigne after a sleepless night. In this she describes, with her peculiar felicity, the ill-treatment she received from the daughter she idolised; it is a kindling effusion of maternal reproach, and tenderness, and genius.[A]

[Footnote A: Lettres inedites de Madame de Sevigne, pp. 201 and 203.]

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



CHAPTER XVII.

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

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

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

Among the continental nations, to accumulate wealth in the spirit of a capitalist does not seem to form the prime object of domestic life. The traffic of money is with them left to the traffickers, their merchants, and their financiers. In our country, the commercial character has so closely interwoven and identified itself with the national one, and its peculiar views have so terminated all our pursuits, that every rank is alike influenced by its spirit, and things are valued by a market-price which naturally admits of no such appraisement. In a country where "The Wealth of Nations" has been fixed as the first principle of political existence, wealth has raised an aristocracy more noble than nobility, more celebrated than genius, more popular than patriotism; but however it may partake at times of a generous nature, it hardly looks beyond its own narrow 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 in failing to accumulate a large fortune; but I do not lament the mediocrity of my circumstances in France." The sources of our national wealth have greatly multiplied, and the evil has consequently increased, since the visit of the great philosopher.

The cares of property, the daily concerns of a family, the pressure of such minute disturbers of their studies, have induced some great minds to regret the abolition of those monastic orders, beneath whose undisturbed shade were produced the mighty labours of a MONTFAUCON, a CALMET, a FLOREZ, and the still unfinished volumes of the BENEDICTINES. Often has the literary character, amidst the busied delights of study, sighed "to bid a farewell sweet" to the turbulence of society. It was not discontent, nor any undervaluing of general society, but the pure enthusiasm of the library, which once induced the studious EVELYN to sketch a retreat of this nature, which he addressed to his friend, the illustrious BOYLE. He proposed to form "A college where persons of the same turn of mind might enjoy the pleasure of agreeable society, and at the same time pass their days without care or interruption."[A] This abandonment of their life to their genius has, indeed, often cost them too dear, from the days of SOPHOCLES, who, ardent in his old age, neglected his family affairs, and was brought before his judges by his relations, as one fallen into a second childhood. The aged poet brought but one solitary witness in his favour—an unfinished tragedy; which having read, the judges rose before him, and retorted the charge on his accusers.

[Footnote A: This romantic literary retreat is one of those delightful reveries which the elegant taste of EVELYN abounded with. It may be found at full length in the fifth volume of Boyle's Works, not in the second, as the Biog. Brit. says. His lady was to live among the society. "If I and my wife take up two apartments, for we are to be decently asunder, however I stipulate, and her inclination will greatly suit with it, that shall be no impediment to the society, but a considerable advantage to the economic part," &c.]

A parallel circumstance occurred to the Abbe COTIN, the victim of a rhyme of the satirical Boileau. Studious, and without fortune, Cotin had lived contented till he incurred the unhappiness of inheriting a large estate. Then a world of cares opened on him; his rents were not paid, and his creditors increased. Dragged from his Hebrew and Greek, poor Cotin resolved to make over his entire fortune to one of his heirs, on condition of maintenance. His other relations assuming that a man who parted with his estate in his lifetime must necessarily be deranged, brought the learned Cotin into court. Cotin had nothing to say in his own favour, but requested his judges would allow him to address them from the sermons which he preached. The good sense, the sound reasoning, and the erudition of the preacher were such, that the whole bench unanimously declared that they themselves might be considered as madmen, were they to condemn a man of letters who was desirous of escaping from the incumbrance of a fortune which had only interrupted his studies.

There may then be sufficient motives to induce such a man to make a state of mediocrity his choice. If he lose his happiness, he mutilates his genius. GOLDONI, with all the simplicity of his feelings and habits, in reviewing his life, tells us how he was always relapsing into his old propensity of comic writing; "but the thought of this does not disturb me," says he; "for though in any other situation I might have been in easier circumstances, I should never have been so happy." BAYLE is a parent of the modern literary character; he pursued the same course, and early in life adopted the principle, "Neither to fear bad fortune nor have any ardent desires for good." Acquainted with the passions only as their historian, and living only for literature, he sacrificed to it the two great acquisitions of human pursuits—fortune and a family: but in what country had Bayle not a family and a possession in his fame? HUME and GIBBON had the most perfect conception of the literary character, and they were aware of this important principle in its habits—"My own revenue," said HUME, "will be sufficient for a man of letters, who surely needs less money, both for his entertainment and credit, than other people." GIBBON observed of himself—"Perhaps the golden mediocrity of my fortune has contributed to fortify my application."

The state of poverty, then, desirable in the domestic life of genius, is one in which the cares of property never intrude, and the want of wealth is never perceived. This is not indigence; that state which, however dignified the man of genius himself may be, must inevitably degrade! for the heartless will gibe, and even the compassionate turn aside in contempt. This literary outcast will soon be forsaken even by himself! his own intellect will be clouded over, and his limbs shrink in the palsy of bodily misery and shame—

Malesuada Fames, et turpis Egestas Terribiles visu formae.

Not that in this history of men of genius we are without illustrious examples of those who have even learnt to want, that they might emancipate their genius from their necessities!

We see ROUSSEAU rushing out of the palace of the financier, selling his watch, copying music by the sheet, and by the mechanical industry of two hours, purchasing ten for genius. We may smile at the enthusiasm of young BARRRY, who finding himself too constant a haunter of taverns, imagined that this expenditure of time was occasioned by having money; and to put an end to the conflict, he threw the little he possessed at once into the Liffey; but let us not forget that BARRY, in the maturity of life, confidently began a labour of years,[A] and one of the noblest inventions in his art—a great poem in a picture—with no other resource than what he found by secret labours through the night, in furnishing the shops with those slight and saleable sketches which secured uninterrupted mornings for his genius. SPINOSA, a name as celebrated, and perhaps as calumniated, as Epicurus, lived in all sorts of abstinence, even of honours, of pensions, and of presents; which, however disguised by kindness, he would not accept, so fearful was this philosopher of a chain! Lodging in a cottage, and obtaining a livelihood by polishing optical glasses, he declared he had never spent more than he earned, and certainly thought there was such a thing as superfluous earnings. At his death, his small accounts 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 of the Society of Arts in the Adelphi.—ED.]

POUSSIN persisted in refusing a higher price than that affixed to the back of his pictures, at the time he was living without a domestic. The great oriental scholar, ANQUETIL DE PERRON, is a recent example of the literary character carrying his indifference to privations to the very cynicism of poverty; and he seems to exult over his destitution with the same pride as others would expatiate over their possessions. Yet we must not forget, to use the words of Lord Bacon, that "judging that means were to be spent upon learning, and not learning to be applied to means," DE PERRON refused the 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 like their own. "I subsist on the produce of my literary labours without revenue, establishment, or place. I have no wife nor children; alone, absolutely free, but always the friend of men of probity. In a perpetual war with my senses, I triumph over the attractions of the world or I contemn them."

This ascetic existence is not singular. PARINI, a great modern poet of Italy, whom the Milanese point out to strangers as the glory of their city, lived in the same state of unrepining poverty. Mr. Hobhouse has given 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 the illustrious LINNAEUS. Without fortune, to that great mind it never seemed necessary to acquire any. Perigrinating on foot with a stylus, a magnifying-glass, and a basket for plants, he shared the rustic meal of the peasant. Never was glory obtained at a cheaper rate! exclaims one of his eulogists. Satisfied with the least of the little, he only felt one perpetual want—that of completing his Flors. Not that LINNAEUS was insensible to his situation, for he gave his name to a little flower in Lapland—the Linnaea Borealis, from the fanciful analogy he discovered between its character and his own early fate, "a little northern plant flowering early, depressed, abject, and long overlooked." The want of fortune, 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 of Upsal, nor of that solemn eulogy delivered by a crowned head, nor of those medals which his nation struck to commemorate the genius of the three kingdoms of nature!

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

Yes! Genius, undegraded and unexhausted, may indeed even in a garret glow in its career; but it must be on the principle which induced ROUSSEAU solemnly to renounce writing "par metier." This in the Journal de Scavans he once attempted, but found himself quite inadequate to "the profession."[B] In a garret, the author of the "Studies of Nature," as he exultingly tells us, arranged his work. "It was in a little garret, in the new street of St. Etienne du Mont, where I resided four years, in the midst of physical and domestic afflictions. But there I enjoyed the most exquisite pleasures of my life, amid profound solitude and an enchanting horizon. There I put the finishing hand to my 'Studies of Nature,' and there I published them." Pope, one day taking his usual walk with Harte in the Haymarket, desired him to enter a little shop, where going up three pair of stairs into a small room, Pope said, "In this garret AUDISON wrote his 'Campaign!'" To the feelings of the poet this garret had become a consecrated spot; Genius seemed more itself, placed in contrast with its miserable locality!

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