seemed expressive and facetious; while MONT- he could not persuade himself that the man whom BELLIARD threw every charm of animation over he conversed with was the great historian of his his delightful talk but when he took his seat at country. Even a good man could not believe in the rival desk of Buffon, an immense interval the announcement of the Messiah, from the same separated them; he whose tongue dropped the sort of prejudice : "Can there anything good honey and the music of the bee, handled a pen of come out of Nazareth?" iron; while Buffon's was the soft pencil of the philosophical painter of nature. COWLEY and KILLEGREW furnish another instance. CoWLEY was embarrassed in conversation, and had no quickness in argument or reply: a mind pensive and elegant could not be struck at to catch fire: while with KILLEGREW the sparkling bubbles of his fancy rose and dropped. When the delightful conversationist wrote, the deception ceased. Denham, who knew them both, hit off the difference between them ::

"Had Cowley ne'er spoke, Killegrew ne'er writ,

Combined in one they had made a matchless wit." Not, however, that a man of genius does not throw out many things in conversation which have only been found admirable when the public possessed them. The public often widely differ from the individual, and a century's opinion may intervene between them. The fate of genius is sometimes that of the Athenian sculptor, who submitted his colossal Minerva to a private party for inspection. Before the artist they trembled for his daring chisel, and the man of genius smiled; behind him they calumniated, and the man of genius forgave. Once fixed in a public place, in the eyes of the whole city, the statue was the Divinity! There is a certain distance at which opinions, as well as statues, must be viewed.

Suffer a man of genius to be such as nature and habit have formed him, and he will then be the most interesting companion; then will you see nothing but his character. AKENSIDE, in conversation with select friends, often touched by a romantic enthusiasm, would pass in review those eminent ancients whom he loved; he imbued with his poetic faculty even the details of their lives; and seemed another Plato while he poured libations to their memory in the language of Plato, among those whose studies and feelings were congenial with his own. ROMNEY, with a fancy entirely his own, would give vent to his effusions, uttered in a hurried accent and elevated tone, and often accompanied by tears, to which by constitution he was prone; thus Cumberland, from personal intimacy, describes the conversation of this man of genius. Even the temperate sensibility of HUME was touched by the bursts of feeling of ROUSSEAU; who, he says, "in conversation kindles often to a degree of heat which looks like inspiration." BARRY, that unhappy genius! was the most repulsive of men in his exterior. The vehemence of his language, the wildness of his glance, his habit of introducing vulgar oaths, which, by some unlucky association of habit, served him as expletives and interjections, communicated even a horror to some. A pious and a learned lady, who had felt intolerable But enough of those defects of men of genius uneasiness in his presence, did not however leave which often attend their conversations. Must we this man of genius that very evening without an then bow to authorial dignity, and kiss hands, impression that she had never heard so divine a because they are inked? Must we bend to the man in her life. The conversation happening to artist, who considers us as nothing unless we are turn on that principle of benevolence which percanvas or marble under his hands? Are there vades Christianity, and on the meekness of the not men of genius, the grace of society, and the Founder, it gave BARRY an opportunity of opening charm of their circle? Fortunate men! more on the character of Jesus, with that copiousness blest than their brothers; but for this, they are of heart and mind, which once heard could never not the more men of genius, nor the others less. be forgotten. That artist indeed had long in his To how many of the ordinary intimates of a supe- meditations an ideal head of Christ, which he was rior genius, who complain of his defects, might always talking of executing : "It is here!" he one say, "Do his productions not delight and would cry, striking his head. That which baffled sometimes surprise you?-You are silent! I beg the invention, as we are told, of Leonardo da your pardon; the public has informed you of a Vinci, who left his Christ headless, having exgreat name; you would not otherwise have per- hausted his creative faculty among the apostles, ceived the precious talent of your neighbour: you this imaginative picture of the mysterious union know little of your friend but his name." The of a divine and human nature, never ceased, even personal familiarity of ordinary minds with a man when conversing, to haunt the reveries of BARRY. of genius has often produced a ludicrous prejudice. A Scotchman, to whom the name of a Dr. Robertson had travelled down, was curious to know who he was.-"Your neighbour !"-But

There are few authors and artists who are not eloquently instructive on that class of knowledge, or that department of art, which reveals the mastery of their life. Their conversations of this

The Miscellanea of POLITIAN are not only the result of his studies in the rich library of Lorenzo de' Medici, but of conversations, which had passed in those rides which Lorenzo, accompanied by Politian, preferred to the pomp of cavalcades. When the Cardinal de Cabassolle strayed with PETRARCH about his valley in many a wandering discourse, they sometimes extended their walks to guch a distance, that the servant sought them in vain to announce the dinner-hour, and found them returning in the evening. When HELVETIUS enjoyed the social conversation of a literary friend, he described it as "a chase of ideas." Such are the literary conversations which HORNE TOOKE alluded to, when he said "I assure you, we find more difficulty to finish than to begin our conversations."

46

nature affect the mind to a distant period of life. to write what he wishes to suppress. I have Who, having listened to such, has forgotten what indeed a great work in hand (on the Latin a man of genius has said at such moments? Who language), long designed for Cicero." The condwells not on the single thought, or the glowing versation then took its natural turn by Atticus expression, stamped in the heat of the moment, having got rid of the political anxiety of Cicero. which came from its source? Then the mind of Such, too, were the conversations which passed at genius rises as the melody of the Eolian harp, the literary residence of the Medici family; which when the winds suddenly sweep over the strings- was described, with as much truth as fancy, as it comes and goes-and leaves a sweetness beyond the Lyceum of philosophy, the Arcadia of poets, the harmonies of art. and the Academy of painters." We have a pleasing instance of such a meeting of literary friends in those conversations which passed in POPE's garden, where there was often a remarkable union of nobility and literary men. There Thomson, Mallet, Gay, Hooke, and Glover, met Cobham, Bathurst, Chesterfield, Lyttelton, and other lords; there some of these poets found patrons, and POPE himself discovered critics. The contracted views of Spence have unfortunately not preserved these literary conversations, but a curious passage has dropped from the pen of Lord BOLINGBROKE, in what his lordship calls "a letter to Pope," often probably passed over among his political tracts. It breathes the spirit of those delightful conversations. My thoughts," writes his lordship, "in what order soever they flow, shall be communicated to you just as they pass through my mind; just as they used to be when we conversed together on these or any other subject; when we sauntered alone, or as we have often done with good Arbuthnot, and the jocose Dean of St. Patrick, among the multiplied scenes of your little garden. ambition." Such a scene opens a beautiful subject for a curious portrait-painter. These literary groups in the gardens of Pope, sauntering, or divided in confidential intercourse, would furnish a scene of literary repose and enjoyment, among some of the most illustrious names in our literature.

The natural and congenial conversations of men of letters and of artists, must then be those which are associated with their pursuits, and these are of a different complexion with the talk of men of the world, the objects of which are drawn from the temporary passions of party-men, or the variable on dits of triflers-topics studiously rejected from these more tranquillising conversations. Diamonds can only be polished by their own dust, and are only shaped by the friction of other diamonds; and so it happens with literary men and artists.

A meeting of this nature has been recorded by CICERO, which himself and ATTICUS had with VARRO in the country. Varro arriving from Rome in their neighbourhood somewhat fatigued, had sent a messenger to his friends. "As soon as we had heard these tidings," says Cicero, we could not delay hastening to see one, who was attached to us by the same pursuits and by former friendship." They set off, but found Varro halfway, urged by the same eager desire to join them. They conducted him to Cicero's villa. Here, while Cicero was inquiring after the news of Rome, Atticus interrupted the political rival of Cæsar, observing, "Let us leave off inquiring after things which cannot be heard without pain. Rather ask about what we know, for Varro's muses are longer silent than they used to be, yet surely he has not forsaken them, but rather conceals what he writes."-" By no means!" replied Varro, "for I deem him to be a whimsical man

That theatre is large enough for my

CHAPTER X.

Literary solitude.-Its necessity.-Its pleasures.-Of visitors by profession.-Its inconveniences. THE literary character is reproached with an extreme passion for retirement, cultivating those insulating habits, which, while they are great interruptions, and even weakeners, of domestic happiness, induce at the same time in public life to a secession from its cares, and an avoidance of its active duties. Yet the vacancies of retired men are eagerly filled by the many unemployed men of the world more happily framed for its business. We do not hear these accusations raised against the painter who wears away his days at his easel, or the musician by the side of his instrument; and much less should we against the legal and the

46

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

commercial character; yet all these are as much solitude was everywhere among those enchantwithdrawn from public and private life as the lite- ments. rary character. The desk is as insulating as the library. Yet the man who is working for his individual interest, is more highly estimated than the retired student, whose disinterested pursuits are at least more profitable to the world than to himself. La Bruyère discovered the world's erroneous estimate of literary labour: "There requires a better name," he says, "to be bestowed on the leisure (the idleness he calls it) of the literary character, to meditate, to compose, to read and to be tranquil, should be called working." But so invisible is the progress of intellectual pursuits, and so rarely are the objects palpable to the observers, that the literary character appears to be denied for his pursuits, what cannot be refused to every other. That unremitting application and unbroken series of their thoughts, admired in every profession, is only complained of in that one whose professors with so much sincerity mourn over the brevity of life, which has often closed on them while sketching their works.

:

It is, however, only in solitude that the genius of eminent men has been formed. There their first thoughts sprang, and there it will become them to find their last for the solitude of old age -and old age must be often in solitude-may be found the happiest with the literary character. Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the true parent of genius. In all ages solitude has been called for-has been flown to. No considerable work was ever composed, till its author, like an ancient magician, first retired to the grove, or to the closet, to invocate. When genius languishes in an irksome solitude among crowds, that is the moment to fly into seclusion and meditation. There is a society in the deepest solitude; in all the men of genius of the past

"First of your kind, Society divine!"

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

We observe men of genius, in public situations, sighing for this solitude. Amidst the impediments of the world, they are doomed to view their intellectual banquet often rising before them, like some fairy delusion, never to taste it. The great VERULAM often complained of the disturbances of his public life, and rejoiced in the occasional retirement he stole from public affairs. "And now, because I am in the country, I will send you some of my country fruits, which with me are good meditations; when I am in the city, they are choked with business." Lord CLARENDON, whose life so happily combined the contemplative with the active powers of man, dwells on three periods of retirement which he enjoyed; he always took pleasure in relating the great tranquillity of spirit experienced during his solitude at Jersey, where for more than two years, employed on his History, he daily wrote "one sheet of large paper with his own hand." At the close of his life, his literary labours in his other retirements are detailed with a proud satisfaction. Each of his solitudes occasioned a new acquisition; to one he owed the Spanish, to another the French, and to a third the Italian literature. The public are not yet acquainted with the fertility of Lord Clarendon's literary labours. It was not vanity that induced Scipio to declare of solitude, that it had no loneliness for him, since he voluntarily retired amidst a glorious life to his Linternum. CICERO was uneasy amid applauding Rome, and has distinguished his numerous works by the titles of his various villas. AULUS GELLIUS marked his solitude by his "Attic Nights." The "Golden Grove" of JEREMY TAYLOR is the produce of his retreat at the Earl of Carberry's seat in Wales; and the "Diversions of Purley" preserved a man of genius for posterity. VoL

his hours from his night-rest "to redeem his losses." The literary character has been driven to the most inventive shifts to escape the irruption of a formidable party at a single rush, who enter, without "besieging or beseeching," as Milton has it. The late Mr. Ellis, a mau of elegant tastes and poetical temperament, on one of these occasions, at his country-house, assured a literary friend, that when driven to the last, he usually made his escape by a leap out of the window; and Boileau has noticed a similiar dilemma when at the villa of the President Lamoignon, while they were holding their delightful conversations in his grounds.

TAIRE had talents well adapted for society; but impertinencies of my life in the country," stole at one period of his life he passed five years in the most secret seclusion, and indeed usually lived in retirement. MONTESQUIEU quitted the brilliant circles of Paris for his books and his meditations, and was ridiculed by the gay triflers he deserted; "but my great work," he observes in triumph, "avance à pas de géant." HARRINGTON, to compose his "Oceana," severed himself from the society of his friends. DESCARTES, inflamed by genius, hires an obscure house in an unfrequented quarter at Paris, and there he passes two years, unknown to his acquaintance. ADAM SMITH, after the publication of his first work, withdrew into a retirement that lasted ten years: even Hume rallies him for separating himself from the world; but by this means the great political inquirer satisfied the world by his great work. And thus it was with men of genius long ere PETRARCH withdrew to his Val chiusa.

The interruption of visitors by profession has been feelingly lamented by men of letters. The mind, maturing its speculations, feels the unexpected conversation of cold ceremony, chilling as March winds over the blossoms of the Spring. Those unhappy beings who wander from house to house, privileged by the charter of society to obstruct the knowledge they cannot impart, to weary because they are wearied, or to seek amusement at the cost of others, belong to that class of society which have affixed no other idea to time than that of getting rid of it. These are judges not the best qualified to comprehend the nature and evil of their depredations in the silent apartment of the studious, who may be often driven to exclaim, in the words of the Psalmist, " Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency; for all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning."

"that we

When MONTESQUIEU was deeply engaged in his great work, he writes to a friend: The favour which your friend Mr. Hein often does me to pass his mornings with me, occasions great damage to my work as well by his impure French as the length of his details."-" We are afraid," said some of those visitors to BAXTER, break in upon your time."- "To be sure you do," replied the disturbed and blunt scholar. To hint as gently as he could to his friends that he was avaricious of time, one of the learned Italians had a prominent inscription over the door of his study, intimating that whoever remained there must join in his labours. The amiable MELANCTHON, incapable of a harsh expression, when he received these idle visits, only noted down the time he had expended, that he might reanimate his industry, and not lose a day. EVELYN, continually importuned by morning visitors, or "taken up by other

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

BRAND HOLLIS endeavoured to hold out "the
idea of singularity as a shield ;" and the great
ROBERT BOYLE was compelled to advertise in a
newspaper that he must decline visits on certain
days, that he might have leisure to finish some
of his works.

BOCCACCIO has given an interesting account of the mode of life of the studious PETRARCH, for

on a visit he found that PETRARCH would not
suffer his hours of study to be broken into even
by the person whom of all men he loved most, and
did not quit his morning studies for his guest, who
during that time occupied himself by reading or
transcribing the works of his master.
decline of day Petrarch quitted his study for his
garden, where he delighted to open his heart in

mutual confidence.

At the

But this solitude, at first a necessity, and then a pleasure, at length is not borne without repining. To tame the fervid wildness of youth to the strict regularities of study, is a sacrifice performed by the votary; but even MILTON appears to have felt this irksome period of life; for in the preface to Smectymnuus he says:-" It is but justice not to defraud of due esteem the wearisome labours and studious watchings wherein I have spent and tired out almost a whole youth." COWLEY, that enthusiast for seclusion, in his retirement calls himself "the Melancholy Cowley." I have seen an original letter of this poet to Evelyn, where he expresses his eagerness to see Sir George Mackenzie's Essay on Solitude; for a copy of which he had sent over the town, without obtaining one, being "either all bought up, or burnt in the fire of London."-"I am the more desirous," he says, "because it is a subject in which I am most This curious advertisement is preserved in Dr. Birch's Life of Boyle, p. 272.

deeply interested." Thus COWLEY was requiring a book to confirm his predilection, and we know he made the experiment, which did not prove a happy one. We find even GIBBON, with all his fame about him, anticipating the dread he entertained of solitude in advanced life. "I feel, and shall continue to feel, that domestic solitude, however it may be alleviated by the world, by study, and even by friendship, is a comfortless state, which will grow more painful as I descend in the vale of years." And again :-"Your visit has only served to remind me that man, however amused or occupied in his closet, was not made to live alone."

Had the mistaken notions of Sprat not deprived us of COWLEY'S correspondence, we doubtless had viewed the picture of lonely genius touched by a tender pencil. But we have SHENSTONE, and GRAY, and SWIFT. The heart of SHENSTONE bleeds in the dead oblivion of solitude :-"Now I am come from a visit, every little uneasiness is sufficient to introduce my whole train of melancholy considerations, and to make me utterly dissatisfied with the life I now lead, and the life I foresee I shall lead. I am angry, and envious, and dejected, and frantic, and disregard all present things, as becomes a madman to do. I am infinitely pleased, though it is a gloomy joy, with the application of Dr. Swift's complaint, that he is forced to die in a rage, like a rat in a poisoned hole." Let the lover of solitude muse on its picture throughout the year, in this stanza, by the same amiable but suffering poet :

Tedious again to curse the drizzling day,

Again to trace the wintry tracks of snow, Or, soothed by vernal airs, again survey

The self-same hawthorns bud, and cowslips blow. SWIFT's letters paint with terrifying colours a picture of solitude; and at length his despair closed with idiotism. Even the playful muse of GRESSET throws a sombre querulousness over the solitude of men of genius :

Je les vois, victimes du génie, Au foible prix d'un éclat passager, Vivre isolés, sans jouir de la vie!

Vingt ans d'ennuis pour quelques jours de gloire.

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

CHAPTER XI.

The meditations of genius.-A work on the art of meditation not yet produced.-Predisposing the mind.-Imagination awakens imagination.-Generating feelings by music. Slight habits.-Darkness and silence, by suspending the exercise of our senses, increase the vivacity of our conceptions.-The arts of memory.-Memory the foundation of genius.-Inventions by several to preserve their own moral and literary character.-And to assist their studies.-The meditations of genius depend on habit. Of the night-time.-A day of meditation should precede a day of composition.-Works of magnitude from slight conceptions.-Of thoughts never written.The art of meditation exercised at all hours and places. -Continuity of attention the source of philosophical discoveries.-Stillness of meditation the first state of existence in genius.

A CONTINUITY of attention, a patient quietness of mind, forms one of the characteristics of genius. To think, and to feel, constitute the two grand divisions of men of genius-the men of reasoning and the men of imagination. There is a thread in our thoughts, as there is a pulse in our hearts; he who can hold the one, knows how to think; and he who can move the other, knows how to feel.

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

Johnson has a curious observation on the Mind itself. He thinks it obtains a stationary points