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remain without a rival. The horror of his crime ADDISON experienced th, painful and mixed he air only appeared in his confession on his death-bed. emotion in his intercourse with POPE, to whose DOMENICHINO seems to have been poisoned for rising celebrity he soon bec as spame too jealously alive. the preference he obtained over the Neapolitan It was more tenderly, but artists, which raised them to a man against him, the Spanish artist CASTILLO, and reduced him to the necessity of preparing his by every amiable disposition. food with his own hand. On his last return to painter of Seville; but when som Naples, Passeri says, "Non fu mai più veduto MURILLO's paintings were shown to da buon occhio da quelli Napoletani: e li Pittori in meek astonishment before them, and turning lo detestavano perchè egli era ritornato―mori | away, he exclaimed with a sigh, Yà murio Cascon qualche sospetto di veleno, e questo non è tillo ! Castillo is no more! Returning home, inverisimile perchè l'interesso è un perfido the stricken genius relinquished his pencil, and tiranno." So that the Neapolitans honoured pined away in hopelessness. The same occurrence Genius at Naples by poison, which they might happened to PIETRO PERUGINO, the master of have forgotten had it flourished at Rome. The Raphael, whose general character as a painter was famous cartoon of the battle of Pisa, a work of so entirely eclipsed by his far renowned scholar; Michael Angelo, which he produced in a glorious yet, while his real excellences in the ease of his competition with the Homer of painting, Leonardo attitudes and the mild grace of his female counteda Vinci, and in which he had struck out the idea nances have been passed over, it is probable that of a new style, is only known by a print which Raphael himself might have caught from them his has preserved the wonderful composition; for the first feelings of ideal beauty. 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 geniusand 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."

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 Crébillon; the refining

SWIFT, in that curious poem on his own death, Marivaux the familiar Molière. Fielding ridiculed said of POPE, that

"He can in one couplet fix

More sense than I can do in six."

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

The Dean, perhaps, is not quite serious, but pro- his own character by Bishop Watson, whose logical bably 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?"

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 Abbé Trablet:

"Il a compilé, compilé, compilé."

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 sympathise, 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." This 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.

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 STAEL 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.

A professor of polite literature condemned the study of botany, as adapted to mediocrity of talent, and only demanding patience; but LINNEUS 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. Self-praise of genius.-The love of praise instinctive in the 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

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

FF

superiority seem envy-to Mediocrity. It is we answers by a cry of pleasure and of pride. The who do nothing, and cannot even imagine any-savage and the man of genius are here true to thing to be done, who are so much displeased nature, but pleasure and pride in his own name with self-lauding, self-love, self-independence, must raise no emotion in the breast of genius self-admiration, which with the man of genius amidst a polished circle. To bring himself down may often be nothing but an ostensible modifica- to their usual mediocrity, he must start at an tion of the passion of glory. expression of regard, and turn away even from one of his own votaries. Madame De Stäel, 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,

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."

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" among the Greeks, existed sometimes between 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 But this, it seems, is not always the case with modern times;" and this from the selfish prin- men of genius, since the accusation we are ciple that it serves at least to keep out of the noticing has been so often reiterated. Take from company its painful pre-eminence. But this some that supreme confidence in themselves, that "polished reserve," like something as fashionable, pride of exultation, and you crush the germ of the ladies' rouge, at first appearing with rather their excellence. Many vast designs must have too much colour, will in the heat of an evening perished in the conception, had not their authors die away till the true complexion come out. breathed this vital air of self-delight, this creative What subterfuges are resorted to by these pre-spirit, so operative in great undertakings. We tended modest men of genius, to extort that have recently seen this principle in the literary 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.

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 Hunier," said the great anatomist to one of his garrulous friends. An apology is formed by his biographer Self-love is a principle of action; but among no for relating the fact, but the weakness is only in class of human beings has nature so profusely the apology. When HOGARTH was engaged in distributed this principle of life and action as his work of the Marriage à-la-Mode, he said to through the whole sensitive family of genius. It Reynolds, “I shall very soon gratify the world reaches even to a feminine susceptibility. The with such a sight as they have never seen love of praise is instinctive in their nature. equalled."-" One of his foibles," adds NorthPraise with them is the evidence of the past and cote, "it is well known, was the excessive high the pledge of the future. The generous qualities opinion he had of his own abilities." So proand the virtues of a man of genius are really pro-nounced Northcote, who had not an atom of his duced by the applause conferred on him. "To genius. Was it a foible in Hogarth to cast the him whom the world admires, the happiness of the world must be dear," said Madame De STAEL. 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

glove, when he always more than redeemed the pledge? CORNEILLE has given a very noble fulllength of the sublime egotism which accompanied him through life *; 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

* See it versified in Curiosities of Literature.

alone in nature, as the first and the last inter- sleepless pillow of Bacon, of Newton, and of preter of her works. He said of the great Montesquieu; of Ben Jonson, of Milton, and geniuses of modern ages, that "there were not Corneille; and of Michael Angelo. Such men more than five; Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Mon-anticipate their contemporaries; they know they tesquieu, and Myself." With this spirit he con- are creators, long before they are hailed as such ceived 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.

by the tardy consent of the public. These men stand on Pisgah heights, and for them the sun shines on a land which none yet 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

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 to consider self-praise as a kind of illustrious immore potent than our HOBBES; who has indeed, pudence, and has one very striking image: he in his controversy with Wallis, asserted that there compares these eulogists to famished persons, who may be nothing more just than self-commenda- finding no other food, in their rage have eaten tion. There is a curious passage in the Pur- their own flesh, and thus shockingly nourished gatorio of DANTE, where, describing the transitory themselves by their own substance. He allows nature of literary fame, and the variableness of persons in high office to praise themselves, if by 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 :

Così ha tolto l'uno all' altro Guido La gloria della lingua; e forse è nato Chi l'uno e l'altro caccerà di nido. Thus has one Guido from the other snatch'd The letter'd pride; and he perhaps is born Who shall drive either from their nest ↑. 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 it. 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 my self." 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

See Quarrels of Authors, p. 281.

+ Cary.

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, de

clares, “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 lived he might taste the sweetness of his glory. Catiline, and to publish quickly, that while he yet HORACE and OVID were 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