Chapter XII (1)

Every thoughtful person must often have realized how close is the natural sympathy between artists in literature and artists of the pencil and brush; between painters and poets. Belori informs us of a curious volume in manuscript by the hand of Rubens, which contained among other topics descriptions of the passions and actions of men, drawn from the poets and delineated by the artist's own graphic pencil. Here were represented battles, shipwrecks, landscapes, and various casualties of life, copied and illustrated from Virgil and other classic poets, showing clearly whence Rubens often got his inspiration and ideas of detail. The painter and the poet are the Siamese-twins of genius. The finest picture ever produced is but poetry realized, though each art has its distinct province. The same may be said as to sculpture and poetry. It has long been a mooted question whether the Laocoön in sculpture preceded or was borrowed from the idea expressed in poetry. Lessing believed that the sculptor borrowed from the poet. All the sister arts[197]--music, sculpture, poetry, and painting--are most intimately allied. When great composers, like Mozart, were contemplating a grand expression of their genius, they endeavored to inspire themselves with lofty ideas by reading the poets; while masters in literature and oratory have sought for a similar purpose the elevating and soothing influence of music.

Orators have not infrequently depended upon more material stimulus, as we have seen in the instances of Pitt and Sheridan. The biographer of More tells us that when Sir Thomas was sent by Henry VIII. on an embassy to the Emperor of Germany, before he delivered his important remarks he ordered one of his servants to fill him a goblet of wine, which he drank off at once, and in a few moments repeated it, still demanding another. This his faithful servant, knowing his master's temperate habits, feared to furnish, and even at first declined to do so, lest he should expose him thereby before the Emperor. Still, upon a reiterated order, he brought the wine, which was rapidly swallowed by Sir Thomas, who then made his address to the sovereign in Latin, like one inspired, and to the intense admiration of all the auditors, the Emperor himself complimenting him upon his eloquence. More was a strange medley of character. Devout in his religious convictions, he was yet as light-hearted as a child,--at times wise as Solomon in his discourse, and anon descending almost to buffoonery; a truly good man at heart, and yet often espousing the worst of causes. Though a pronounced reformer, he predicted that the Reformation would result in universal vice. He is represented to have had a supreme contempt for money and a true generosity of spirit. With the most solemn convictions of the realities of death, he yet died upon the scaffold with a joke upon his lips.

That imaginative English artist Barry, the great historical painter, advised his pupils as follows: "Go home from the Academy, light your lamps, and exercise yourselves in the creative part of your art, with Homer, with Livy, and all the great characters ancient and modern, for your companions and counsellors." Barry has left behind him works upon art which should not be read except with care, unbiassed judgment, and honest appreciation. His own eccentricities, all arising from a passion for art, led his contemporaries to criticise the man and ignore his work. He was wildly enthusiastic in all things relating to art, but yet sometimes exhibited the coarseness of his early associations. He was born at Cork, from whence his father sailed as a foremast hand aboard a coasting vessel, and designed his son for the same humble occupation; but the lad had other and higher aspirations, until finally he attracted the notice of people able to advise and help him. Humbly born and self-educated as he was, he presented some of the highest aspects of genius. By the generosity of Edmund Burke he was sent to Rome, where he studied art for three or four years under favorable circumstances. On his return to England he took high rank, and was engaged by the Academy as a professor. At times in his lectures before the students he would burst into such vehement enthusiasm as to electrify his listeners, and they in turn would rise to their feet and shout applauses long and deep, entirely heedless of the great turmoil which they created. Then Barry would exclaim: "Go it, go it, boys; they did so at Athens!"

Literature and art should be wedded together. The careful reader and the keen observer gather up a mental harvest and store it for use. What many conceive to be genius is often but reproduction. Hosts of ideas have passed through the crucible of the author's mind and have been refined by the process, coming forth individualized by the stamp of his personality. He is none the less an originator, a creator; originality is after all but condensed and refined observation.

There is a great deal of nonsense written and credited by the world at large as to the inspiration of authorship. Some of the very best poetic turns of thought are the children of purest accident. Sir Joshua Reynolds, calling upon Goldsmith one day, opened his door without knocking, and found him engaged in the double occupation of authorship and teaching a pet dog to sit upon his haunches, now casting a glance at his writing-table, and now shaking his finger at the dog to make him retain his upright position. The last lines upon the paper were still wet,--as Sir Joshua[198] said when he afterwards told the story,--and formed a part of the description of Italy:--

"By sports like these are all their cares beguiled:
The sports of children satisfy the child."

Goldsmith, with his usual good humor, joined in the laugh caused by his whimsical employment, and acknowledged to the great painter that his boyish sport with the dog suggested the lines.

Goldsmith was always the wayward and erratic being whom we have represented in these pages. His habit on retiring at night was to read in bed until overcome by somnolence; and he was so little inclined to sleep, that his candle was kept burning until the last moment. His mode of extinguishing it finally, when it was out of immediate reach, was characteristic of his indolence and carelessness: he threw his slipper at it, which consequently was found in the morning covered with grease beside the overturned candlestick.

If, as we have attempted to show, authors exhibit oftentimes a spirit of vanity, it must be admitted that readers as frequently exhibit evidence of captiousness.

Those who sit down to peruse a book without a good and wholesome appetite for reading are very much in the same condition as one who approaches a table loaded with food, without a sense of hunger. In neither case can one be a proper judge of what is before him; mental or physical pabulum requires for just appreciation a wholesome appetite. Unjust criticism often grows out of an attempt to force the appetite, the censor coming to his task in a wrong humor. The author is usually severely judged; he is solus, his critics are many: if he satisfies one class of readers he is sure to dissatisfy another. Swift's definition of criticism, in his "Tale of a Tub," is pertinent. "A true critic," he says, "in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones."

Edgar A. Poe's sarcasm upon the "North American Review," in the matter of criticism, will long be remembered. It was generally considered at the time not only a keen but a just retort. Our erratic genius writes: "I cannot say that I ever fairly comprehended the force of the term 'insult,' until I was given to understand, one day, by a member of the 'North American Review' clique, that this journal was not only willing but anxious to render me that justice which had been already accorded me by the 'Revue Française,' and the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' but was restrained from doing so by my 'invincible spirit of antagonism.' I wish the 'North American Review' to express no opinion of me whatever,--for I have none of it. In the mean time, as I see no motto on its titlepage, let me recommend it one from 'Sterne's Letter from France.' Here it is: 'As we rode along the valley, we saw a herd of asses on the top of one of the mountains: how they viewed and _reviewed_ us!'" No one can deny that Poe possessed remarkable genius; but his best friends could not approve either his temper or his habits.

Balzac complained of lack of appreciation; though, as has just been shown, he captivated one of his readers to such a degree as to bring him a wife and a fortune. "A period," he says, "shall have cost us the labor of a day; we shall have distilled into an essay the essence of our mind; it may be a finished piece of art, and they think they are indulgent when they pronounce it to contain some pretty things, and that the style is not bad!" Montaigne said that he found his readers too learned or too ignorant, and that he could please only a middle class who possessed just knowledge enough to understand him. To read well and to a consistent purpose is as much of an art as to write well. It was said of Dr. Johnson by Mrs. Knowles that "he knows how to read better than any other one; he gets at the substance of a book directly; he tears out the heart of it."

A literary friend of the writer has long adopted an effective aid to memory in connection with reading. After perusing a book he writes down the date, the place, and under what circumstances it was read, and in a few concise lines gives the impression it has left upon his mind. This he does not design as a criticism; it is intended for himself only. At a future day he can take up the volume, since perusing which he may have read a hundred in a similar manner, and by turning to his brief comment at the close, the power of association enables him to recall the subject of the volume and virtually to remember the contents. He assures us that the circumstances under which he became familiar with the book, if fairly remembered, recall even its detail. For our own part, we have trusted solely to a retentive memory, and the choice of such lines of reading as inclination has suggested. The books which we consult lovingly will long remain with us, requiring very little effort to impress their contents upon the brain.

How suggestive is this theme of books and the reading of them! Whipple eulogizes them thus appropriately: "Books,--light-houses erected in the great sea of time; books,--the precious depositories of the thoughts and creations of genius; books,--by whose sorcery time past becomes time present, and the whole pageantry of the world's history moves in solemn procession before our eyes. These were to visit the fireside of the humble, and lavish the treasures of the intellect upon the poor. Could we have Plato and Shakespeare and Milton in our dwellings, in the full vigor of their imaginations, in the full freshness of their hearts, few scholars would be affluent enough to afford them physical support; but the living images of their minds are within the reach of all. From their pages their mighty souls look out upon us in all their grandeur and beauty, undimmed by the faults and follies of earthly existence, consecrated by time."

Poets have been more addicted to building castles upon paper than residences upon the more substantial earth. Though the old axiom of "genius and a garret" has passed away, both as a saying and in the experiences of real life, still it had its pertinency in the early days of literature and art. Ariosto, who was addicted to castle-building with the pen, was asked why he was so modestly lodged when he prepared a permanent home for himself. He replied that palaces are easier built with words than with stones. But the poet, nevertheless, had a snug and pretty abode at Ferrara, Italy, a few leagues from Bologna, which is still extant. Leigh Hunt says: "Poets love nests from which they can take their flights, not worlds of wood and stone to strut in." The younger Pliny was more of a substantial architect, whose villa, devoted to literary leisure, was magnificent, surrounded by gardens and parks. Tycho Brahe, the great Danish astronomer, built a grand castle and observatory combined on an island of the Baltic, opposite Copenhagen, which he named the "Castle of the Heavens."

Many of our readers have doubtless visited the house which Shakespeare built for himself in his native town on Red-Lion Street. In passing through its plain apartments one receives with infinite faith the stereotyped revelations of the local cicerone. Buffon was content to locate himself for his literary work and study in an old half-deserted tower, and Gibbon, as we have seen, to write his great work in the summer-house of a Lausanne garden. Chaucer lived and wrote in a grand palace, because he was connected with royalty; but he never dilated upon such surroundings,--his fancy ran to outdoor nature, to the flowers and the trees. Milton[199] sought an humble "garden house" to live in; that is, a small house in the environs of the city, with a pleasant little garden attached. Addison wrote his "Campaign" "up two pair of back stairs in the Hay-market." Johnson tells us that much of his literary work was produced from a garret in Exeter Street. Paul Jovius,[200] the Italian author, who wrote three hundred concise eulogies of statesmen, warriors, and literary men of the fourteenth century, built himself an elegant château on the Lake of Como, beside the ruins of the villa of Pliny, and declared that when he sat down to write he was inspired by the associations of the place. In his garden he raised a marble statue to Nature, and his halls contained others of Apollo and the Muses.

The traveller visits with eager interest Rubens' house in his native city of Antwerp, a veritable museum within, but plain and unpretentious without. Rubens is to the Belgian capital what Thorwaldsen is to Copenhagen. Spenser lived in an Irish castle (Kilcolman Castle), which was burned over his head by a mob; and, sad to say, his child was burned with it. In his verses Spenser was always depicting "lowly cots," and it was on that plane that his taste rested. Moore's vine-clad cottage at Sloperton is familiar to all. In the environs of Florence we still see the cottage home where Landor lived and wrote, and in the city itself the house of Michael Angelo,--plain and unadorned externally, but with a few of the great artist's household gods duly preserved in the several apartments. The historic home of the poet Longfellow, in Cambridge, has become a Mecca to lovers of poetry and genius; while Tennyson's embowered cottage at the Isle of Wight is equally attractive to travellers from afar.

Pope[201] had a modest nest at Twickenham, and Wordsworth at Rydal Mount, the beauties of both being more dependent upon the surrounding scenery than upon any architectural attraction. Pope declared all gardens to be landscape-paintings, and he loved them. Scott made himself a palatial home at Abbotsford, which was quite an exception to that of his brother poets. Dr. Holmes's unpretentious town house in the Trimountain city overlooks the broad Charles, and affords him a glorious view of the setting sun. Emerson's Concord home was and is the picture of rural simplicity. Hawthorne's biographer makes us familiar with his red cottage at Lenox. Bryant made himself an embowered summer cottage at Roslyn, New York State. Lowell has a fine but plain residence overlooking the beautiful grounds of Mount Auburn. Nothing could be more simple and lovely than Whittier's Danvers home. None of these poets have built castles of stone, whatever they may have done under poetical license.

"I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness," says the poet Cowley, "as that I might be master at least of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them and study of Nature, and then, with no desire beyond my wall,--

'----Whole and entire to lie,
In no unactive ease, and no unglorious poverty.'"

Cowley at last got what he so ardently desired, but it was not until he was too old and broken in health to find that active enjoyment which he had so fondly anticipated. He died in the forty-ninth year of his age.

We spoke of the contrast which was manifest between the private and public life of Molière. These paradoxes are strange, but by no means uncommon in the character of men of genius. It will be remembered that Grimaldi, the cleverest and most mirth-provoking clown of his day in England, was often under medical treatment on account of his serious attacks of melancholy. It seems almost incredible that men of such profound judgment in most matters, as were Dr. Johnson and Addison, should have been so inexcusably weak as to entertain a belief in ghosts,--an eccentricity which neither of them denied. Byron,[202] who as a rule was noted for his shrewd common-sense, was so superstitious that he would not help a person at table to salt, nor permit himself to be served with it by another's hand. There were other equally absurd "omens" which he strenuously regarded. Cowper, who was a devoutly religious man, deliberately attempted to hang himself,--an act entirely at variance with his serious convictions. So also Hugh Miller, one of the most wholesome writers upon the true principles of life, wrested his own life from his Maker's hands.

Pope, who was such a bravado with his pen, boldly denouncing an army of scholars and wits in his "Dunciad," was personally an arrant coward, who could not summon sufficient self-possession to make a statement before a dozen of his personal friends. The paradox which existed between Goldsmith's pen and tongue passed into an axiom: with the one he was all eloquence and grace; with the other, as foolish as a parrot. Douglas Jerrold, whose forte was as clearly that of wit and humor as it is the sun's province to shine, was ever wishing to write a profound essay on natural philosophy. Newton, highest authority in algebra, could not make the proper change for a guinea without assistance, and while he was master of the Mint was hourly put to shame by the superior practical arithmetic of the humblest clerks under him. Another peculiarity of Newton was that he fancied himself a poet; but who ever saw a verse of his composition? Judged by all accepted rules, Charles Lamb experienced ills sufficient to have driven him to commit suicide; whereas the truth shows that with "his sly, shy, elusive, ethereal humor" he was ordinarily the most genial and contented of beings.

Curious beyond expression are the many-sided phases of genius, and indeed of all humanity. Let us therefore have a care how we judge our fellow-men, since what they truly are within themselves we cannot know, and may only infer by what they seem to be relatively to ourselves. Undoubtedly the germs of virtue and of vice are born within the soul of every human being; their development is contingent upon how slight a cause! Nor in our readiness to censure should we forget in whose image we are all created,--"a little lower than the angels, a little higher than the brutes." It is the nature of man, like the harp, to give forth beautiful or discordant sounds according to the delicacy and skill with which it is touched. We find what we come to find,--what, indeed, we bring with us. Richard Baxter, the prolific author upon theology, at the close of a long life said: "I now see more good and more evil in all men than heretofore I did. I see that good men are not so good as I once thought they were; and I find that few are so bad as either malicious enemies or censorious professors do imagine."

INDEX.

Adams, John, 28.

Addison, Joseph, 38, 42, 78, 86, 116 and note, 118, 202, 277, 283, 296, 299.

Æschylus, 77.

Æsop, 4.

Agassiz, Louis, 103 and note.

Akenside, Mark, 7.

Alexander the Great, 27.

Alfieri, Vittorio, 136, 266.

Allston, Washington, 45, 97 and note.

Ames, Fisher, 26, 45.

Amyot, Jacques, 6.

Andersen, Hans Christian, 22 and note, 63, 84, 205.

André, Major John, 43.

Angelo, Michael, 14, 242, 283.

Arago, Dominique François, 184.

Arc, Joan of, 29, 188.

Ariosto, Lodovico, 295.

Aristippus, 118.

Aristo, 115.

Aristophanes, 2, 3.

Arkwright, Sir Richard, 18.

Arnauld, Antoine, 33.

Astor, John Jacob, 26 and note.

Astor, William B., 26 note.

Auber, Daniel François Esprit, 82.

Audubon, John James, 222, 223 and note.

Bacon, Francis, 32, 57 and note, 77, 124.

Bailey, Philip James, 227.

Ball, Thomas, 21 and note.

Balzac, de (Honoré), 46, 207, 284, 293.

Bancroft, George, 35, 203, 227.

Bandoccin, 6.

Barbauld, Anna Lætitia, 269.

Barrow, Isaac, 116.

Barry, James, 7, 32 note, 289.

Baxter, Richard, 301.

Beaconsfield, Lord (Disraeli), 13 note, 87 note, 117 note, 135, 205, 227 and note.

Beaufort, Cardinal Henry, 266.

Beaumarchais, de (Pierre Auguste Caron), 21.

Beckford, William, 68.

Beecher, H. W., 38.

Beethoven, van, Ludwig, 127 and note, 221.

Bellini, Vincenzo, 29.

Bentham, Jeremy, 137 and note.

Bentivoglio, Ercole, 149.

Bentley, Richard, 40.

Béranger, de (Pierre Jean), 8, 139 and note, 194, 209.

Betterton, Thomas, 260.

Beveridge, Bishop, 57.

Bewick, Thomas, 24.

Bide, 266.

Biglow, Hosea, 20 note.

Blackstone, Sir William, 77.

Blessington, Lady Margaret, 67 note.

Bloomfield, Robert, 23.

Boccaccio, Giovanni, 9.

Boëthius, 131 note.

Boffin, ----, 24.

Boleyn, Anne, 268.

Bolingbroke, Lord (Henry Saint John), 280.

Bousard, ----, 135.

Bowditch, Nathaniel, 16.

Boyle, Robert, 281.

Boyle, Samuel, 164.

Bracegirdle, 262.

Bright, John, 15, 35.

Brindley, James, 19.

Britton, John, 21.

Bronté, Anne, 192.

Bronté, Charlotte, 56, 62, 192.

Bronté, Emily, 192.

Bronté, Rev. Patrick, 192.

Brooks, Shirley, 227.

Brougham, Lord, 32 note, 206.

Browning, Mrs., 163 note.

Bruyère, de la (Jean), 270, 286.

Bryant, William C., 29, 227, 298.

Brydges, Sir Samuel Egerton, 201.

Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte, 48, 61, 83, 89, 205, 215, 227, 296.

Bulwer Lytton, 31, 37, 46, 63, 106, 108, 227, 228.

Bunyan, John, 15 and note, 131, 268.

Burgundy, Duke of, 119.

Burke, Edmund, 32 and note, 33, 38, 40, 55, 77, 78, 86, 225, 227.

Burns, Robert, 77, 79 and note, 106, 108, 117, 122, 185, 186, 208, 220.

Burritt, Elihu, 16, 112.

Burton, Robert, 120, 162 and note.

Butler, Samuel, 153 and note.

Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, 19.

Byron, George Gordon Noel, 37, 44, 50, 62, and note, 63, 90, 106, 116, 117, 142, 176, 177 and note, 200, 227, 266, 273, 299 and note.

Byron, Thomas, 115.

Cæsar, Julius, 60, 206.

Cæsar, Octavius, 28 note.

Calhoun, John C., 22, 28.

Calvart, Denis, 251.

Camoens, Luis, 129 and note.

Campbell, Thomas, 152, 287 note.

Cano, Alonzo, 265.

Canova, Antonio, 6, 208, 255, 256.

Carlyle, Thomas, 36, 41, 58, 63, 79, 89, 108, 128, 130, 138, 148, 149, 151, 165, 204, 218, 223, 229.

Carneades, 73.

Cato, 33, 151.

Cellini, Benvenuto, 153 and note.

Cervantes, Miguel, 12, 13 and note, 129, 131 note, 132 and note, 206.

Channing, Dr. William E., 47, 222 and note.

Chantrey, Sir Francis, 21.

Chapin, E. H., 38.

Charlemagne, 28.

Charles, Duke of Orleans, 132.

Charles I. of England, 267.

Charles II. of England, 267.

Charles XII. of Sweden, 27 and note.

Châteaubriand, François Auguste, 124 and note.

Chatham, Earl of, 34.

Chatterton, Thomas, 31, 129, 166.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 10, 31, 34, 131 note, 265, 273, 296.

Choate, Rufus, 45, 114.

Churchill, Charles, 87 and note, 284.

Cibber, Colley, 217.

Cicero, 21, 206, 209.

Cimarosa, Domenico, 62.

Clare, John, 137.

Clark, Samuel, 100.

Cleanthes the Stoic, 5.

Clive, Robert, Lord, 28.

Clyde, Lord, 15.

Cobbett, William, 12, 32 note, 133.

Cobden, Richard, 15.

Coleridge, S. T., 2 note, 18, 38, 39, 52, 53 note, 62, 77, 104, 105 and note, 115, 123, 139, 152 note, 208, 239, 270, 279 and note.

Colletet, Guillaume, 135.

Collier, John Payne, 125.

Collins, William, 171 and note.

Colorden, 267.

Colton (Lacon), 91, 182, 183.

Columbus, Christopher, 10, 11 and note.

Combe, George, 166.

Congreve, William, 29, 124, 125 and note, 138, 201.

Condé, de (Louis II. de Bourbon), Prince, 28.

Cook, James, Capt., 19.

Cormontaigne, Louis de, 76.

Corneille, Peter, 43, 44, 128, 227, 241.

Correggio, Antonio Allegri da, 254.

Correra, ----, 17.

Cortes, Hernando, 28.

Cowley, Abraham, 31, 37, 239, 298.

Cowper, William, 137 and note, 161, 162, 221, 299.

Crabbe, George, 92, 129, 153.

Crassus, Roman triumvir, 5 note.

Cratinus, 77.

Crébillon, Prosper Jolyot, 84, 267.

Cromwell, Oliver, 13, 122.

Cruden, Alexander, 137.

Cunningham, Allan, 22.

Curran, John Philpot, 40, 57, 238, 267.

Cushing, Caleb, 45.

D'Alembert, Jean le Rond, 7.

Dalrymple, Sir David (Lord Hailes), 75.

Dante, Allighieri, 40, 51, 128, 148 and note, 205.

D'Arblay, Madame (Frances Burney), 269.

Darwin, Dr. Erasmus, 99.

Davenant, Sir William, 131 note.

Da Vinci, Leonardo, 121 and note.

Davy, Sir Humphry, 7, 106.

Decker, Thomas, 140.

DeFoe, Daniel, 11, 132, 153.

Demosthenes, 204.

De Quincey, Thomas, 77, 129, 136, 137 and note, 199, 211.

De Tocqueville, Alexis Charles Henry Clerel, 52, 207.

Dibdin, Charles, 53.

Dick, Robert, 24.

Dickens, Charles, 31, 46, 62, 77, 91, 109, 110, 114, 197, 204 and note, 242.

Diogenes, 211.

Dodsley, Robert, 23.

Domenichino, Zampieri, 96.

Drew, Samuel, 23.

Dryden, John, 10, 40 and note, 73, 74 and note, 106, 115, 214, 273, 276, 283.

Ducis, Jean François, 209.

Dumas, Alexandre, 13, 84 and note, 109, 194, 233.

Durer, Albert, 205.

Edgeworth, Maria, 43 and note.

Edwards, President Jonathan, 268.

Edwards, Thomas, 23.

Elizabeth, Queen, 266.

Elliott, Ebenezer, 17 and note.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 4, 23, 27, 38, 63 note, 69 note, 200, 204, 283, 298.

Ennius, 77.

Epictetus, 5, 110.

Erasmus, Désiré, 150.

Ereilla, Alonzo de, 133.

Eupolis, 77.

Euripides, 126.

Evarts, William, 98 and note.

Fénelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe, 94.

Fielding, Henry, 45 note, 155 and note, 156, 210.

Fields, James T., 109, 182.

Fletcher, Andrew, of Saltoun, 8 note.

Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier, 34.

Foote, Samuel, 261.

Fordyce, Dr. George, 115.

Forrest, Edwin, 189.

Foster, John, 48, 58.

Fox, Charles James, 40.

Franklin, Dr. Benjamin, 16 and note, 34, 124, 241.

Frederick V. of Denmark, 267.

Fuller, Margaret, 41, 42 and note, 45, 204.

Fuller, Thomas, 40 and note, 123.

Galileo, 126, 127 and note.

Garfield, James A., 22.

Garrick, David, 42 and note, 43, 65, 213, 258, 259 and note, 263 note.

Garrison, William Lloyd, 18 and note.

Gaskell, Mrs. Elizabeth C., 57.

Gay, John, 24 and note, 114, 202.

Gelli, Giovanni Battista, 6.

Gibbon, Edward, 91, 94, 123 and note, 156, 205, 220, 242 and note.

Gibson, John, 19.

Gifford, William, 21, 169, 224.

Gilles, Dr., 278.

Giotto, Angiolotto, 14.

Giovanni, 242.

Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 35.

Glück, von (Johann Christoph), 80.

Godeau, Antoine, Bishop of Venice, 95.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 27, 71 note, 85, 111, 122, 136, 180 note, 205, 214, 284.

Goldsmith, Oliver, 2 note, 37, 40, 45, 48, 58, 63, 66, 109, 117, 146 and note, 147, 207, 236 and note, 290, 300.

Grattan, Henry, 116 note.

Gray, Thomas, 40, 174 and note, 175 note.

Greeley, Horace, 23.

Greene, General Nathanael, 23.

Greene, Robert, 154.

Gregory VII., Pope, 268.

Grey, Lady Jane, 269.

Grimaldi, Joseph, 299.

Guizot, François Pierre Guillaume, 30.

Guyon, Madame, Jeanne Bouvier de la Motte, 134.

Gwynn, Nell, 262, 267.

Hall, Robert, 30 and note, 77, 108.

Hallam, Arthur, 153 note.

Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 11, 29, 139.

Hamilton, Alexander, 28.

Hampden, John, 122.

Handel, George Frederick, 29, 37, 80, 81 and note, 127, 144 and note.

Hannibal, 28.

Hardy, ----, 49.

Hawkins, Sir John, 54.

Hawksworth, Dr. John, 168 note.

Haydn, Joseph, 83 and note, 117.

Haydon, Benjamin Robert, 253 note.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 193, 221, 298.

Hazlitt, William, 3 note, 9 note, 39, 45, 53, 90, 174 and note, 207, 233 note.

Heller, Joseph, 267.

Hemans, Mrs. Felicia Dorothea, 191 and note.

Henry of Navarre, 110.

Henry V. of France, 119.

Herbert, George, 106.

Herder, von (Johann Gottfried), 267.

Hermand, Lord, 268.

Heron, Robert, 140.

Hesiod, 126.

Heyward, John, 214.

Hobbes, Thomas, 34, 99.

Hobson, ----, 24.

Hoffman, Charles Fenno, 137, 193.

Hogarth, William, 61, 251.

Hogg, James, 14 note, 93, 208.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 35, 71, 88, 154, 209.

Holzmann, Adolf, 129, 167.

Homer, 2 and note.

Hood, Thomas, 76, 141, 209 and note.

Hook, Theodore, 133 and note.

Horace, 52, 210.

Horne, Dr. Thomas Hartwell, 120.

Horsley, Bishop Samuel, 77.

Howard, John, 14.

Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward, 35.

Howell, James, 133.

Hughes, John, 201.

Hugo, Victor, 207, 231.

Hume, David, 55 and note, 94 and note.

Hunt, Leigh, 16 note, 31, 38, 134, 144 note, 145 note, 219, 295.

Hunter, John, 19.

Hunter, William, 268.

Huntington, William, 24.

Irving, Washington, 97, 100, 139, 227.

Jackson, Andrew, 22.

Jasmin, Jacques, 22.

Jeffrey, Lord Francis, 43 note.

Jerrold, Douglas, 23, 29 note, 101, 102, 110, 196, 224, 236, 300.

Johnson, Andrew, 22.

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 23, 24, 33, 36 note, 38, 42, 54, 58, 66, 74, 92, 116, 140 note, 151, 155 note, 159-162, 180 note, 202, 208, 211, 216, 236, 293, 296, 299.

Jonson, Ben, 10, 40 and note, 68, 131 and note, 275 and note.

Jovius, Paul, 296.

Keats, John, 13, 31, 115 and note, 169, 170 and note.

Kepler, Johann, 18, 205.

Kimball, Moses, 21 note.

King, Thomas Starr, 60.

Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 31.

Knight, Richard Payne, 165.

Knox, John, 268.

Kotzebue, von, August Friedrich Ferdinand, 149 and note.

Lafayette, General Marie Jean Paul, 28.

Lafayette, Madame de, 48 note.

La Fontaine, Jean, 70, 241, 286.

Lamartine, Alphonse de, 85, 115, 136, 233, 284.

Lamb, Charles, 38, 39, 44, 46, 104, 105, 107 and note, 113 and note, 115, 152, 178-181, 182, 300.

Lamb, Mary, 178.

Landon, Miss Letitia Elizabeth, 190, 191 and note.

Landor, Walter Savage, 34, 67 and note, 207, 297.

Latimer, Hugh, 269.

Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 232, 253.

Layard, Austen Henry, 227.

Lee, Prof. Samuel, 19.

Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Baron, 220.

Lenau, Nikolaus, 138.

Leon, Ponce de, 132.

Le Sage (Gil Blas), 129.

Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, 120.

Lincoln, Abraham, 22.

Lind, Jenny, 244.

Linnæus (Karl von Linné), 25.

Liston, John, 260.

Livingston, Dr. David, 14.

Locke, John, 122 and note, 201.

Lockhart, John Gibson, 227.

Longfellow, Henry W., 38 note, 47, 52, 142, 227, 297.

Lorraine, Claude, 11.

Louis XIII. of France, 12

Louis XIV. of France, 268.

Louis XVI. of France, 119.

Lovelace, Richard, 133.

Lowell, James Russell, 203, 298.

Loyola, Ignatius, 241.

Lucan, 126.

Luther, Martin, 86, 161, 221.

Lydiat, Thomas, 131.

Macaulay, Lord (Thomas Babington), 30, 32, 39, 55, 68, 74, 109, 137 note, 148, 160, 176, 218, 234.

Macready, William Charles, 114.

Machiavelli, Niccolò di Bernardo, 148.

Malherbe, de (François), 266.

Mann, Horace, 19.

Marlborough, Duke of (John Churchill), 268.

Maria Theresa, 268.

Massinger, Philip, 149.

Matthews, Charles, Sr, 29.

Maturin, Charles Robert, 110.

Maurice of Saxony, 28 note.

Mazarin, Cardinal Giulio, 119.

McMahon, ----, 119.

Méhul, Étienne Henri, 72.

Ménage, Gilles, 34.

Menander, 33 note.

Metternich, von (Clemens Wenzel), 41.

Miller, Dr. Isaac, Dean of Carlisle, 22.

Miller, Hugh, 13 and note, 299.

Milton, John, 31, 59, 62, 92, 114, 119, 128, and note, 151, 279, 283, 296.

Mirabeau, de (Honoré Gabriel de Riquetti), 237, 267.

Mitford, Mary Russell, 51, 90, 200.

Mitford, William, 217.

Molière, Jean Baptiste Pocquelin, 11, 12, 15, 69, 240, 281, 282, 285.

Montague, Edward, 202.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem, 52, 91, 104, 123, 293.

Montesquieu, Charles, 171.

Montgomery, James, 133.

Moore, Thomas, 29, 48 and note, 91, 114, 232, 297.

More, Hannah, 208.

More, Sir Thomas, 37, 288.

Morphy, Paul, 60.

Moshlech, Dr., 167.

Motherwell, William, 151.

Mounier, Marchioness de, 237.

Mozart, Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus, 29, 37, 81, 82 and note, 144 and note, 145 and note, 161.

Murphy, Arthur, 268.

Musset, Alfred de, 77, 194.

Napoleon Bonaparte, 28, 108, 284.

Necker, Madame Albertine Adrienne, 172.

Nelson, Lord, Horatio, 267.

Newton, Sir Isaac, 115, 168, 202, 212, 223, 240, 300.

Niebuhr, Barthold Georg, 284.

Nilsson, Christina, 245.

North, Christopher, 77.

Oakley, Henry, 133.

Offenbach, Isaac, 82.

Opie, Amelia, 248.

Opie, John, 6, 247 and note.

Orrery, Lord, 93.

Otway, Thomas, 153.

Paganini, Niccolò, 14.

Paine, Thomas, 55, 56 and note.

Paley, Dr. William (Archdeacon of Carlisle), 106.

Parmigiano, Girolamo Francesco Maria (Mazzola), 95.

Parr, Dr., 107, 226 note, 229.

Pascal, Blaise, 219.

Patti, Adelina, 190.

Paul, Jean, 130, 138.

Peabody, Elizabeth, 35.

Peabody, George, 26.

Pellico, Silvio, 132.

Penn, William, 133.

Perugino, Pietro Venucci, 14.

Petavius, Denis, 100.

Petrarch, Francesco, 266.

Petronius, 70.

Phillips, Ambrose, 201.

Phillips, Wendell, 55, 69.

Pierce, Franklin, 193.

Pisistratus, 2.

Pitt, William, 28, 117, 266, 278.

Plato, 206.

Plautus, 69, 126.

Pliny, 206, 295.

Plutarch, 33, 118.

Poe, Edgar A., 45, 77, 117, 198, 292.

Pope, Alexander, 12, 31 and note, 86, 89, 100, 114, 170, 176, 205, 215, 234, 261 note, 273, 297, 300.

Porson, Richard, 277, 278.

Poussin, Nicolas, 97.

Powers, Hiram, 16.

Prideaux, Dr. John, Bishop of Worcester, 22.

Prior, Matthew, 7, 135, 136 and note.

Protagoras, 5.

Prynne, William, 50.

Psalmanazar, George, 77.

Pygmalion and Galatea, 70, 71.

Quin, James, 266.

Rachel, Elisabeth Félix, 8, 9 and note, 188.

Racine, Jean, 44, 169 note, 171.

Radcliffe, Dr. John, 78.

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 131 and note.

Rame, Louise de la (Ouida), 76 and note.

Raphael, Sanzio, 122, 136, 283.

Reni, Guido, 95.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 88, 283, 291.

Rhondelet, Dr. Guillaume, 116.

Richelieu, Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, 100.

Richter, Jean Paul, 169 and note, 228 and note.

Ridley, Nicholas, 269.

Ritson, Joseph, 171.

Rochefoucauld, Duc François, 48 and note, 213.

Rogers, Samuel, 36, 39, 49, 61 note, 87, 88, 151, 212.

Roland, Madam Marie Jeanne, 268.

Rollin, Charles, 7.

Romney, George, 19.

Rosa, Salvator, 248-250, 280.

Roscommon, Earl of (Wentworth Dillon), 99, 266.

Rossini, Gioacchimo, 14, 73, 82.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 99, 161, 241, 266, 283.

Rowe, Nicholas, 201.

Royer-Collard, 231 note.

Rubens, Peter Paul, 250, 287, 297.

Rusard, Peter, 33.

Ruskin, John, 71, 205, 215.

Sacchini, Antonio Maria Gasparo, 82.

St. Pierre, de (Jacques Henri Bernardin), 59 note.

Salieri, Antonio, 73.

Sallust, 37.

Sand, George, 57, 136, 194, 205.

Santara, 153.

Sargent, Epes, 191.

Sarpi, Father Paolo, 72.

Sarti, Giuseppe, 73.

Sarto, Andrea del, 14, 153.

Saunders, Chief Justice Sir Edmund, 119.

Savage, Richard, 94, 140, 233.

Scaliger, Julius, 34, 94

Schiller, von (Johann Christoph Friedrich), 31, 72 and note, 111, 120, 152 and note, 269.

Schumann, Robert, 136.

Scipio, 27.

Scipio the Younger, 28.

Scott, Sir Walter, 7 note, 38, 43 note, 58, 62, 75, 104, 108, 111, 114, 200, 207, 212, 221, 225, 226 and note, 242, 298.

Scudéri, George, 213.

Scudéri, Mlle. de (Madeleine), 213 note.

Seldon, John, 131.

Seneca, 118, 126.

Seward, Miss Anna, 42.

Shadwell, Thomas, 77.

Shakespeare, Wm., 2 and note, 3, 9, 19, 29, 40, 106 note, 125, 210, 240, 265, 274, 296.

Shaw, Dr., 117.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 58, 109, 112, 114, 172, 173 and note, 174.

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley Butler, 40, 77, 92, 211, 226 note, 227, 229, 236, 271, 272.

Shuter, Edward, 264.

Siddons, Mrs. Sarah, 243, 244 and note.

Sidney, Sir Philip, 230.

Smart, Christopher, 140, 164.

Smith, Adam, 94.

Smith, Sir Sydney, 20, 37 note, 39, 81 note, 89, 106, 107, 197 note, 210.

Smollett, Tobias George, 37, 62.

Sneyd, Miss Honora, 43.

Socrates, 33, 126, 239.

Sophocles, 126.

Southey, Robert, 12, 31, 44 and note, 104, 138, 205, 208, 211.

Spagnoletto, 256-258 and note.

Spencer, James, 252.

Spencer, William Robert, 212.

Spenser, Edmund, 128, 152, 240 note, 297.

Spontini, Gasparo Luigi Pacifico, 82.

Staël, Madame de (Anne Louise), 39, 147.

Steele, Richard, 158, 202, 283.

Stephens, James Francis, 75.

Stephenson, George, 26.

Stepney, George, 202.

Sterne, Laurence, 10, 64, 67, 270.

Stuart, Gilbert Charles, 45.

Sturgeon, William, 23.

Sue, Eugène, 83, 214 and note.

Sumner, Charles, 45.

Swift, Dean (Jonathan) 40, 90, 98, 108, 114, 136 note, 156-158, 202 and note, 211, 274, 292.

Sydenham, Floyer, 130.

Syrus, Publius, 4 and note.

Taglioni, Marie, 246.

Talfourd, Thomas Noon, 39.

Talma, François Joseph, 21.

Tannahill, Robert, 14 and note.

Tasso, Torquato, 31, 40, 52, 126, 161 and note.

Taylor, Bayard, 31.

Taylor, Father, 107, 198.

Taylor, Jane, 100.

Taylor, Jeremy, 123, 131.

Tell, William, 70.

Tencin, Madame de Claudine Alexandrine Guérin, 7 and note.

Teniers, David, 251.

Tennyson, Alfred, 46, 47, 48, 108, 297.

Tenterden, Justice (Abbott), Charles, 19.

Terence, 5 and note.

Thackeray, William Makepeace, 24 note, 62, 108, 109, 114, 118, 125 note, 142, 157 and note, 159 note, 163, 195, 197, 205.

Theophrastus, 33.

Thom, William, 141.

Thoreau, Henry David, 186, 187, 211.

Thorwaldsen, Albert Bertel, 25.

Thrale, Mrs. Esther Lynch (Salusbury), 162.

Thurlow, Chancellor Edward, 268.

Titus, Emperor, 271.

Tooke, Horne, 17 note.

Trenck, Baron, von der (Friedrich), 132.

Turner, Joseph Mallord William, 19, 109, 287 note.

Tyndale, William, 269.

Vaga, Perius del, 14.

Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 26.

Vandyke, Sir Anthony, 251.

Vaugelas, Claude Favre, 49, 129, 138.

Vayer, La Mothe le, François, 34.

Vega, Lope de, 33, 49 and note.

Victor Emmanuel, 119.

Virgil, 52, 99.

Voltaire, de (François Marie Arouet), 88, 132, 207, 229, 286.

Vondel, Joost van den, 15.

Wakefield, Gilbert, 135.

Waller, Edmund, 29 note, 128 note.

Walpole, Horace, 200.

Walton, Izaak, 12, 34, 152.

Warburton, Bishop William, 57, 92.

Warton, Dr. Joseph, 109.

Washington, George, 28.

Watt, James, 22, 29, 220, 242.

Webster, Daniel, 26 and note, 45.

Wellington, Duke of, Arthur (Wellesley), 9 note, 76.

West, Benjamin, 20 and note, 241 and note.

Whipple, Edwin Percy, 17 note, 28 note, 46, 103 note, 130, 165, 225, 229, 270 note, 294.

White, Henry Kirke, 11, 29.

Whitefield, George, 16.

Whitney, Eli, 22, 23.

Whittier, John Greenleaf, 35, 206, 212, 298.

Wicquefort, de (Abraham), 132.

Wilkes, John, 284.

William of Orange, 28 note.

William the Conqueror, 119.

Williams, Roger, 133.

Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 30, 31 note, 93, 114, 215.

Wilson, Henry, 22.

Wilson, John, 14, 227.

Wilson, Richard, 96.

Winckelmann, 34 and note.

Winthrop, Robert C., 34.

Wither, George, 87 and note.

Woffington, Margaret (Peg), 263, 264 and note.

Wolcott, Dr. John, 247 note.

Wolsey, Cardinal Thomas, 11, 17.

Woodworth, Samuel, 15.

Wordsworth, William, 39, 48, 53, 181, 182, 208, 297.

Wotton, Henry, 106.

Wycherly, William, 284.

Zoroaster, 17.

University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Goldsmith makes his Chinese philosopher recount the name of Homer as the first poet and beggar among the ancients,--a blind man whose mouth was more frequently filled with verses than with bread.]

[Footnote 2: Shakespeare's line expired in his daughter's only daughter. Several of the descendants of Shakespeare's sister Joan, bearing a strong family likeness to the great poet, were, so late as 1852, living in and about Stratford, chiefly in a state of indigence.]

[Footnote 3: I have no doubt whatever that Homer is a mere concrete name for the rhapsodies of the Iliad. Of course there was a Homer, and twenty besides. I will engage to compile twelve books, with characters just as distinct and consistent as those of the Iliad, from the metrical ballads and other chronicles of England, about Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.--_Coleridge._]

[Footnote 4: They must needs be men of lofty stature, whose shadows lengthen out to remote posterity.--_Hazlitt._]

[Footnote 5: The Edinburgh "Review," once the most formidable of critical journals, took its motto from Publius Syrus:--

"Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvetur."]

[Footnote 6: The kindly human sympathy exhibited by Terence contributed largely to the popularity of his dramas. Whenever the often-quoted words, "I am a man; and I have an interest in everything that concerns humanity," were spoken upon the Roman stage, they were received with tumultuous applause by all classes.]

[Footnote 7: Crassus, a Roman triumvir, noted for his great wealth, who lived about a hundred years before the Christian Era, bought and sold slaves. These he educated, and taught the highest accomplishments of the day, sparing no labor or expense for the purpose. These educated slaves were then sold for large sums of money, so that any rich man could own his private poet and scholar. We are told by Plutarch that some of these slaves brought enormous prices into the treasury of Crassus.]

[Footnote 8: "What can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe," asks Sir Walter Scott, "save that it runs back to a successful soldier?"]

[Footnote 9: When approached by Madame de Tencin, who was finally eager to acknowledge so distinguished a son, he replied:--

"Je ne connais qu'une mère, c'est la vitrière."]

[Footnote 10: I knew a very wise man that believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.--_Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun._]

[Footnote 11: Rachel made her debut at the Théâtre Français of Paris, in 1838. She came to this country in 1855, and performed in our Eastern cities. Three years later she died of consumption, near Cannes, in the South of France. When she was giving one of her readings before the Duke of Wellington, she perceived that all her audience were ignorant of the French language except the Duke himself. She went on, however, at her best, consoling herself that he at least understood her. After it was over, the Duke approached the great actress, and said: "Mademoiselle, our guests have had a great advantage over me; they have had the happiness of hearing you: I am as deaf as a post."]

[Footnote 12: Hazlitt, after remarking that Shakespeare's play of "All's Well that Ends Well" is taken from Boccaccio, adds: "The poet has dramatized the original novel with great skill and comic spirit, and has preserved all the beauty of character and sentiment without improving upon it, which is impossible." In the town of Certaldo, Tuscany, the house in which Boccaccio was born is shown to curious travellers. On the façade is an inscription speaking of the small house and a name which filled the world. "Before seven years of age," says Boccaccio, "when as yet I had met with no stories, was without a master, and hardly knew my letters, I had a natural talent for fiction, and produced some small tales."]

[Footnote 13: The author has stood upon the Bridge of Pinos, at Granada, from whence Columbus, discouraged and nearly heart-broken, was recalled by Isabella, after having been denied and dismissed, as he supposed, for the last time. The messenger of the relenting queen overtook the great pilot at the bridge, and conducted him back to the Hall of the Ambassadors, in the Alhambra.]

[Footnote 14: Disraeli tells us that the French ambassador to Spain, meeting Cervantes, congratulated him on the great success and reputation gained by his "Don Quixote;" whereupon the author whispered in his ear: "Had it not been for the Inquisition, I should have made my book much more entertaining." When Cervantes was a captive, and in prison at Algiers, he concerted a plan to free himself and his comrades. One of them traitorously betrayed the plot. They were all conveyed before the Dey of Algiers, who promised them their lives if they would betray the contriver of the plot. "I was that person," replied Cervantes; "save my companions, and let me perish." The Dey, struck with his noble confession, spared his life and permitted them all to be ransomed.]

[Footnote 15: "The Testimony of the Rocks," a noble and monumental work, by Hugh Miller, was published in 1857. The night following its completion its author shot himself through the heart. The overworked brain had given out, and all was chaos. He had sense enough left to write a few loving lines to his wife and children, and to say farewell.]

[Footnote 16: Falling into a state of morbid despondency and mental derangement, Tannahill committed suicide, by drowning, in his thirty-sixth year. James Hogg, the "Ettrick Shepherd," visited him a short time before his death. "Farewell," said Tannahill, as he grasped his brother poet's hand; "we shall never meet again!"]

[Footnote 17: One of Bunyan's biographers tells us his library consisted of two books,--the Bible and Fox's "Book of Martyrs." The latter work, in three volumes, is preserved in the Bedford town library, and contains Bunyan's name at the foot of the titlepages written by himself. Bunyan's crime, for which he was imprisoned twelve years, was teaching plain country people the knowledge of the Scriptures and the practice of virtue.]

[Footnote 18: Is it generally known that among the accomplishments of his after years was that of music and an instrumental performer? Leigh Hunt says that "Dr. Franklin offered to teach my mother the guitar, but she was too bashful to become his pupil. She regretted this afterwards, possibly from having missed so illustrious a master. Her first child, who died, was named after him."

In his Autobiography Franklin says: "At ten years of age I was called home to assist my father in his occupation, which was that of a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler, a business to which he had served no apprenticeship, but which he embraced on his arrival in New England, because he found his own, that of a dyer, in too little request. I was accordingly employed in cutting the wicks, filling the moulds," etc.]

[Footnote 19: His original name was John Horne, but being adopted and educated by William Tooke, he assumed his name. His humble birth being suspected by the proud striplings at Eton, when he was questioned as to his father he replied, "He was a Turkey merchant!" He was imprisoned for a year because he said that certain Americans were "murdered" by the king's troops at Lexington!]

[Footnote 20: Elliott, the Corn-Law Rhymer, was no pander to popular cries unless they were founded on reason. Being asked, "What is a communist?" he answered, "One who has yearnings for equal division of unequal earnings. Idler or bungler, he is willing to fork out his penny and pocket your shilling." Whipple says: "His poetry could hardly be written by a man who was not physically strong. You can hear the ring of his anvil, and see the sparks fly off from his furnace, as you read his verses."]

[Footnote 21: While these notes are writing, the city of Boston is erecting a bronze statue to the memory of Garrison, which is to adorn one of its finest and largest public parks,--a fitting tribute to the honored philanthropist.]

[Footnote 22: Hosea Biglow's words are specially applicable here:--

"An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way
Ol' farmers hed when I wuz younger;
Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay,
While book-froth seems to whet your hunger."]

[Footnote 23: His "Death on the Pale Horse," now in the Academy of Fine Arts at Philadelphia, is the most remarkable of his productions in this country. The Pennsylvania Hospital, in the same city, has also "Christ Healing the Sick," by West,--a truly noble conception, a vigorous work of art, and a generous gift from the author.]

[Footnote 24: His old employer, Moses Kimball, paid Ball twenty thousand dollars for the bronze group now standing in Park Square. It represents President Lincoln Freeing the Slaves. The purchaser presented it to the city of Boston.]

[Footnote 25: Hans Christian Andersen was one of the most gifted of modern authors. In his story entitled "Only a Fiddler," he has given many striking pictures from the experience of his own life. His best books are his fairy-tales, of which he has published several volumes.]

[Footnote 26: Any one who could place the tragedy of "Cleone" before that of "Venice Preserved," by Otway, in point of merit, must have been singularly prejudiced.]

[Footnote 27: Thackeray says: "He was lazy, kindly, uncommonly idle; rather slovenly, forever eating and saying good things. A little French abbé of a man, sleek, soft-handed, and soft-hearted." A Mr. Rich was the manager of the theatre in which Gay's "Beggar's Opera" was brought out. Its unprecedented success suggested the epigram that "it made Rich gay, and Gay rich."]

[Footnote 28: Among his liberal bequests were four hundred thousand dollars for the establishment of a public library in New York, to which his son, William B. Astor, subsequently added as much more. The Astor Library is therefore one of the best endowed institutions of the kind in America.]

[Footnote 29: Webster, when told that there was no room for new lawyers in a profession already overcrowded, answered, with the proud consciousness of genius and character, "There is always room at the top."]

[Footnote 30: Charles XII. put his whole soul into the cause of Sweden at the time when she was threatened with extinction by her enemies. He fought all Europe,--Danes, Russians, Poles, Germans,--and gave away a kingdom before he was twenty. At his coronation at Upsala, he snatched the crown from the hands of the archbishop and set it proudly on his head with his own hands.]

[Footnote 31: Whipple speaks of three characters "who seem to have been statesmen from the nursery." These were: "Octavius Cæsar, more successful in the arts of policy than even the great Julius, never guilty of youthful indiscretion, or, we are sorry to say, of youthful virtue; Maurice of Saxony, the preserver of the Reformed religion in Germany, in that memorable contest in which his youthful sagacity proved more than a match for the veteran craft of Charles V.; and the second William of Orange, the preserver of the liberties of Europe against the ambition of Louis XIV., who, as a child, may be said to have prattled treaties and lisped despatches."]

[Footnote 32: Nothing is so beneficial to a young author as the advice of a man whose judgment stands constitutionally at the freezing point.--_Douglas Jerrold._]

[Footnote 33: The life of Jeanne d'Arc is like a legend in the midst of history.--_Waller._]

[Footnote 34: After a couple of years Hall was restored to the full possession of his faculties, and for twenty years thereafter maintained his high reputation as a pulpit orator. He died in 1831.]

[Footnote 35: Fifty years after these poems were published, as we are informed by the publishers, there is a steady demand for from two to three hundred copies annually. Of how many American books, of a similar character, can this be said?]

[Footnote 36: I wrote things, I'm ashamed to say how soon. Part of an epic poem when about twelve. The scene of it lay at Rhodes and some of the neighboring islands; and the poem opened under water, with a description of the Court of Neptune.--_Pope._]

[Footnote 37: Lord Brougham hoped to see the day when every man in the United Kingdom could read Bacon. "It would be much more to the purpose," said Cobbett, "if his lordship could use his influence to see that every man in the kingdom could _eat_ bacon."]

[Footnote 38: On a certain occasion when Barry, the eminent painter, exhibited one of his admirable pictures, some one present doubted that it was his work, so remarkable was its excellence, and Barry at the time had not established any special fame. The artist was so affected by the remark that he burst into tears and retired. Burke, who was present, followed him to pacify his grief. The painter by chance quoted some passages of the newly published essay on the "Sublime and Beautiful." It appeared anonymously, and Burke took occasion to sneer at it, when Barry showed more feeling than he had done about his picture. He commended the essay in the most earnest language. Burke, smiling, acknowledged its authorship. "I could not afford to buy it," replied the astonished artist, "but I transcribed every line with my own hands;" at the same time pulling the manuscript from his pocket. This was commendation so sincere and appreciative, that the great author and the great painter clasped hands in mutual friendship.]

[Footnote 39: Menander, the poet, was Theophrastus's favorite pupil.]

[Footnote 40: Winckelmann, one of the most distinguished writers on classic antiquities and the fine arts, was the son of a shoemaker. He contrived, by submitting to all sorts of personal deprivation, to fit himself for college, and to go through with the studies there by teaching young and less advanced fellow-students, at the same time supporting a bedridden and helpless father.]

[Footnote 41: "People may be taken in once, who imagine that an author is greater in private life than other men," says Dr. Johnson.]

[Footnote 42: Such incongruities do exist: nothing is infallible; phrenologists even find the crania of some men to exhibit contradictory evidences. When Sydney Smith with some friends submitted his head to be examined by a phrenologist who did not know him, the party were amused at the examiner declaring him to be a great naturalist,--"never happier than when arranging his birds and fishes." "Sir," said the divine, "I don't know a fish from a bird!"]

[Footnote 43: "Men of genius," says Longfellow, "are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone."]