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first leffon in an art, of which the phi- non inftituti sed imbuti fumus.”
lofopher was before utterly ignorant.
"Sufceperas enim liberos non folum
tibi, fed etiam patriæ. Eos inftituere
atque erudire ad majorum inftituta atque
civitatis difciplinam, non ad tuas turpi-
tudines, debuifti." Inftituere here re-
fers to the first step in a procefs, which
erudire fuppofes to be carried on in the
education of children. The arrange-
ment of the verbs, however, may be
reversed, and each refpectively applied
to that particular ftate of certain pupils
with which it beft accords. "Senectus
adolefcentes docet, inflituit, ad omne
officii munus inftruit."

here fuggefts the purpose of the creator
in oppofition to that of a teacher, at
whatever time he might communicate
his inftructions; and imbuti, the in-
ftilment of preparatory fentiments be-
fore any leffon was given, as involved
in the verb inftituere.

Imbuere does not always imply the complete abfence of information on any fubject, but it uniformly implies an effect produced as the means tending to future improvement. "Sin fit is qui et

doctrina mihi liberaliter inftitutus, et aliquo jam imbutus ufu." Inftitutus here denotes, that a good foundation had been laid upon which the fcholar's progrefs refts; and imbutus, that by habit. he had acquired fuch predifpofitions, as fit him to advance in that line of study. which the orator chalks out.

When Horace states the good qualitiesof a flave exposed to sale, he fays he

In was

Imbuere ciffers from inftituere, in denoting the inftilment of fentiments that fit the pupil for making progress in a particular line. It implies intention upon the part of the agent, like the former yerbs, and fuppofes the means of inItruction to operate, without the confcioufnefs of him who receives it. its original application to material ob- Literulis Græcis imbutus, idoneus arti jects, it had denoted an affection of Cuilibet: argilla quidvis imitaberis uda. them in refpect to colour, tafte, or Though the power of the diminutive in fmell, communicated by means of a fluid, the noun falls properly on the participle, and has been afterwards applied to the yet no ambiguity is thereby produced in production of a mental difpofition or refpect to the meaning of imbutus. aptitude not eafily to be destroyed. From the words that follow, it evidentAppium Claudium præfectum urbis ly implies, that the fmattering of Greek relinquunt, jam inde ab incunabulis literature, acquired by the flave, fitted imbutum odio tribunorum plebifque."-him for making further proficiency. "Ad hanc legem non doci fed facti,

ON THE DOMESTIC LIFE OF A MAN OF GENIUS.
FROM D'ISRALI ON THE GENIUS AND MANNERS OF THE LITERARY
CHARACTER.

IF we contemplate the domestic ancients must have communicated an life of a man of genius, we rarely ob- enthusiasm the moderns can never exferve him placed in a fituation congenial perience. In the golden age of Greece, to his purfuits. a Demofthenes faw himself encompaffed by future orators; and Plato liftened to the plaudits of future philofophers. It was a moment of delicious rapture, not felt in the folitary meditations of the modern philofopher, in whofe mind fenfations arife cold and artificial, compared to their burst of fentiment and their fervour of paffion.

The houfe of a man of letters fhould be the fanctuary of tranquillity and virtue. The moral duties he inculcates, the philofophic fpeculations he forms, and the refinements of tafte he difclofes, fhould be familiar to his domeftic circle. It is then he is great without effort, and eloquent without art.

The porch and the academy of the

Yet a virtuous citizen, amidst the diffolution

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diffolution of manners, may give to his refidence a Roman aufterity, and difplay the fublime in life, as well as in compofition. He may be feated at an fupper, and,

Enjoy, fpare feaft! a radish and an egg. COWPER. Nor is fuch a purity of manners incompatible with refined paffions and delicacy of fentiment; a penetrating glance, a tender preffure, a filent fmile, may infufe into his heart those genuine emotions which are ever wanted, and never found, at tables more fplendidly profufe, and more elegantly crowded. A venerable parent, a congenial friend, and a female fufceptible of a kindred enthusiasm, are perhaps the utmost number of happy companions, which a fortunate man could ever affemble around him.

Is he deprived of thofe focial confolations, like Johnson? he calls those whofe calamities have exiled them from fociety; and his house is an affemblage of the blind, the lame, and the poor. In the ardour of his emotions, he difcovers that a word is wanting in the Vocabulary of humanity, and, like the Abbe de Saint Pierre, has the honour of fixing a new word in the language; a word that ferves to explain his own actions-Bienfaisance.

dent. But we would be independent only in commanding flaves. He who lives like a Spartan in voluptuous Sybaris, is, however, independent; and this age has produced men who paffed the fervours of youth in a philofophical feverity, and studied (as some study a language) to become great characters. Such were Franklin and Elliot, Chatham and Hume !

The actions and ftudies of fuch men are not the only utility they bestow on the world; they leave fomething of a more diffufive energy; they leave the eternal memory of their character; they leave to remoteft pofterity their immortal veftiges, while virtuous youth contemplates them with enthusiasm, and follows them with confidence.

We close any further reflections on the character of a philofophic writer, and reftrain ourselves to obfervations more obvious, and to facts more ufual.

Too often we fee the fublimeft minds, and the tendereft hearts, fublime and tender only in their productions. They are not furrounded by persons of analogous ideas, who are alone capable of drawing forth their virtues and affections; as the powers of the magnet remain dormant unless applied to particles capable of attraction. We hear of feveral great men, that they were undutiHis look is ferene; for ftudy, not ful fons, because they displeased their fortune, forms his fole occupation; and fathers in becoming great men-that accident cannot injure the stability of his foul, for virtue has long been a habit. Is it inquired why this man appears an anomalous being among his fellow-citizens?-Because he is the contemporary of the greatest men. He paffes his mornings with Cicero and Demofthenes, and gives his nights to Socrates and Plato.

Such an one is the living exemplar of that fublime morality which we learn with our Latin at school, and which, when we come into the world, we confider, like our Latin, to be merely a dead language.

He renders poverty illuftrious, and proves that every man may be indepen

they were difagreeable companions, because dullness or impertinence wearied-that they were indifferent husbands, because they were united to women who did no honour to the sex. These are ordinary accufations ever received, while it is forgotten that an accufation is not always a crime.

It were not difficult to defcribe the domeftic life of most men of genius, and to obferve that their inmates have rendered their Lares but rugged deities. I would never draw conclufions from particular circumftances, fuch as, that Addison defcribes his lady under the character of Oceana, and Steele delineates his wife under that of Mifs

Prue;

It is therefore an interesting obfervation for a man of letters, and an artist, to liberate himfelf early from domestic anxieties. Let him, like Rouffeau, leave the rich financier (though he might become one himself), fell his watch, and iffue from the palace in independence and enthusiam. He muft alfo, if neceffary, like Crebillon, be fatisfied with the refpectable society of a confiderable number of greyhounds*. The most ardent paffion for glory can alone ftimulate to fuch a retirement; and indeed it is only in folitude that the most eminent geniuses have been formed. Solitude is the nurse of enthufiafm, and enthufiafm is the parent of genius.

Prue; the one was a stormy ocean, the had probably attained to its acmè before other a stagnated ftream. But I remark, Pope, had the unfortunate circumstances that many of the confpicuous blemishes of Dryden not occafioned his inequali of fome of our great compofitions may ties, his incorrectness, and his copious reasonably he attributed to the domeftic page. infelicities of their authors. The defultory life of Camoens probably occafioned the want of connection in his Epic; Milton's distracted family, thofe numerous paffages which escaped crafure; and Cervantes may have been led, through the hafte of publication, into thofe little flips of memory obfervable in his Satirical Romance. The beft years of Meng's life were embittered by the harfhnefs of his father; and it is probable that this domeftic perfecution, from which he was at length obliged to fly, gave him thofe morofe and faturnine habits which he ever after wards retained. Of Alonfo Cano, a celebrated Spanish painter, it is obferved by Mr Cumberland that he would have carried his art much higher, had not the unceafing perfecution of the inquifitors deprived him of that tranquility which is o neceffary to the very exiftence of the fine arts.

Our poetry

* Crebillon paffed much of his time in folitude, and pleased himself with the company of a dozen fine large dogs in his room, which rendered the approach to our poet as

formidable to the timorons as to the delicate.

ON THE INFLUENCE OF RARITY AND EXPENCE IN
DECIDING QUESTIONS OF TASTE.

AS the idea of expence feems often to embellish, so that of cheapnefs feems as frequently to tarnish the luftre even of very agreeable objects. The difference between real and falfe jewels is what even the experienced eye of a jeweller can fometimes with difficulty diftinguifh. Let an unknown Lady, however, come into a public affembly with a head-drefs which appears to be very richly adorned with diamonds, and let a jeweller only whifper in our ear that they are all falfe ftones, not only the lady will immediately fink in our imagination from the rank of a princefs to that of a very ordinary woman, but the head-drefs, from an object of the moft fplendid magnificence, will at once become an impertinent piece of tawdry and tinfel finery.

It was fome years ago the fashion to ornament a garden with yew and holly

The

trees, cliped into the arificial fhapes
of pyramids, and columns, and vales,
and obelifks. It is now the fashion to
ridicule this tafte as unnatural.
figure of a pyramid or obelifk, however,
is not more unnatural to a yew tree
than a block of porphyry or marble.
When the yew tree is prefented to the
eye in this artificial fhape, the gardener
does not mean that it fhould be under-
stood to have grown in that shape. He
means, firft, to give it the fame beauty
of regular figure which pleases so much
in porphyry and marble; and secondly,
to imitate, in a growing tree, the orna-
ments of those precious materials: he
means to make an object of one kind re-
femble another object of a very differe
ent kind; and to the original beauty of a
figure to join the relative beauty ofoi
imitation: but the disparity between the
imitating and the imitated object is the

foundation

foundation of the beauty of imitation, it is because the one object does not na turally refemble the other, that we are fo much pleased with it when by art it is made to do fo. The fheers of the gardener, it may be faid, indeed, are very clunify inftruments of fculpture. They are fo, no doubt, when employed to imitate the figures of men, or even of animals. But in the simple and regular forms of pyramids, vafes, and obelifks, even the theers of the gardener do well enough. Some allowance too is naturally made for the neceffary imperfection of the inftrument, in the fame manner as in tapestry and needle-work. In fhort, the next time you have an apportunity of furveying those out-of-fashion ornaments, endeavour only to let your-' self alone, and to restrain for a few minutes the foolish paffion for playing the Critic, and you will be fenfible that they are not without fome degree of beauty; that they give the air of neat nefs and correct culture at least to the whole garden; and that they are not unlike what the "retired leisure, that (as Milton fays) in trim gardens takes his pleasure," might be amufed with. What then, it may be faid, has brought them into fuch univerfal difrepute among us? In a pyramid or obelisk of marble, we know that the materials are expenfive,

and that the labour which wrought them into that shape must have been still more fo. In a pyramid or obelisk of yew, we know that the materials could coft very little, and the labour still lefs. The former are ennobled by their expence ; the latter degraded by their cheapness. In the cabbage-garden of a tallowchandler, we may fometimes perhaps have feen as many columns and vafes, and other ornaments in yew, as there are in marble and porphyry at Verfailles; it is this vulgarity which has difgraced them. The rich and the great, the proud and the vain, will not admit into their gardens an ornament which the meanest of the people can have as well as they.

The tafte for thefe ornaments came originally from France; where, notwithftanding that inconftancy of fashion with which we fometimes reproach the natives of that country, it still continues in good repute. In France, the condition of the inferior ranks of people is feldom fo happy as it frequently is in England; and you will there feldom find even pyramids and obelisks of yew in the garden of a tallow-chandler. Such ornaments not having in that country been degraded by their vulgarity, have not yet been excluded from the gardens of Princes and great Lords. From Smith's Elay on the imitative Arts.

ORIGINAL LETTER WRITTEN BY LORD BACON AFTER

MY LORD,

HIS FALL

TO THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER.

AMONGST comforts, it is not the leaft to reprefent to a man's felf the like examples of calamity in others. For examples make a quicker impreffion than arguments; and befides, they inform us of that which the Scripture alfo propounds to us for our fatisfaction, that no new thing is happened to us. This they do the better, by how much the examples are more like in circumftances to our own cafe; and yet more particularly if they fall upon perfons who are greater and worthier than ourfelves.

For as it favours of vanity to match ourfelves highly in our own conceit; fo on the other fide, it is a good and found conclufion, that if our betters have fuftained the like events, we have the lefs caufe to be grieved.

In this kind of confolation I have not been wanting to myself, though as a Chriftian I have tafted (through God's great goodnefs) of higher remedies. Having therefore, through the variety of my reading, fet before me many examples, both of ancient and latter times, my thoughts, I confefs, have chiefly

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stayed

!

flayed upon three particulars. as both the most eminent and most resembling; all three perfons who held chief place and authority in their countries; all three ruined, not by war or any other disaster, but by justice and fentence, as delinquents and criminals; and all three famous writers; infomuch as the remembrance of their calamity is now to pofterity but as fome little night-piece, remaining amongst the fair and excellent tables of their acts and works. And all three (if that were any thing to the matter) are fit examples to quench any man's ambition of rifing again; for that they were, every one of them, restored with great glory; out to their further ruin and deftruction, all ending in a violent death.

The men were, Demofthenes, Cicero, and Seneca; perfons with whom I durft not claim any affinity at all, if the fimilitude of our fortunes had not contracted it.

When I caft mine eyes upon thefe examples, I was carried further on to obferve, how they bore their fortunes; and principally how they employed their times, being banished, and difabled for public business; to the end that I might learn by them, that fo they might be as well my counsellors as my comforters. Whereupon I happened to note, how diverfly their fortunes wrought upon their minds, especially in that point at which I aimed moft; which was the employing of their times and pens. In Cicero, I faw that, during his banishment (which was almoft for two years,) he was fo foftened and dejected, as that he wrote nothing but a few womanish epistles.

And yet, in my opinion, he had least reafon of the three to be difcouraged; because though it were judged (and judged by the highest kind of judgment, in form of a ftatute and law,) that he fhould be banished, and his whole estate confiscated and feized, and his houses pulled down; and that it should be highly penal for any man to propound his repeal; yet this cafe, even then, carried no great blot of ignominy with it; for it was thought to be but a tempeft of popularity which overthrew him.

Demofthenes, on the contrary fide, though his case were foul, he being condemned for bribery, and bribery in the nature of treafon and difloyalty, took yet fo little knowledge of his fortune, as that, during his banishment, he bu fied himself, and intermeddled as much with matters of state, by letters, as if he had been still at the helm, as appears by fome epiftles of his which are extant.

Seneca, indeed, who was condemned for many corruptions and crimes, and banished into a folitary ifland, kept a mean: for though his pen did not freeze, yet he abstained from intruding into matters of bufinefs; but spent his time in writing books of excellent argument and ufe, for all ages.

Thefe examples confirmed me much in a refolntion, to which I was otherwife inclined, to spend my time wholly in writing, and to put forth that poor talent, or half talent, or what it is, which God hath given me, not as heretofore, to particular exchanges, but to banks or mounts of perpetuity, which will not break. VERULAM,

MANUSCRIPTS OF SHAKESPEARE. Letter to Anna Hatherreway, (afterwards Shakspeare's wife), with a lock of his hair plaited.

DEAREST ANNA,

AS thou hafte always found mee toe mye worde most trwe foe thou fhalt fee I have ftriatley kepte my promyfe; I aye you perfume thys my poore locke with thy balmye kyffes forre thenne in

deed fhalle kynges themmselves bowe and paye homage toe it I doe affure thee no rude hande hath knottedde itte, thy Willys alone hathe done the worke ney-: therre the gyldedde babble thatte envyrones the heede of majestye hoe norre honourres moft weyghte wulde give mee halfe the joye as didde thyfe mye littler worke forre thec The feelinge thatte.

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