DR. JOHN FERRIAR. 1764-1815. Like Poets, born, in vain Collectors strive Mr. J. E. Bailey, in the Palatine Note- ISAAC DISRAELI. 1767-1848. No character is more frequently amiable than that of a man of letters. The occupations he has chosen, are justly called the studies of humanity; and they communicate to his manners, his understanding, and his heart, that refined amenity, that lively sensibility, and that luminous acuteness which flow from a cultivated taste. He is an enthusiast; but an enthusiast for elegance. He loves literature, like virtue, for the harmony it diffuses over the passions; and perceives, that like religion, it has the singular art of communicating with an unknown and future state. Men of letters find in books an occupation congenial to their sentiments; labour without fatigue; repose with activity; an employment, interrupted without inconvenience, and exhaustless without satiety. They remain ever attached to their studies. Their library and their chamber are contiguous; and often in this contracted space, does the opulent owner consume his delicious hours. His pursuits are ever changing, and he enlivens the austere by the lighter studies. It was said of a great hunter, that he did not live, but hunted; and it may be said of the man of letters, that he does not live, but meditates. He is that happy man who creates hourly wants, and enjoys the voluptuousness of immediate gratification. Those who feel with enthusiasm the eloquence of a fine writer, insensibly receive some particles from it; a virtuous writer communicates virtue ; a refined writer, a subtile delicacy; a sublime writer, an elevation of sentiment. All these characters of the mind, in a few years, are diffused throughout the nation. what acute reasoners has the refined penetration of Hume formed; what amenity of manners has not Addison introduced; to how many virtuous youths have not the moral essays of Johnson imparted fortitude, and illumined with reflection? Among us, It is curious to observe the solitary man of letters in the concealment of his obscure study, separated from the crowd, unknown to his contemporaries, collecting the materials of instruction from every age and every country; combining with the present the example of the past, and the prediction of the future; pouring forth the valuable secrets of his meditations to posterity; striking with the concussion of new light the public mind; and forming the manners, the opinions, the refinement, and the morals of his fellow-citizens. The interruptions of visitors have been feelingly lamented by men of letters.-The mind, occupied in maturing its speculations, feels the approach of the visitor by profession, as the sudden gales of an eastern blast, passing over the blossoms of spring. "We are afraid," said some of the visitors to Baxter, "that we break in upon your time." "To be sure you do," replied the disturbed and blunt scholar. The amiable Melancthon, incapable of a harsh expression, when he received these idle visits, only noted down the time he had expended, that he might reanimate his industry, and not lose a day. Yet let us not confound true PHILOSOPHERS with dreaming THEORISTS. They are not more engaged in cultivating the mind, than the earth; the annals of agriculture are as valuable as the annals of history; and while they instruct some to think, they teach others to labour. PHILOSOPHY extends it's thoughts on whatever the eye. has seen, or the hand has touched; it herbalises in fields; it founds mines; it is on the waters, and in the forests; it is in the library, and the laboratory; it arranges the calculations of finance; it invents the police of a city; it erects it's fortifications; it gives velocity to our fleets; in a word, it is alike in the solitude of deserts, as in the populousness of manufactories. The GENIUS of PHILOSOPHY pierces every where, and on whatever it rests, like the sun, it discovers what lay concealed, or matures what it found imperfect.-An Essay on the Manners and Genius of the Literary Character. 1795. Those authors who appear sometimes to forget they are writers, and remember they are men, will be our favourites. He who writes from the heart, will write to the heart; every one is enabled to decide on his merits, 4 and they will not be referred to learned heads, or a distant day. We are I think little interested if an author displays sublimity; but we should be much concerned to know whether he has sincerity. 66 "Why," says Boileau, are my verses read by all? it is only because they speak truths, and that I am convinced of the truths I write." Why is Addison still the first of our essayists? he has sometimes been excelled in criticisms more philosophical, in topics more interesting, and in diction more coloured. But there is a personal charm in the character he has assumed, in his periodical Miscellanies, which is felt with such a gentle force, that we scarce advert to it. He has painted forth his little humours, his individual feelings, and eternised himself to his readers. Sterne perhaps derives a portion of his celebrity from the same influence; he interests us in his minutest motions, for he tells us all he feels.— Richardson was sensible of the power with which his minute strokes of description enter the heart, and which are so many fastenings to which the imagination clings. He says "If I give speeches and conversations I ought to give them justly; for the humours and characters of persons cannot be known, unless I repeat what they say, and their manner of saying." I confess I am infinitely pleased when Sir William Temple acquaints us with the size of his orange trees, and with the flavour of his peaches and grapes, confessed by Frenchmen to equal those of France; with his having had the honour to naturalize in this country four kinds of grapes, with his liberal distribution of them because "he ever thought all things of this kind the commoner they are the better." In a word with his passionate attachment to his garden, of his desire to escape from great employments, and having passed five years without going to town, where, by the way, "he had a large house always ready to receive him." Dryden has interspersed many of these little particulars in his prosaic compositions, and I think, that his character and dispositions, may be more correctly acquired by uniting these scattered notices, than by any biographical account which can now be given of this man of genius. Dryden confesses that he never read anything but for his pleasure. Montaigne's works have been called by a Cardinal "the Breviary of Idlers." It is therefore the book of man; for all men are idlers; we have hours which we pass with lamentation, and which we know are always returning. At those moments miscellanists are comformable to all our humours. Wedart along their airy and concise page, and their lively anecdote, or their profound observation are so many interstitial pleasures in our listless hours. . We find, in these literary miniatures, qualities incompatible with more voluminous performances. Sometimes a bolder, and sometimes a firmer touch; for they are allowed but a few strokes. They are permitted every kind of ornament, for how can the diminutive please, unless it charms by it's finished decorations, it's elaborate niceties, and it's exquisite polish? A concise work preserves a common subject from insipidity, and an uncommon one from error. An essayist expresses himself with a more real enthusiasm, than the writer of a volume; for I have observed that the most fervid genius is apt to cool in a quarto. K |