conceive. "I do not give it to you," he said, "as a salary, but an annuity, that you may be independent, and quit me when you dislike me." Something nearly similar embellishes our own literary history. When Akenside was in great danger of experiencing famine as well as fame, Mr. Dyson allowed him three hundred pounds a year. Of this gentleman, perhaps, nothing is known; yet whatever his life may be, it merits the tribute of the biographer. To close with these honourable testimonies of literary friendship, we must not omit that of Churchill and Lloyd. It is known that when Lloyd heard of the death of our poet, he acted the part which Fugere did to Goguet. The page is crowded, but my facts are by no means exhausted.

The most illustrious of the ancients prefixed the name of some friend to the head of their works. We too often place that of some patron. They honorably inserted it in their works. When a man of genius, however, shows that he is not less mindful of his social affection than his fame, he is the more loved by his reader. Plato communicated a ray of his glory to his brothers; for in his republic he ascribes some parts to Adimantus and Glauchon; and Antiphon the youngest is made to deliver his sentiments in the Parmenides. To perpetuate the fondness of friend

VOL. IV.

F

ship several authors have entitled their works by the name of some cherished associate. Cicero to his Treatise on Orators gives the title of Brutus; to that of Friendship Lelius, and to that of Old Age, Cato. They have been imitated by the moderns. The poetical Tasso, to his dialogue on Friendship gave the name of Manso, who was afterwards his affectionate biographer. Sepulvueda entitles his treatise on Glory by the name of his friend Gonsalves. Lociel to his Dialogues on the Lawyers of Paris prefixes the name of the learned Pasquier. Thus Plato distinguished his Dialogues by the names of certain persons; the one on Lying is entitled Hippius; on Rhetoric, Gorgias; and on Beauty, Phædrus.

Luther has perhaps carried this feeling to an extravagant point. He was so delighted by his favourite "Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians," that he distinguished it by a title of doting fondness; he named it after his wife, and called it "His Catharine."

ANECDOTES OF ABSTRACTION OF MIND.

SOME have exercised this power of abstraction to a degree that appears marvellous to volatile spirits, and puny thinkers.

To this patient habit, Newton is indebted for many of his great discoveries; an apple falls upon him in his orchard,—and the system of attraction succeeds in his mind! he observes boys blowing soap bubbles, and the properties of light display themselves! Of Socrates, it is said, that he would frequently remain an entire day and night in the same attitude, absorbed in meditation; and why shall we doubt this, when we know that La Fontaine and Thomson, Descartes and Newton, experienced the same abstraction? Mercator, the celebrated geographer, found such delight in the ceaseless progression of his studies, that he would never willingly quit his maps to take the necessary refreshments of life. In Cicero's Treatise on Old Age, Cato applauds Gallus, who, when he sat down to write in the morning, was surprised by the evening; and when he took up his pen in the evening was surprised by the appearance of the morning. Buffon once described these delicious moments with his accustomed eloquence." Invention depends on patience; contemplate your subject long; it will gradually unfold, till a sort of electric spark convulses for a moment the brain, and spreads down to the very heart a glow of irritation. Then come the luxuries of genius! the true hours for production and composition; hours so delightful that I have spent twelve and

fourteen successively at my writing-desk, and still been in a state of pleasure." It is probable that the anecdote related of Marini, the Italian poet, is true; that he was once so absorbed in revising his Adonis, that he suffered his leg to be burnt for some time, without any sensibility.

Abstraction of this sublime kind is the first step to that noble enthusiasm which accompanies Genius; it produces those raptures and that intense delight, which some curious facts will explain

to us.

Poggius relates of Dante, that he indulged his meditations more strongly than any man he knew; whenever he read, he was only alive to what was passing in his mind; to all human concerns, he was, as if they had not been! Dante went one day to a great public procession; he entered the shop of a bookseller to be a spectator of the passing show. He found a book which greatly interested him; he devoured it in silence, and plunged into an abyss of thought.-On his return he declared that he had neither seen, nor heard, the slightest occurrence of the public exhibition which passed before him. This enthusiasm renders every thing surrounding us as distant as if an immense interval separated us from the scene. A modern astronomer, one summer night, withdrew to his chamber; the brightness of the heaven

showed a phenomenon. He passed the whole night in observing it, and when they came to him early in the morning, and found him in the same attitude, he said, like one who had been recollecting his thoughts for a few moments, "It must be thus; but I'll go to bed before 'tis late!" He had gazed the entire night in meditation, and did not know it.

This intense abstraction operates visibly; this perturbation of the faculties, as might be supposed, affects persons of genius physically. What a forcible description the late Madam Roland, who certainly was a woman of the first genius, gives of herself on her first reading of Telemachus and Tasso. "My respiration rose; I felt a rapid fire colouring my face, and my voice changing, had betrayed my agitation; I was Eucharis for Telemachus, and Erminia for Tancred; however during this perfect transformation, I did not yet think that I myself was any thing, for any one. The whole had no connexion with myself, I sought for nothing around me; I was them, I saw only the objects which existed for them; it was a dream, without being awakened."-Metastasio describes a similar situation. "When I apply with a little attention, the nerves of my sensorium are put into a violent tumult. I grow as red in the face as a drunkard, and am obliged to quit my