Shelley at Oxford Part 5

The scout looked up at the clock, at Sh.e.l.ley and through the gate into the street, as it were at the same moment and with one eager glance, and would have run blindly in quest of them, but I drew the skirts from my pocket and unfolded them, and he followed us to Sh.e.l.ley's rooms.

We were sitting there in the evening at tea, when the tailor, who had praised the coat so warmly in the morning, brought it back as fresh as ever, and apparently uninjured. It had been fine-drawn. He showed how skilfully the wound had been healed, and he commended at some length the artist who had effected the cure. Sh.e.l.ley was astonished and delighted.

Had the tailor consumed the new blue coat in one of his crucibles, and suddenly raised it, by magical incantation, a fresh and purple Phoenix from the ashes, his admiration could hardly have been more vivid. It might be, in this instance, that his joy at the unexpected restoration of a coat, for which, although he was utterly indifferent to dress, he had, through some unaccountable caprice, conceived a fondness, gave force to his sympathy with art; but I have remarked in innumerable cases, where no personal motive could exist, that he was animated by all the ardour of a maker in witnessing the display of the creative energies.

Nor was the young poet less interested by imitation, especially the imitation of action, than by the creative arts. Our theatrical representations have long been degraded by a most pernicious monopoly, by vast abuses and enormous corruptions, and by the prevalence of bad taste.

Far from feeling a desire to visit the theatres, Sh.e.l.ley would have esteemed it a cruel infliction to have been compelled to witness performances that less fastidious critics have deemed intolerable. He found delight, however, in reading the best of our English dramas, particularly the masterpieces of Shakespeare, and he was never weary of studying the more perfect compositions of the Attic tragedians. The lineaments of individual character may frequently be traced more certainly and more distinctly in trifles than in more important affairs; for in the former the deportment, even of the boldest and more ingenuous, is more entirely emanc.i.p.ated from every restraint. I recollect many minute traits that display the inborn sympathy of a brother pract.i.tioner in the mimetic arts. One silly tale, because, in truth, it is the most trivial of all, will best ill.u.s.trate the conformation of his mind; its childishness, therefore, will be pardoned.

A young man of studious habits and of considerable talent occasionally derived a whimsical amus.e.m.e.nt, during his residence at Cambridge, from entering the public-houses in the neighbouring villages, whilst the fen-farmers and other rustics were smoking and drinking, and from repeating a short pa.s.sage of a play, or a portion of an oration, which described the death of a distinguished person, the fatal result of a mighty battle, or other important events, in a forcible manner. He selected a pa.s.sage of which the language was nearly on a level with vulgar comprehension, or he adapted one by somewhat mitigating its elevation; and, although his appearance did not bespeak histrionic gifts, he was able to utter it impressively and, what was most effective, not theatrically, but simply and with the air of a man who was in earnest; and if he were interrupted or questioned, he could slightly modify the discourse, without materially changing the sense, to give it a further appearance of reality; and so staid and sober was the gravity of his demeanour as to render it impossible for the clowns to solve the wonder by supposing that he was mad. During his declamation the orator feasted inwardly on the stupid astonishment of his petrified audience, and he further regaled himself afterwards by imagining the strange conjectures that would commence at his departure.

Sh.e.l.ley was much interested by the account I gave him of this curious fact, from the relation of two persons, who had witnessed the performance. He asked innumerable questions, which I was in general quite unable to answer; and he spoke of it as something altogether miraculous, that anyone should be able to recite extraordinary events in such a manner as to gain credence. As he insisted much upon the difficulty of the exploit, I told him that I thought he greatly over-estimated it, I was disposed to believe that it was in truth easy; that faith and a certain gravity were alone needed. I had been struck by the story, when I first heard it; and I had often thought of the practicability of imitating the deception, and although I had never proceeded so far myself, I had once or twice found it convenient to attempt something similar. At these words Sh.e.l.ley drew his chair close to mine, and listened with profound silence and intense curiosity.

I was walking one afternoon in the summer on the western side of that short street leading from Long Acre to Covent Garden, wherein the pa.s.senger is earnestly invited, as a personal favour to the demandant, to proceed straightway to Highgate or to Kentish Town, and which is called, I think, James Street. I was about to enter Covent Garden, when an Irish labourer, whom I met, bearing an empty hod, accosted me somewhat roughly, and asked why I had run against him. I told him briefly that he was mistaken. Whether somebody had actually pushed the man, or he sought only to quarrel--and although he doubtless attended a weekly row regularly, and the week was already drawing to a close, he was unable to wait until Sunday for a broken head--I know not; but he discoursed for some time with the vehemence of a man who considers himself injured or insulted, and he concluded, being emboldened by my long silence, with a cordial invitation just to push him again. Several persons, not very unlike in costume, had gathered round him, and appeared to regard him with sympathy. When he paused, I addressed to him slowly and quietly, and it should seem with great gravity, these words, as nearly as I can recollect them:--

"I have put my hand into the hamper; I have looked upon the sacred barley; I have eaten out of the drum! I have drunk and was well pleased! I have said _Konx ompax_, and it is finished!"

"Have you, sir?" inquired the astonished Irishman, and his ragged friends instantly pressed round him with "Where is the hamper, Paddy?" "What barley?" and the like. And ladies from his own country--that is to say, the basket-women, suddenly began to interrogate him, "Now, I say, Pat, where have you been drinking? What have you had?"

I turned therefore to the right, leaving the astounded neophyte, whom I had thus planted, to expound the mystic words of initiation as he could to his inquisitive companions.

As I walked slowly under the piazzas, and through the streets and courts, towards the west, I marvelled at the ingenuity of Orpheus--if he were indeed the inventor of the Eleusinian mysteries--that he was able to devise words that, imperfectly as I had repeated them, and in the tattered fragment that has reached us, were able to soothe people so savage and barbarous as those to whom I had addressed them, and which, as the apologists for those venerable rites affirm, were manifestly well adapted to incite persons, who hear them for the first time, however rude they may be, to ask questions. Words, that can awaken curiosity, even in the sluggish intellect of a wild man, and can thus open the inlet of knowledge!

"_Konx ompax_, and it is finished!" exclaimed Sh.e.l.ley, crowing with enthusiastic delight at my whimsical adventure. A thousand times, as he strode about the house, and in his rambles out of doors, would he stop and repeat aloud the mystic words of initiation, but always with an energy of manner, and a vehemence of tone and of gesture that would have prevented the ready acceptance, which a calm, pa.s.sionless delivery had once procured for them. How often would he throw down his book, clasp his hands, and starting from his seat, cry suddenly, with a thrilling voice, "I have said _Konx ompax_, and it is finished!"

CHAPTER VI

As our attention is most commonly attracted by those departments of knowledge which are striking and remarkable, rather than by those which are really useful, so, in estimating the character of an individual, we are p.r.o.ne to admire extraordinary intellectual powers and uncommon energies of thought, and to overlook that excellence which is, in truth, the most precious--his moral value. Was the subject of biography distinguished by a vast erudition? Was he conspicuous for an original genius? for a warm and fruitful fancy? Such are the implied questions which we seek to resolve by consulting the memoirs of his life. We may sometimes desire to be informed whether he was a man of nice honour and conspicuous integrity; but how rarely do we feel any curiosity with respect to that quality which is, perhaps, the most important to his fellows--how seldom do we desire to measure his benevolence! It would be impossible faithfully to describe the course of a single day in the ordinary life of Sh.e.l.ley without showing incidentally and unintentionally, that his nature was eminently benevolent--and many minute traits, pregnant with proof, have been already scattered by the way; but it would be an injustice to his memory to forbear to ill.u.s.trate expressly, but briefly, in leave-taking, the ardent, devoted, and unwearied love he bore his kind.

A personal intercourse could alone enable the observer to discern in him a soul ready winged for flight and scarcely detained by the fetters of body: that happiness was, if possible, still more indispensable to open the view of the unbounded expanse of cloudless philanthropy--pure, disinterested, and unvaried--the aspect of which often filled with mute wonder the minds of simple people, unable to estimate a penetrating genius, a docile sagacity, a tenacious memory, or, indeed, any of the various ornaments of the soul.

Whenever the intimate friends of Sh.e.l.ley speak of him in general terms, they speedily and unconsciously fall into the language of panegyric--a style of discourse that is barren of instruction, wholly devoid of interest, and justly suspected by the prudent stranger. It becomes them, therefore, on discovering the error they have committed, humbly to entreat the forgiveness of the charitable for human infirmity, oppressed and weighed down by the fulness of the subject--carefully to abstain in future from every vague expression of commendation, and faithfully to relate a plain, honest tale of unadorned facts.

A regard for children, singular and touching, is an unerring and most engaging indication of a benevolent mind. That this characteristic was not wanting in Sh.e.l.ley might be demonstrated by numerous examples which crowd upon the recollection, each of them bearing the strongly impressed stamp of individuality; for genius renders every surrounding circ.u.mstance significant and important. In one of our rambles we were traversing the bare, squalid, ugly, corn-yielding country, that lies, if I remember rightly, to the south-west of Oxford. The hollow road ascended a hill, and near the summit Sh.e.l.ley observed a female child leaning against the bank on the right; it was of a mean, dull and unattractive aspect, and older than its stunted growth denoted. The morning, as well as the preceding night, had been rainy; it had cleared up at noon with a certain ungenial sunshine, and the afternoon was distinguished by that intense cold which sometimes, in the winter season, terminates such days. The little girl was oppressed by cold, by hunger and by a vague feeling of abandonment. It was not easy to draw from her blue lips an intelligible history of her condition. Love, however, is at once credulous and apprehensive; and Sh.e.l.ley immediately decided that she had been deserted, and with his wonted precipitation (for in the career of humanity his active spirit knew no pause), he proposed different schemes for the permanent relief of the poor foundling, and he hastily inquired which of them was the most expedient. I answered that it was desirable, in the first place, to try to procure some food, for of this the want was manifestly the most urgent. I then climbed the hill to reconnoitre, and observed a cottage close at hand, on the left of the road. With considerable difficulty--with a gentle violence indeed--Sh.e.l.ley induced the child to accompany him thither. After much delay, we procured from the people of the place, who resembled the dull, uncouth and perhaps sullen rustics of that district, some warm milk.

It was a strange spectacle to watch the young poet, whilst, with the enthusiastic and intensely earnest manner that characterises the legitimate brethren of the celestial art--the heaven-born and fiercely inspired sons of genuine poesy--holding the wooden bowl in one hand and the wooden spoon in the other, and kneeling on his left knee, that he might more certainly attain to her mouth. He urged and encouraged the torpid and timid child to eat. The hot milk was agreeable to the girl, and its effects were salutary; but she was obviously uneasy at the detention. Her uneasiness increased, and ultimately prevailed. We returned with her to the place where we had found her, Sh.e.l.ley bearing the bowl of milk in his hand. Here we saw some people anxiously looking for the child--a man and, I think, four women, strangers of the poorest cla.s.s, of a mean but not disreputable appearance. As soon as the girl perceived them she was content, and taking the bowl from Sh.e.l.ley, she finished the milk without his help.

Meanwhile, one of the women explained the apparent desertion with a mult.i.tude of rapid words. They had come from a distance, and to spare the weary child the fatigue of walking farther, the day being at that time sunny, they left her to await their return. Those unforeseen delays, which hara.s.s all, and especially the poor, in transacting business, had detained them much longer than they had antic.i.p.ated.

Such, in a few words, is the story which was related in many, and which the little girl, who, it was said, was somewhat deficient in understanding as well as in stature, was unable to explain. So humble was the condition of these poor wayfaring folks that they did not presume to offer thanks in words; but they often turned back, and with mute wonder gazed at Sh.e.l.ley who, totally unconscious that he had done anything to excite surprise, returned with huge strides to the cottage to restore the bowl and to pay for the milk. As the needy travellers pursued their toilsome and possibly fruitless journey, they had at least the satisfaction to reflect that all above them were not desolated by a dreary apathy, but that some hearts were warm with that angelic benevolence towards inferiors in which still higher natures, as we are taught, largely partic.i.p.ate.

Sh.e.l.ley would often pause, halting suddenly in his swift course, to admire the children of the country people; and after gazing on a sweet and intelligent countenance, he would exhibit, in the language and with an aspect of acute anguish, his intense feeling of the future sorrows and sufferings--of all the manifold evils of life which too often distort, by a mean and most disagreeable expression, the innocent, happy and engaging lineaments of youth. He sometimes stopped to observe the softness and simplicity that the face and gestures of a gentle girl displayed, and he would surpa.s.s her gentleness by his own.

We were strolling once in the neighbourhood of Oxford when Sh.e.l.ley was attracted by a little girl. He turned aside, and stood and observed her in silence. She was about six years of age, small and slight, bare-headed, bare-legged, and her apparel variegated and tattered. She was busily employed in collecting empty snail-sh.e.l.ls, so much occupied, indeed, that some moments elapsed before she turned her face towards us. When she did so, we perceived that she was evidently a young gipsy; and Sh.e.l.ley was forcibly struck by the vivid intelligence of her wild and swarthy countenance, and especially by the sharp glance of her fierce black eyes.

"How much intellect is here!" he exclaimed; "in how humble a vessel, and what an unworthy occupation for a person who once knew perfectly the whole circle of the sciences; who has forgotten them all, it is true, but who could certainly recollect them, although most probably she will never do so, will never recall a single principle of all of them!"

As he spoke he turned aside a bramble with his foot and discovered a large sh.e.l.l which the alert child instantly caught up and added to her store. At the same moment a small stone was thrown from the other side of the road; it fell in the hedge near us. We turned round and saw on the top of a high bank a boy, some three years older than the girl, and in as rude a guise.

He was looking at us over a low hedge, with a smile, but plainly not without suspicion. We might be two kidnappers, he seemed to think; he was in charge of his little sister, and did not choose to have her stolen before his face. He gave the signal, therefore, and she obeyed it, and had almost joined him before we missed her from our side. They both disappeared, and we continued our walk.

Sh.e.l.ley was charmed with the intelligence of the two children of nature, and with their marvellous wildness. He talked much about them, and compared them to birds and to the two wild leverets, which that wild mother, the hare, produces. We sauntered about, and, half an hour afterwards, on turning a corner, we suddenly met the two children again full in the face. The meeting was unlooked for, and the air of the boy showed that it was unpleasant to him. He had a large bundle of dry sticks under his arm; these he gently dropped and stood motionless with an apprehensive smile--a deprecatory smile. We were perhaps the lords of the soil, and his patience was prepared, for patience was his lot--an inalienable inheritance long entailed upon his line--to hear a severe reproof with heavy threats, possibly even to receive blows with a stick gathered by himself not altogether unwittingly for his own back, or to find mercy and forbearance. Sh.e.l.ley's demeanour soon convinced him that he had nothing to fear. He laid a hand on the round, matted, knotted, bare and black head of each, viewed their moving, mercurial countenances with renewed pleasure and admiration, and, shaking his long locks, suddenly strode away. "That little ragged fellow knows as much as the wisest philosopher," he presently cried, clapping the wings of his soul and crowing aloud with shrill triumph at the felicitous union of the true with the ridiculous, "but he will not communicate any portion of his knowledge.

It is not from churlishness, however, for of that his nature is plainly incapable; but the sophisticated urchin will persist in thinking he has forgotten all that he knows so well. I was about to ask him myself to communicate some of the doctrines Plato unfolds in his _Dialogues_; but I felt that it would do no good; the rogue would have laughed at me, and so would his little sister. I wonder you did not propose to them some mathematical questions: just a few interrogations in your geometry; for that being so plain and certain, if it be once thoroughly understood, can never be forgotten!"

A day or two afterwards (or it might be on the morrow), as we were rambling in the favourite region at the foot of Shotover Hill, a gipsy's tent by the roadside caught Sh.e.l.ley's eye. Men and women were seated on the ground in front of it, watching a pot suspended over a smoky fire of sticks. He cast a pa.s.sing glance at the ragged group, but immediately stopped on recognising the children, who remembered us and ran laughing into the tent. Sh.e.l.ley laughed also and waved his hand, and the little girl returned the salutation.

There were many striking contrasts in the character and behaviour of Sh.e.l.ley, and one of the most remarkable was a mixture or alternation of awkwardness with agility, of the clumsy with the graceful. He would stumble in stepping across the floor of a drawing-room; he would trip himself up on a smooth-shaven gra.s.s-plot, and he would tumble in the most inconceivable manner in ascending the commodious, facile, and well-carpeted staircase of an elegant mansion, so as to bruise his nose or his lip on the upper steps, or to tread upon his hands, and even occasionally to disturb the composure of a well-bred footman; on the contrary, he would often glide without collision through a crowded a.s.sembly, thread with unerring dexterity a most intricate path, or securely and rapidly tread the most arduous and uncertain ways. As soon as he saw the children enter the tent he darted after them with his peculiar agility, followed them into their low, narrow and fragile tenement, penetrated to the bottom of the tent without removing his hat or striking against the woven edifice. He placed a hand on each round, rough head, spoke a few kind words to the skulking children, and then returned not less precipitously, and with as much ease and accuracy as if he had been a dweller in tents from the hour when he first drew air and milk to that day, as if he had been the descendant, not of a gentle house, but of a long line of gipsies. His visit roused the jealousy of a stunted, feeble dog, which followed him, and barked with helpless fury; he did not heed it nor, perhaps, hear it. The company of gipsies were astonished at the first visit that had ever been made by a member of either University to their humble dwelling; but, as its object was evidently benevolent, they did not stir or interfere, but greeted him on his return with a silent and un.o.bserved salutation. He seized my arm, and we prosecuted our speculations as we walked briskly to our college.

The marvellous gentleness of his demeanour could conciliate the least sociable natures, and it had secretly touched the wild things which he had thus briefly noticed.

We were wandering through the roads and lanes at a short distance from the tent soon afterwards, and were pursuing our way in silence. I turned round at a sudden sound--the young gipsy had stolen upon us unperceived, and with a long bramble had struck Sh.e.l.ley across the skirts of his coat. He had dropped his rod, and was returning softly to the hedge.

Certain misguided persons, who, unhappily for themselves, were incapable of understanding the true character of Sh.e.l.ley, have published many false and injurious calumnies respecting him--some for hire, others drawing largely out of the inborn vulgarity of their own minds, or from the necessary malignity of ignorance--but no one ever ventured to say that he was not a good judge of an orange. At this time, in his nineteenth year, although temperate, he was less abstemious in his diet than he afterwards became, and he was frequently provided with some fine samples. As soon as he understood the rude but friendly welcome to the heaths and lanes, he drew an orange from his pocket and rolled it after the retreating gipsy along the gra.s.s by the side of the wide road. The boy started with surprise as the golden fruit pa.s.sed him, quickly caught it up and joyfully bore it away, bending reverently over it and carrying it with both his hands, as if, together with almost the size, it had also the weight of a cannon-ball.

His pa.s.sionate fondness of the Platonic philosophy seemed to sharpen his natural affection for children, and his sympathy with their innocence.

Every true Platonist, he used to say, must be a lover of children, for they are our masters and instructors in philosophy. The mind of a new-born infant, so far from being, as Locke affirms, a sheet of blank paper, is a pocket edition containing every dialogue, a complete Elzevir Plato, if we can fancy such a pleasant volume, and moreover a perfect encyclopedia, comprehending not only the newest discoveries, but all those still more valuable and wonderful inventions that will hereafter be made.

One Sunday we had been reading Plato together so diligently that the usual hour of exercise pa.s.sed away unperceived. We sallied forth hastily to take the air for half an hour before dinner. In the middle of Magdalen Bridge we met a woman with a child in her arms. Sh.e.l.ley was more attentive at that instant to our conduct in a life that was past or to come than to a decorous regulation of the present, according to the established usages of society in that fleeting moment of eternal duration styled the nineteenth century. With abrupt dexterity he caught hold of the child. The mother, who might well fear that it was about to be thrown over the parapet of the bridge into the sedgy waters below, held it fast by its long train.

"Will your baby tell us anything about pre-existence, madam?" he asked, in a piercing voice and with a wistful look.

The mother made no answer, but, perceiving that Sh.e.l.ley's object was not murderous but altogether harmless, she dismissed her apprehension and relaxed her hold.

"Will your baby tell us anything about pre-existence, madam?" he repeated, with unabated earnestness.

"He cannot speak, sir," said the mother, seriously.

"Worse and worse," cried Sh.e.l.ley, with an air of deep disappointment, shaking his long hair most pathetically about his young face; "but surely the babe can speak if he will, for he is only a few weeks old. He may fancy, perhaps, that he cannot, but it is only a silly whim. He cannot have forgotten entirely the use of speech in so short a time. The thing is absolutely impossible!"

"It is not for me to dispute with you, gentlemen," the woman meekly replied, her eye glancing at our academical garb, "but I can safely declare that I never heard him speak, nor any child, indeed, of his age."

It was a fine, placid boy: so far from being disturbed by the interruption, he looked up and smiled. Sh.e.l.ley pressed his fat cheeks with his fingers; we commended his healthy appearance and his equanimity, and the mother was permitted to proceed, probably to her satisfaction, for she would doubtless prefer a less speculative nurse. Sh.e.l.ley sighed deeply as we walked on.

"How provokingly close are those new-born babes!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; "but it is not the less certain, notwithstanding the cunning attempts to conceal the truth, that all knowledge is reminiscence. The doctrine is far more ancient than the times of Plato, and as old as the venerable allegory that the Muses are the daughters of Memory; not one of the nine was ever said to be the child of Invention!"

In consequence of this theory, upon which his active imagination loved to dwell, and which he was delighted to maintain in argument with the few persons qualified to dispute with him on the higher metaphysics, his fondness for children--a fondness innate in generous minds--was augmented and elevated, and the gentle instinct expanded into a profound and philosophical sentiment. The Platonists have been ill.u.s.trious in all ages on account of the strength and permanence of their attachments. In Sh.e.l.ley the parental affections were developed at an early period to an unusual extent. It was manifest, therefore, that his heart was formed by nature and by cultivation to derive the most exquisite gratification from the society of his own progeny, or the most poignant anguish from a natural or unnatural bereavement. To strike him here was the cruel admonition which a cursory glance would at once convey to him who might seek where to wound him most severely with a single blow, should he ever provoke the vengeance of an enemy to the active and fearless spirit of liberal investigation and to all solid learning--of a foe to the human race. With respect to the theory of the pre-existence of the soul, it is not wonderful that an ardent votary of the intellectual should love to uphold it in strenuous and protracted disputation, as it places the immortality of the soul in an impregnable castle, and not only secures it an existence independent of the body, as it were, by usage and prescription, but moreover, raising it out of the dirt on tall stilts, elevates it far above the mud of matter.

It is not wonderful that a subtle sophist, who esteemed above all riches and terrene honours victory in well-fought debate, should be willing to maintain a dogma that is not only of difficult eversion by those who, struggling as mere metaphysicians, use no other weapon than una.s.sisted reason, but which one of the most ill.u.s.trious Fathers of the Church--a man of amazing powers and stupendous erudition, armed with the prodigious resources of the Christian theology, the renowned Origen--was unable to dismiss; retaining it as not dissonant from his informed reason, and as affording a larger scope for justice in the moral government of the universe.

In addition to his extreme fondness for children, another and a not less unequivocal characteristic of a truly philanthropic mind was eminently and still more remarkably conspicuous in Sh.e.l.ley--his admiration of men of learning and genius. In truth the devotion, the reverence, the religion with which he was kindled towards all the masters of intellect, cannot be described, and must be utterly inconceivable to minds less deeply enamoured with the love of wisdom. The irreverent many cannot comprehend the awe, the careless apathetic worldling cannot imagine the enthusiasm, nor can the tongue that attempts only to speak of things visible to the bodily eye, express the mighty motion that inwardly agitated him when he approached, for the first time, a volume which he believed to be replete with the recondite and mystic philosophy of antiquity; his cheeks glowed, his eyes became bright, his whole frame trembled, and his entire attention was immediately swallowed up in the depths of contemplation. The rapid and vigorous conversion of his soul to intellect can only be compared with the instantaneous ignition and combustion which dazzle the sight, when a bundle of dry reeds or other inflammable substance is thrown upon a fire already rich with acc.u.mulated heat.

The company of persons of merit was delightful to him, and he often spoke with a peculiar warmth of the satisfaction he hoped to derive from the society of the most distinguished literary and scientific characters of the day in England, and the other countries of Europe, when his own attainments would justify him in seeking their acquaintance. He was never weary of recounting the rewards and favours that authors had formerly received; and he would detail in pathetic language, and with a touching earnestness, the instances of that poverty and neglect which an iron age a.s.signed as the fitting portion of solid erudition and undoubted talents.

He would contrast the n.i.g.g.ard praise and the paltry payments that the cold and wealthy moderns reluctantly dole out, with the ample and heartfelt commendation and the n.o.ble remuneration which were freely offered by the more generous but less opulent ancients. He spoke with an animation of gesture and an elevation of voice of him who undertook a long journey, that he might once see the historian Livy; and he recounted the rich legacies which were bequeathed to Cicero and Pliny the younger by testators venerating their abilities and attainments--his zeal, enthusiastic in the cause of letters, giving an interest and a novelty to the most trite and familiar instances. His disposition being wholly munificent, gentle and friendly, how generous a patron would he have proved had he ever been in the actual possession of even moderate wealth!

Out of a scanty and somewhat precarious income, inadequate to allow the indulgence of the most ordinary superfluities, and diminished by various casual but unavoidable inc.u.mbrances, he was able, by restricting himself to a diet more simple than the fare of the most austere anchorite, and by refusing himself horses and the other gratifications that appear properly to belong to his station, and of which he was in truth very fond, to bestow upon men of letters, whose merits were of too high an order to be rightly estimated by their own generation, donations large indeed, if we consider from how narrow a source they flowed.