Curiosities of Literature (Vol. 1-3). Disraeli Isaac

The River God in slumber saw her laid:

       He raised his dripping head,

       With weeds o'erspread,

       Clad in his wat'ry robes approach'd the maid,

       And with cold kiss, like death,

       Drank the rich perfume of the maiden's breath.

       The maiden felt that icy kiss:

       Her suns unclosed, their flame Full and unclouded on th' intruder came. Amazed th' intruder felt His frothy body melt And heard the radiance on his bosom hiss; And, forced in blind confusion to retire, Leapt in the water to escape the fire.

      SAINT EVREMOND.

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      The portrait of St. Evremond is delineated by his own hand.

      In his day it was a literary fashion for writers to give their own portraits; a fashion that seems to have passed over into our country, for Farquhar has drawn his own character in a letter to a lady. Others of our writers have given these self-miniatures. Such painters are, no doubt, great flatterers, and it is rather their ingenuity, than their truth, which we admire in these cabinet-pictures.

      "I am a philosopher, as far removed from superstition as from impiety; a voluptuary, who has not less abhorrence of debauchery than inclination for pleasure; a man who has never known want nor abundance. I occupy that station of life which is contemned by those who possess everything; envied by those who have nothing; and only relished by those who make their felicity consist in the exercise of their reason. Young, I hated dissipation; convinced that man must possess wealth to provide for the comforts of a long life. Old, I disliked economy; as I believe that we need not greatly dread want, when we have but a short time to be miserable. I am satisfied with what nature has done for me, nor do I repine at fortune. I do not seek in men what they have of evil, that I may censure; I only discover what they have ridiculous, that I may be amused. I feel a pleasure in detecting their follies; I should feel a greater in communicating my discoveries, did not my prudence restrain me. Life is too short, according to my ideas, to read all kinds of books, and to load our memories with an endless number of things at the cost of our judgment. I do not attach myself to the observations of scientific men to acquire science; but to the most rational, that I may strengthen my reason. Sometimes I seek for more delicate minds, that my taste may imbibe their delicacy; sometimes for the gayer, that I may enrich my genius with their gaiety; and, although I constantly read, I make it less my occupation than my pleasure. In religion, and in friendship, I have only to paint myself such as I am—in friendship more tender than a philosopher; and in religion, as constant and as sincere as a youth who has more simplicity than experience. My piety is composed more of justice and charity than of penitence. I rest my confidence on God, and hope everything from His benevolence. In the bosom of Providence I find my repose, and my felicity."

      MEN OF GENIUS DEFICIENT IN CONVERSATION.

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      The student or the artist who may shine a luminary of learning and of genius, in his works, is found, not rarely, to lie obscured beneath a heavy cloud in colloquial discourse.

      If you love the man of letters, seek him in the privacies of his study. It is in the hour of confidence and tranquillity that his genius shall elicit a ray of intelligence more fervid than the labours of polished composition.

      The great Peter Corneille, whose genius resembled that of our Shakspeare, and who has so forcibly expressed the sublime sentiments of the hero, had nothing in his exterior that indicated his genius; his conversation was so insipid that it never failed of wearying. Nature, who had lavished on him the gifts of genius, had forgotten to blend with them her more ordinary ones. He did not even speak correctly that language of which he was such a master. When his friends represented to him how much more he might please by not disdaining to correct these trivial errors, he would smile, and say—"I am not the less Peter Corneille!"

      Descartes, whose habits were formed in solitude and meditation, was silent in mixed company; it was said that he had received his intellectual wealth from nature in solid bars, but not in current coin; or as Addison expressed the same idea, by comparing himself to a banker who possessed the wealth of his friends at home, though he carried none of it in his pocket; or as that judicious moralist Nicolle, of the Port-Royal Society, said of a scintillant wit—"He conquers me in the drawing-room, but he surrenders to me at discretion on the staircase." Such may say with Themistocles, when asked to play on a lute—"I cannot fiddle, but I can make a little village a great city."

      The deficiencies of Addison in conversation are well known. He preserved a rigid silence amongst strangers; but if he was silent, it was the silence of meditation. How often, at that moment, he laboured at some future Spectator!

      Mediocrity can talk; but it is for genius to observe.

      The cynical Mandeville compared Addison, after having passed an evening in his company, to "a silent parson in a tie-wig."

      Virgil was heavy in conversation, and resembled more an ordinary man than an enchanting poet.

      La Fontaine, says La Bruyère, appeared coarse, heavy, and stupid; he could not speak or describe what he had just seen; but when he wrote he was a model of poetry.

      It is very easy, said a humorous observer on La Fontaine, to be a man of wit, or a fool; but to be both, and that too in the extreme degree, is indeed admirable, and only to be found in him. This observation applies to that fine natural genius Goldsmith. Chaucer was more facetious in his tales than in his conversation, and the Countess of Pembroke used to rally him by saying, that his silence was more agreeable to her than his conversation.

      Isocrates, celebrated for his beautiful oratorical compositions, was of so timid a disposition, that he never ventured to speak in public. He compared himself to the whetstone which will not cut, but enables other things to do so; for his productions served as models to other orators. Vaucanson was said to be as much a machine as any he had made.

      Dryden says of himself—"My conversation is slow and dull, my humour saturnine and reserved. In short, I am none of those who endeavour to break jests in company, or make repartees."41

      VIDA.

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      What a consolation for an aged parent to see his child, by the efforts of his own merits, attain from the humblest obscurity to distinguished eminence! What a transport for the man of sensibility to return to the obscure dwelling of his parent, and to embrace him, adorned with public honours! Poor Vida was deprived of this satisfaction; but he is placed higher in our esteem by the present anecdote, than even by that classic composition, which rivals the Art of Poetry of his great master.

      Jerome Vida, after having long served two Popes, at length attained to the episcopacy. Arrayed in the robes of his new dignity, he prepared to visit his aged parents, and felicitated himself with the raptures which the old couple would feel in embracing their son as their bishop. When he arrived at their village, he learnt that it was but a few days since they were no more. His sensibilities were exquisitely pained. The muse dictated some elegiac verse, and in the solemn pathos deplored the death and the disappointment of his parents.

      THE SCUDERIES.

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      Bien heureux Scudery, dont la fertile plume

       Peut tous les mois sans peine enfanter un volume.

      Boileau