There is an admirable essay in Plutarch, “On the manner by which we may praise ourselves without exciting envy in others.”  The sage seems to consider self-praise as a kind of illustrious impudence, and has one very striking image:  he compares these eulogists to famished persons, who finding no other food, in their rage have eaten their own flesh, and thus shockingly nourished themselves by their own substance.  He allows persons in high office to praise themselves, if by this they can repel calumny and accusation, as did Pericles before the Athenians:  but the Romans found fault with Cicero, who so frequently reminded them of his exertions in the conspiracy of Catiline; while, when Scipio told them that “they should not presume to judge of a citizen to whom they owed the power of judging all men,” the people covered themselves with flowers, and followed him to the capitol to join in a thanksgiving to Jove.  “Cicero,” adds Plutarch, “praised himself without necessity.  Scipio was in personal danger, and this took away what is odious in self-praise.”  An author seems sometimes to occupy the situation of a person in high office; and there may be occasions when with a noble simplicity, if he appeal to his works, of which all men may judge, he may be permitted to assert or to maintain his claims.  It has at least been the practice of men of genius, for in this very essay we find Timotheus, Euripides, and Pindar censured, though they deserved all the praise they gave themselves.

EPICURUS, writing to a minister of state, declares, “If you desire glory, nothing can bestow it more than the letters I write to you:”  and SENECA, in quoting these words, adds, “What Epicurus promised to his friend, that, my Lucilius, I promise you.” Orna me! was the constant cry of CICERO; and he desires the historian Lucceius to write separately the conspiracy of Catiline, and to publish quickly, that while he yet lived he might taste the sweetness of his glory.  HORACE and OVID wore equally sensible to their immortality; but what modern poet would be tolerated with such an avowal?  Yet DRYDEN honestly declares that it was better for him to own this failing of vanity, than the world to do it for him; and adds, “For what other reason have I spent my life in so unprofitable a study?  Why am I grown old in seeking so barren a reward as fame?  The same parts and application which have made me a poet might have raised me to any honours of the gown.”  Was not CERVANTES very sensible to his own merits when a rival started up? and did he not assert them too, and distinguish his own work by a handsome compliment?  LOPE DE VEGA celebrated his own poetic powers under the pseudonyme of a pretended editor, Thomas Barguillos.  I regret that his noble biographer, than whom no one can more truly sympathise with the emotions of genius, has censured the bard for his querulous or his intrepid tone, and for the quaint conceit of his title-page, where his detractor is introduced as a beetle in a vega