The fairest garden in her looks,
  And in her mind the wisest books.

The house of HALLER resembled a temple consecrated to science and the arts, and the votaries were his own family.  The universal acquirements of Haller were possessed in some degree by every one under his roof; and their studious delight in transcribing manuscripts, in consulting authors, in botanising, drawing and colouring the plants under his eye, formed occupations which made the daughters happy and the sons eminent.[A] The painter STELLA inspired his family to copy his fanciful inventions, and the playful graver of Claudine Stella, his niece, animated his “Sports of Children.”  I have seen a print of COYPEL in his studio, and by his side his little daughter, who is intensely watching the progress of her father’s pencil.  The artist has represented himself in the act of suspending his labour to look on his child.  At that moment, his thoughts were divided between two objects of his love.  The character and the works of the late ELIZABETH HAMILTON were formed entirely by her brother.  Admiring the man she loved, she imitated what she admired; and while the brother was arduously completing the version of the Persian Hedaya, the sister, who had associated with his morning tasks and his evening conversations, was recalling all the ideas, and pourtraying her fraternal master in her “Hindoo Rajah.”

[Footnote A:  Haller’s death (A.D. 1777) was as remarkable for its calm philosophy, as his life for its happiness.  He was a professional surgeon, and continued to the last an attentive and rational observer of the symptoms of the disease which was bringing him to the grave.  He transmitted to the University of Gottingen a scientific analysis of his case; and died feeling his own pulse.—­ED.]

Nor are there wanting instances where this FAMILY GENIUS has been carried down through successive generations:  the volume of the father has been continued by a son, or a relative.  The history of the family of the ZWINGERS is a combination of studies and inherited tastes.  Theodore published, in 1697, a folio herbal, of which his son Frederic gave an enlarged edition in 1744; and the family was honoured by their name having been given to a genus of plants dedicated to their memory, and known in botany by the name of the Zwingera.  In history and in literature, the family name was equally eminent; the same Theodore continued a great work, “The Theatre of Human Life,” which had been begun by his father-in-law, and which for the third time was enlarged by another son.  Among the historians of Italy, it is delightful to contemplate this family genius transmitting itself with unsullied probity among the three VILLANIS, and the MALASPINIS, and the two PORTAS.  The history of the learned family of the STEPHENS presents a dynasty of literature; and to distinguish the numerous members, they have been designated as Henry I. and Henry II.,—­as Robert I., the II., and the III.[A] Our country may exult in having possessed many literary families—­the WARTONS, the father and two sons:  the BURNEYS, more in number; and the nephews of Milton, whose humble torch at least was lighted at the altar of the great bard.[B]