A reaction appears in the burlesque or bantering spirit.  While one faction drives out another, the abuse of extraordinary powers is equally fatal.  Thus we are consoled while we are afflicted, and we are protected while we are degraded.]

[Footnote C:  Nouer l’aiguillette, of which the extraordinary effect is described by Montaigne, is an Oriental custom still practised.—­Mr. Hobhouse’s Journey through Albania, p. 528.]

That spirit of levity which would shake the columns of society, by detracting from or burlesquing the elevating principles which have produced so many illustrious men, has recently attempted to reduce the labours of literature to a mere curious amusement:  a finished composition is likened to a skilful game of billiards, or a piece of music finely executed; and curious researches, to charades and other insignificant puzzles.  With such, an author is an idler who will not be idle, amusing or fatiguing others who are completely so.  The result of a work of genius is contracted to the art of writing; but this art is only its last perfection.  Inspiration is drawn from a deeper source; enthusiasm is diffused through contagious pages; and without these movements of the soul, how poor and artificial a thing is that sparkling composition which flashes with the cold vibrations of mere art or artifice!  We have been recently told, on critical authority, that “a great genius should never allow himself to be sensible to his own celebrity, nor deem his pursuits of much consequence, however important or successful.”  A sort of catholic doctrine, to mortify an author into a saint, extinguishing the glorious appetite of fame by one Lent all the year, and self-flagellation every day!  BUFFON and GIBBON, VOLTAIRE and POPE,[A] who gave to literature all the cares, the industry, and the glory of their lives, assuredly were too “sensible to their celebrity, and deemed their pursuits of much consequence,” particularly when “important and successful.”  The self-possession of great authors sustains their own genius by a sense of their own glory.

Such, then, are some of the domestic treasons of the literary character against literature—­“Et tu, Brute!” But the hero of literature outlives his assassins, and might address them in that language of poetry and affection with which a Mexican king reproached his traitorous counsellors:—­“You were the feathers of my wings, and the eyelids of my eyes.”

[Footnote A:  The claims of Pope to the title of a great poet were denied in the days of Byron; and occasioned a warm and noble defence of him by that poet.  It has since been found necessary to do the same for Byron, whom some transcendentalists have attacked.—­ED.]

CHAPTER III.

Of artists, in the history of men of literary genius.—­Their habits and pursuits analogous.—­The nature of their genius is similar in their distinct works.—­Shown by their parallel eras, and by a common end pursued by both.