A parallel circumstance occurred to the Abbe COTIN, the victim of a rhyme of the satirical Boileau.  Studious, and without fortune, Cotin had lived contented till he incurred the unhappiness of inheriting a large estate.  Then a world of cares opened on him; his rents were not paid, and his creditors increased.  Dragged from his Hebrew and Greek, poor Cotin resolved to make over his entire fortune to one of his heirs, on condition of maintenance.  His other relations assuming that a man who parted with his estate in his lifetime must necessarily be deranged, brought the learned Cotin into court.  Cotin had nothing to say in his own favour, but requested his judges would allow him to address them from the sermons which he preached.  The good sense, the sound reasoning, and the erudition of the preacher were such, that the whole bench unanimously declared that they themselves might be considered as madmen, were they to condemn a man of letters who was desirous of escaping from the incumbrance of a fortune which had only interrupted his studies.

There may then be sufficient motives to induce such a man to make a state of mediocrity his choice.  If he lose his happiness, he mutilates his genius.  GOLDONI, with all the simplicity of his feelings and habits, in reviewing his life, tells us how he was always relapsing into his old propensity of comic writing; “but the thought of this does not disturb me,” says he; “for though in any other situation I might have been in easier circumstances, I should never have been so happy.”  BAYLE is a parent of the modern literary character; he pursued the same course, and early in life adopted the principle, “Neither to fear bad fortune nor have any ardent desires for good.”  Acquainted with the passions only as their historian, and living only for literature, he sacrificed to it the two great acquisitions of human pursuits—­fortune and a family:  but in what country had Bayle not a family and a possession in his fame?  HUME and GIBBON had the most perfect conception of the literary character, and they were aware of this important principle in its habits—­“My own revenue,” said HUME, “will be sufficient for a man of letters, who surely needs less money, both for his entertainment and credit, than other people.”  GIBBON observed of himself—­“Perhaps the golden mediocrity of my fortune has contributed to fortify my application.”

The state of poverty, then, desirable in the domestic life of genius, is one in which the cares of property never intrude, and the want of wealth is never perceived.  This is not indigence; that state which, however dignified the man of genius himself may be, must inevitably degrade! for the heartless will gibe, and even the compassionate turn aside in contempt.  This literary outcast will soon be forsaken even by himself! his own intellect will be clouded over, and his limbs shrink in the palsy of bodily misery and shame—­

  Malesuada Fames, et turpis Egestas
  Terribiles visu formae.