Could one have imagined that the brilliant wit, the luxuriant raillery, and the fine and deep sense of PASCAL, could have combined with the most opposite qualities—­the hypochondriasm and bigotry of an ascetic?  ROCHEFOUCAULD, in private life, was a conspicuous example of all those moral qualities of which he seemed to deny the existence, and exhibited in this respect a striking contrast to the Cardinal de Retz, who has presumed to censure him for his want of faith in the reality of virtue; but DE RETZ himself was the unbeliever in disinterested virtue.  This great genius was one of those pretended patriots destitute of a single one of the virtues for which he was the clamorous advocate of faction.

When Valincour attributed the excessive tenderness in the tragedies of RACINE to the poet’s own impassioned character, the son amply showed that his father was by no means the slave of love.  RACINE never wrote a single love-poem, nor even had a mistress; and his wife had never read his tragedies, for poetry was not her delight.  Racine’s motive for making love the constant source of action in his tragedies, was from the principle which has influenced so many poets, who usually conform to the prevalent taste of the times.  In the court of a young monarch it was necessary that heroes should be lovers; Corneille had nobly run in one career, and Racine could not have existed as a great poet had he not rivalled him in an opposite one.  The tender RACINE was no lover; but he was a subtle and epigrammatic observer, before whom his convivial friends never cared to open their minds; and the caustic BOILEAU truly said of him, “RACINE is far more malicious than I am.”

ALFIERI speaks of his mistress as if he lived with her in the most unreserved familiarity; the reverse was the case.  And the gratitude and affection with which he describes his mother, and which she deserved, entered so little into his habitual feelings, that, after their early separation, he never saw her but once, though he often passed through the country where she resided.

JOHNSON has composed a beautiful Rambler, describing the pleasures which result from the influence of good-humour; and somewhat remarkably says, “Without good-humour learning and bravery can be only formidable, and confer that superiority which swells the heart of the lion in the desert, where he roars without reply, and ravages without resistance.”  He who could so finely discover the happy influence of this pleasing quality was himself a stranger to it, and “the roar and the ravage” were familiar to our lion.  Men of genius frequently substitute their beautiful imagination for spontaneous and natural sentiment.  It is not therefore surprising if we are often erroneous in the conception we form of the personal character of a distant author.  KLOPSTOCK, the votary of the muse of Zion, so astonished and warmed the sage BODMER, that he invited the inspired bard to his house:  but his visitor shocked the grave professor, when,