[Footnote A:  “My DEAR FRIEND,—­Your kindness in rejoicing so heartily at the birth of my picture has given me great satisfaction.

“There has been an anxiety labouring in my mind the greater part of the last twelvemonth.  At times it had nearly overwhelmed me.  I thought I should absolutely have sunk into despair.  O! what a kind friend is in those times!  I thank God, whatever my picture may be, I can say thus much, I am a greater philosopher and a better Christian.”]

Thus the days of a man of genius are passed in labours as unremitting and exhausting as those of the artisan.  The world is not always aware, that to some, meditation, composition, and even conversation, may inflict pains undetected by the eye and the tenderness of friendship.  Whenever ROUSSEAU passed a morning in society, it was observed, that in the evening he was dissatisfied and distressed; and JOHN HUNTER, in a mixed company, found that conversation fatigued, instead of amusing him.  HAWKESWORTH, in the second paper of the “Adventurer,” has drawn, from his own feelings, an eloquent comparative estimate of intellectual with corporeal labour; it may console the humble mechanic; and Plato, in his work on “Laws,” seems to have been aware of this analogy, for he consecrates all working men or artisans to Vulcan and Minerva, because both those deities alike are hard labourers.  Yet with genius all does not terminate, even with the most skilful labour.  What the toiling Vulcan and the thoughtful Minerva may want, will too often be absent—­the presence of the Graces.  In the allegorical picture of the School of Design, by Carlo Maratti, where the students are led through their various studies, in the opening clouds above the academy are seen the Graces, hovering over their pupils, with an inscription they must often recollect—­Senza di noi ogni fatica e vana.

The anxious uncertainty of an author for his compositions resembles the anxiety of a lover when he has written to a mistress who has not yet decided on his claims; he repents his labour, for he thinks he has written too much, while he is mortified at recollecting that he had omitted some things which he imagines would have secured the object of his wishes.  Madame DE STAEL, who has often entered into feelings familiar to a literary and political family, in a parallel between ambition and genius, has distinguished them in this; that while “ambition perseveres in the desire of acquiring power, genius flags of itself.  Genius in the midst of society is a pain, an internal fever which would require to be treated as a real disease, if the records of glory did not soften the sufferings it produces.”—­“Athenians! what troubles have you not cost me,” exclaimed DEMOSTHENES, “that I may be talked of by you!”