writings, and it was supposed that his memory had decayed.  The fact, however, was not so; and Pemberton makes a curious distinction, which accounts for Newton not always being ready to speak on subjects of which he was the sole master.  “Inventors seem to treasure up in their own minds what they have found out, after another manner than those do the same things that have not this inventive faculty.  The former, when they have occasion to produce their knowledge, in some means are obliged immediately to investigate part of what they want.  For this they are not equally fit at all times; and thus it has often happened, that such as retain things chiefly by means of a very strong memory, have appeared off-hand more expert than the discoverers themselves.”

A peculiar characteristic in the conversations of men of genius, which has often injured them when the listeners were not intimately acquainted with the men, are those sports of a vacant mind, those sudden impulses to throw out paradoxical opinions, and to take unexpected views of things in some humour of the moment.  These fanciful and capricious ideas are the grotesque images of a playful mind, and are at least as frequently misrepresented as they are misunderstood.  But thus the cunning Philistines are enabled to triumph over the strong and gifted man, because in the hour of confidence, and in the abandonment of the mind, he had laid his head in the lap of wantonness, and taught them how he might be shorn of his strength.  Dr. JOHNSON appears often to have indulged this amusement, both in good and ill humour.  Even such a calm philosopher as ADAM SMITH, as well as such a child of imagination as BURNS, were remarked for this ordinary habit of men of genius; which, perhaps, as often originates in a gentle feeling of contempt for their auditors, as from any other cause.  Many years after having written the above, I discovered two recent confessions which confirm the principle.  A literary character, the late Dr. LEYDEN, acknowledged, that “in conversation I often verge so nearly on absurdity, that I know it is perfectly easy to misconceive me, as well as to misrepresent me.”  And Miss Edgeworth, in describing her father’s conversation, observes that, “his openness went too far, almost to imprudence; exposing him not only to be misrepresented, but to be misunderstood.  Those who did not know him intimately, often took literally what was either said in sport, or spoken with the intention of making a strong impression for some good purpose.”  CUMBERLAND, whose conversation was delightful, happily describes the species I have noticed.  “Nonsense talked by men of wit and understanding in the hour of relaxation is of the very finest essence of conviviality, and a treat delicious to those who have the sense to comprehend it; but it implies a trust in the company not always to be risked.”  The truth is, that many, eminent for their genius, have been remarkable in society for a simplicity and playfulness almost infantine.  Such was the gaiety of Hume, such the bonhomie of Fox; and one who had long lived in a circle of men of genius in the last age, was disposed to consider this infantine simplicity as characteristic of genius.  It is a solitary grace, which can never lend its charm to a man of the world, whose purity of mind has long been lost in a hacknied intercourse with everything exterior to himself.