was the soft pencil of the philosophical painter of nature.  COWLEY and KILLEGREW furnish another instance.  COWLEY was embarrassed in conversation, and had no quickness in argument or reply:  a mind pensive and elegant could not be struck at to catch fire:  while with KILLEGREW the sparkling bubbles of his fancy rose and dropped.[A] When the delightful conversationist wrote, the deception ceased.  Denham, who knew them both, hit off the difference between them: 

  Had Cowley ne’er spoke, Killegrew ne’er writ,
  Combined in one they had made a matchless wit.

[Footnote A:  Killegrew’s eight plays, upon which his character as an author rests, have not been republished with one exception—­the Parson’s Wedding—­which is given in Dodsley’s collection; and which is sufficient to satisfy curiosity.  He was a favourite with Charles the Second, and had great influence with him.  Some of his witty court jests are preserved, but are too much imbued with the spirit of the age to be quoted here.  He was sometimes useful by devoting his satiric sallies to urge the king to his duties.—­ED.]

Not, however, that a man of genius does not throw out many things in conversation which have only been found admirable when the public possessed them.  The public often widely differ from the individual, and a century’s opinion may intervene between them.  The fate of genius is sometimes that of the Athenian sculptor, who submitted his colossal Minerva to a private party for inspection.  Before the artist they trembled for his daring chisel, and the man of genius smiled; behind him they calumniated, and the man of genius forgave.  Once fixed in a public place, in the eyes of the whole city, the statue was the Divinity!  There is a certain distance at which opinions, as well as statues, must be viewed.

But enough of those defects of men of genius which often attend their conversations.  Must we then bow to authorial dignity, and kiss hands, because they are inked?  Must we bend to the artist, who considers us as nothing unless we are canvas or marble under his hands?  Are there not men of genius the grace of society and the charm of their circle?  Fortunate men! more blest than their brothers; but for this, they are not the more men of genius, nor the others less.  To how many of the ordinary intimates of a superior genius who complain of his defects might one say, “Do his productions not delight and sometimes surprise you?—­You are silent!  I beg your pardon; the public has informed you of a great name; you would not otherwise have perceived the precious talent of your neighbour:  you know little of your friend but his name.”  The personal familiarity of ordinary minds with a man of genius has often produced a ludicrous prejudice.  A Scotchman, to whom the name of a Dr. Robertson had travelled down, was curious to know who he was.—­“Your neighbour!”—­But he could not persuade himself that the man whom he conversed with was the great historian of his country.  Even a good man could not believe in the announcement of the Messiah, from the same sort of prejudice:  “Can there anything good come out of Nazareth?”