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before its frailties are raked up from the tomb, and baited at the ring of biography, till the public taste is satiated with the sport. It is only when its competitors are gathered to their fathers, and the ephemeral details of trivial feuds, of petty foibles, and private scandal, are buried with their authors, that the conduct of genius begins to be understood, and its character to be fairly represented.

The luminary itself at last engages that attention which had previously been occupied with the speck upon its disc. It was nearly a quarter of a century before "the malignant principles of Milton" gave the world sufficient time to ascertain there was such a poem in existence as Paradise Lost. Only three thousand copies of it were sold in eleven years, while eight thousand copies of a modern novel have been disposed of in as many days; but we need not go back to the age of Milton for evidence of the tardy justice that is done to genius. Ten years ago the indiscretions of Shelley had rendered his name an unmentionable one to ears polite; but there is a reaction in public opinion, and whatever were his follies, his virtues are beginning to be known, and his poetry to be justly appreciated. It unfortunately happens that those who are disqualified by the limits of their capacities for the higher walks of learning, are those who take upon them the arduous duties of the literary Rhadamanthus, and at whose hands the "masters of the world" generally receive the roughest treatment. The competency of such a tribunal, however, must not be questioned, even when a Byron is at its bar: genius has not the privilege of being judged by its peers, for the difficulty would be too great of impaneling a jury of its fellows.

But how few of those who fasten on the infirmities of

great talent, for the purpose of gnawing away its fame, like those northern insects that prey

"On the brains of the elk till his very last sigh❞—

how very few who track the errors of genius to the tomb, take into consideration, or are capable of estimating the influence on the physical and moral constitution of studious habits inordinately pursued, of mental exertion long continued, of bodily exercise perhaps wholly neglected! How little do they know of the morbid sensibility of genius, who mistake its gloom for dreary misanthrophy; or the distempered visions of " a heat oppressed brain," for impersonated opinions; or the shadows of a sickly dream, for the real sentiments of the heart! How few of the fatal friends who violate the sanctity of private life to minister to the prevailing appetite for literary gossip, ever think of referring the imperfections they drag into public notice, (yet fail not to deplore,) to a temperament deranged by ill regulated, or excessive, mental application, or of attributing "the variable weather of the mind, which clouds without obscuring the reason" of the individual, to the influence of those habits which are so unfavourable to health! Suicide might, indeed, have well had its horrors for that bard, who was even a more sensitive man than "the melancholy Cowley," when he was informed that one of his best-natured friends was only waiting for the opportunity to write his life. But how devoutly might he have wished that "nature's copy in him had been eterne," had he known how many claims were shortly to be preferred to the property of his memory, and how many of those who had crawled into his confidence were to immortalise his errors, and to make

his imperfections so many pegs for disquisitions on perverted talents.

Of all persons who sacrifice their peace for the attainment of notoriety, literary men are most frequently made the subject of biography; but of all are they least fitted for that sort of microscopic biography which consists in the exhibition of the minute details of life. The Pythoness, we are told, was but a pitiable object when removed from the inspiration of the tripod, and the man of genius is, perhaps, no less divested of the attributes of his greatness when he is taken from his study, or followed in crowded circles. We naturally desire to know every thing that concerns the character or the general conduct of those whose productions have entertained or instructed us, and we gratify a laudable curiosity when we enquire into their history, and seek to illustrate their writings by the general tenor of their lives and actions. But when biography is made the vehicle, not only of private scandal, but of that minor malignity of truth, which holds, as it were, a magnifying mirror to every naked imperfection of humanity, which possibly had never been discovered had no friendship been violated, no confidence been abused, and no errors exaggerated by the medium through which they have been viewed, it ceases to be a legitimate enquiry into private character, or public conduct, and no infamy is comparable to that of magnifying the faults, or libelling the fame of the illustrious dead.

"Consider," says a learned German, "under how many categories, down to the most impertinent, the world enquires concerning great men, and never wearies striving to represent to itself their whole structure, aspect, procedure outward and inward. Blame not the

world for such curiosity about its great ones; this comes of the world's old-established necessity to worship. Blame it not, pity it rather with a certain loving respect. Nevertheless, the last stage of human perversion, it has been said, is, when sympathy corrupts itself into envy, and the indestructible interest we take in men's doings has become a joy over their faults and misfortunes; this is the last and lowest stage-lower than this we cannot go."

In a word, that species of biography which is written for contemporaries, and not for posterity, is worse than worthless. It would be well for the memory of many recent authors, if their injudicious friends had made a simple obituary serve the purpose of a history.

It is rarely the lot of the wayward child of genius to have a Currie for his historian, and hence is it that frailties, which might have awakened sympathy, are now only mooted, to be remembered with abhorrence. It is greatly to be regretted that eminent medical men are not often to be met with qualified, like Dr. Currie, by literary attainments, as well as professional ability, for undertakings of this kind. No class of men have the means of obtaining so intimate a knowledge of human nature, so familiar an acquaintance with the unmasked mind. The secret thoughts of the invalid are as obvious as the symptoms of his disease: there is no deception in the sick chamber; the veil of the temple is removed, and humanity lies before the attendant, in all its truth, in all its helplessness, and for the honourable physician it lies -if we may be allowed the expression-in all its holiness. No such medical attendant, we venture to assert, ever went through a long life of practice, and had reason to think worse of his fellow-men for the knowledge of

humanity he obtained at the bed-side of the sick. Far from it, the misintelligence, the misapprehension, that in society are the groundless source of the animosities which put even the feelings of the philanthropist to the test, are here unknown; the only wonder of the physician is, that amidst so much suffering as he is daily called to witness, human nature should be presented to his view in so good, and not unfrequently in so noble, an aspect.

It is not amongst the Harveys, the Hunters, or the Heberdens of our country, or indeed amongst the enlightened physicians of any other, that we must look for the disciples of a gloomy misanthropy.

In spite of all the Rochefoucaults, who have libelled humanity, in spite of all the cynics, who have snarled at its character, the tendency of the knowledge of our fellow-men, is to make us love mankind. It is to the practical, and thorough knowledge of human nature, which the physician attains by the exercise of his art, that the active benevolence and general liberality, which peculiarly distinguishes the medical profession, is mainly to be attributed. "Do I," says Zimmerman, "in my medical character feel any malignity or hatred to my species, when I study the nature, and explore the secret causes of those weaknesses and disorders which are incidental to the human fame; when I examine the subject, and point out, for the general benefit of all mankind as well as for my own satisfaction, all the frail and imperfect parts in the anatomy of the human body?"

The more extensive our knowledge of human nature is, and the better acquainted we make ourselves with that strong influence which mind and body mutually exert, the greater will be the indulgence towards the errors of our species, and the more will our affections be enlarged.

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