intellectual quality is extolled tot he neglect of a moral one.
Moral excellence is the most real genius; and a temper to cope and
calmly baffle the multitudinous assaults of the spiritual enmity
of active life, is a talent which outshines all praise of mental
endowments. Unhappily, the biographer of literary creators affords
few occasions in which a feeling of this kind can be indulged and
gratified: that sensibility of mental apprehensions which is the
fame of the author, is usually attended by a susceptibility of
passionate impression which is the fate of the man; and earth and
sense delight to wreak their destructive vengences upon the spiritual
nature of him, of whose intellectual being they are the slaves and
the sport. In the present instance, we are concerned with the
character--'totus, teres, atque rotundus;' which may be looked upon,
from every side, with an equal satisfaction. Search the wide world
over, and you shall not find among the literary men of any nation,
one on whom the dignity of a free and manly spirit sits with a
grace more native and familiar--whose spontaneous sentiments have
a truer tone of nobleness--the course of whose usual feelings is
more expanded and honorable--whose acts, whether common and daily,
or deliberate and much-considered, are wont at all times to be more
beautifully impressed with those marks of sincerity, of modesty, and
of justice, which form the very seal of worth in conduct. Those
jealousies, and littlenesses, and envyings, which prey upon
the spirits of many men, as the vulture on the heart that chained
Prometheus--and whose fierce besetment they who WILL be magnanimous,
have to fight off, as one drives away the eagles from their prey,
with voice and gestures--seem never to assail him. It is the
happiness of his nature to have THAT only absolute deliverance from
evil which is implied in being rendered insensible to temptation.
While the duty which is laid upon us, in this paper, mainly is to