of an author! The manifestoes of opposing generals, advancing to
pillage, to burn, to destroy, contain not a tithe of the ferocity
which animates the pages of literary oontroversialists! No term of
reproach is too severe, no vituperation too excessive! the blackest
passions, the bitterest, the meanest malice, pour caustic and poison
upon every page! It seems as if the greatest talents, the most
elaborate knowledge, only sprang from the weakest and worst-regulated
mind, as exotics from dung. The private records, the public works of
men of letters, teem with an immitigable fury! Their histories might
all be reduced into these sentences: they were born; they quarrelled;
they died!"

"But," said Clarence, "it would matter little to the world if these
quarrels were confined merely to poets and men of imaginative
literature, in whom irritability is perhaps almost necessarily allied
to the keen and quick susceptibilities which constitute their genius.
These are more to be lamented and wondered at among philosophers,
theologians, and men of science; the coolness, the patience, the
benevolence, which ought to characterize their works, should at least
moderate their jealousy and soften their disputes."

"Ah!" said Talbot, "but the vanity of discovery is no less acute than
that of creation: the self-love of a philosopher is no less self-love
than that of a poet. Besides, those sects the most sure of their
opinions, whether in religion or science, are always the most bigoted
and persecuting. Moreover, nearly all men deceive themselves in
disputes, and imagine that they are intolerant, not through private
jealousy, but public benevolence: they never declaim against the
injustice done to themselves; no, it is the terrible injury done to
society which grieves and inflames them. It is not the bitter