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but we may scarcely wonder at his case, he having given us, if not an allsufficient, at any rate, a somewhat ludicrous clue to his malady, for he was actually caught one day rubbing his head in whiskey!-No marvel that he was hot-headed. Others again indulged strange vagaries and humors ;-such as Menage, who, while science covered his head with laurels, used to cover his feet with several pairs of stockings. Pope used to brace himself up with corsets. It is related that Magliabechi, the learned librarian to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, used to divert himself with pelting spiders. He seldom left his books, for he usually ate, drank and slept among them; thus imitating the domestic propensities of his favorites. Sir Walter Scott entertained an absurd opinion that his poetic vein never flowed happy except between the vernal and autumnal equinoxes; he was accustomed to rise at 4, and walk about his room in a state of nudity, calling it his air-breath. Rousseau, when doomed to the company of the common-place, occupied himself with knitting lace strings, which he evidently preferred to long yarns. Bloomfield wrote his Farmer's Boy with chalk upon the top of a pair of bellows-a wind-instrument, till then a novelty in the choir of the Muses. Many of the eccentric sons of genius exhibit singular deficiency in conversational powers, as though nature had designed to devote them to the pen, by denying them the gift of oral language. Corneille presents an example of this; he was so utterly insipid in company that his conversation was deemed contemptible, for he could scarcely speak correctly the language he so ennobled by his pen. Descartes was another who was made for seclusion and solitude, not for society; "he received his intellectual wealth," says a modern critic, "from nature in solid bars, not in current coin;" or, in the words of Themistocles, he might say, who, when asked to play on the lute, replied, "I cannot fiddle, but I can make a little village a great city." Addison was a taciturn companion in the social circle. Shakspeare, like Virgil, was cloudy and oblivious in colloquial discourse, but how transcendentally brilliant when they communed only with their own high thoughts. Chaucer, and Goldsmith, and Dryden, were dull and stupid, as also Isocrates, so celebrated for his sublime

compositions; and La Fontaine and La Bruyere might likewise be included in the category. The author, it is thus evident, is both more at ease and more to advantage in his study than anywhere else; and it is not surprising that we find him covet this seclusive retreat, and indulge his predilection sometimes at the expense of the rules of etiquette and courtesy.

Montesquieu's complaining epistle to a friend, affords evidence of this, where he intimates that the frequent and protracted visits of certain intruders caused much detriment to the progress of his works. Another scribe was so avaricious of his time, that his frequent appeals proving unavailing, he caused to be inscribed over the door of his study the inviting announcement, that whoever remained there must join in his labors. Melancthon, like Evelyn, was so chary of his time allotted to study, that he would note the intervals wasted by intrusive visitants, in order to redeem them from the hours devoted to repose. Others have been driven to the forlorn expedient of escaping from their window, being so hedged in by their considerate friends, as to be allowed of no more convenient egress; and Boyle actually had to resort to the advertising columns of a newspaper, to secure exemption from similar annoyances. A few words touching the connubial infelicities of the learned will bring our chapter to a close. That there have existed some renowned in the annals of literature, who, like Budæus, enjoyed the singular good fortune to retain the full measure of matrimonial happiness, conjoined with the pleasures of literary pursuits, cannot be denied; but it may be doubted whether these do not form exceptions to rule. This great writer found in his wife an invaluable assistant in his arduous studies; ever at his side, assiduously collating, comparing, or transcribing, she contributed essentially to the reduction of his literary toils. In one of his letters he represents himself as married to two wives, one of whom blessed him with pleasant little ones, the other with books. Evelyn was no less felicitous in this respect, for he was indebted for much of his success to his amiable wife, whose refined taste and skill were equal to any emergency; and whose breast was fired with the same passion that inflamed her hus

1846.]

The Infelicities of Intellectual Men.

band's pen; it was to her ingenious pencil the embellishment to his translation of Lucretius owed its origin. It is also true that many, we might perhaps say the majority of great men, seem to have repudiated matrimony altogether, probably from some premonition of their disqualification for its enjoyments. A host of great names occur to us, presenting an astounding array of sturdy old bachelors, enough to startle the complacency of the most charitable of the fair sex. Michael Angelo, Boyle, Newton, Locke, Bayle, Shenstone, Leibnitz, Hobbes, Voltaire, Pope, Adam Smith, Swift, Thomson, Akenside, Arbuthnot, Hume, Gibbon, Cowper, Goldsmith, Gay, Lamb, Washington Irving, et cum multis aliis, were all decided for celibacy. Michael Angelo replied to a remonstrance on the subject, that he had espoused his art, and his works were his children. Dr. Radcliffe lived and died unmarried; although within five or six years prior to his decease, he fell desperately in love with a patient of rank, wealth and beauty, triple charms to fascinate even an old beau; but alas for this gallant hero, his suit became non-suited, and to his mortification his rejected addresses were afterwards immortalized by Steele in his "Tattler." Without staying to inquire into the causes which superinduce this antisocial feature of the literary character, it may not be amiss to notice some of its anomalies. For example, Smollett, whose writings are but too frequently found not only prurient, but indelicate, was yet unimpeachable in his morals. La Fontaine wrote fictions fertile in intrigues, but he is not known to have left one amour on record in which he personally enacted a part. Sir Thomas More, who was a strenuous advocate of free toleration, yet himself became a fierce and bigoted persecutor; and Young, although constantly denouncing a love of preferment, was all his life long secretly pining after it, and, while the most sombrous of poets, was in private life a trifling punster. Cowper, the melancholy and misanthropic, perpetrated, it will be remembered, that laughter-provoking ballad, Johnny Gilpin; and we find a similar contradictory characteristic in Sterne's whining over a dead donkey, while he proved himself bankrupt in human sympathy and natural affection, beating his wife,

and leaving his maternal parent desolate
and neglected in her last moments.

Byron's misanthropy, also, was only
to be found in his pen; for his moral
self seemed a strange compound of
vanity and affectation, united with a
love of the ludicrous, sarcasm and
irony. And poor Hood, the punster,
whose master-passion gave melancholy
evidence of its absorbing power over
him, even at the hour of its recent dis-
solution, while his wit was vibrating
the national heart, his own suffered
from the extremest melancholy.
Among the many extempore puns he
uttered in his sickness, in describing to
a friend his near approach to dissolu-
tion, he could not resist his ruling im-
pulse, for he added, "I came so near to
death's door, that I heard the creaking
of its hinges."

Returning to our subject of literary
marriages, we remember reading of a
certain little tract, which professed an
investigation of this mystery, entitled,
"De Matrimonia Literati, au calibem
esse au vero nubere conveniat," in which
the writer cites some cases of the good
and bad among literary spouses; among
others, that of the celebrated artist, Berg-
hem, who resorted to rather a singular
mode of proving her devotion to her
husband's interests, by ever and anon
thumping a long stick, which she kept
for the purpose, against the ceiling, to
prevent her liege-lord indulging a nap
during the hours devoted to his pro-
fession; a summons which he respond-
ed to, by stamping with his foot; his
room being immediately over hers. It
was no inelegant plea, once urged by a
learned scribe, for his choice of celi-
bacy, that "Minerva and Venus never
could exist together." And so it would
seem, indeed, if we judge from the
fact of Byron's fatal union and Bul-
wer's-the story of whose domestic
strifes are too notorious to require com-
ment-to say nothing of the like in-
stances of the lamented and gifted Fe-
licia Hemans, Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs.
Norton, and the accomplished Mrs.
Jameson. Some honorable exceptions
exist to the foregoing, which redeem the
literary profession from the sad odium ;
the Howitts are enthusiastic lovers of
their literary pursuits, and anxious to
educate their children in the best pos-
sible manner, and therefore live a re-
tired and domestic life. Though be-

longing to the Society of Friends, and attached to its great principles of civil, moral, and religious liberty, they have long ago abandoned its peculiarities; and in manners, dress and language, belong only to the world. For the honor of literature we may safely say, that, among the many consolatory proofs in modern times of how much literature may contribute to the happiness of life, the case of the Howitts is the most striking. The love of literature was the origin of their acquaintance, its pursuit has been the hand-inhand bond of the most perfect happiness of a long married life; and we may further add, for the honor of womanhood, that while our authoress sends forth her delightful works in unbroken succession, to the four quarters of the globe, William Howitt has been heard to declare, that he will challenge any woman, be she who she may, who ever wrote a line, to match his good woman in the management of a large household, at the same time she fills her own little world of home with the brightness of her own heart and spirit. Another name occurs to us, also, that of George Sloane,-to whom the reading world is, perhaps, mainly indebted for the introduction of German litera ture into our vernacular,—who, because he married for love," his cara sposa being a beauty of humble birth, was disinherited by his rigorous parent, the well-known Sir Hans Sloane. To be revenged, his son had recourse to the following futile species of retaliation: he wrote a violent tirade upon his father's productions, caricaturing his splendid museum of art, with the intention of publishing it in a newspaper; but through some strange chance the plot was detected, and before the printer could compose it, it was rescued; and Sir Hans had the precious document elegantly enclosed in a frame for the inspection of his friends, to the lasting discomfiture of the author. Poor fellow he paid "dearly for his whistle" without this infliction, for his amiable better half loaded him with the liberal bestowment of ten pledges of her love. A writer in the London Quarterly has supplied some curious facts in relation to the family history of intellectual men, which are too interesting to resist the temptation of an extract. He says:

"We are going to speculate about the causes of the fact-but a fact it is—that men distinguished for extraordinary intellectual power, of any sort, rarely leave hind them. Men of genius have scarcely more than a very brief line of progeny beever done so-men of imaginative genius, we might say, almost never. With the one exception of the noble Surrey, we cannot, at this moment, point out a representative in the male line, even so far down as in the third generation, of any English poet, and we believe the same is the case in France. seldom be traced far down, even in the The blood of beings of that order can female line. With the exception of Surrey and Spencer, we are not aware of any English author of at all remote day, from whose body any living person claims to be descended. There is no other real English poet prior to the middle of the eighteenth century, and we believe no great author of any sort, except Clarendon and Shaftesbury, of whose blood we have any inheritance amongst us. Chaucer's only son died childless. Shakspeare's line expired in his daughter's only daughter. None of the other dramatists of that age have left any progeny-nor Raleigh, nor Bacon, nor Cowley, nor Butler. The grand-daughter of Milton was the last of his blood. Neither Bolingbroke, Addison, Warburton, Johnson, nor Burke, transmitted their blood.

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When a human race has produced its bright consummate flower,' in this kind, it seems commonly to be near its end."

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"The theory is illustrated in our own day. The two greatest names in science and literature of our time, were Davy and Sir Walter Scott. The first died childless. Sir Walter Scott left four children, of whom three are dead, only one of them, (Mrs. Lockhart,) leaving issue, and the fourth, his eldest son, though living, and long married, has no issue."

The last particular we shall refer to, is the fact, that a prominent class of literary characters who have wives, seem, before the world, as though they had none in their social visitings: such as Anacreon Moore, Wordsworth, Proctor, Ainsworth, &c.; the auther and his wife are very distinct individualities in their case, in the code of fashion; but it seems, as Dogberry says, "very tolerable, and not to be endured;" for this social divorce, we imagine, may very probably owe its origin to the habits of the authors themselves in part, and the conventionalisms of society. Our last paragraph seems, however, rather to trench upon the immunities of his " 'better half," than

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Said Raleigh, gazing on the highest hill-
"But that I tremble with the fear to fall!"

Apt was the answer of the high-soul'd Queen,—
"If thy heart fail thee, never climb at all!"
The heart! if that be sound, confirms the rest,
Crowns genius with his lion soul and mien,

And from the conscious nature in the breast,

To trembling virtue gives both strength and will!

WHERE TO LOOK-HOW TO SEEK.

Always the highest, and thy aim the white!
Yet with a modesty that still prepares,
Girded with diligence to seek the fight,
And conscious of its trials, not its fears!
There is no policy in small desire,

If that thy aim be conquest,-for we still
Fall something short of all we hope and will!
Who seeks for much must ever aim at more,

As birds that haunt the mountain, dart still higher :

And still be this the lesson in thy lore,

The ambitious heart all middle flight must shun,-
Must, like the eagle, in superior skies,

Stretching his giant pinions for the sun,

Bathe in the blaze that blinds all other eyes!

POLITICAL PORTRAITS WITH PEN AND PENCIL.

HON. ZADOCK PRATT,

Late Member of Congress from the State of New-York.

It is one of the crowning glories of our democratic institutions, and one which shows their superiority over all monarchical systems, that here "the race is open to all." The humblest individual may rise to the loftiest dignity, by the force of his own genius and virtue; nor is any man, however humble in origin, or obscure in life, shut out from the field of ambitious toil and competition. Circumstances of birth or fortune are rarely found to be stepping stones to public honors; and where there are no hereditary or transmissible titles or dignities acknowledged, there can be no bar to an honest toil for a superior condition-no insurmountable obstacle to any man's success, who looks steadily onward and upward in his career of life. It may be said that the tendency of our political system is to develope talent, to encourage virtue, and to give to both their reward. Where no artificial levels exist, and men are left to find their proper level upon the exertion of the talents with which they are endowed, there is freer scope to the powers of the mind, and the skilful devices of the hand-a wider and far nobler field of action, than in countries where the head, the heart and hand, are oppressed by conventional regulations; where the disfranchised masses are controlled by the privileged and haughty few.

Our country presents numerous examples in proof of the positions here assumed. Short as has been our existence as a nation-scarcely one fourth of the age ascribed to some of the patriarchs of our race-we can point to a roll of great men-of warriors, statesmen, and sages-unequalled, for a similar period, in the history of any nation. The great men of our Revolutionary period-many of the wisest of the generation which succeeded, and who laid the foundations of our republican institutions were men who rose from humble stations. They were men who struggled against adverse circum

stances, and by energy, fidelity and virtue, won renown for themselves in securing the liberties of their country. The example of such men is worth much to the country, in its influence upon the generations which are to succeed. We have seen, also, in commercial life, the same traits of character, developed in a different theatre of action, lead to wealth and distinction. Most of our countrymen are familiar with the history of WILLIAM GRAY, and STEPHEN GIRARD, and JOHN JACOB ASTOR-all of whom present examples of what superior genius and judgment, directed to a single pursuit, can accomplish in the course of a short life.

Not one of these men had a shilling to begin with; neither were they educated men; but each possessed a genius allied in power to that of a Cæsar or a Napoleon.

One of the most remarkable instances of successful enterprise in mechanical pursuits, which has come to our knowledge, is that of the founder of the beautiful and flourishing village of Prattsville, in the county of Greene, famed for its great tannery-the largest establishment of the kind in the world. The village of Prattsville, which lies in a small valley on the Schoharie Kill, some 36 miles west of Catskill, on the Hudson, was founded in the year 1824, by the Hon. ZADOCK PRATT, late a representative in Congress, from the 11th district in this state. The career of this gentleman has been marked with so much practical usefulness, though with little ostentation, and has so clear a bearing upon the position which we have heretofore assumed, that we are sure of gratifying the readers of the Review, by spreading before them a brief sketch of his life and character.

ZADOCK PRATT was born on the 30th October, 1790, at Stephentown, Rensselaer county, N. Y. His family is descended from the noble band of pilgrims, who first broke ground on the shores of New-England-the first

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