120 A LOGICAL DISQUISITION ON EXALTED GENIUS. 



diminish my means of existence ; fortunately for me the balance 

 turned in my favour, after a most conflictive struggle with men 

 of all kinds and complexions, and even literary ladies of improper 

 pretensions. But to return to my garret in which (to keep up the 

 eclat of my " paper,") I shall now desire the reader to consider me 

 -and I assure him I am considerably aggrandized therein. Cer- 

 tain considerations induced me to fix on it, rather against the wishes 

 of some well meaning people of my acquaintance ; and on further inti- 

 macy, I find so many advantages in this situation as a man of my 

 humanity could not be satisfied to enjoy in selfish silence ; for though 

 I should pass over (which is not my intention) all the advantages it 

 has, with regard to health, honour, and security, I doubt not but I 

 shall make it appear, in the course of this essay, that " garrets" are 

 eminently favourable to study ; calculated for the learned ; and by 

 them used in all ages, until this, when both learning, and living in a 

 garret, are fallen into disrepute together. Lord Byron had passed 

 the ' Rubicon" when he pronounced the present to be the age of 

 Bronze. 



As we are enabled to trace the current of antiquity, the nearer 

 we approach the fountain head, where nature flows most pure and 

 nncorrupted, the fonder we find mankind in general, but especially 

 aspiring and sensible persons, of what is so invidiously denominated 

 by the vulgar and insipid bipeds who insult the light of heaven by 

 their daily diatribes " garrets." The first learned people we read 

 of were the Assyrians ; they so disliked the surface of the earth, that 

 they spared no labour, no cost, to raise themselves a garret as high 

 as heaven ; arid what is the reason assigned? Why to make them- 

 selves a name to gain them an immortal reputation, plainly 

 intimating that they had held it impossible to arrive at fame by any 

 other road : moreover, it has been the immutable doom" of the 

 high and lofty spirits of literature ever since, that their pursuits of 

 glory have generally either begun or ended in a garret. 



Our proofs of antiquity by no means rest solely on the Assyrians ; 

 we might likewise instance the Egyptians for this purpose ; and 

 historians tell us, that the Persians deposited their " dead" upon the 

 tops of very high towers. It is natural to conclude, therefore, that 

 there must be a conformity between men's lives and their deaths ; 

 this point being granted to me, let me ask how high must that wise 

 and brave people have lived ? But, now-a-days, every thing is 

 perverted, and, by a strange and stultifying contradiction, the lowest 

 place is held the place of honour ! The mere mention of such an 

 opinion were sufficient to exhibit its insufferable absurdity, though 

 all the great examples of antiquity did not oppose it. To produce 

 all that we might render as "evidence" in this matter worthy as 

 it undoubtedly is of the shrewd and masculine judgment of that 

 humanising master-spirit, Brougham would be almost futile ; yet 

 not an expenditure of time quite uncalled for : I shall therefore 

 content myself with adding an instance from later time, even when 

 the world had become much corrupted, and that from the two best 

 of the Roman emperors, who ordered their ashes to be deposited on 

 pillars of an immense height, desiring that when dead, they might 



