A LOGICAL DISQUISITION ON EXALTED GENIUS. 127 



profound ! wits, how solid ! philosophers, how subtle ! how 

 often has " the Government" been relieved, in the very greatest 

 emergencies, by the invigorating and healthy schemes sent in from 

 garrets ? Sir Robert Peel can speak to this last proposition ; and 

 with deep humility and unfeigned regret I mention it, if they had 

 been invariably attended to, the " monstrous debt" could not have 

 so long remained unpaid. Here, those who had scarcely genius 

 enough for a conundrum, conceive one for poetry, or even make a 

 shift to write very well without one. Here, too, the renowned arts 

 of chemistry and alchemy, as they were primitively developed, are 

 most improved. From the sacred garret, is received not only the 

 earliest intelligence of foreign affairs, but even before they are sub- 

 stantially transacted. Here bachelors hypothetic ally lament the 

 corruption of mannets, which cannot fail of inspiring starving bards 

 to write sonnets of love ; ruined merchants to deal in pastorals; but 

 in none, I can assure my readers, is it more fertile than excellent 

 satirists. 



Notwithstanding appearances it must be evident to the initiated 

 that a garret affords, I do not really know any more conspicuous, or 

 of greater moment than its solitude ; it is the very "nurse" of study; 

 and a man maybe sure to have it here, uninterruptedly; for when a 

 " garretteer" retires to his " tip-top apartment," he is sure never to 

 be troubled with the importunate and officious visits of his FRIENDS : 

 he may pursue likewise his *' meditations among the stars" without 

 the least disturbance ; nor will he ever expect a visit from the " great 

 bear" or any of the smaller lobes of light, although he may be said 

 to have raised himself to an eminence so as to deserve their callincr 

 on him ; and, indeed, may consider himself as effectually forgotten 

 as if he had really quitted terra firma. 



But next to the want of solitude there is nothing more prejudicial 

 to writers than flattery, as it obviously prevents them from seeing, 

 and consequently from amending, their faults : and I can candidly 

 assure them, whatever may hurt their writings, they are in no way 

 likely to meet with " flattery" upstairs. I may not pretend to be 

 ignorant that some have appeared to have discovered these " lofty" 

 advantages in a cellar, which they seem to recommend as calculated 

 for an habitation for authors. I am not quite sure whether these under- 

 ground advocates, ignorant as they doubtless all are of the " lofty 

 pretensions" of literary men, do not mistake our " spirits of real emi- 

 nence" for authors of all-work, which, I need not intimate to my 

 contemporaries, are a very different race of human beings, and are 

 so well known to the minister of the home department, that I shall 

 not farther regard either their " grade" or their ignorance of the 

 heaven-ward pretensions of a legitimate garretteer. But, to coun- 

 tenance this absurd opinion of theirs, these down-stair animals have 

 the dark assurance to allege that Demosthenes studied under-ground! 

 But these destitute and savage people should be carefully avoided, 

 sirs ; they are, confessedly, the most dangerous innovators in the 

 republic of letters; they would even reduce the sagacious editor 

 of the Times (through their underground stoutness); authors, 

 to the attenuated condition of moles, who with truth and reason, 



