270 On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth. [MARCH. 



nothing", to have it all snatched from one like a juggler's ball or a phantas- 

 magoria ; there is something revolting and incredible to sense in the 

 transition, and no wonder that, aided by youth and warm blood, and the 

 flush of enthusiasm, the mind contrives for a long time to reject it with 

 disdain and loathing as a monstrous and improbable fiction, like a monkey 

 on a house-top, that is loath, amidst its fine discoveries and specious antics, 

 to be tumbled head-long into the street, and crushed to atoms, the sport 

 and laughter of the multitude ! 



The change, from the commencement to the close of life, appears like 

 a fable, after it has taken place; how should we treat it otherwise than 

 as a chinfora before it has come to pass ? There are some things that 

 happened so long ago, places or persons we have formerly seen, of which 

 such dim traces remain, we hardly know whether it was sleeping or waking 

 they occurred ; they are like dreams within the dream of life, a mist, a film 

 before the eye of memory, w T hich, as we try to recall them more distinctly, 

 elude our notice altogether. It is but natural that the lone interval that we 

 thus look back upon, should have appeared long and endless in prospect. 

 There aro others so distinct and fresh, they seem but of yesterday their 

 very vividness might be deemed a pledge of their permanence. Then, 

 however far back our impressions may go, we find others still older (for 

 our years are multiplied in youth) ; descriptions of scenes that we had 

 read, arid people before our time, Priam and the Trojan war; and even 

 then, Nestor was old and dwelt delighted on his youth, and spoke of the 

 race, of heroes that /were no more; what wonder that, seeing this long 

 line of being pictured in our minds, and reviving as it were in us, we should 

 give ourselves involuntary credit for an indeterminate period of existence ? 

 In the Cathedral at Peterborough there is a monument to Mary, Queen of 



lord is distinguished from bis valet by any thing else, it is by education and talent, which 

 he has in common with our author. But if the latter shews these in the highest degree, 

 it is asked what are his pretensions ? Not birth or fortune, for neither of these would 

 enable him to write a Clarissa. One man is born with a title and estate, another with 

 genius. That is sufficient ; and we have no right to question the genius for want of 

 the gentility, unless the former ran in families, or could be bequeathed with a fortune, 

 which is not the case. Were it so, the flowers of literature, like jewels and embroidery, 

 would be confined to the fashionable circles ; and there would be no pretenders to taste 

 or elegance but those whose names were found in the court list. No one objects to 

 Claude's Landscapes as the work of a pastrycook, or withholds from Raphael the epithet of 

 divine, because his parents were not rich. This impertinence is confined to men of 

 letters; the evidence of the senses baffles the envy and foppery of mankind. No quarter 

 ought to be given to this aristocratic tone of criticism whenever it appears. People of 

 quality are not contented with carrying all the external advantages for their own share, 

 but would persuade you that all the intellectual ones are packed up in the same bundle. 

 Lord Byron was a later instance of this double and unwarrantable style of pretension 

 monstrum ingens, biforme. He could not endure a lord who was not a wit, nor a poet 

 who was not a lord. Nobody but himself answered to bis own standard of perfection. 

 Mr. Moore carries a proxy in his pocket from some noble persons to estimate literary 

 merit by the same rule. Lady Mary calls Fielding names, but she afterwards makes 

 atonement by doing justice to his frank, free, hearty nature, where he says " his spirits 

 gave him raptures with his cook-maid, and cheerfulness when be was starving in a garret, 

 and his happy constitution made him forget every thing when he was placed before 

 a venison-pasty or over a flask of champagne." She does not want shrewdness and spirit 

 when her petulance and conceit do not get the better of her, and she has done ample and 

 merited execution on Lord Bolingbroke. She is, however, very angry at the freedoms 

 taken with the Great; smells a rat m this indiscriminate scribbling, and the familiarity 

 of writers with the reading public ; and inspired by her Turkish costume, foretells a French 

 or English revolution as the consequence of transferring the patronage of letters from 

 the quality to the mob, and of supposing that ordinary writers or readers can have any 

 notions in common with their superiors. 



