346] 
ele&tric spark convulses for a mo- 
ment the brain, and spreads down 
to the very heart a glow of irrita- 
tion. Then are come the luxuries 
of genius, the true hours for pro- 
duction and composition—hours so 
delightful, that I have spent twelve 
and fourteen successively at my 
writing-desk, and still been in a 
state of pleasure. It is for this 
gratification, yet more than for 
glory, that I have toiled. Glory 
comes if it can, and mostly does 
come. This pleasure is greater if you 
consult no books: I have never 
consulted authors, till I had nothing 
left to say of my own.”’ 
I asked him what is the best 
method of forming one’s self. He 
answered, ‘¢ Read only the capital 
works, read them repeatedly, and 
read those in every department of 
taste and science; for the framers 
of such works are, as Cicero says, 
kindred-souls, and the views of one 
may always be applied with ad- 
vantage in some very different 
branch by another. ‘Be not afraid 
of the task. Capital works are 
scarce. I know but five great 
geniuses—Newton, Bacon, Leib- 
nitz, Montesquieu, and myself. 
Newton (continued he,) may have 
discovered an important principle, 
but he spent his life in frivolous 
calculations, and was no master of 
style.’”? He thought higher of Leib- 
nitz than of Bacon. He spoke of 
Montesquieu’s genius, but thought 
his style too studied, and wanting 
evolution. ‘* This, however (said 
he), was a natural consequence of 
his frame of body. I knew him 
well; he was almost blind, and 
very impatient. If he had not 
elipt his ideas into short sentences, 
he wou!d have lost: his period be- 
fore the amanuensis. had taken it 
down.”” i 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1796. 
He spoke to me of the passion 
for study, and of the happiness 
which it bestows. He told me that 
he had voluntarily secluded him- 
self from society; that at one time 
he courted the company of learned 
men, expeéting to acquire much 
from their conversation, but he had 
discovered that little of value could 
be so gleaned, and that, in order 
to pick up a phrase, an evening was 
ill squandered: that labour was 
become a want to him, and he hoped 
to consecrate to it much of the 
three or four years of life which 
probably remained to him; that 
‘he feared not death—that the hope 
of an immortal renown was the 
most powerful of death-bed con- 
solations. Ad 
He shewed me a letter from 
prince Henry of Prussia, and an- 
other from the empress of Russia, 
with his answers. Over this lofty 
correspondence between power and 
genius, where the latter retained 
its innate ascendancy, I felt my 
soul swell. Glory seemed to assume, 
as it were, a substantial form, and 
to bend down at its feet what the 
world has most exalted.’ 
In a few days, I left this good 
and great man; repeating, as I 
withdrew, two lines of the Oedipus 
of Voltaire: 
L’amitié dun grand homme est un 
bien fait desdieux, 
Fe lisats mon devoir et mon sort 
dans ses peux. ‘ 
Account of A postal Zens, from Burney’s 
Memoirs of Metastasio. 
THE learned poet, critic and an- 
tiquary, Apostolo Zeno, was born in 
1660, and descended from anillustri- 
ous Venetian family, which has been 
long settled in the island of iene 
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