314 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



Syria to be sweet and nourishing ; and it is, I 

 believe, generally supposed that they were the 

 food alluded*to in the Gospels. 



. In our genius conversation to-day, 

 several people were mentioned on each side: 

 Mary quoted a passage from Johnson's Lives of 

 the Poets respecting Denham, who, he says, 

 was " considered at Oxford as a dreaming young 

 man, given more to cards and dice than to 

 study ; he gave no prognostics of his future 

 eminence, nor was suspected to conceal, under 

 sluggishness and idleness, a genius born to im- 

 prove the literature of his country." i Of Swift, 

 too," continued Mary, " there appears no early 

 proof of genius or diligence ; for when at the 

 usual time he claimed a bachelorship of arts, 

 he was found by the examiners too conspicu- 

 ously deficient for regular admission and at 

 last obtained his degree by special favour ; a 

 term used, as Johnson says, in the university of 

 Dublin, to denote want of merit." It is pro- 

 bable, therefore, that new circumstances com- 

 bined together afterwards to bring out the 

 powers possessed by these celebrated men ; and 

 I am sure, mamma, this little perpetual argu- 

 ment serves to bring out several very enter- 

 taining biographical facts, 



Haydn, the famous composer, was the son of 

 a wheelwright; such an employment was not 



