AUTHOSS. 



Jupiter, and snuff the moon." The 

 cloud became thicker, and he ex- 

 claimed "The stupid! he has 

 snuffed it out." 



AUTHORS HOT THE BEST JUDGES OF 

 THEIR OWN WRITINGS. 



It is known that Milton preferred 

 his Paradise Regained to his divine 

 poem of Paradise Lost. Virgil is 

 recorded to have ordered, on his 

 deathbed, that the JEneid should 

 be burnt, because he did not think 

 it sufficiently finished for publica- 

 tion ; and it is to the disobedience 

 of his executors that we are indebted 

 for the possession of that exquisite 

 performance. Tasso new-modelled 

 and injured his Gierusalemme Liber- 

 ata. And it may reasonably be 

 doubted, from the specimen which 

 Akenside has left of the manner in 

 which he intended to alter his 

 Pleasures of Imagination, whether 

 that beautiful poem would have 

 been improved by the experiment, 

 had he lived to finish it. Sir 

 William Forbes, in his Life of Dr. 

 Seattle, adduces his omitting, in 

 the late editions of his poems, of 

 several beautiful pieces published 

 In his first collection, and reprinting 

 others of inferior poetical merit, 

 as another of the many instances of 



authors differing from the general 

 opinion. 



RABELAIS. 



Rabelais had writ some sensible 

 pieces, which the world did not re- 

 gard at all. "I will write some- 

 thing," says he, "that they shall take 

 notice of;" and so sat down to write 

 nonsense. Everybody allows that 

 there are several things without any 

 manner of meaning in his Pantag- 

 ruel. Dr. Swift likes it much, and 

 thinks there are more good things 

 in it than I do. (Pope.) 



CAPRICES AND CONTRADICTIONS. 



A More, fiercely persecuting for 

 opinion while writing in favour of 

 the rights of thought; a Bacon, 

 teaching morals and taking bribes ; 

 a La Fontaine, writing intrigues 

 while avoiding, in his own person, 

 a single amour ; a Young, making- 

 wretched puns and writing Night 

 Thoughts; a Sterne, beating his 

 wife and crying over a dead ass; 

 a melancholy Cowper, gasping out 

 the laughter-moving story of John 

 Gilpin: truly that chapter which 

 shall have to deal with all the oddi- 

 ties and anomalies of the literary 

 life must be long and curious, in- 

 finitely various in its illustrations, 

 and deep in its insight and its 

 philosophy. (Athenaeum.) 



ANTIQUAEIANISM. 



FROISSART. 



I rejoice you have met with 

 Froissart, he is the Herodotus of a 

 barbarous age ; had he but had the 

 luck of writing in as good language, 

 lie might have been immortal ! His 

 locomotive disposition (for then 

 there was no other way of learning- 

 things) ; his simple curiosity, his 

 religious credulity, were much like 

 those of the old Grecian. (Thomas 

 -Gray to Mr. Nicholls.) [In a letter 

 to Dr. Wharton more than ten 

 years before this, he says] Froissart 

 is a favourite book of mine (though 



I have not attentively read them, 

 but only dipped here and there) ; 

 and it is strange to me that people, 

 who would give thousands for a 

 dozen portraits (originals of that 

 time) to furnish a gallery, should 

 never cast an eye on so many mov- 

 ing pictures of the life, actions, 

 manners, and thoughts of their an- 

 cestors, done on the spot, and in 

 strong, though simple colours. In 

 the succeeding century Froissart, I 

 find, was read with great satisfac- 

 tion by everybody that could read ; 

 and on the same footing with Kins- 



