Literary Character of Men of Genius | Page 8

the majestic mind of MILTON, of "that lasting fame and perpetuity
of praise which God and good men have consented shall be the reward
of those whose PUBLISHED LABOURS advanced the good of
mankind."
The LITERARY CHARACTER is a denomination which, however
vague, defines the pursuits of the individual, and separates him from
other professions, although it frequently occurs that he is himself a
member of one. Professional characters are modified by the change of
manners, and are usually national; while the literary character, from the
objects in which it concerns itself, retains a more permanent, and
necessarily a more independent nature.
Formed by the same habits, and influenced by the same motives,
notwithstanding the contrast of talents and tempers, and the remoteness
of times and places, the literary character has ever preserved among its
followers the most striking family resemblance. The passion for study,
the delight in books, the desire of solitude and celebrity, the
obstructions of human life, the character of their pursuits, the
uniformity of their habits, the triumphs and the disappointments of
literary glory, were as truly described by CICERO and the younger
PLINY as by PETRARCH and ERASMUS, and as they have been by
HUME and GIBBON. And this similarity, too, may equally be
remarked with respect to that noble passion of the lovers of literature
and of art for collecting together their mingled treasures; a thirst which
was as insatiable in ATTICUS and PEIRESC as in our
CRACHERODE and TOWNLEY.[A] We trace the feelings of our
literary contemporaries in all ages, and among every people who have
ranked with nations far advanced in civilization; for among these may
be equally observed both the great artificers of knowledge and those
who preserve unbroken the vast chain of human acquisitions. The one
have stamped the images of their minds on their works, and the others
have preserved the circulation of this intellectual coinage, this

--Gold of the dead, Which Time does still disperse, but not devour.
[Footnote A: The Rev. C.M. Cracherode bequeathed at his death, in
1799, to the British Museum, the large collection of literature, art, and
virtu he had employed an industrious life in collecting. His books
numbered nearly 4500 volumes, many of great rarity and value. His
drawings, many by early Italian masters, and all rare or curious, were
deposited in the print-room of the same establishment; his antiquities,
&c. were in a similar way added to the other departments. The
"Townley Gallery" of classic sculpture was purchased of his executors
by Government for 28,200l. It had been collected with singular taste
and judgment, as well as some amount of good fortune also; Townley
resided at Rome during the researches on the site of Hadrian's Villa at
Tivoli; and he had for aids and advisers Sir William Hamilton, Gavin
Hamilton, and other active collectors; and was the friend and
correspondent of D'Haucarville and Winckelmann.--ED.]
CHAPTER II.
Of the Adversaries of Literary Men among themselves.--Matter-of-fact
Men, and Men of Wit.--The Political Economist.--Of those who
abandon their studies.--Men in office.--The arbiters of public
opinion.--Those who treat the pursuits of literature with levity.
The pursuits of literature have been openly or insidiously lowered by
those literary men who, from motives not always difficult to penetrate,
are eager to confound the ranks in the republic of letters, maliciously
conferring the honours of authorship on that "Ten Thousand" whose
recent list is not so much a muster-roll of heroes as a table of
population.[A]
Matter-of-fact men, or men of knowledge, and men of wit and taste,
were long inimical to each other's pursuits.[B] The Royal Society in its
origin could hardly support itself against the ludicrous attacks of
literary men,[C] and the Antiquarian Society has afforded them
amusement.[D] Such partial views have ceased to contract the
understanding. Science yields a new substance to literature; literature

combines new associations for the votaries of knowledge. There is no
subject in nature, and in the history of man, which will not associate
with our feelings and our curiosity, whenever genius extends its
awakening hand. The antiquary, the naturalist, the architect, the chemist,
and even writers on medical topics, have in our days asserted their
claims, and discovered their long-interrupted relationship with the great
family of genius and literature.
[Footnote A: We have a Dictionary of "Ten Thousand living Authors"
of our own nation. The alphabet is fatal by its juxtapositions. In France,
before the Revolution, they counted about twenty thousand writers.
When David would have his people numbered, Joab asked, "Why doth
my lord delight in this?" In political economy, the population returns
may be useful, provided they be correct; but in the literary republic, its
numerical force diminishes the strength of the empire. "There you are
numbered, we had rather you were weighed." Put aside the puling
infants of literature, of