Museum of Foreign Literature, Science and Art Volume 25 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1834 Excerpt: ...for this parent another epithet than unfortunate. He continues: "I had much seeming leisure for any great work I might have imposed on myself; but my mind was distracted, and therefore could pursue nothing which had not high excitement: but excitement cannot in its nature be permanent, and, therefore, I could do nothing which required a regular perseverance of labour. Whatever I did was fitful and transitory, and required the stimulus of variety. I often worked to exhaustion while the fit was on; then came on ennui and disgust." This is said, we presume, of his labours in poetry and romance; of his antiquarian pursuits, in which he really did so much service to literature, he thus speaks: "The works in which I was engaged for the press occupied much of my time; and the long transcripts necessary were laborious and fatiguing. They were enough to suppress my imagination, and deaden my powers of original thought. It was not the mere love of fame, but the love of literary occupation, which was the spur that led me on--it was to escape from myself and my overwhelming anxieties. Meanwhile, I was not at all satisfied with the way I was making in the literary world: I was pursuing a humble path not suited to my fiery ambition, and this produced a self-abasement which had an evil effect upon my energies." And yet he says elsewhere--and we wonder he did not remember this, when he was lashing at Person--"A man of genius cannot even compile without showing something of his own spirit. Though he may extract and copy, still he will select and combine in a manner which mere labour will never reach." Justly and truly is this said; and the truth of it is exemplified in some of our author's own antiquarian lucubrations. The bitterness with which...