I could proceed no farther without shedding tears.  ’Cease to afflict yourself, my son,’ said that good man; ’your condition is not so bad as you think:  the truth is, you knew little at the time you imagined you knew much.  The discovery of your ignorance is the first great step you have made towards true knowledge.  The veil is lifted up, and you now view those deep shades of the soul which were concealed from you by excessive presumption.  In ascending an elevated spot, we gradually discover many things whose existence before was not suspected by us.  Persevere in the career which you entered with my advice; feel confident that God will not abandon you:  there are maladies which the patient does not perceive; but to be aware of the disease, is the first step towards the cure.’”

This remarkable literary interview is here given, that it may perchance meet the eye of some kindred youth at one of those lonely moments when a Shakspeare may have thought himself no poet, and a Raphael believed himself no painter.  Then may the tender wisdom of a John of Florence, in the cloudy despondency of art, lighten up the vision of its glory!

INGENUOUS YOUTH! if, in a constant perusal of the master-writers, you see your own sentiments anticipated—­if, in the tumult of your mind, as it comes in contact with theirs, new sentiments arise—­if, sometimes, looking on the public favourite of the hour, you feel that within which prompts you to imagine that you could rival or surpass him—­if, in meditating on the confessions of every man of genius, for they all have their confessions, you find you have experienced the same sensations from the same circumstances, encountered the same difficulties and overcome them by the same means; then let not your courage be lost in your admiration, but listen to that “still small voice” in your heart which cries with CORREGGIO and with MONTESQUIEU, “Ed io anche son pittore!”

CHAPTER VII.

Of the irritability of genius.—­Genius in society often in a state of suffering.—­Equality of temper more prevalent among men of letters.—­Of the occupation of making a great name.—­Anxieties of the most successful.  —­Of the inventors.—­Writers of learning.—­Writers of taste.—­Artists.

The modes of life of a man of genius, often tinctured by eccentricity and enthusiasm, maintain an eternal conflict with the monotonous and imitative habits of society, as society is carried on in a great metropolis, where men are necessarily alike, and where, in perpetual intercourse, they shape themselves to one another.