CORNEILLE would not compromise for the tribute he exacted, but he consoled himself when, at his entrance into the theatre, the audience usually rose to salute him.  The great comic genius of France, who indeed was a very thoughtful and serious man, addressed a poem to the painter MIONARD, expressing his conviction that “the court,” by which a Frenchman of the court of Louis XIV. meant the society we call “fashionable,” is fatal to the perfection of art—­

  Qui se donne a la cour se derobe a son art;
  Un esprit partage rarement se consomme,
  Et les emplois de feu demandent tout l’homme.

Has not the fate in society of our reigning literary favourites been uniform?  Their mayoralty hardly exceeds the year:  they are pushed aside to put in their place another, who, in his turn, must descend.  Such is the history of the literary character encountering the perpetual difficulty of appearing what he really is not, while he sacrifices to a few, in a certain corner of the metropolis, who have long fantastically styled themselves “the world,” that more dignified celebrity which makes an author’s name more familiar than his person.  To one who appeared astonished at the extensive celebrity of BUFFON, the modern Pliny replied, “I have passed fifty years at my desk.”  HAYDN would not yield up to society more than those hours which were not devoted to study.  These were indeed but few:  and such were the uniformity and retiredness of his life, that “He was for a long time the only musical man in Europe who was ignorant of the celebrity of Joseph Haydn.”  And has not one, the most sublime of the race, sung,

            —­che seggendo in piuma,
  In Fama non si vien, ne sotto coltre;
  Sanza la qual chi sua vita consuma
  Cotal vestigio in terra di se lascia
  Qual fummo in aere, ed in acqua la schiuma

For not on downy plumes, nor under shade
Of canopy reposing, Fame is won: 
Without which, whosoe’er consumes his days,
Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth
As smoke in air, or foam upon the wave.[A]

[Footnote A:  Cary’s Dante, Canto xxiv.]

But men of genius, in their intercourse with persons of fashion, have a secret inducement to court that circle.  They feel a perpetual want of having the reality of their talents confirmed to themselves, and they often step into society to observe in what degree they are objects of attention; for, though ever accused of vanity, the greater part of men of genius feel that their existence, as such, must depend on the opinion of others.  This standard is in truth always problematical and variable; yet they cannot hope to find a more certain one among their rivals, who at all times are adroitly depreciating their brothers, and “dusking” their lustre.  They discover among those cultivators of literature and the arts who have recourse to them for their pleasure, impassioned admirers, rather than unmerciful judges—­judges who have only time to acquire that degree of illumination which is just sufficient to set at ease the fears of these claimants of genius.