CHARLES BUTLER, whose reminiscences of his illustrious contemporaries are derived from personal intercourse, has correctly described the familiar conversations of PITT, FOX, and BURKE:  “The most intimate friends of Mr. Fox complained of his too frequent ruminating silence.  Mr. Pitt talked, and his talk was fascinating.  Mr. Burke’s conversation was rambling, but splendid and instructive beyond comparison.”  Let me add, that the finest genius of our times, is also the most delightful man; he is that rarest among the rare of human beings, whom to have known is nearly to adore; whom to have seen, to have heard, forms an era in our life; whom youth remembers with enthusiasm, and whose presence the men and women of “the world” feel like a dream from which they would not awaken.  His bonhomie attaches our hearts to him by its simplicity; his legendary conversation makes us, for a moment, poets like himself.[A]

[Footnote A:  This was written under the inspiration of a night’s conversation, or rather listening to Sir WALTER SCOTT.—­I cannot bring myself to erase what now, alas! has closed in the silence of a swift termination of his glorious existence.]

But that deficient agreeableness in social life with which men of genius have been often reproached, may really result from the nature of those qualities which conduce to the greatness of their public character.  A thinker whose mind is saturated with knowledge on a particular subject, will be apt to deliver himself authoritatively; but he will then pass for a dogmatist:  should he hesitate, that he may correct an equivocal expression, or bring nearer a remote idea, he is in danger of sinking into pedantry or rising into genius.  Even the fulness of knowledge has its tediousness.  “It is rare,” said MALEBRANCHE, “that those who meditate profoundly can explain well the objects they have meditated on; for they hesitate when they have to speak; they are scrupulous to convey false ideas or use inaccurate terms.  They do not choose to speak, like others, merely for the sake of talking.”  A vivid and sudden perception of truth, or a severe scrutiny after it, may elevate the voice, and burst with an irruptive heat on the subdued tone of conversation.  These men are too much in earnest for the weak or the vain.  Such seriousness kills their feeble animal spirits.  SMEATON, a creative genius of his class, had a warmth of expression which seemed repulsive to many:  it arose from an intense application of mind, which impelled him to break out hastily when anything was said that did not accord with his ideas.  Persons who are obstinate till they can give up their notions with a safe conscience, are troublesome intimates.  Often too the cold tardiness of decision is only the strict balancing of scepticism or candour, while obscurity as frequently may arise from the deficiency of previous knowledge in the listener.  It was said that NEWTON in conversation did not seem to understand his own