paration, and in a continued accession of
materials for a future period. From the age of twenty, MONTESQUIEU was
preparing the materials of _L'Esprit des Loix_, by extracts from the
immense volumes of civil law. TILLEMONT'S vast labours were traced out in
his mind at the early age of nineteen, on reading Baronius; and some of
the finest passages in RACINE'S tragedies were composed while a pupil,
wandering in the woods of the Port-Royal. So true is it that the seeds of
many of our great literary and scientific works were lying, for many years
antecedent to their being given to the world, in a latent state of
germination.[A]

[Footnote A: I need not to be reminded, that I am not worth mentioning
among the illustrious men who have long formed the familiar subjects of my
delightful researches. But with the middling as well as with the great,
the same habits must operate. Early in life, I was struck by the inductive
philosophy of Bacon, and sought after a Moral Experimental Philosophy; and
I had then in my mind an observation of Lord Bolingbroke's, for I see I
quoted it thirty years ago, that "Abstract or general propositions, though
never so true, appear obscure or doubtful to us very often till they are
explained by examples." So far back as in 1793 I published "A Dissertation
on Anecdotes," with the simplicity of a young votary; there I deduced
results, and threw out a magnificent project not very practicable. From
that time to the hour I am now writing, my metal has been running in this
mould, and I still keep casting philosophy into anecdotes, and anecdotes
into philosophy. As I began I fear I shall end.]

The predisposition of genius has declared itself in painters and poets,
who were such before they understood the nature of colours and the arts of
verse; and this vehement propensity, so mysteriously constitutional, may
be traced in other intellectual characters besides those which belong to
the class of imagination. It was said that PITT was _born_ a minister; the
late Dr. SHAW I always considered as one _born_ a naturalist, and I know a
great literary antiquary who seems to me to have been also _born_ such;
for the passion of _curiosity_ is as intense a faculty, or instinct, with
some casts of mind, as is that of _invention_ with poets and painters: I
confess that to me it is _genius_ in a form in which genius has not yet
been suspected to appear. One of the biographers of Sir HANS SLOANE
expresses himself in this m