hing but
Siegesbecks; and condemned my too numerous observations a thousand times
over to eternal oblivion. What a fool have I been to waste so much time,
to spend my days in a study which yields no better fruit, and makes me the
laughing stock of the world." Such are the cries of the irritability of
genius, and such are often the causes. The world was in danger of losing a
new science, had not LINNAEUS returned to the discoveries which he had
forsaken in the madness of the mind! The great SYDENHAM, who, like our
HARVEY and our HUNTER, effected a revolution in the science of medicine,
and led on alone by the independence of his genius, attacked the most
prevailing prejudices, so highly provoked the malignant emulation of his
rivals, that a conspiracy was raised against the father of our modern
practice to banish him out of the college, as "guilty of medical heresy."
JOHN HUNTER was a great discoverer in his own science; but one who well
knew him has told us, that few of his contemporaries perceived the
ultimate object of his pursuits; and his strong and solitary genius
laboured to perfect his designs without the solace of sympathy, without
one cheering approbation. "We bees do not provide honey for ourselves,"
exclaimed VAN HELMONT, when worn out by the toils of chemistry, and still
contemplating, amidst tribulation and persecution, and approaching death,
his "Tree of Life," which he imagined he had discovered in the cedar. But
with a sublime melancholy his spirit breaks out; "My mind breathes some
unheard-of thing within; though I, as unprofitable for this life, shall be
buried!" Such were the mighty but indistinct anticipations of this
visionary inventor, the father of modern chemistry!

I cannot quit this short record of the fates of the inventors in science,
without adverting to another cause of that irritability of genius which is
so closely connected with their pursuits. If we look into the history of
theories, we shall be surprised at the vast number which have "not left a
rack behind." And do we suppose that the inventors themselves were not at
times alarmed by secret doubts of their soundness and stability? They
felt, too often for their repose, that the noble architecture which they
had raised might be built on moveable sands, and be found only in the dust
of libraries; a cloudy day, or a fit of indigestion, would deprive an
inventor of his theory all at once; and as one of them said, "after
dinner, all that I