un concetto,
Ch' un marmo solo in se non circoseriva
Col suo soverchio, e solo a quello arriva
La man che obbedisce all' intelletto.

IMITATED.

The sculptor never yet conceived a thought
That yielding marble has refused to aid;
But never with a mastery he wrought--
Save when the hand the intellect obeyed.

[Footnote A: It now forms the frontispiece to vol. ii. of the last edition
of the "Curiosities of Literature."--ED.]

An interesting domestic story has been preserved of GESNER, who so
zealously devoted his graver and his pencil to the arts. His sensibility
was ever struggling after that ideal excellence which he could not attain.
Often he sunk into fits of melancholy, and, gentle as he was, the
tenderness of his wife and friends could not soothe his distempered
feelings; it was necessary to abandon him to his own thoughts, till, after
a long abstinence from his neglected works, in a lucid moment, some
accident occasioned him to return to them. In one of these hypochondria of
genius, after a long interval of despair, one morning at breakfast with
his wife, his eye fixed on one of his pictures: it was a group of fauns
with young shepherds dancing at the entrance of a cavern shaded with
vines; his eye appeared at length to glisten; and a sudden return
to good humour broke out in this lively apostrophe--"Ah! see those
playful children, they always dance!" This was the moment of gaiety and
inspiration, and he flew to his forsaken easel.

La Harpe, an author by profession, observes, that as it has been shown
that there are some maladies peculiar to artisans[A]--there are also some
sorrows peculiar to them, and which the world can neither pity nor soften,
because they do not enter into their experience. The querulous language of
so many men of genius has been sometimes attributed to causes very
different from the real ones--the most fortunate live to see their talents
contested and their best works decried. Assuredly many an author has sunk
into his grave without the consciousness of having obtained that fame for
which he had sacrificed an arduous life. The too feeling SMOLLETT has left
this testimony to posterity:--"Had some of those, who are pleased to call
themselves my friends, been at any pains to deserve the character, and
told me ingenuously what I had to expect in the capacity of an _author_, I
should, in all probability, have spared myself the _incredible labour_ and