touched by a tender pencil.[A] But we have SHENSTONE, and GRAY, and
SWIFT. The heart of Shenstone bleeds in the dead oblivion of solitude:
--"Now I am come from a visit, every little uneasiness is sufficient to
introduce my whole train of melancholy considerations, and to make me
utterly dissatisfied with the life I now lead, and the life I foresee I
shall lead. I am angry, and envious, and dejected, and frantic, and
disregard all present things, as becomes a madman to do. I am infinitely
pleased, though it is a gloomy joy, with the application of Dr. Swift's
complaint, that he is forced to die in a rage, like a rat in a poisoned
hole." Let the lover of solitude muse on its picture throughout the year,
in this stanza, by the same amiable but suffering poet:--

Tedious again to curse the drizzling day,
Again to trace the wintry tracks of snow,
Or, soothed by vernal airs, again survey
The self-same hawthorns bud, and cowslips blow.

Swift's letters paint with terrifying colours a picture of solitude;
and at length his despair closed with idiotism. Even the playful muse
of GRESSET throws a sombre querulousness over the solitude of men of
genius:--

--Je les vois, victimes du genie,
Au foible prix d'un eclat passager,
Vivre isoles, sans jouir de la vie!
Vingt ans d'ennuis pour quelques jours de gloire.

Such are the necessity, the pleasures, and the inconveniences of solitude!
It ceases to be a question whether men of genius should blend with the
masses of society; for whether in solitude, or in the world, of all others
they must learn to live with themselves. It is in the world that they
borrow the sparks of thought that fly upwards and perish but the flame of
genius can only be lighted in their own solitary breast.

[Footnote A: See the article on Cowley in "Calamities of Authors."]

CHAPTER XI.

The meditations of genius.--A work on the art of meditation not yet
produced.--Predisposing the mind.--Imagination awakens imagination.
--Generating feelings by music.--Slight habits.--Darkness and silence, by
suspending the exercise of our senses, increase the vivacity of our
conceptions.--The arts of memory.--Memory the foundation of genius.
--Inventions by several to preserve their own moral and literary
character.--And to assist their studies.--The meditations of genius depend
on habit.--Of the night-time.--A day of meditation should precede a day of
composition.--Works of magnitude from sli