ed mean to him, compared with that exalted delight of
addressing, to the literary men of his age, the history of their brothers.
Such are the men, as BACON says of himself, who are "the servants of
posterity,"--

Who scorn delights, and live laborious days!

[Footnote A: Louis Moreri was born in Provence in 1643, and died in 1680,
at the early age of 37, while engaged on a second edition of his great
work. The minister alluded to in the text was M. de Pomponne, Secretary of
State to Louis XIV. until the year 1679.--ED.]

The same enthusiasm inspires the pupils of art consumed by their own
ardour. The young and classical sculptor who raised the statue of Charles
II., placed in the centre of the Royal Exchange, was, in the midst of his
work, advised by his medical friends to desist; for the energy of his
labour, with the strong excitement of his feelings, already had made fatal
inroads in his constitution: but he was willing, he said, to die at the
foot of his statue. The statue was raised, and the young sculptor, with
the shining eye and hectic flush of consumption, beheld it there--returned
home--and died. DROUAIS, a pupil of David, the French painter, was a youth
of fortune, but the solitary pleasure of his youth was his devotion to
Raphael; he was at his studies from four in the morning till night.
"Painting or nothing!" was the cry of this enthusiast of elegance; "First
fame, then amusement," was another. His sensibility was great as his
enthusiasm; and he cut in pieces the picture for which David declared he
would inevitably obtain the prize. "I have had my reward in your
approbation; but next year I shall feel more certain of deserving it," was
the reply of this young enthusiast. Afterwards he astonished Paris with
his "Marius;" but while engaged on a subject which he could never quit,
the principle of life itself was drying up in his veins. HENRY HEADLEY and
KIRKE WHITE were the early victims of the enthusiasm of study, and are
mourned by the few who are organized like themselves.

'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow,
And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low;
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart;
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel
He nursed the pinion which impell'd the steel,
While the same plumage that had warm'd his nes