that to invent
an hypothesis is only a proof of the force of imagination.]

Thus authors and artists may yield no certain indication of their personal
characters in their works. Inconstant men will write on constancy, and
licentious minds may elevate themselves into poetry and piety. We
should be unjust to some of the greatest geniuses if the extraordinary
sentiments which they put into the mouths of their dramatic personages are
maliciously to be applied to themselves. EURIPIDES was accused of atheism
when he introduced a denier of the gods on the stage. MILTON has been
censured by CLARKE for the impiety of Satan; and an enemy of SHAKSPEARE
might have reproached him for his perfect delineation of the accomplished
villain Iago, as it was said that Dr. MOORE was hurt in the opinions of
some by his odious Zeluco. CREBILLON complains of this:--"They charge me
with all the iniquities of Atreus, and they consider me in some places as
a wretch with whom it is unfit to associate; as if all which the mind
invents must be derived from the heart." This poet offers a striking
instance of the little alliance existing between the literary and personal
dispositions of an author. CREBILLON, who exulted, on his entrance into
the French Academy, that he had never tinged his pen with the gall of
satire, delighted to strike on the most harrowing string of the tragic
lyre. In his _Atreus_ the father drinks the blood of his son; in his
_Rhadamistus_ the son expires under the hand of the father; in his
_Electra_, the son assassinates the mother. A poet is a painter of the
soul, but a great artist is not therefore a bad man.

MONTAIGNE appears to have been sensible of this fact in the literary
character. Of authors, he says, he likes to read their little anecdotes
and private passions:--"Car j'ai une singuliere curiosite de connaitre
l'ame et les naifs jugemens de mes auteurs. Il faut bien juger leur
suffisance, mais non pas leurs moeurs, ni eux, par cette montre de leurs
ecrits qu'ils etalent au theatre du monde." Which may be thus translated:
"For I have a singular curiosity to know the soul and simple opinions of
my authors. We must judge of their ability, but not of their manners, nor
of themselves, by that show of their writings which they display on the
theatre of the world." This is very just; are we yet sure, however, that
the simplicity of this old favourite of Europe might not have been as much
a theatrical gesture as the sentimenta