an of letters
as a sacred being amidst their disguised ambition; and the urbanity of
ATTICUS, while it balanced the fierceness of two heroes, Pompey and Caesar,
could even temper the rivalry of genius in the orators Hortensius and
Cicero. A great man of our own country widely differed from the accusers
of Atticus. Sir MATTHEW HALE lived in distracted times, and took the
character of our man of letters for his model, adopting two principles in
the conduct of the Roman. He engaged himself with no party business, and
afforded a constant relief to the unfortunate, of whatever party. He was
thus preserved amidst the contests of the times.

If the personal interests of the man of letters be not deeply involved in
society, his individual prosperity, however, is never contrary to public
happiness. Other professions necessarily exist by the conflict and the
calamities of the community: the politician becomes great by hatching
an intrigue; the lawyer, in counting his briefs; the physician, his
sick-list. The soldier is clamorous for war; the merchant riots on high
prices. But the man of letters only calls for peace and books, to unite
himself with his brothers scattered over Europe; and his usefulness can
only be felt at those intervals, when, after a long interchange of
destruction, men, recovering their senses, discover that "knowledge is
power." BURKE, whose ample mind took in every conception of the literary
character, has finely touched on the distinction between this order of
contemplative men, and the other active classes of society. In addressing
Mr. MALONE, whose real character was that of a man of letters who first
showed us the neglected state of our literary history, BURKE observed--for
I shall give his own words, always too beautiful to alter--"If you are not
called to exert your great talents, and employ your great acquisitions in
the transitory service of your country, which is done in active life, you
will continue to do it that permanent service which it receives from the
labours of those who know how to make the silence of closets more
beneficial to the world than all the noise and bustle of courts, senates,
and camps."

A moving picture of the literary life of a man of letters who was no
author, would have been lost to us, had not PEIRESC found in GASSENDI a
twin spirit. So intimate was the biographer with the very thoughts, so
closely united in the same pursuits, and so perpetual an observer of the
remarkable