heir
reputation was widely spread, and have perished in poverty, while their
works were enriching the booksellers.

Of the heroes of modern literature the accounts are as copious as they
are sorrowful.

Xylander sold his notes on Dion Cassius for a dinner. He tells us that
at the age of eighteen he studied to acquire glory, but at twenty-five
he studied to get bread.

Cervantes, the immortal genius of Spain, is supposed to have wanted
food; Camoeens, the solitary pride of Portugal, deprived of the
necessaries of life, perished in an hospital at Lisbon. This fact has
been accidentally preserved in an entry in a copy of the first edition
of the Lusiad, in the possession of Lord Holland. It is a note, written
by a friar who must have been a witness of the dying scene of the poet,
and probably received the volume which now preserves the sad memorial,
and which recalled it to his mind, from the hands of the unhappy
poet:--"What a lamentable thing to see so great a genius so ill
rewarded! I saw him die in an hospital in Lisbon, without having a sheet
or shroud, _una sauana_, to cover him, after having triumphed in the
East Indies, and sailed 5500 leagues! What good advice for those who
weary themselves night and day in study without profit!" Camoeens, when
some fidalgo complained that he had not performed his promise in writing
some verses for him, replied, "When I wrote verses I was young, had
sufficient food, was a lover, and beloved by many friends and by the
ladies; then I felt poetical ardour: now I have no spirits, no peace of
mind. See there my Javanese, who asks me for two pieces to purchase
firing, and I have them not to give him." The Portuguese, after his
death, bestowed on the man of genius they had starved, the appellation
of Great![18] Vondel, the Dutch Shakspeare, after composing a number of
popular tragedies, lived in great poverty, and died at ninety years of
age; then he had his coffin carried by fourteen poets, who without his
genius probably partook of his wretchedness.

The great Tasso was reduced to such a dilemma that he was obliged to
borrow a crown for a week's subsistence. He alludes to his distress
when, entreating his cat to assist him, during the night, with the
lustre of her eyes--"_Non avendo candele per iscrivere i suoi versi_!"
having no candle to see to write his verses.

When the liberality of Alphonso enabled Ariosto to build a small house,
it seems that it was but ill furnished. When