t, in solitary rambles, weaving his
airy rhymes, or indulging his gloomy reveries, and he thought loneliness
made the element of a poet. Alas! Dante, Alfieri, even Petrarch might
have taught him, that a poet must have intimate knowledge of men as well
as mountains, if he desire to become the CREATOR. When Shelley, in one
of his prefaces, boasts of being familiar with Alps and glaciers, and
Heaven knows what, the critical artist cannot help wishing that he had
been rather familiar with Fleet Street or the Strand. Perhaps, then,
that remarkable genius might have been more capable of realizing
characters of flesh and blood, and have composed corporeal and
consummate wholes, not confused and glittering fragments.

Though Ernest was attached to Teresa and deeply interested in
Castruccio, it was De Montaigne for whom he experienced the higher and
graver sentiment of esteem. This Frenchman was one acquainted with a
much larger world than that of the Coteries. He had served in the army,
had been employed with distinction in civil affairs, and was of that
robust and healthful moral constitution which can bear with every
variety of social life, and estimate calmly the balance of our moral
fortunes. Trial and experience had left him that true philosopher who
is too wise to be an optimist, too just to be a misanthrope. He enjoyed
life with sober judgment, and pursued the path most suited to himself,
without declaring it to be the best for others. He was a little hard,
perhaps, upon the errors that belong to weakness and conceit--not to
those that have their source in great natures or generous thoughts.
Among his characteristics was a profound admiration for England. His own
country he half loved, yet half disdained. The impetuosity and levity of
his compatriots displeased his sober and dignified notions. He could
not forgive them (he was wont to say) for having made the two grand
experiments of popular revolution and military despotism in vain. He
sympathised neither with the young enthusiasts who desired a republic,
without well knowing the numerous strata of habits and customs upon
which that fabric, if designed for permanence, should be built--nor with
the uneducated and fierce chivalry that longed for a restoration of the
warrior empire--nor with the dull and arrogant bigots who connected all
ideas of order and government with the ill-starred and worn-out dynasty
of the Bourbons. In fact, GOOD SENSE was with him the _principium