sixty-eighth year, the very
year he died. But he was so sensible of the coyness of the public
taste for what he calls, in a letter to a literary friend, "a tedious
heavy book," that he gave it away to the publisher. "The volume,
too large, brings me no profit. In good truth, the scheme was laid
for conscience' sake, to restore a good old principle that history
should be purely matter of fact, that every reader, by examining and
comparing, may make out a history by his own judgment. I have
collections transcribed for another volume, if the bookseller will
run the hazard of printing." This volume has never appeared, and the
bookseller probably lost a considerable sum by the one published,
which valuable volume is now procured with difficulty.[67]

These laborious authors have commenced their literary life with a
glowing ardour, though the feelings of genius have been obstructed by
those numerous causes which occur too frequently in the life of a
literary man.

Let us listen to STRUTT, whom we have just noticed, and let us learn
what he proposed doing in the first age of fancy.

Having obtained the first gold medal ever given at the Royal Academy,
he writes to his mother, and thus thanks her and his friends for their
deep interest in his success:--

"I will at least strive to the utmost to give my benefactors no reason
to think their pains thrown away. If I should not be able to abound
in riches, yet, by God's help, I will strive to pluck that palm which
the greatest artists of foregoing ages have done before me; _I will
strive to leave my name behind me in the world, if not in the
splendour that some have, at least with +some marks+ of assiduity and
study_; which, I can assure you, shall never be wanting in me. Who can
bear to hear the names of Raphael, Titian, Michael Angelo, &c., the
most famous of the Italian masters, in the mouth of every one, and not
wish to be like them? And to be like them, we must study as they have
done, take such pains, and labour continually like them; the which
shall not be wanting on my side, I dare affirm; so that, should I not
succeed, I may rest contented, and say I have done my utmost. God has
blessed me with a mind to undertake. You, dear madam, will excuse my
vanity; you know me, from my childish days, to have been a vain boy,
always desirous to execute something to gain me praises from every
one; always scheming and imitating whatever I saw done by anybody."

And when Strutt set