tics every
one, who would dare to contradict them. Such scribblers who live by
writing the _interesting_ murders of the day, and all the awful--excuse
the epithet! the _interesting_ calamities, I wanted to say, of this
unpitying globe, are the only individuals who can make money out of their
pen.

To deprive of virtue an orator, poet, or philosopher, it would be as to
entitle a man painter, when he has no perception of colors. _Honos alit
artes._ A boy who drew a pig, while he intended to make a horse, might,
likewise, be considered a painter by a still poorer connoisseur, than the
boy himself. An artist cannot reach perfection, or eminence, without that
which is requisite. Were two men of equal understanding, and ability; but
one virtuous, and the other not, the second might appear eloquent, were he
not compared with the former; but he cannot be but a pigmy before the
noble virtue. The inspiration of heaven cannot emanate but from heaven. A
clown cannot be a genius; and a genius, with the feeling of an
unprincipled man--stranger to virtue, cannot speak the language of
inspiration. Such an axiom wants no other demonstration. We may find
knaves proficient in some manual arts; but, not eminent in the fine arts.
When we look at the three Graces of Canova, we must acknowledge that,
without the inspiration of a divine mind, which he fostered in his breast,
through a life spent with integrity, and labor, those three females,
delicately sculpted, could not inspire bystanders with purity, innocence,
and love, which, like a perennial spring, emanate from that immortal
marble. As in seeing a beautiful woman, whose proportions, though perfect
in themselves, the almost imperceptible lines of cunning across her
thought, and cheeks, repulse from man's heart any sympathy of love, thus,
if the fire of virtue is wanting in the breast of the orator, poet, or
philosopher, he will never be able to inspire men of understanding,
perspicacity, and sensibility. A spoiled woman may ensnare a weak man, and
a _soit disant_ orator ensnare also an ignorant people. Still, the first
cannot be a lady, and the second is but a demagogue.

Could Talma impart on the stage those heroic sentiments, had he not been
gifted with lofty sentiments, and integrity? A virtuous man is able to
delineate the vice he does despise; but a vicious man cannot imitate the
heavenly virtue he has not in his breast. Virtue can understand vice; but
vice cannot understand virtu