he could not pay her bill. He was the author, as you know, of the opera of Lot; at whose representation the great pun was made-I say the great pun, as we say the great tun of Heidelberg. As one of the performers was singing the line 'L'amour a vaincu Loth,' (vingt culottes,) a voice from the pit cried out, ' Qu' il en donne une a l'auteur !"

Flemming laughed at the unseasonable jest; and then, after a short pause, continued :

"And yet, if you look closely at the causes of these calamities of authors, you will find, that many of them spring from false and exaggerated ideas of poetry and the poetic character; and from disdain of common sense, upon which all character worth having is founded. This comes from keeping aloof from the world, apart from our fellow men; disdainful of society as frivolous. By too much sitting still the body becomes unhealthy; and soon the mind. This is nature's law. She will never see her children wronged. If the mind, which rules the body, ever forgets itself so far as to trample upon its slave, the slave is never generous enough to forgive the injury; but will rise and smite its oppressor. Thus has many a monarch mind been dethroned."

"After all," said the baron, "we must pardon much to men of genius. A delicate organisation renders them keenly susceptible to pain and pleasure. And then they idealise every thing; and, in the moonlight of fancy, even the deformity of vice seems beautiful."

"And this you think should be forgiven?"

"At all events it is forgiven. The world loves a spice of wickedness. Talk as you will about principle,

impulse is more attractive, even when it goes too far. The passions of youth, like unhooded hawks, fly high, with musical bells upon their jesses; and we forget the cruelty of the sport, in the dauntless bearing of the gallant bird."

"And thus doth the world and society corrupt the scholar!" exclaimed Flemming.

Here the baron rang, and ordered a bottle of Prince Metternich. He then very slowly filled his pipe, and began to smoke. Flemming was lost in a day-dream.

CHAPTER VIII.

LITERARY FAME.

But, as

Time has a Doomsday Book, upon whose page: he is continually recording illustrious names. often as a new name is written there, an old one disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated characters, never to be effaced. These are the high nobility of Nature,-lords of the public domain of thought. Posterity shall never question their titles. But those, whose fame lives only in the indiscreet opinion of un. wise men, must soon be as well forgotten as if they had never been. To this great oblivion must most men come. It is better, therefore, that they should soon make up their minds to this; well knowing, that, as their bodies must ere long be resolved into dust again, and their graves tell no tales of them, so must their names likewise be utterly forgotten, and their most cherished thoughts, purposes, and opinions, have no

longer an individual being among men, but be resolved and incorporated into the universe of thought. If, then, the imagination can trace the noble dust of heroes, till we find it stopping a beer-barrel, and know that

"Imperial Cæsar, dead and turned to clay,
May stop a hole to keep the wind away;"

not less can it trace the noble thoughts of great men, till it finds them mouldered into the common dust of conversation, and used to stop men's mouths and patch up theories, to keep out the flaws of opinion. Such, for example, are all popular adages and wise proverbs, which are now resolved into the common mass of thought; their authors forgotten, and having no more an individual being among men.

It is better, therefore, that men should soon make up their minds to be forgotten, and look about them, or within them, for some higher motive in what they do than the approbation of men, which is fame-namely, their duty that they should be constantly and quietly at work, each in his sphere, regardless of effects, and leaving their fame to take care of itself. Difficult must this indeed be, in our imperfection; impossible perhaps to achieve it wholly. Yet the resolute, the indomitable will of man can achieve much,-at times even this victory over himself; being persuaded, that fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.

It has become a common saying, that men of genius are always in advance of their age, which is true. There is something equally true, yet not so common; namely, that of these men of genius, the best and

bravest are in advance, not only of their own age, but of every age. As the German prose-poet says, every possible future is behind them. We cannot suppose that a period of time will ever come, when the world, or any considerable portion of it, shall have come up abreast with these great minds, so as fully to comprehend them.

And, oh! how majestically they walk in history; some like the sun, with all his travelling glories round him-others wrapped in gloom, yet glorious as a night with stars. Through the else silent darkness of the past, the spirit hears their slow and solemn footsteps. Onward they pass, like those hoary elders seen in the sublime vision of an earthly Paradise, attendant angels bearing golden lights before them, and, above and behind, the whole air painted with seven listed colours, as from the trail of pencils!

And yet, on earth, these men were not happy,-not all happy, in the outward circumstance of their lives. They were in want, and in pain, and familiar with prison-bars, and the damp, weeping walls of dungeons! Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those, who, in sorrow and privation, and bodily discomfort, and sickness, which is the shadow of death, have worked right on to the accomplishment of their great purposes; toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling much ;—and then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all unstrung, have laid themselves down in the grave, and slept the sleep of death, and the world talks of them while they sleep!

It would seem, indeed, as if all their sufferings had but sanctified them! As if the death-angel, in passing,

D

had touched them with the hem of his garment, and made them holy! As if the hand of disease had been stretched out over them only to make the sign of the cross upon their souls! And as in the sun's eclipse we can behold the great stars shining in the heavens, so in this life's eclipse have these men beheld the lights of the great eternity, burning solemnly and for ever! This was Flemming's reverie. It was broken by the voice of the baron, suddenly exclaiming

"An angel is flying over the house! Here, in this goblet, fragrant as the honey of Hymettus, fragrant as the wild flowers in the Angel's meadow, I drink to the divinity of thy dreams."

"This is all sunshine," said Flemming as he drank "The wine of the prince, and the prince of wines. By the way, did you ever read that brilliant Italian dithyrambic, Redi's Bacchus in Tuscany? an ode which seems o have been poured out of the author's soul, as from a golden pitcher:

'Filled with the wine,

Of the vine

Benign,

That flames so red in Sansavine.'

He calls the Montepulciano the king of all wines." "Prince Metternich," said the baron, "is greater than any king in Italy; and I wonder that this precious wine has never inspired a German poet to write a Bacchus on the Rhine. Many little songs we have on this theme, but none very extraordinary. The best are Max Schenkendorf's Song of the Rhine, and the Song of Rhine wine, by Claudius, a poet who never drank Rhenish without sugar. We will drink for him a blessing on the Rhine."