ined
by a scrutiny of their private lives, conduces to explain not only their
own public conduct, but that of those with whom they have acted. Nothing
of this applies to authors, considered merely as authors. Our business
is with their books,--to understand and to enjoy them. And, of poets
more especially, it is true--that, if their works be good, they contain
within themselves all that is necessary to their being comprehended and
relished. It should seem that the ancients thought in this manner; for
of the eminent Greek and Roman poets, few and scanty memorials were, I
believe, ever prepared; and fewer still are preserved. It is delightful
to read what, in the happy exercise of his own genius, Horace chooses to
communicate of himself and his friends; but I confess I am not so much a
lover of knowledge, independent of its quality, as to make it likely
that it would much rejoice me, were I to hear that records of the Sabine
poet and his contemporaries, composed upon the Boswellian plan, had been
unearthed among the ruins of Herculaneum. You will interpret what I am
writing, _liberally_. With respect to the light which such a discovery
might throw upon Roman manners, there would be reasons to desire it: but
I should dread to disfigure the beautiful ideal of the memories of those
illustrious persons with incongruous features, and to sully the
imaginative purity of their classical works with gross and trivial
recollections. The least weighty objection to heterogeneous details, is
that they are mainly superfluous, and therefore an incumbrance.

But you will perhaps accuse me of refining too much; and it is, I own,
comparatively of little importance, while we are engaged in reading the
_Iliad_, the _Eneid_, the tragedies of _Othello_ and _King Lear_,
whether the authors of these poems were good or bad men; whether they
lived happily or miserably. Should a thought of the kind cross our
minds, there would be no doubt, if irresistible external evidence did
not decide the question unfavourably, that men of such transcendant
genius were both good and happy: and if, unfortunately, it had been on
record that they were otherwise, sympathy with the fate of their
fictitious personages would banish the unwelcome truth whenever it
obtruded itself, so that it would but slightly disturb our pleasure. Far
otherwise is it with that class of poets, the principal charm of whose
writings depends upon the familiar knowledge which they convey of t