referred to, which could
never have met the eye of the writer. A learned historian declared to me
of a contemporary, that the latter had appropriated his researches; he
might, indeed, and he had a right to refer to the same originals; but if
his predecessor had opened the sources for him, gratitude is not a
silent virtue. Gilbert Stuart thus lived on Robertson: and as Professor
Dugald Stewart observes, "his curiosity has seldom led him into any path
where the genius and industry of his predecessor had not previously
cleared the way." It is for this reason some authors, who do not care to
trust to the equity and gratitude of their successors, will not furnish
the means of supplanting themselves; for, by not yielding up their
authorities, they themselves become one. Some authors, who are pleased
at seeing their names occur in the margins of other books than their
own, have practised this political management; such as Alexander ab
Alexandro, and other compilers of that stamp, to whose labours of small
value we are often obliged to refer, from the circumstance that they
themselves have not pointed out their authorities.

One word more on this long chapter of QUOTATION. To make a happy one is
a thing not easily to be done.[281] Cardinal du Perron used to say, that
the happy application of a verse from Virgil was worth a talent; and
Bayle, perhaps too much prepossessed in their favour, has insinuated,
that there is not less invention in a just and happy application of a
thought found in a book, than in being the first author of that thought.
The art of quotation requires more delicacy in the practice than those
conceive who can see nothing more in a quotation than an extract.
Whenever the mind of a writer is saturated with the full inspiration of
a great author, a quotation gives completeness to the whole; it seals
his feelings with undisputed authority. Whenever we would prepare the
mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding
on the chords whose tones we are about to harmonise. Perhaps no writers
of our times have discovered more of this delicacy of quotation than the
author of the "Pursuits of Literature;" and Mr. Southey, in some of his
beautiful periodical investigations, where we have often acknowledged
the solemn and striking effect of a quotation from our elder writers.

THE ORIGIN OF DANTE'S INFERNO.

Nearly six centuries have elapsed since the appearance of the great work
of Dant