Music:" a variety
of works never tired; it was the single one which exhausted. METASTASIO
looks with delight on his variety, which resembled the fruits in the
garden of Armida--

E mentre spunta l'un, l'altro mature.
While one matures, the other buds and blows.

Nor is it always fame, or any lower motive, which may induce the literary
character to hold an unwearied pen. Another equally powerful exists, which
must remain inexplicable to him who knows not to escape from the
listlessness of life--it is the passion for literary occupation. He whose
eye can only measure the space occupied by the voluminous labours of the
elder Pliny, of a Mazzuchelli, a Muratori, a Montfaucon, and a Gough, all
men who laboured from the love of labour, and can see nothing in that
space but the industry which filled it, is like him who only views a city
at a distance--the streets and the edifices, and all the life and
population within, he can never know. These literary characters projected
their works as so many schemes to escape from uninteresting pursuits; and,
in these folios, how many evils of life did they bury, while their
happiness expanded with their volume! Aulus Gellius desired to live no
longer than he was able to retain the faculty of writing and observing.
The literary character must grow as impassioned with his subject as
AElian-with his "History of Animals;" "wealth and honour I might have
obtained at the courts of princes; but I preferred the delight of
multiplying my knowledge. I am aware that the avaricious and the ambitious
will accuse me of folly; but I have always found most pleasure in
observing the nature of animals, studying their character, and writing
their history."

Even with those who have acquired their celebrity, the love of literary
labour is not diminished--a circumstance recorded by the younger Pliny of
Livy. In a preface to one of his lost books, that historian had said that
he had obtained sufficient glory by his former writings on the Roman
history, and might now repose in silence; but his mind was so restless and
so abhorrent of indolence, that it only felt its existence in literary
exertion. In a similar situation the feeling was fully experienced by
HUME. Our philosopher completed his history neither for money nor for
fame, having then more than a sufficiency of both; but chiefly to indulge
a habit as a resource against indolence.[A] These are the minds which are
without hope if they are without