of his situation. GRAY, cold, effeminate, and timid in his
personal, was lofty and awful in his literary character. We see men of
polished manners and bland affections, who, in grasping a pen, are
thrusting a poniard; while others in domestic life with the simplicity of
children and the feebleness of nervous affections, can shake the senate or
the bar with the vehemence of their eloquence and the intrepidity of their
spirit. The writings of the famous BAPTISTA PORTA are marked by the
boldness of his genius, which formed a singular contrast with the
pusillanimity of his conduct when menaced or attacked. The heart may be
feeble, though the mind is strong. To think boldly may be the habit of the
mind, to act weakly may be the habit of the constitution.

[Footnote A: Nothing is more delightful to me in my researches on the
literary character than when I find in persons of unquestionable and high
genius the results of my own discoveries. This circumstance has frequently
happened to confirm my principles. Long after this was published, Madame
de Stael made this important confession in her recent work, "Dix Annees
d'Exil," p. 154. "Je ne pouvais me dissimuler que je n'etais pas une
persoune courageuse; j'ai de la hardiesse dans _l'imagination,_ mais de la
timidite dans la _caractere_."]

However the personal character may contrast with that of their genius,
still are the works themselves genuine, and exist as realities for us--and
were so, doubtless, to the composers themselves in the act of composition.
In the calm of study, a beautiful imagination may convert him whose morals
are corrupt into an admirable moralist, awakening feelings which yet may
be cold in the business of life: as we have shown that the phlegmatic can
excite himself into wit, and the cheerful man delight in "Night Thoughts."
SALLUST, the corrupt Sallust, might retain the most sublime conceptions of
the virtues which were to save the Republic; and STERNE, whose heart was
not so susceptible in ordinary occurrences, while he was gradually
creating incident after incident and touching successive emotions, in
the stories of Le Fevre and Maria, might have thrilled--like some
of his readers. Many have mourned over the wisdom or the virtue they
contemplated, mortified at their own infirmity. Thus, though there may be
no identity between the book and the man, still for us an author is ever
an abstract being, and, as one of the Fathers said--"A dead man may sin
dea