taneously pay their tribute of respect, of admiration, or of love.
Many a pilgrimage has he lived to receive, and many a crowd has followed
his footsteps! There are days in the life of genius which repay its
sufferings. DEMOSTHENES confessed he was pleased when even a fishwoman of
Athens pointed him out. CORNEILLE had his particular seat in the theatre,
and the audience would rise to salute him when he entered. At the presence
of RAYNAL in the House of Commons, the Speaker was requested to suspend
the debate till that illustrious foreigner, who had written on the English
parliament, was accommodated with a seat. SPINOSA, when he gained an
humble livelihood by grinding optical glasses, at an obscure village in
Holland, was visited by the first general in Europe, who, for the sake of
this philosophical conference, suspended the march of the army.

In all ages and in all countries has this feeling been created. It is
neither a temporary ebullition nor an individual honour. It comes out of
the heart of man. It is the passion of great souls. In Spain, whatever was
most beautiful in its kind was described by the name of the great Spanish
bard:[A] everything excellent was called a Lope. Italy would furnish a
volume of the public honours decreed to literary men; nor is that spirit
extinct, though the national character has fallen by the chance of
fortune. METASTASIO and TIRABOSCHI received what had been accorded to
PETRARCH and to POGGIO. Germany, patriotic to its literary characters, is
the land of the enthusiasm of genius. On the borders of the Linnet, in the
public walk of Zurich, the monument of GESNER, erected by the votes of his
fellow-citizens attests their sensibility; and a solemn funeral honoured
the remains of KLOPSTOCK, led by the senate of Hamburgh, with fifty
thousand votaries, so penetrated by one universal sentiment, that this
multitude preserved a mournful silence, and the interference of the police
ceased to be necessary through the city at the solemn burial of the man of
genius. Has even Holland proved insensible? The statue of ERASMUS, in
Rotterdam, still animates her young students, and offers a noble example
to her neighbours of the influence even of the sight of the statue of a
man of genius. Travellers never fail to mention ERASMUS when Basle
occupies their recollections; so that, as Bayle observes, "He has rendered
the place of his death as celebrated as that of his birth." In France,
since Francis I. cre