es. It was on this principle that one great poet
has recently hailed his brother as "the ARIOSTO of the North," and ARIOSTO
as "the SCOTT of the South." And can we deny the real existence of the
genealogy of genius? Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton! this is a
single line of descent!

ARISTOTLE, HOBBES, and LOCKE, DESCARTES, and NEWTON, approximate more than
we imagine. The same chain of intellect which ARISTOTLE holds, through the
intervals of time, is held by them; and links will only be added by their
successors. The naturalists PLINY, GESNER, ALDROVANDUS, and BUFFON, derive
differences in their characters from the spirit of the times; but each
only made an accession to the family estate, while he was the legitimate
representative of the family of the naturalists. ARISTOPHANES, MOLIERE,
and FOOTE, are brothers of the family of national wits; the wit of
Aristophanes was a part of the common property, and Moliere and Foote were
Aristophanic. PLUTARCH, LA MOTHE LE VAYER, and BAYLE, alike busied in
amassing the materials of human thought and human action, with the same
vigorous and vagrant curiosity, must have had the same habits of life.
If Plutarch were credulous, La Mothe Le Vayer sceptical, and Bayle
philosophical, all that can be said is, that though the heirs of the
family may differ in their dispositions, no one will arraign the integrity
of the lineal descent. VARRE did for the Romans what PAUSANIAS had done
for the Greeks, and MONTFAUCON for the French, and CAMDEN for ourselves.

My learned and reflecting friend, whose original researches have enriched
our national history, has this observation on the character of WICKLIFFE:
--"To complete our idea of the importance of Wickliffe, it is only
necessary to add, that as his writings made John Huss the reformer of
Bohemia, so the writings of John Huss led Martin Luther to be the reformer
of Germany; so extensive and so incalculable are the consequences which
sometimes follow from human actions."[A] Our historian has accompanied
this by giving the very feelings of Luther in early life on his first
perusal of the works of John Huss; we see the spark of creation caught at
the moment: a striking influence of the generation of character! Thus a
father-spirit has many sons; and several of the great revolutions in the
history of man have been carried on by that secret creation of minds
visibly operating on human affairs. In the history of the human mind, he
takes an i