ted with the same feelings as the most
ignorant; for when Albert, usually called the Great, an epithet it has
been said that he derived from his name _De Groot_, constructed a
curious piece of mechanism, which sent forth distinct vocal sounds,
Thomas Aquinas was so much terrified at it, that he struck it with his
staff, and, to the mortification of Albert, annihilated the curious
labour of thirty years!

Petrarch was less desirous of the laurel for the honour, than for the
hope of being sheltered by it from the thunder of the priests, by whom
both he and his brother poets were continually threatened. They could
not imagine a poet, without supposing him to hold an intercourse with
some demon. This was, as Abbe Resnel observes, having a most exalted
idea of poetry, though a very bad one of poets. An anti-poetic Dominican
was notorious for persecuting all verse-makers; whose power he
attributed to the effects of _heresy_ and _magic_. The lights of
philosophy have dispersed all these accusations of magic, and have shown
a dreadful chain of perjuries and conspiracies.

Descartes was horribly persecuted in Holland, when he first published
his opinions. Voetius, a bigot of great influence at Utrecht, accused
him of atheism, and had even projected in his mind to have this
philosopher burnt at Utrecht in an extraordinary fire, which, kindled on
an eminence, might be observed by the seven provinces. Mr. Hallam has
observed, that "the ordeal of fire was the great purifier of books and
men." This persecution of science and genius lasted till the close of
the seventeenth century.

"If the metaphysician stood a chance of being burnt as a heretic, the
natural philosopher was not in less jeopardy as a magician," is an
observation of the same writer, which sums up the whole.

POVERTY OF THE LEARNED.

Fortune has rarely condescended to be the companion of genius: others
find a hundred by-roads to her palace; there is but one open, and that a
very indifferent one, for men of letters. Were we to erect an asylum for
venerable genius, as we do for the brave and the helpless part of our
citizens, it might be inscribed, "An Hospital for Incurables!" When even
Fame will not protect the man of genius from Famine, Charity ought. Nor
should such an act be considered as a debt incurred by the helpless
member, but a just tribute we pay in his person to Genius itself. Even
in these enlightened times, many have lived in obscurity, while t