d above others, merely from the accidental circumstance
of their editors having collected a vast number of notes, which they
resolved to discharge on the public. County histories have been
frequently compiled, and provincial writers have received a temporary
existence, from the accident of some obscure individual being an
inhabitant of some obscure town.

On such literary follies Malebranche has made this refined observation.
The _critics_, standing in some way connected with _the author_, their
_self-love_ inspires them, and abundantly furnishes eulogiums which the
author never merited, that they may thus obliquely reflect some praise
on themselves. This is made so adroitly, so delicately, and so
concealed, that it is not perceived.

The following are strange inventions, originating in the wilful bad
taste of the authors. OTTO VENIUS, the master of Rubens, is the designer
of _Le Theatre moral de la Vie humaine_. In this emblematical history of
human life, he has taken his subjects from Horace; but certainly his
conceptions are not Horatian. He takes every image in a _literal_
sense. If Horace says, "_Misce stultitiam_ CONSILIIS BREVEM," behold,
Venius takes _brevis_ personally, and represents Folly as a _little
short child_! of not above three or four years old! In the emblem which
answers Horace's "_Raro antecedentem scelestum deseruit_ PEDE POENA
CLAUDO," we find Punishment with _a wooden leg_.--And for "PULVIS ET
UMBRA SUMUS," we have a dark burying vault, with _dust_ sprinkled about
the floor, and a _shadow_ walking upright between two ranges of urns.
For "_Virtus est vitium fugere, et sapientia prima stultitia caruisse_,"
most flatly he gives seven or eight Vices pursuing Virtue, and Folly
just at the heels of Wisdom. I saw in an English Bible printed in
Holland an instance of the same taste: the artist, to illustrate "Thou
seest the _mote_ in thy neighbour's eye, but not the _beam_ in thine
own," has actually placed an immense beam which projects from the eye of
the cavalier to the ground![87]

As a contrast to the too obvious taste of VENIUS, may be placed CESARE
DI RIPA, who is the author of an Italian work, translated into most
European languages, the _Iconologia_; the favourite book of the age, and
the fertile parent of the most absurd offspring which Taste has known.
Ripa is as darkly subtle as Venius is obvious; and as far-fetched in his
conceits as the other is literal. Ripa represents Beauty by a naked