of reality; cramped and foiled in
his most strenuous exertions; dissatisfied with his best performances,
disgusted with his fortune, this Man of Letters too often spends his
weary days in conflicts with obscure misery: harassed, chagrined,
debased, or maddened; the victim at once of tragedy and farce; the
last forlorn outpost in the war of Mind against Matter. Many are the
noble souls that have perished bitterly, with their tasks unfinished,
under these corroding woes! Some in utter famine, like Otway; some in
dark insanity, like Cowper and Collins; some, like Chatterton, have
sought out a more stern quietus, and turning their indignant steps
away from a world which refused them welcome, have taken refuge in
that strong Fortress, where poverty and cold neglect, and the thousand
natural shocks which flesh is heir to, could not reach them any more.

Yet among these men are to be found the brightest specimens and the
chief benefactors of mankind! It is they that keep awake the finer
parts of our souls; that give us better aims than power or pleasure,
and withstand the total sovereignty of Mammon in this earth. They are
the vanguard in the march of mind; the intellectual Backwoodsmen,
reclaiming from the idle wilderness new territories for the thought
and the activity of their happier brethren. Pity that from all their
conquests, so rich in benefit to others, themselves should reap so
little! But it is vain to murmur. They are volunteers in this cause;
they weighed the charms of it against the perils: and they must abide
the results of their decision, as all must. The hardships of the
course they follow are formidable, but not all inevitable; and to such
as pursue it rightly, it is not without its great rewards. If an
author's life is more agitated and more painful than that of others,
it may also be made more spirit-stirring and exalted: fortune may
render him unhappy; it is only himself that can make him despicable.
The history of genius has, in fact, its bright side as well as its
dark. And if it is distressing to survey the misery, and what is
worse, the debasement of so many gifted men, it is doubly cheering on
the other hand to reflect on the few, who, amid the temptations and
sorrows to which life in all its provinces and most in theirs is
liable, have travelled through it in calm and virtuous majesty, and
are now hallowed in our memories, not less for their conduct than
their writings. Such men are the flower of th