d in this list, nor do I know
where he should come in. It is not easy to make room for him and his
reputation together. This great and celebrated man in some of his
works recommends it to pour a bottle of claret into the ground of a
morning, and to stand over it, inhaling the perfumes. So he sometimes
enriched the dry and barren soil of speculation with the fine aromatic
spirit of his genius. His "Essays" and his "Advancement of Learning"
are works of vast depth and scope of observation. The last, though it
contains no positive discoveries, is a noble chart of human intellect,
and a guide to all future inquirers.]

By this time it should seem that some rumour of our whimsical
deliberation had got wind, and had disturbed the _irritabile genus_ in
their shadowy abodes, for we received messages from several candidates
that we had just been thinking of. Gray declined our invitation,
though he had not yet been asked: Gay offered to come and bring in his
hand the Duchess of Bolton, the original Polly: Steele and Addison
left their cards as Captain Sentry and Sir Roger de Coverley: Swift
came in and sat down without speaking a word, and quitted the room as
abruptly: Otway and Chatterton were seen lingering on the opposite
side of the Styx, but could not muster enough between them to pay
Charon his fare: Thomson fell asleep in the boat, and was rowed back
again--and Burns sent a low fellow, one John Barleycorn, an old
companion of his who had conducted him to the other world, to say that
he had during his lifetime been drawn out of his retirement as a show,
only to be made an exciseman of, and that he would rather remain where
he was. He desired, however, to shake hands by his representative--the
hand, thus held out, was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously.

The room was hung round with several portraits of eminent painters.
While we were debating whether we should demand speech with these
masters of mute eloquence, whose features were so familiar to us, it
seemed that all at once they glided from their frames, and seated
themselves at some little distance from us. There was Leonardo with
his majestic beard and watchful eye, having a bust of Archimedes
before him; next him was Raphael's graceful head turned round to the
Fornarina; and on his other side was Lucretia Borgia, with calm,
golden locks; Michael Angelo had placed the model of St. Peter's on
the table before him; Corregio had an angel at his side; Titian was
s