much consequence," particularly when "important and successful." The
self-possession of great authors sustains their own genius by a sense of
their own glory.

Such, then, are some of the domestic treasons of the literary character
against literature--"Et tu, Brute!" But the hero of literature outlives
his assassins, and might address them in that language of poetry
and affection with which a Mexican king reproached his traitorous
counsellors:--"You were the feathers of my wings, and the eyelids of my
eyes."

[Footnote A: The claims of Pope to the title of a great poet were denied
in the days of Byron; and occasioned a warm and noble defence of him by
that poet. It has since been found necessary to do the same for Byron,
whom some transcendentalists have attacked.--ED.]




CHAPTER III.

Of artists, in the history of men of literary genius.--Their habits and
pursuits analogous.--The nature of their genius is similar in their
distinct works.--Shown by their parallel eras, and by a common end pursued
by both.


Artists and literary men, alike insulated in their studies, pass through
the same permanent discipline; and thus it has happened that the same
habits and feelings, and the same fortunes, have accompanied men who have