a tear into merriment, and makes wrinkles themselves expressive of youth and frolic. No man ever cut his throat with a broad grin on his face. Besides this, a laugh has another merit,- there is no remorse in it; it leaves no sting, except in the sides, and that goes off. Above all, have a good conscience; let there be no bugbears, no frightful fiends in your rear which you dare not turn and look upon; and, in the language of Bacon, “avoid envy, anger-fretting inwards; subtle and knotty inquisitions; joys and exhilarations in excess; sadness not communicated; uncertain hopes; seek variety of delights, rather than surfeit of them; studies that fill the mind with splendid and illustrious objects, as histories, fables, contemplations of nature,"— and you will be able to stave off the foul fiend of melancholy, or, to exorcise him when he has possessed you, better than with all the prescriptions of Chrysippus or Crantor.

THE MODESTY OF GENIUS.

THE question whether genius is conscious of its own

powers, is one which has often been discussed, and upon which the acutest writers have held opposite opinions. In the affirmative we have the opinion of Sterling and others, while the negative is supported by the elaborate and powerful arguments of Carlyle. As a general thing, self-love is so natural to man that it would seem the merest affectation in him to pretend to be superior to it. It is, moreover, hardly too much to affirm that vanity, within certain limits, is almost an indispensable quality. A disposition which, for all practical purposes, is hardly distinguishable from vanity, is a necessary spur to a youth who would do anything great. Without a certain amount of self-confidence, no man would attempt any noble or difficult task, and even a giant-like intellect would expend itself upon the trifles of a dwarf. In almost every community there are certain persons who deem it their mission to dash the vanity of their neighbors. They delight to "take people down," to make them "know their places," as it is called; and if they can but cheat some vain man of his illusions, and rid him of the sense of superiority which is supposed to be so injurious to him as well as insufferable to the lookers on,-if they can only "take the conceit out of him," as the phrase goes,-they fancy they have done. both him and the public a real service. To this end they

are fond of citing certain well-worn illustrations,— such as the paper-kite, which soars into the air because of its lightness; the heavy-laden vessels, of which we see the less the more richly and heavily they are freighted; and the corn, which bends downward when its ears are well filled, while the empty heads wave high in the field. Yet it is positively certain that no human being is the better for feeling insignificant and merely one of a class. Even though his struggles to rise superior to his fortune may take a ridiculous form, he yet may be serving both private and general interests. What, indeed, has been the main charge in the indictment against aristocratic governments, but that they permitted the ambition for distinction only to privileged classes?

A great deal of incense is burned in these days to what are called "self-made men"; yet we may be sure that no man who had had all "the conceit taken out of him" ever yet emancipated himself from "those twin-gaolers of the human heart, low birth and narrow fortune." It has been well said that no young man, however remarkable his talent, could ever have been justified, in cold blood, in taking all knowledge to be his province. The chances of a complete failure were so much greater than the chances of even modified success, that a very exuberant confidence in his own powers was implied in the undertaking. Coleridge, in speaking of vanity, somewhere says: "The decorous manners of this age attach a disproportionate opprobrium to this foible." There is no reason why the self-consciousness of real genius should be offensive. It is only those who "judge all nature from her feet of clay," and who would "pare the mountain to the plain to leave an equal baseness," that will call a man proud or vain because of

his honest and due esteem of himself. Such "just honoring of ourselves" is, as Milton nobly says, "the radical moisture and fountain-head whence every laudable and worthy enterprise issues forth." The Apostle Paul has, with his usual good sense, given the very best advice on this point: “Let no man think more highly of himself than he ought to think," that is, than his talents will justify. It is only when a man exaggerates the merit of trifles, and sneers at the abilities and deeds of others,- when like the fly upon the chariot-wheel, some petty, insignificant human insect boasts that he raises all the dust and hubbub of the world, that our indignation is kindled. We are not so much vexed at a man's turning his own trumpeter, as at his pitching the key-note of his praises too high. But for a man of really profound genius to affect to be unaware of the greatness of his endowments is the most offensive kind of egotism; it is "the pride that apes humility."

Some of the most gifted men the world ever saw have been the most daring of egotists. In reading the writings of Shakspeare, Milton, Byron, and Wordsworth, one is not more struck with the matchless beauty of their creations than with the intense egotism that pervades them, and the lofty confidence with which they anticipate their immortality. It is often this very quality that forms the principal charm of their works. Their poetical heroes, in the majority of cases, are only personifications of their own feelings and passions. Who can doubt that such men have a proud consciousness of their own genius when they dash off some glorious work at a sitting, and with the rapidity and happiness of inspiration?

The Greek and Roman poets did not hesitate to declare that they had reared for themselves in their verse monu

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ments more lasting than brass." "Orna me!" was Cicero's constant cry, and he entreats Lucceius to write a separate history of Catiline's conspiracy, and to publish it quickly, that the consul who crushed the traitor might, while he yet lived, taste the sweetness of his glory. "I spoke with a divine power in the Senate," he writes one day to Atticus; "there never was anything like it." Epicurus wrote to a minister of state, "If you desire glory, nothing can bestow it more than the letters I write to you"; and Seneca quotes the word to Lucilius, adding: "What Epicurus promised to his friend, that I promise to you." When one of the two Guidos, Italian authors, eclipsed the other, Dante wrote:

"Thus has one Guido from the other snatched

The letter'd pride; and he perhaps is born
Who shall drive either from their nest."

Not less conscious of their own abilities, and ready to avow that consciousness to the world, are men of genius in modern times. Shakspeare does not hesitate to say in one of his sonnets:

"Nor marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of Princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme";

and, to a large extent, the interest of his plays depends upon the egotism of his heroes and heroines. Who does not love the egotism of the melancholy Jacques, who fills the forest of Ardenne with the gloom of his own soul; and in what but his proneness to selfish thoughtfulness lies the charm of Hamlet? The most fascinating passages in Othello are those in which the Moor speaks of his fiery love of battle, of his personal appearance and history, and