Vanity and jealousy--vanity of themselves, jealousy of others--are the great failings which have hitherto tarnished the character and disfigured the biography of literary men. We fear it is destined to continue the same to the end of the world. The qualities which contribute to their greatness, which occasion their usefulness, which insure their fame, are closely allied to failings which too often disfigure their private lives, and form a blot on their memory, when indiscreetly revealed in biography, either by themselves or others. Genius is almost invariably united to susceptibility; and this temperament is unhappily too apt to run into irritability. No one can read D'Israeli's essay on _The Literary Character_, the most admirable of his many admirable works, without being convinced of that. Celebrity of any sort is the natural parent of vanity, and this weakness is in a peculiar manner fostered in poets and romance writers, because their writings interest so warmly the fair, who form the great dispensers of general fame, and convey it in the most flattering form to the author. It would perhaps be unjust to women to say that poets and novelists share in their weaknesses; but it is certain that their disposition is, in general, essentially feminine, and that, as they attract the admiration of the other sex more strongly than any other class of writers, so they are liable in a peculiar degree to the failings, as well as distinguished by the excellencies, by which their female admirers are characterised. We may regret that it is so: we may lament that we cannot find poets and romancers, who to the genius of Byron, or the fancy of Moore, unite the sturdy sense of Johnson, or the simplicity of character of Scott; but it is to be feared such a combination is as rare, and as little to be looked for in general life, as the union of the strength of the war-horse to the fleetness of the racer, or the courage of the mastiff to the delicacy of the greyhound. Adam Smith long ago pointed out the distinction between those who serve and those who amuse mankind; and the difference, it is to be feared, exists not merely between the philosopher and the opera-dancer, but between the instructors of men in every department of thought, and those whose genius is devoted rather to the pleasing of the eye, the melting of the feelings, or the kindling of the imagination. Yet this observation is only generally, not universally, true; and Sir Joshua Reynolds remains a memorable proof that it is possible for an artist to unite the highest genius and most imaginative power of mind to the wisdom of a philosopher, the liberality of a gentleman, the benevolence of a Christian, and the simplicity of a child.