Hannah More tells us that on a certain occasion when she was visiting the Garricks in 1776, David read aloud to herself and Mrs. Garrick her (Hannah's) last poem. "After dinner Garrick read 'Sir Eldred' with all his pathos and all his graces. I think I was never so ashamed in my life; but he read it so superbly that I cried like a child. Only think what a ridiculous thing to cry at the reading of one's own poetry." In another place she says: "Whether my writings have promoted the spiritual welfare of my readers, I know not; but they have enabled me to do good by private charity and public beneficence. I am almost ashamed to say that they have brought me thirty thousand pounds." Burns was affected almost to tears when he heard for the first time George Lockhart, of Glasgow, sing his verses. "I'll be hanged if I knew half their merit until now!" he said. James Hogg, the "Ettrick Shepherd," wrote, "I cannot express what my feelings were at first hearing a song of mine sung by a beautiful young lady in Ettrick to her harpsichord." One recalls in this connection the legend told in Rome of Canova's disguising himself and mingling with the crowd of citizens that he might hear their comments upon a newly unveiled statue just completed by his own hands, and of the great satisfaction he bore away with him at their commendations. Thomas Hood could not suppress his pleasure at listening to the "Song of the Shirt"[161] as sung by the poor sorrowing work-people in the London streets, adapted to rude airs of their own composition. Béranger, the song-writer of France, acknowledged a similar delight in hearing his verses sung upon the Parisian boulevards by the common people. Francis Jacox speaks of the first visit of the old poet Ducis to his beloved master, Louis XVIII., when that monarch graciously recited to him some of his own verses. In an ecstasy of delight Ducis exclaimed: "I am more fortunate than Boileau or Racine; they recited their verses to Louis XIV., but my king recites my verses to me!" Though people are said to be vainer of qualities which they fondly believe they have than of those which they do really possess, still we must allow to genius some latitude in the matter of conceit, since common people exhibit so much of that spirit on no capital at all. Dr. Holmes says of conceit, that "it is to character what salt is to the ocean,--it keeps it sweet and renders it endurable." Perhaps the acme of conceit is reached when Cicero says, "For all my toils and pains I have no recompense here; but hereafter, in heaven, among the immortal gods, I shall look back on my beloved city, and find my reward in seeing her made glorious by my career." Horace, referring to his future fame, says, "I shall not wholly die."