[Footnote 58: Bacon was full of crotchets, so to speak. In spring, he would go out for a drive in an open coach while it rained, to receive "the benefit of irrigation," which, he contended, was "most wholesome because of the nitre in the air, and the universal spirit of the world." He had extraordinary notions and indulged them freely, such as dosing himself with chemicals, rhubarb, nitre, saffron, and many other medicines. At every meal his table was abundantly strewn with flowers and sweet herbs.] [Footnote 59: It is curious that St. Pierre's story of Paul and Virginia, which has since proved one of the most popular tales ever written, was at first listened to by the author's friends so coldly that after it was finished he laid it by for months; but when it once got into print the public indorsed it immediately, and fresh editions followed each other in rapid succession.] [Footnote 60: Poor, dear Rogers! Smith was disposed to be a little too hard on him. Some one having asked after Rogers's health in Smith's presence, he replied, "He's not very well." "Why, what's the matter?" rejoined the querist. "Oh, don't you know," said Smith, "he's produced a couplet;" and added: "When our friend is delivered of a couplet with infinite labor and pain, he takes to his bed, has straw laid down, the knocker tied up, expects his friends to call and make inquiries, and the answer at the door invariably is, 'Mr. Rogers and his little couplet are as well as can be expected'!"] [Footnote 61: That excellent and conservative critic, Epes Sargent, says of the author of "Don Juan," "He may have been overrated in his day; but his place in English literature must ever be in the front rank of the immortals." "Byron," said Emerson once, "had large utterance, but little to say,"--a half-truth pointedly expressed; but, alluding to Byron's poems in his later life, acknowledging their captivating energy, Emerson denied having uttered, even in conversation, so derogatory a remark of him who was, with all his limitations, a bard palpably inspired.] [Footnote 62: "I had learned from his works," remarks Lady Blessington, after meeting Landor at Florence, in May, 1825, "to form a high opinion of the man as well as the author. But I was not prepared to find in him the courtly, polished gentleman of high breeding, of manners, deportment, and demeanor, that one might expect to meet with in one who had passed the greater part of his life in courts."] [Footnote 63: This man scornfully renounces your civil organizations,--county and city, or governor or army; is his own navy and artillery, judge and jury, legislature and executive. He has learned his lessons in a bitter school.--_Emerson._]