[Footnote 115: Perhaps the cause of Dante's struggle through life lay in that reckless sarcasm which prompted his answer to the Prince of Verona, who asked him how he could account for the fact, that in the household of princes the court fool was in greater favor than the philosopher. "Similarity of mind," said the fierce genius, "is all over the world the source of friendship."] [Footnote 116: Kotzebue was fifty-eight years of age when he was assassinated at Mannheim, in 1819, by Karl Ludwig Sand, who was actuated by a fanatical zeal against one whom he considered a traitor to liberty. Kotzebue was a prolific writer, and has left several dramas.] [Footnote 117: The sad lines in his last poem, entitled "Waiting for Death," will long be remembered:-- "Deformed and wrinkled; all that I can crave Is quiet in my grave. Such as live happy hold long life a jewel; But to me thou art cruel If thou end not my tedious misery, And I soon cease to be. Strike, and strike home then; pity unto me, In one short hour's delay, is tyranny!"] [Footnote 118: "Schiller," says Coleridge, "has the material sublime to produce an effect; he sets a whole town on fire, and throws infants with their mothers into the flames, or locks up a father in an old tower. But Shakespeare drops a handkerchief, and the same or greater effect follows."] [Footnote 119: "'Hudibras,'" says Hallam, "was incomparably more popular than 'Paradise Lost.' No poem in our language rose at once to so great reputation; nor can this remarkable popularity be called ephemeral, for it is looked upon to-day as a classic." Butler died in 1680.] [Footnote 120: "Benvenuto Cellini, the jeweller, engraver, poet, musician, soldier, sculptor, and lover: and in all so truly admirable!" His autobiography remained in dusty oblivion for the period of two hundred years after his death before it met the public eye.] [Footnote 121: "We quote a verse from his "Death-Bed Lament," contained in this volume:-- "Deceiving world, that with alluring toys Hast made my life the subject of thy scorn, And scornest now to lend thy fading joys, To out-length my life, whom friends have left forlorn;-- How well are they that die ere they are born, And never see thy slights, which few men shun, Till unawares they helpless are undone!"] [Footnote 122: Before Miller died, he had cleared over eighteen thousand pounds by the publication of "Tom Jones." The number of editions that has been published is almost fabulous. The popularity of Fielding may be judged of from what Dr. Johnson says of his "Amelia": "It was, perhaps, the only book, of which, being printed off betimes one morning, a new edition was called for before night."]