[Footnote 123: Swift has had many biographers; his life has been told by the kindest and most good-natured of men, Scott, who admired but could not bring himself to love him; and by stout old Johnson, who, forced to admit him into the company of poets, receives the famous Irishman, and takes off his hat to him with a bow of surly recognition, scans him from head to foot, and passes over to the other side of the street.--_Thackeray._] [Footnote 124: Swift at one time in his subtle way declared with elaborate reasons, that on the whole it would be impolitic to abolish the Christian religion in England. We have yet to discover a finer piece of irony. His exquisitely ridiculous proposition to utilize for _food_ the babies born in Ireland, so as to prevent their becoming a burden to the country, will also be remembered.] [Footnote 125: It is in the nature of such lords of intellect to be solitary; they are in the world, but not of it; and our minor struggles, brawls, successes, pass over them.--_Thackeray._] [Footnote 126: "In London," says Dawson, "Johnson suffered a great deal from poverty, and made use of many little artifices to eke out his scanty means. All the great kindly acts which his large manly heart prompted him to do cost him much self-denial. When he said that a man could live very well in a garret for one-and-sixpence a week, the statement was not a speculative but an experimental one."] [Footnote 127: Tasso was often obliged to borrow a crown from a friend to pay for his month's lodging. He has left us a pretty sonnet to his cat, in which he begs the light of her eyes to write by, being too poor to purchase a candle.] [Footnote 128: Burton is said to have been, in the intervals of his vapors, the most facetious companion in the university where he was educated. So great was the demand for his "Anatomy of Melancholy," when published, that his publisher is said to have acquired an estate by the sale of it.] [Footnote 129: How appropriate are the lines by Mrs. Browning, dedicated to Cowper's grave:-- "O poets! from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless singing! O Christians! at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was clinging! O men! this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling, Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while we were smiling!"] [Footnote 130: According to Disraeli, Dr. Hawksworth, who was employed by the English Government to write an account of Captain Cook's first voyage, and who was the intimate friend of Dr. Johnson, absolutely died from the effects of severe criticism. He was an extremely graceful, effective, and ready writer.] [Footnote 131: Racine encountered much harsh criticism, which rendered him very unhappy. He told his son in after years that he suffered far more pain from the fault found with his productions than he ever experienced pleasure from their success.]