Æolian harps,--soft, soft, like a child's young heart; one likens it to the song of angels; it is among the purest utterances of affection, perhaps the very purest that ever came out of a human soul." Hard indeed seems to have been the fate of the Italian dramatist and poet, Bentivoglio, who, after impoverishing himself in acts of charity, literally selling all and giving the proceeds to the poor, when old and miserable was refused admission into a hospital which he had himself founded in his days of prosperity. Kotzebue, the German author and dramatist, who wrote that remarkable play "The Stranger," was a man beset with morbid melancholy, causing him to pray for death, which came at last by a murderous hand.[116] Philip Massinger, the creator of "Sir Giles Overreach," a dramatic conception almost worthy of Shakespeare, despite his rare and wondrous powers, was the child of adversity. Massinger wrote in conjunction with Beaumont and Fletcher, they getting whatever of credit was earned by the three. In those days, an established writer for the stage would frequently utilize the brains of others of less note, calling them to aid in productions which bore only the employer's name. There seemed to be no sunshine in Massinger's life; it was all in shadow.[117] Could anything be more pathetic than this brief entry in the death chronicle of a London parish, under date of March 20, 1639: "Buried--Philip Massinger--a stranger." Erasmus, the Dutch scholar and philosopher, defrauded of his patrimony while an orphan of tender years, devoted himself to learning, and cheerfully submitted to every deprivation to secure it. While pursuing his studies in Paris he was clothed in rags, and his form was cadaverous from want of food. It was at this time that he wrote to a friend, "As soon as I get any money, I will buy first Greek books and then clothes." Thus nurtured in the school of adversity, he rose to a proud distinction; and to him, more than to any other writer, was attributed the success of the Reformation,--it being expressively remarked that he laid the egg which Luther hatched. If it be true that an atmosphere of hardship is necessary to the nurture of genius, then certainly Erasmus encountered the requisite discipline; but as Dr. Johnson says in his epigrammatic way, "there is a frightful interval between the seed and the timber." Death is the dropping of the flower that the fruit may ripen. Thus fame may follow, but seldom is contemporary; nor does true genius fail to recognize this. Milton's ambition, to use his own words, was, "to leave something, so written, to after ages that they should not willingly let it die;" and Cato said he had rather posterity should inquire why no statues were erected to him, than why they were. Motherwell calls fame "a flower upon a dead man's heart." Were it otherwise, were fame contemporary, it would be but the breath of popular applause, the shallowest phase of reputation. "I always distrust the