[Footnote A: This event happening when London was the chief emporium of books, occasioned many printed just before the time to be excessively rare. The booksellers of Paternoster-row had removed their stock to the vaults below St. Paul's for safety as the fire approached them. Among the stock was Prynne's records, vol. iii., which were all burnt, except a few copies which had been sent into the country, a perfect set has been valued in consequence at one hundred pounds. The rarity of all books published about the era of the great fire of London induced one curious collector, Dr. Bliss, of Oxford, to especially devote himself to gathering such in his library.--ED.] Had the mistaken notions of Sprat not deprived us of Cowley's correspondence, we doubtless had viewed the picture of lonely genius touched by a tender pencil.[A] But we have SHENSTONE, and GRAY, and SWIFT. The heart of Shenstone bleeds in the dead oblivion of solitude: --"Now I am come from a visit, every little uneasiness is sufficient to introduce my whole train of melancholy considerations, and to make me utterly dissatisfied with the life I now lead, and the life I foresee I shall lead. I am angry, and envious, and dejected, and frantic, and disregard all present things, as becomes a madman to do. I am infinitely pleased, though it is a gloomy joy, with the application of Dr. Swift's complaint, that he is forced to die in a rage, like a rat in a poisoned hole." Let the lover of solitude muse on its picture throughout the year, in this stanza, by the same amiable but suffering poet:-- Tedious again to curse the drizzling day, Again to trace the wintry tracks of snow, Or, soothed by vernal airs, again survey The self-same hawthorns bud, and cowslips blow. Swift's letters paint with terrifying colours a picture of solitude; and at length his despair closed with idiotism. Even the playful muse of GRESSET throws a sombre querulousness over the solitude of men of genius:-- --Je les vois, victimes du genie, Au foible prix d'un eclat passager, Vivre isoles, sans jouir de la vie! Vingt ans d'ennuis pour quelques jours de gloire. Such are the necessity, the pleasures, and the inconveniences of solitude! It ceases to be a question whether men of genius should blend with the masses of society; for whether in solitude, or in the world, of all others they must learn to live with themselves. It is in the world that they borrow the sparks of thought that fly upwards and perish but the flame of genius can only be lighted in their own solitary breast. [Footnote A: See the article on Cowley in "Calamities of Authors."] CHAPTER XI.