It is hard to refuse these men of genius that _aura vitalis_, of which they are so apt to be liberal to others. Are they not accused of the meanest adulations? When a young writer experiences the notice of a person of some eminence, he has expressed himself in language which transcends that of mortality. A finer reason than reason itself inspires it. The sensation has been expressed with all its fulness by Milton:-- The debt immense of endless gratitude. Who ever pays an "immense debt" in small sums? Every man of genius has left such honourable traces of his private affections; from LOCKE, whose dedication of his great work is more adulative than could be imagined from a temperate philosopher, to CHURCHILL, whose warm eulogiums on his friends beautifully contrast with his satire. Even in advanced age, the man of genius dwells on the praise he caught in his youth from veteran genius, which, like the aloe, will flower at the end of life. When Virgil was yet a youth, it is said that Cicero heard one of his eclogues, and exclaimed with his accustomed warmth, Magna spes altera Romae! "The second hope of mighty Rome!" intending by the first either himself or Lucretius. The words of Cicero were the secret honey on which the imagination of Virgil fed for many a year; for in one of his latest productions, the twelfth book of the AEneid, he applies these very words to Ascanius. So long had the accents of Cicero's praise lingered in the poet's ear! This extreme susceptibility of praise in men of genius is the same exuberant sensibility which is so alive to censure. I have elsewhere fully shown how some have died of criticism.[A] The self-love of genius is perhaps much more delicate than gross.