[Footnote A: Haller's death (A.D. 1777) was as remarkable for its calm philosophy, as his life for its happiness. He was a professional surgeon, and continued to the last an attentive and rational observer of the symptoms of the disease which was bringing him to the grave. He transmitted to the University of Gottingen a scientific analysis of his case; and died feeling his own pulse.--ED.] Nor are there wanting instances where this FAMILY GENIUS has been carried down through successive generations: the volume of the father has been continued by a son, or a relative. The history of the family of the ZWINGERS is a combination of studies and inherited tastes. Theodore published, in 1697, a folio herbal, of which his son Frederic gave an enlarged edition in 1744; and the family was honoured by their name having been given to a genus of plants dedicated to their memory, and known in botany by the name of the _Zwingera_. In history and in literature, the family name was equally eminent; the same Theodore continued a great work, "The Theatre of Human Life," which had been begun by his father-in-law, and which for the third time was enlarged by another son. Among the historians of Italy, it is delightful to contemplate this family genius transmitting itself with unsullied probity among the three VILLANIS, and the MALASPINIS, and the two PORTAS. The history of the learned family of the STEPHENS presents a dynasty of literature; and to distinguish the numerous members, they have been designated as Henry I. and Henry II.,--as Robert I., the II., and the III.[A] Our country may exult in having possessed many literary families--the WARTONS, the father and two sons: the BURNEYS, more in number; and the nephews of Milton, whose humble torch at least was lighted at the altar of the great bard.[B] [Footnote A: For an account of them and their works, see "Curiosities of Literature," vol, i. p. 76.] [Footnote B: The Phillips.] No event in literary history is more impressive than the fate of QUINTILIAN; it was in the midst of his elaborate work, which was composed to form the literary character of a son, that he experienced the most terrible affliction in the domestic life of genius--the successive deaths of his wife and his only child. It was a moral earthquake with a single survivor amidst the ruins. An awful burst of parental and literary affliction breaks forth in Quintilian's lamentation,--"My wealth, and my writings, the fruits of a long and painful life, must now be reserved only for strangers; all I possess is for aliens, and no longer mine!" We feel the united agony of the husband, the father, and the man of genius! Deprived of these social consolations, we see JOHNSON call about him those whose calamities exiled them from society, and his roof lodges the blind, the lame, and the poor; for the heart must possess something it can call its own, to be kind to.