Let us regret that the little villa of POPE, and the poetic Leasowes of SHENSTONE, have fallen the victims of property as much as if destroyed by the barbarous hand which cut down the consecrated tree of Shakspeare. The very apartment of a man of genius, the chair he studied in, the table he wrote on, are contemplated with curiosity; the spot is full of local impressions. And all this happens from an unsatisfied desire to see and hear him whom we never can see nor hear; yet, in a moment of illusion, if we listen to a traditional conversation, if we can revive one of his feelings, if we can catch but a dim image, we reproduce this man of genius before us, on whose features we so often dwell. Even the rage of the military spirit has taught itself to respect the abode of genius; and Caesar and Sylla, who never spared the blood of their own Rome, alike felt their spirit rebuked, and alike saved the literary city of Athens. Antiquity has preserved a beautiful incident of this nature, in the noble reply of the artist PROTOGENES. When the city of Rhodes was taken by Demetrius, the man of genius was discovered in his garden, tranquilly finishing a picture. "How is it that you do not participate in the general alarm?" asked the conqueror. "Demetrius, you war against the Rhodians, but not against the fine arts," replied the man of genius. Demetrius had already shown this by his conduct, for he forbade firing that part of the city where the artist resided. The house of the man of genius has been spared amidst contending empires, from the days of Pindar to those of Buffon; "the Historian of Nature's" chateau was preserved from this elevated feeling by Prince Schwartzenberg, as our MARLBOROUGH had performed the same glorious office in guarding the hallowed asylum of FENELON.[A] In the grandeur of Milton's verse we perceive the feeling he associated with this literary honour: The great Emathian conqueror bid spare The house of Pindarus when temple and tower Went to the ground--. [Footnote A: The printing office of Plantyn, at Antwerp, was guarded in a similar manner during the great revolution that separated Holland and Belgium, when a troop of soldiers were stationed in its courtyard. See "Curiosities of Literature," vol. i. p. 77, _note_.--ED.]