And the meanest things, the very household stuff, associated with the memory of the man of genius, become the objects of our affections. At a festival, in honour of THOMSON the poet, the chair in which he composed part of his "Seasons" was produced, and appears to have communicated some of the raptures to which he was liable who had sat in that chair. RABEIAIS, amongst his drollest inventions, could not have imagined that his old cloak would have been preserved in the university of Montpelier for future doctors to wear on the day they took their degree; nor could SHAKSPEARE have supposed, with all his fancy, that the mulberry-tree which he planted would have been multiplied into relics. But in such instances the feeling is right, with a wrong direction; and while the populace are exhausting their emotions on an old tree, an old chair, and an old cloak, they are paying that involuntary tribute to genius which forms its pride, and will generate the race. CHAPTER XXV. Influence of Authors on society, and of society on Authors.--National tastes a source of literary prejudices.--True Genius always the organ of its nation.--Master-writers preserve the distinct national character. --Genius the organ of the state of the age.--Causes of its suppression in a people.--Often invented, but neglected.--The natural gradations of genius.--Men of Genius produce their usefulness in privacy.--The public mind is now the creation of the public writer.--Politicians affect to deny this principle.--Authors stand between the governors and the governed.--A view of the solitary Author in his study.--They create an epoch in history.--Influence of popular Authors.--The immortality of thought.--The Family of Genius illustrated by their genealogy. Literary fame, which is the sole preserver of all other fame, participates little, and remotely, in the remuneration and the honours of professional characters. All other professions press more immediately on the wants and attentions of men, than the occupations of LITERARY CHARACTERS, who from their habits are secluded; producing their usefulness often at a late period of life, and not always valued by their own generation. It is not the commercial character of a nation which inspires veneration in mankind, nor will its military power engage the affections of its neighbours. So late as in 1700 the Italian Gemelli told all Europe that he could find nothing among us but our _writings_ to distinguish us from a people of barbarians. It was long considered that our genius partook of the density and variableness of our climate, and that we were incapacitated even by situation from the enjoyments of those beautiful arts which have not yet travelled to us--as if Nature herself had designed to disjoin us from more polished nations and brighter skies.