In the history of genius therefore there is no chronology, for to its votaries everything it has done is PRESENT--the earliest attempt stands connected with the most recent. This continuity of ideas characterizes the human mind, and seems to yield an anticipation of its immortal nature. There is a consanguinity in the characters of men of genius, and a genealogy may be traced among their races. Men of genius in their different classes, living at distinct periods, or in remote countries, seem to reappear under another name; and in this manner there exists in the literary character an eternal transmigration. In the great march of the human intellect the same individual spirit seems still occupying the same place, and is still carrying on, with the same powers, his great work through a line of centuries. It was on this principle that one great poet has recently hailed his brother as "the ARIOSTO of the North," and ARIOSTO as "the SCOTT of the South." And can we deny the real existence of the genealogy of genius? Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton! this is a single line of descent! ARISTOTLE, HOBBES, and LOCKE, DESCARTES, and NEWTON, approximate more than we imagine. The same chain of intellect which ARISTOTLE holds, through the intervals of time, is held by them; and links will only be added by their successors. The naturalists PLINY, GESNER, ALDROVANDUS, and BUFFON, derive differences in their characters from the spirit of the times; but each only made an accession to the family estate, while he was the legitimate representative of the family of the naturalists. ARISTOPHANES, MOLIERE, and FOOTE, are brothers of the family of national wits; the wit of Aristophanes was a part of the common property, and Moliere and Foote were Aristophanic. PLUTARCH, LA MOTHE LE VAYER, and BAYLE, alike busied in amassing the materials of human thought and human action, with the same vigorous and vagrant curiosity, must have had the same habits of life. If Plutarch were credulous, La Mothe Le Vayer sceptical, and Bayle philosophical, all that can be said is, that though the heirs of the family may differ in their dispositions, no one will arraign the integrity of the lineal descent. VARRE did for the Romans what PAUSANIAS had done for the Greeks, and MONTFAUCON for the French, and CAMDEN for ourselves.