For this reason I never think myself qualified to judge decisively of any man's faculties, whom I have only known in one degree of elevation; but take some opportunity of attending him from the cellar to the garret, and try upon him all the various degrees of rarefaction and condensation, tension and laxity. If he is neither vivacious aloft, nor serious below, I then consider him as hopeless; but as it seldom happens that I do not find the temper to which the texture of his brain is fitted, I accommodate him in time with a tube of mercury, first marking the point most favorable to his intellects, according to rules which I have long studied, and which I may perhaps reveal to mankind in a complete treatise of barometrical pneumatology. Another cause of the gaiety and sprightliness of the dwellers in garrets is probably the increase of that vertiginous motion, with which we are carried round by the diurnal revolution of the earth. The power of agitation upon the spirits is well known; every man has felt his heart lightened in a rapid vehicle, or on a galloping horse; and nothing is plainer than that he who towers to the fifth story is whirled through more space by every circumrotation, than another that grovels upon the ground floor. The nations between the tropics are known to be fiery, inconstant, inventive, and fanciful, because, living at the utmost length of the earth's diameter, they are carried about with more swiftness than those whom nature has placed nearer to the poles; and, therefore, as it becomes a wise man to struggle with the inconveniences of his country, whenever celerity and acuteness are requisite, we must actuate our languor by taking a few turns round the center in a garret. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 22: From the Preface to the "Dictionary."] [Footnote 23: Paul Beni was an Italian literary critic, who was born in 1552, and died in 1625. He was a professor of theology, philosophy and belles-lettres. The severity of his criticisms created many enemies. He supported Tasso as against the Della Cruscans.] [Footnote 24: From the "Lives of the Poets."] [Footnote 25: Robert Dodsley, publisher, bookseller and author, was born about 1703 and died in 1764.]