To deprive of virtue an orator, poet, or philosopher, it would be as to entitle a man painter, when he has no perception of colors. _Honos alit artes._ A boy who drew a pig, while he intended to make a horse, might, likewise, be considered a painter by a still poorer connoisseur, than the boy himself. An artist cannot reach perfection, or eminence, without that which is requisite. Were two men of equal understanding, and ability; but one virtuous, and the other not, the second might appear eloquent, were he not compared with the former; but he cannot be but a pigmy before the noble virtue. The inspiration of heaven cannot emanate but from heaven. A clown cannot be a genius; and a genius, with the feeling of an unprincipled man--stranger to virtue, cannot speak the language of inspiration. Such an axiom wants no other demonstration. We may find knaves proficient in some manual arts; but, not eminent in the fine arts. When we look at the three Graces of Canova, we must acknowledge that, without the inspiration of a divine mind, which he fostered in his breast, through a life spent with integrity, and labor, those three females, delicately sculpted, could not inspire bystanders with purity, innocence, and love, which, like a perennial spring, emanate from that immortal marble. As in seeing a beautiful woman, whose proportions, though perfect in themselves, the almost imperceptible lines of cunning across her thought, and cheeks, repulse from man’s heart any sympathy of love, thus, if the fire of virtue is wanting in the breast of the orator, poet, or philosopher, he will never be able to inspire men of understanding, perspicacity, and sensibility. A spoiled woman may ensnare a weak man, and a _soit disant_ orator ensnare also an ignorant people. Still, the first cannot be a lady, and the second is but a demagogue. Could Talma impart on the stage those heroic sentiments, had he not been gifted with lofty sentiments, and integrity? A virtuous man is able to delineate the vice he does despise; but a vicious man cannot imitate the heavenly virtue he has not in his breast. Virtue can understand vice; but vice cannot understand virtue. _Ardeat qui vult incendere_, says the virtuous Roman, whose eminent qualities of character, entitled him the father of eloquence. Where is the enlightened nation, who would suffer, or support the orator, poet, or philosopher, were each of these literary men practically, and hypocritically polluting the temple of Virtue, the only Divinity, dictating order to our society? And here, by enlightened nation, I do not mean nations led by the furies of superstition, false religion, or fanaticism, the shame of mankind. Though virtue is not the only requisite faculty to form an eminent artist; still, like the sun in the planetary system, unless it reflects upon every idea, and sentiments of the man of letters, his ideas, and sentiments would remain without animation.