A well-read writer, with good taste, is one who has the command of the wit of other men; he searches where knowledge is to be found; and though he may not himself excel in invention, his ingenuity may compose one of those agreeable books, the deliciæ of literature, that will out-last the fading meteors of his day.

Education, however indispensable in a cultivated age, produces nothing on the side of genius. When education ends, genius often begins.

Every work of Genius is tinctured by the feelings, and often originates in the events of times.

A learned historian declared to me of a contemporary, that the latter had appropriated his researches; he might, indeed, and he had a right to refer to the same originals; but if his predecessor had opened the sources for him, gratitude is not a silent virtue.

The most noble criticism is that in which the critic is not the antagonist so much as the rival of the author.

Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the production of genius, throwing the reader of a book, or the spectator of a statue, into the very ideal presence whence these works have really originated. A great work always leaves us in a state of musing.

The delights of reading impart the vivacity of youth even to old age.