"]
[Footnote 29: On a leaf of one of his note-books, dated 1808, I find the
following passage from Marmontel, which no doubt struck him as applicable
to the enthusiasm of his own youthful friendships:--"L'amitie, qui dans le
monde est a peine un sentiment, est une passion dans les
cloitres."--_Contes Moraux_.]
[Footnote 30: Mr. D'Israeli, in his ingenious work "On the Literary
Character," has given it as his opinion, that a disinclination to
athletic sports and exercises will be, in general, found among the
peculiarities which mark a youthful genius. In support of this notion
he quotes Beattie, who thus describes his ideal minstrel:--
"Concourse, and noise, and toil, he ever fled,
Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous fray
Of squabbling imps, but to the forest sped."
His highest authority, however, is Milton, who says of himself,
"When I was yet a child, no childish play
To me was pleasing."
Such general rules, however, are as little applicable to the
dispositions of men of genius as to their powers. If, in the instances
which Mr. D'Israeli adduces an indisposition to bodily exertion was
manifested, as many others may be cited in which the directly opposite
propensity was remarkable. In war, the most turbulent of exercises,
AEschylus, Dante, Camoens, and a long list of other poets,
distinguished themselves; and, though it may be granted that Horace
was a bad rider, and Virgil no tennis-player, yet, on the other hand,
Dante was, we know, a falconer as well as swordsman; Tasso, expert
both as swordsman and dancer; Alfieri, a great rider; Klopstock, a
skaiter; Cowper, famous, in his youth, at cricket and foot-ball; and
Lord Byron, pre-eminent in all sorts of exercises.
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