TILLEMONT'S vast labours were traced out in his mind at the early age of nineteen, on reading Baronius; and some of the finest passages in RACINE'S tragedies were composed while a pupil, wandering in the woods of the Port-Royal.

So true is it that the seeds of many of our great literary and scientific works were lying, for many years antecedent to their being given to the world, in a latent state of germination.[A] [Footnote A: I need not to be reminded, that I am not worth mentioning among the illustrious men who have long formed the familiar subjects of my delightful researches.

But with the middling as well as with the great, the same habits must operate.

Early in life, I was struck by the inductive philosophy of Bacon, and sought after a Moral Experimental Philosophy; and I had then in my mind an observation of Lord Bolingbroke's, for I see I quoted it thirty years ago, that "Abstract or general propositions, though never so true, appear obscure or doubtful to us very often till they are explained by examples." So far back as in 1793 I published "A Dissertation on Anecdotes," with the simplicity of a young votary; there I deduced results, and threw out a magnificent project not very practicable.

From that time to the hour I am now writing, my metal has been running in this mould, and I still keep casting philosophy into anecdotes, and anecdotes into philosophy.