Clairon, before she saw the young actress, and having yet no conception of a theatre--for she had never entered one--had in her soul that latent faculty which creates a dramatic genius.

"Had I not felt like Dido," she once exclaimed, "I could not have thus personified her!" The force of impressions received in the warm susceptibility of the childhood of genius, is probably little known to us; but we may perceive them also working in the _moral character_, which frequently discovers itself in childhood, and which manhood cannot always conceal, however it may alter.

The intellectual and the moral character are unquestionably closely allied.

ERASMUS acquaints us, that Sir THOMAS MORE had something ludicrous in his aspect, tending to a smile,--a feature which his portraits preserve; and that he was more inclined to pleasantry and jesting, than to the gravity of the chancellor.

This circumstance he imputes to Sir Thomas More "being from a child so delighted with humour, that he seemed to be even born for it." And we know that he died as he had lived, with a jest on his lips.