CHAPTER XIII.
Of the jealousy of Genius .-- Jealousy often proportioned to the degree of genius .-- A perpetual fever among Authors and Artists .-- Instances of its incredible excess among brothers and benefactors .-- Of a peculiar species, where the fever consumes the sufferer, without its malignancy.
Jealousy, long supposed to be the offspring of little minds, is not, however, confined to them.

In the literary republic, the passion fiercely rages among the senators as well as among the people.

In that curious self-description which LINNAEUS comprised in a single page, written with the precision of a naturalist, that great man discovered that his constitution was liable to be afflicted with jealousy.

Literary jealousy seems often proportioned to the degree of genius, and the shadowy and equivocal claims of literary honour is the real cause of this terrible fear; for in cases where the object is more palpable and definite than intellectual excellence, jealousy does not appear so strongly to affect the claimant for admiration.

The most beautiful woman, in the season of beauty, is more haughty than jealous; she rarely encounters a rival; and while her claims exist, who can contend with a fine feature or a dissolving glance?
But a man of genius has no other existence than in the opinion of the world; a divided empire would obscure him, and a contested one might prove his annihilation.
The lives of authors and artists exhibit a most painful disease in that jealousy which is the perpetual fever of their existence.