CHAPTER XIV.
Want of mutual esteem among men of genius often originates in a deficiency of analogous ideas .-- It is not always envy or jealousy which induces men of genius to undervalue each other.
Among men of genius, that want of mutual esteem, usually attributed to envy or jealousy, often originates in a deficiency of analogous ideas, or of sympathy, in the parties.

On this principle, several curious phenomena in the history of genius may be explained.
Every man of genius has a manner of his own; a mode of thinking and a habit of style, and usually decides on a work as it approximates or varies from his own.

When one great author depreciates another, his depreciation has often no worse source than his own taste.

The witty Cowley despised the natural Chaucer; the austere classical Boileau the rough sublimity of Creibillon; the refining Marivaux the familiar Moliere.

Fielding ridiculed Richardson, whose manner so strongly contrasted with his own; and Richardson contemned Fielding, and declared he would not last.