"When I am dead, you will not soon meet with another JOHN HUNTER," said the great anatomist to one of his garrulous friends.

An apology is formed by his biographer for relating the fact, but the weakness is only in the apology.

When HOGARTH was engaged in his work of the _Marriage a-la-Mode_, he said to Reynolds, "I shall very soon gratify the world with such a sight as they have never seen equalled." -- "One of his foibles," adds Northcote, "it is well known, was the excessive high opinion he had of his own abilities." So pronounced Northcote, who had not an atom of his genius.

Was it a _foible_ in Hogarth to cast the glove, when he always more than redeemed the pledge?
CORNEILLE has given a very noble full-length of the sublime egotism which accompanied him through life;[A] but I doubt, if we had any such author in the present day, whether he would dare to be so just to himself, and so hardy to the public.

The self-praise of BUFFON at least equalled his genius; and the inscription beneath his statue in the library of the Jardin des Plantes, which I have been told was raised to him in his lifetime, exceeds all panegyric; it places him alone in nature, as the first and the last interpreter of her works.