He said of the great geniuses of modern ages, that "there were not more than five; Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and Myself." With this spirit he conceived and terminated his great works, and sat in patient meditation at his desk for half a century, till all Europe, even in a state of war, bowed to the modern Pliny.
[Footnote A: See it versified in "Curiosities of Literature," vol.i.

p.
431.] Nor is the vanity of Buffon, and Voltaire, and Rousseau purely national; for men of genius in all ages have expressed a consciousness of the internal force of genius.

No one felt this self-exultation more potent than our HOBBES; who has indeed, in his controversy with Wallis, asserted that there may be nothing more just than self-commendation.[A] There is a curious passage in the "Purgatorio" of DANTE, where, describing the transitory nature of literary fame, and the variableness of human opinion, the poet alludes with confidence to his own future greatness.

Of two authors of the name of Guido, the one having eclipsed the other, the poet writes:-- Cosi ha tolto l'uno all'altro Guido La gloria della lingua; e _forse e nato Chi l'uno e l'altro caccera di nido_.
Thus has one Guido from the other snatch'd The letter'd pride; _and he perhaps is born Who shall drive either from their nest_.[B] [Footnote A: See "Quarrels of Authors," p.

471.] [Footnote B: Cary.] DE THOU, one of the most noble-minded of historians, in the Memoirs of his own life, composed in the third person, has surprised and somewhat puzzled the critics, by that frequent distribution of self-commendation which they knew not how to reconcile with the modesty and gravity with which the President was so amply endowed.