A LIST OF BOOKS - JScholarship

4 INTEODUCTORY ESSAY.
particular exercise of his power,—the fact
itself,—which, with its infinite significances,
each of us receives for the first time as a
creation, and is hereafter left to deal with, as,
in proportion to his own intelhgence, he best
may.
We are ignorant, and would fain be
otherwise.
Doubtless, with respect to such a poet, we
covet his biography. We desire to look
back upon the process of gathering together
in a lifetime, the materials of the work we
behold entire ; of elaborating, perhaps under
difficulty and with hindrance, all that is
familiar to our admiration in the apparent
facility of success.
And the inner impulse of
this effort and operation, what induced it 1
Did a soul's dehght in its own extended
sphere of vision set it, for the gratification of
an insuppressible power, on labour, as other
men are set on rest"?
Or did a sense of duty
or of love lead it to communicate its own