Thus the firmest timber is of tardy
growth, and animals generally exceed each other in longevity, in
proportion to the time between their conception and their birth.
The same observation may be extended to the offspring of the mind. Hasty
compositions, however they please at first by flowery luxuriance, and
spread in the sunshine of temporary favour, can seldom endure the change
of seasons, but perish at the first blast of criticism, or frost of
neglect. When Apelles was reproached with the paucity of his
productions, and the incessant attention with which he retouched his
pieces, he condescended to make no other answer than that _he painted
for perpetuity_.
No vanity can more justly incur contempt and indignation than that which
boasts of negligence and hurry. For who can bear with patience the
writer who claims such superiority to the rest of his species, as to
imagine mankind are at leisure for attention to his extemporary sallies,
and that posterity will reposite his casual effusions among the
treasures of ancient wisdom?
Men have sometimes appeared of such transcendent abilities, that their
slightest and most cursory performances excel all that labour and study
can enable meaner intellects to compose; as there are regions of which
the spontaneous products cannot be equalled in other soils by care and
culture.
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