"
In like manner, Lacepede was directed to the study of natural
history by the perusal of Buffon's 'Histoire Naturelle,' which he
found in his father's library, and read over and over again until
he almost knew it by heart. Goethe was greatly influenced by the
reading of Goldsmith's 'Vicar of Wakefield,' just at the critical
moment of his mental development; and he attributed to it much of
his best education. The reading of a prose 'Life of Gotz
vou Berlichingen' afterwards stimulated him to delineate his
character in a poetic form. "The figure of a rude, well-meaning
self-helper," he said, "in a wild anarchic time, excited
my deepest sympathy."
Keats was an insatiable reader when a boy; but it was the perusal
of the 'Faerie Queen,' at the age of seventeen, that first lit the
fire of his genius. The same poem is also said to have been the
inspirer of Cowley, who found a copy of it accidentally lying on
the window of his mother's apartment; and reading and admiring it,
he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet.
Coleridge speaks of the great influence which the poems of Bowles
had in forming his own mind. The works of a past age, says he,
seem to a young man to be things of another race; but the writings
of a contemporary "possess a reality for him, and inspire an
actual friendship as of a man for a man. His very admiration is
the wind which fans and feeds his hope.
Pages:
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382