29/31 These last have abandoned their country; they have changed their name; they have punished themselves with exile in the rage of their disorder. DESCARTES sought in vain, even in his secreted life, for a refuge for his genius; he thought himself persecuted in France, he thought himself calumniated among strangers, and he went and died in Sweden; and little did that man of genius think that his countrymen would beg to have his ashes restored to them. Even the reasoning HUME once proposed to change his name and his country; and I believe did. The great poetical genius of our own times has openly alienated himself from the land of his brothers. |