a thorough-going monomania, especially if it be of that peculiar literary order which insures a broad field and few competitors. In a passionate devotion to Welsh epics or to Provençal pastorals, to Roman antiquities or to Gypsy genealogy, to the most confused epochs of Egyptian history or the most private correspondence of a dead author,—in one or other of these favorite specialties our modern students choose to put forth their powers, and display an astonishing industry and zeal.
There is a story told of a far too cultivated young man, who, after professing a great love for music, was asked if he enjoyed the opera. He did not. Oratorios were then more to his taste. He did not care for them at all. Ballads perhaps pleased him by their simplicity. He took no interest in them whatever. Church music alone was left. He had no partiality for even that. "What is it you do like?" asked his questioner, with despairing persistency; and the answer was vouchsafed her in a single syllable, "Fugues." This exclusiveness of spirit may be detrimental to that broad catholicity on which great minds are nourished, but it has rare charms for its
