of a wretched life." I do not mean to imply that Leopardi and Eugénie de Guérin regarded existence from the same point of view, or found the same solace for their pain; but that they both struck the keynote of pessimistic philosophy by recognizing that, in this world at least, sorrow outbalances joy, and that it is given to all men to eat their bread in tears. On the other hand, if we are disinclined to take this view, we shall find no lack of guides, both saints and sinners, ready to look the Sphinx smilingly in the face, and puzzle out a different answer to her riddle.
Another curious notion is that poets have a prescriptive right to pessimism, and should feel themselves more or less obliged, in virtue of their craft, to take upon their shoulders the weight of suffering humanity. Mr. James Sully, for instance, whose word, as a student of these matters, cannot be disregarded, thinks it natural and almost inevitable that a true poet should be of a melancholy cast, by reason of the sensitiveness of his moral nature and his exalted sympathy for pain. But it has yet to be proved that poets are a more compassionate race than their obscurer breth-
