Indeed, if he is able to dispense with a scenario on paper, it can only be because his mind is so clear, and so retentive of its own ideas, as to enable him to carry in his head, always ready for reference, a more or less detailed scheme.

He is not remarkable either as a reasoner or an observer: but he is quick, unaffected, replete with anecdote, various and retentive in his reading, and exceedingly happy in his play upon words, as most scholars are who give their minds this sportive turn.

Making allowance for the fact that most of the poet's autobiographic sketches are emphatically "Dichtang und Wahrheit," we can believe that he was an omnivorous reader"I read eating, read in bed, read when no one else reads"and, having a memory only less retentive than Macaulay's, acquired so much general information as to be suspected of picking it up from Reviews.

"Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men; Wisdom, in minds retentive to their own.