[246] Vatican, the palace of the pope in Rome, with its celebrated library, museum, and art gallery.
[247] Doric, the oldest, strongest, and simplest of the three styles of Grecian architecture.
[248] Gothic, a pointed style of architecture, prevalent in western Europe in the latter part of the middle ages.
[249] Never imitate. Emerson insists on this doctrine.
[250] Shakespeare (1564-1616), the great English poet and dramatist. He is mentioned in Emerson's writings more than any other character in history, and is taken as the type of the poet in his Representative Men.
"O mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,—like frost and snow, rain and dew, hailstorm and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless or inert,—but that, the further we press in our discoveries, the more we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where the careless eye had seen nothing but accident!"—De Quincy.
[251] Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), American philosopher, statesman, diplomatist, and author. He discovered the identity of lightning with electricity, invented the lightning-rod, went on several diplomatic missions to Europe, was one of the committee that drew up the Declaration of Independence, signed the treaty of Paris, and compiled Poor Richard's Almanac.
[252] Francis Bacon (1561-1626), a famous English philosopher and statesman. He became Lord Chancellor under Elizabeth. He is best known by his Essays; he wrote also the Novum Organum and the Advancement of Learning.