"Should I live to perform those things that are already begun, I trust
that your realm shall so well be known, once painted with its native
colours, that it shall give place to the glory of no other region."
The grandeur of this design was a constituent part of the genius of
Leland, but not less, too, was that presaging melancholy which even
here betrays itself, and even more frequently in his verses.
Everything about Leland was marked by his own greatness; his country
and his countrymen were ever present; and, by the excitement of his
feelings, even his humbler pursuits were elevated into patriotism.
Henry died the year after he received the "New Year's Gift." From that
moment, in losing the greatest patron for the greatest work, Leland
appears to have felt the staff which he had used to turn at pleasure
for his stay, break in his hands.
He had new patrons to court, while engaged in labours for which a
single life had been too short. The melancholy that cherishes genius
may also destroy it. Leland, brooding over his voluminous labours,
seemed to love and to dread them; sometimes to pursue them with
rapture, and sometimes to shrink from them with despair. His generous
temper had once shot forwards to posterity; but he now calms his
struggling hopes and doubts, and confines his literary ambition to his
own country and his own age.