modestly admits that others had entertained before him. "With grief and fury stung, Prone down the rocky steeps he rush'd along; That this is a sublime description no one can deny. It is a picture drawn by a master-hand, which fills the mind with ideas of power and majesty. But every particle of it originated in sense. What entitles it to the character of Genius we shall very soon perceive; but let us first advert to the elements of this exquisite piece of composition. "Grief and fury," unhappily, are objects too frequently seen in the world, to leave any question as to whence they were derived; and the "grief and fury" of Neptune have nothing peculiar in them. The next line might have been applied to a less dignified personage than the ruler of the sea; unless we are to fancy the "rocky steep" to be so rugged and precipitous, as to admit of no passage, except to the more than gigantic footsteps of the god. The nodding of the mountains, the shaking of the forests, and the trembling of the earth, are a series of sensible objects, easily understood by every one. And if we must refer all these to the incumbent weight of Neptune, we only see the human figure extended into the mighty ruler of the ocean. Magnify man a thousand, or ten thousand times if necessary, and you make him into a Neptune at once. If this be Genius, who may not possess it? Swift, in his Voyages to Laputa and Brobdignag, manifests it in perfection; for he looked at nature through both ends of the telescope. Let us take another example, from an admired poet of our own. Goldsmith, speaking of the Village Preacher, describes him by the following beautiful simile: "As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm; Here we have an assemblage of sensible objects familiar to many, and easily understood by all mankind. It would be tediously unnecessary to descend to particulars; for it is too clear to need illustration, too obvious to require proof, that these images which delight the mind, and move the passions; which lead us as it were out of ourselves, are still all, all objects of sense. Their very excellency consists in it. But lest some should think that I have here degraded Genius, because I have attempted to remove her from an imaginary throne, I will now proceed to vindicate her claim ; and to assign to her those honours to which she is. entitled. What constitutes the Genius of Homer? First, the vast amplitude of his knowledge. His observation of nature and of art must have been unwearied, and its accuracy extreme. He saw, and heard, and felt every thing that could communicate information by these media. And in his mind, as in a mirror, every object acknowledged the fidelity of its image. This was the foundationstone of his Genius. When this was laid, every thing that he heard from others, found some kindred idea in his own mind, which either illustrated, or enlarged the information he received; and no object, no scene, no circumstance could be mentioned to him, but he found the elements of it already in his possession; whence novelties themselves became immediately familiar to him. Possessed of this rich intellectual store, his labour in producing the Iliad, would be comparatively easy. When he wanted to describe a storm, it was only necessary for him to unlock his cabinet, and the picture was more than half drawn. When he called a council of the gods or of men, (for his gods were little else than men of larger powers) he furnished them with sentiments appropriate to each. Whilst a Jupiter, as well as a Thersites, found archetypes ready formed in his own mind; or, at least, those elements out of which they might easily be moulded. He had ransacked nature for similes; so that no action, circumstance, or appearance could occur, but he had its symbol ready for its illustration. And, lastly, his Genius consisted in the association of ideas which no man before him had united together. And this is the source, the only source of that Invention, which Pope and Johnson declare to be the characteristic of "great Geniuses.” We are now arrived at a very important part of our discussion, and I will endeavour to place it in as clear a light as possible, because I hope, thereby, to banish Genius, in its present acceptation, from the minds of men, and to shew by what path they may every one of them, hope to reach it. But before I proceed to the consideration of this point, it may be necessary to define more accurately, what I understand by Genius. With Johnson and Pope, I think it always includes "invention ;" and sometimes it seems to include something more; or at least, in the higher efforts of Genius. I should consider him a great Genius, who, out of the resources of his own mind, first forms a number of new particular combinations; and, afterwards, unites them so as to produce a whole, that is subservient to some one useful end; or to the establishment of some one important truth. Thus, he is a Genius, though of humble degree, who contrives a more beautiful window, or a more useful porch than was known before; but he who plans and executes a stately edifice, in which symetry and utility are 益 more perfectly united in all the parts, both exterior and interior, than mankind had ever beheld, is a Genius of a higher order. A man "who carves a head upon a cherry stone," or writes a sonnet, may have a kind of Genius; but Milton, who "hews a colossus out of a mountain," and frames an Epic Poem, had a Genius of a sublimer order. The difference does not consist in the kind of excellence, but in the degree of it. The one is an excellence in particulars only; the other in an aggregation of particulars, all judiciously arranged, and all conspiring to complete one grand design: and both owe every thing to invention: whilst invention owes every thing to knowledge and accident; knowledge owes every thing to observation, and observation depends upon sense. To Still, perhaps, it may be asked, whence the knowledge of one man leads to invention, or novelty of combination, more than that of another. this I answer, fearless of a reply, the same dili gence of mind that was employed in the acquisition of knowledge. The man of Genius, is ever arranging, and rearranging the truths with which his mind has been stored by observation, in new forms; ever consider ing them in new relations. Like the Chemist, he is ever experimenting upon his knowledge; always watching results; and, therefore, is ever ready to seize hold of any new combination. Thus, it is not to be presumed that the simile of Goldsmith, D. |