ments, and to have clothed reason in every variety of argument; whilst the thunder of his oratory, equally the theme of admiration, was, from its evanescent nature, doomed to cease with the tempest which gave it birth.

In Painting and Music we have now little remaining, more than the testimony of antiquity; but what that testimony has declared of an Apelles, an Orpheus, and a Terpander, is such as to convince us that the same consummate excellence had been reached in both; whilst, in Architecture, more than two thousand years have rolled away without the addition of almost any thing to it. The very names of the different orders are still Grecian; and the classical soil is still broken up in search of the fragments of ruined temples, and mouldering columns, to guide the hand, and chasten the judgment of modern artists. Unfortunately the authors of these splendid monuments of art perished before their labours, or their names would have been equally the subjects of veneration. To close this imperfect, but brilliant series, Euclid, in abstract science, has presented us with such a masterpiece of consecutive deduction as the world cannot parallel. Invention in all these instances appears to have been rendered barren by early and prolific production.

All these examples of excellence have ever been regarded by mankind as the fruits of minds specially endowed by nature; and the endowment

itself has been denominated Genius. Unhappily the world, impressed by this false notion, has ever shrunk back from their ingenuous labours, as if to cherish hope was madness; since disappointment only could reward toil. As well attempt to follow the eagle without wings, as the daring steps of Genius without a kindred spirit; and such, to the present hour, are the fatal effects of this common, this inveterate, and I fear, incorrigible error. If some few have since raised themselves to the same elevation, it has been by that noble impulse of mind, which taught them that "what man had once done, man might again do." It was an assertion of the inalienable privileges of man.

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But, in confirmation of these desponding opinions, which chain down the buoyant spirit to the earth, let us turn to the sentiments entertained by some of the wisest of mankind respecting Genius. We shall find nothing to encourage us. "Genius," says Dr. Johnson, "consists in great natural powers, directed to some particular end;" where, by "natural powers," we may understand him to mean, mental endowments, as contradistinguished from those acquired powers, which are the result of mental discipline.

In language but little varied, and the same in sentiment, Addison observes, that " among great Geniuses, those few draw the admiration of all the world upon them, and stand up as the prodigies of mankind, who, by the mere strength of their

natural parts, and without any assistance of art or learning, have produced works that were the delight of their own times, and the wonder of posterity." This is the ne plus ultra claim of Genius. But I hope, in the course of this Essay, to prove it as unfounded as it is extravagant.

Pope, in one of his didactic poems, thus admonishes the young adventurer in rhyme;

"Be sure yourself and your own strength to know,
How far your learning, taste, and genius go;
Launch not beyond your depth."

In which it is very clear that he meant by "Genius" some natural powers of mind distinguishable from "learning and taste;" both of which he has here enumerated as among the pre-requisites of the Poet. And this opinion is farther strengthened by the words of the same author in another place, where he says,

In Poets as true Genius is but rare,

True taste, as seldom, is the critic's share;
Both must alike from heaven derive their light,
These born to judge, as well as those to write.

Here we can complain of no ambiguity, for the Bard acquaints us, that Genius, like the Ganges, spoken of by the Oriental Poets, has its origin in heaven. When one page of an author thus furnishes a comment upon another, it renders the text of both too clear to be questioned.

Cicero defines, or rather describes Genius in the following very strong, and almost poetical terms: "Natura ipsa valere, et mentis viribus excitari, et quasi divino quodam spiritu inflari ;" and in his admirable work, de Oratore, he speaks of it in the same tone, and calls it "divina vis ingenii. Whilst Horace, as if he had imbibed the same spirit, breathes almost the same expressions, and identifies "ingenium" with the "mens divinior:" and finally, to complete these authorities, our Poet Akenside, as if translating both, declares

From heaven descends

The flame of Genius to the human breast.

To these quotations, which might be almost indefinitely multiplied, may be added the familiar fable of the Hare and Tortoise, which, whilst it offers a lesson to encourage diligence, also shows, that there is an ability which is peculiar to Genius.

Thus we perceive that among the learned and the vulgar a concurrent opinion prevails, and has ever prevailed, that some men more than others, are endowed with "the great natural powers" of Johnson, or the "strong natural parts" of Addison; with the "divine spirit" of Cicero, or the "flame from Heaven" of Akenside: all of which are varied phrases, expressive of that quality of mind which is, by common consent, denominated Genius.

It would have greatly benefitted the cause of truth, and have rendered the shackles of error more

tolerable, if they who imposed them had pronounced their judgment in conjunction with the evidence upon which it is founded. We should then have seen by what perversion of reason they had concluded upon this fatal doctrine, which "poisons hope and deadens young desire ;" and we might then also have entertained a better chance of emancipation from its thraldom.

In the absence of these, it will be necessary to understand what is literally implied by the term Genius; what is the principal characteristic of those who have reached that envied pitch of human superiority. Dr. Johnson, in one of his periodical papers, says, "there is no genius without invention ;" and Pope, in his Preface to the Iliad, observes, "It is invention that, in different degrees, distinguishes all great Geniuses." Whilst Shakespeare, more explicit than either, in his description of the powers of the Poet's mind, declares, that

"It bodies forth

The forms of things unknown

Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation, and a name."

By "invention," in the passages just cited, and "the forms of things unknown" of the Poet, nothing more can be understood than novelty of combination. Either that metaphysical novelty which consists in the formation of new complex ideas, exemplified in the Calliban and Weird