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with as much clearness and certainty, as Homer, or Euripides. It is obvious, then, that if they did not attain to the same heights, it was because they did not possess an equal portion of energy and feeling, not because they possessed a less portion of intellect. They could not enter into the spirit of their subject, or identify themselves, like these impassioned and glowing writers, with all the interests of humanity. The writer of sublime genius is always the writer of ardent and sympathetic affections, who feels every emotion and passion which he describes in others, whose bosom pants with that noble generosity which is prodigal even of existence, and with that sensibility which sympathizes with sorrows not it's own. In a word, a writer of genius is he who places himself in all the situations in which he places his heroes, who believes himself endowed with every virtue which he confers upon them, elevated by every prospect which he opens to their view, and afflicted by every distress which he obliges them to endure. leads his hero on to battle, the hopes of victory give redoubled ardour to his feelings, and consequently to his imagination; for imagination is only the resumption of feelings with which we were once delighted, and the consequent realization of the scenes by which they were originally produced; or the creation of kindred, ideal scenes, in order to revive kindred feelings and emotions. The anticipations of victory, then, have the same effect upon a writer of genius (by which I shall always understand a writer of feeling) as if he were himself the person who was advancing to the combat. He has all the ardour and enthusiasm of his hero, without any of his fears; and therefore he describes the fight with a degree of animation, strength of colouring, and vigoar of expression, which a writer of less ardent feelings could not communicate to his description if he possessed the combined intellectual powers of Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, and Newton, Genius, then, is a faculty of mind that removes as far as possible from the reasoning or discursive powers; and therefore the term appears to me improperly applied to abstract reasoners. Genius by no means argues strong intellectual powers, for Eur. Mag. Vol. 81. March 1822.

there are instances of men of genius who could never acquire a knowledge of the most obvious truths, simply because they were strictly intellectual. Alfieri says of himself, that he could not he made to understand the fourth proposition of the first book of Euclid for several years. To possess a genius for any art or literary pursuit, is, in fact, to possess a strong attachment to it; and what is this attachment but a modification of feeling. The moment we become attached to any individual pursuit, every thing connected with it discloses itself to our view, as it were intuitively. He who possesses a genius for painting, sees, even before he is acquainted with it's first principles, a thousand charms in that delightful art, which are productive to him of so many pleasures, though they are lost to others who cannot perceive the charms by which they are produced. To form an attachment for any thing, is, therefore, almost the same as becoming acquainted with it's nature. Hence it is, that brothers and sisters know each other's dispositions better in a few years, than they can know the dispositions of others in half a century. A lover knows every movement in the mind of his mistress, or perhaps he is better acquainted with her heart than she is herself. It is, therefore, almost impossible for the nature of any object to escape us, to which we become strongly attached; but we acquire our knowledge of it, not by reasoning but by instinct. A man who has a passion for music would make a greater proficiency in six months, though he had not a particle of reason in his head, than Kant or Euclid would in six years. Genius, then, and impassioned feeling, appear to me synonymous terms; though a late author of an "Essay on Genius" confines it to men of strong intellectual powers alone, and maintains that Pope had too much genius to be a good poet. He who approaches nearest to universal genius, is he to whom nature has granted that exquisite formation or structure of feeling which sympathizes with almost every object that engages his attention, or, in other words, which discovers something in every object which gives him pleasure. But he whose feelings are not so flexible and yielding, and who can only derive plea

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sure from certain objects or pursuits, has only a genius for that particular object or pursuit to which he feels himself attached, and is, consequently, incapable of excelling in any other. To possess the mind of a Locke, or a Newton, however, requires no feeling at all. To distinguish causes from effects, and relations from differences, are operations of mind in which feeling has no concern; and accordingly we find, that abstract reasoners have little feeling to boast of. Locke professed himself to be an enemy to poetry: how well he was qualified to judge of it, and to relish it's beauties, appears from his high eulogium upon one of Blackmore's epics. It would seem, indeed, that much feeling is not favourable to metaphysical or mathematical knowledge. Ardent feelings are always rapid and impetuous in their career, and will not suffer the reasoning faculties to dwell too long upon any object. They are always in search after new enjoyments, and consequently hurry the mind along in search of new objects of delight. Hence feeling is the parent of invention, which is the very soul of genius; for as it hurries the mind from one object to another with great celerity, and as every object suggests a new idea, it soon supplies the mind with that abundance of matter which enriches thought, and gives luxuriance to expression. This is properly what constitutes invention, and this invention is the offspring of feeling. He whose feelings are not impatient of restraint, nor eager of new intellectual enjoyments, who can sit contentedly with his mind fixed upon one object of contemplation, without feeling any busy instinct, or restless impulse, that prompts him to change it, cannot be presumed to possess that richness of imagery, fertility of idea, and splendour of imagination, which results from the inventive or creative faculty. Properly speaking, the poet neither creates nor invents any thing, as has already been shewn in my "Essay on General Literature ;" and therefore what we call creation and invention in poetry, literally means nothing more than the rapidity with which the mind passes from one object to another. This rapidity results from that eagerness with

which our feelings seek after novelty: for if we were satisfied with the first object we met with, and felt no desire to go in pursuit of others, our progress would be slow, our descriptions dull and heavy, and our invention barren and unproductive. The rapidity of idea, therefore, which results from the restlessness of our feelings, their impatience of restraint, and their thirst after novelty, so far from aiding the researches and investigations of the metaphysician, or the philosopher, would frequently obstruct them."One thing at a time," is the motto of rigid science, and therefore the abstract reasoner never goes in search of new ideas, till he first understands the old. Certainty is his object, but this object can be obtained only by advancing step by step. Every new truth must be proved by what went before, not by what may come after, and therefore if he venture prematurely forward, he soon finds himself bewildered in a labyrinth of inexplicable principles, of which, though demonstratively true, he is demonstratively ignorant. If, however, he possess ardent and lively feelings, they eternally prompt him to go forward, and will not permit him to remain brooding over the demonstration of one solitary truth, when nature discloses thousands of more important truths to view, which requires neither proof nor demonstration to manifest their reality. Such, at least, will be the argument of a man of feeling, and therefore he seldom has patience enough to endure that sameness and uniformity of ideas which characterize all abstract pursuits. That luxury of feeling which is the parent of genius, or genius itself, so far, therefore, from aiding or promoting abstract knowledge, can only serve to check it's progress; so that genius seems to be a gift confined to men of ardent and enthusiastic feeling, intellectual powers to men who possess that mildness and gentleness of feeling which leaves the mind always serene and undisturbed, or otherwise that unbending rigidity or inflexibility of feeling which yields not to the influence of external agency, and which is almost equally incapable of pleasure and of pain.

From the two classes of writers

which I have now endeavoured to distinguish, I am naturally led to consider two other classes, which I shall call the second and third, or intermediate classes. The second of these classes seems to be the most numerous of all others, and approaches nearer to the sensists than to the intellectualists. I use these terms to designate two classes of writers for which no language has invented a specific name, simply because they have never been distinguished from each other, the term genius being indiscriminately applied to every writer who excelled in either class. The second class of whom I now treat, are those who unite a considerable portion of the genius or feeling of the first, with the deliberation and judgment of the fourth class. Though I believe they would have obtained higher celebrity if they had consulted their feelings oftener, and cultivated their understandings less, I am still inclined to think, that literature is more indebted to them than to all the other classes of writers put together. Nature perhaps originally endowed many of them with the warmth, feeling, and enthusiasm of the first class, but this enthusiasm does not appear in their writings; for the critical accuracy with which they were taught to examine every sentiment and opinion, moderated, in a very sensible degree, the native energy of their feelings. They always endeavoured to reconcile them with canons of criticism, and principles of taste, sanctioned by the authority of other writers. They did not, however, like the third class, suffer themselves to be guided by authority and principles, whenever they were at variance with their own feelings; for even he who seems to have most respected authority among them, teaches us to "snatch a grace beyond the reach of art." The correctness and delicacy of their feelings taught them to discriminate, and to imitate the beauties of works of taste, of which the fourth class were incompetent to offer an opinion, because to judge of them, they should be felt as well as perceived. Nothing is known to be beautiful until it is first to be so.

Between this and the fourth, there is another class of writers, who seem to have exercised their understandings

more than their feelings, and to have rejected every judgment and sentiment which was not founded on principles of criticism, or dogmas of reasoning. To this class, however, belongs some of the most powerful writers; but their general character is marked rather by an ambition of being great than by the power of attaining to it. They possessed the power, indeed, if they had the skill to use it; and if they had been less, desirous of convincing the world of their intellectual might, they would, no doubt, have impressed a different character upon their works. But they imagined, that while they were guided by rules and first principles, they set the world at defiance, and that mankind should admire them whether they would or would not. They were, however, as much mistaken as the Abbé D'Aubignac, who maintained, after writing his first tragedy, that he was the only author who strictly observed the rules of Aristotle. Unfortunately, however, his tragedy was publicly reprobated, If the class of writers of whom I now treat, confined themselves totally to abstract subjects, the greater part of them would probably rank with the fourth class, but they lost themselves when they made human nature their subject, and still carried their principles and dogmas along with them, Human nature is no subject for reasoning. It is an inexplicable system of laws which are made known to us by observation, but which can never be accounted for by reason. As this class of writers, then, could not relinquish their principles and axioms, they ought to have confined themselves to subjects in which principles and axioms alone could guide them to certainty: nor is there any reason to conclude, that they would not have attained to the highest celebrity in such subjects, from their failure in others. The Abbé whom I have just mentioned obtained a high reputation by his Pratique du Theatre, though he failed in his tragedy, simply because he had principles in abundance to write an elementary work, whereas he wanted that feeling which alone could have made him acquainted with the human heart; for this knowledge, as I have already observed, is not gained by reasoning,

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but by instinct. He failed, therefore, in his tragedy, because it was a subject founded in human nature, with which he could never become acquainted through the medium of reason, or Aristotelian principles. know human nature, we niust study the feelings, and not the thoughts or reasonings, of mankind. It is in this knowledge the third class of writers seem to have been principaly deficient. They wanted good taste, simply because they wanted feeling and abounded in reason. They possessed not, therefore, the delightful enthusiasm of the first class, nor the more tempered ardour and chastened energy of the second. The principal writers belonging to these two classes are,

dency of their genius; as it appears from the observations which I have already made, that two writers may possess equal powers of mind, and possess a genius extremely dissimilar. This dissimilarity will encrease in proportion as they recede from each other to the opposite extremes of reason and of feeling. It does not follow, however, that reason and feeling should be at variance with each other: on the contrary, reason whenever it is founded in truth, and feeling whenever it is founded in nature, will always agree, and approve of each other. But though reason and feeling will agree, they are not still the same;-they are different attributes of mind, or of human nature; and, accordingly, a writer of feeling, though he may carry reason along with him from beginning to end, possesses a very different genius from a writer who has his eye eternally fixed upon reason alone, as the polestar by which his course should be always directed in the pursuits of literature. The writer of feeling seems to be guided by no polestar, and to yield, unhesitatingly, to the impulse of his own feelings, which, however, by a sort of magnetic attraction, guides him with as much certainty in subjects of feeling as the polestar of reason guides the philosopher. He seems to catch reason by inspiration, or, at least, by intuition; so that when he reasons most profoundly, he appears not to reason at all. Whatever he says seems to be said instinctively, and so it is, in general; for wherever the feelings are correct and natural, reason comes unsought for. Reason seems always difficult of access when we labour to obtain her; but when we seem to despise her, and to seek from our own feelings that knowledge of which she is so frugal, she comes unsolicited, and discloses to us the exhaustless treasures of intellect which are committed to her care. The most ardent and impassioned writers, however, exercise their reason as well as the most frigid, but they neither consult it so often, nor are they guided by it when their feelings revolt against the judgment which it pronounces.

In each of the four classes of genius which I have distinguished from each other, there are different orders or gradations of intellect, though the

mental powers of any writer cannot be inferred from the class to which he belongs. But though we cannot infer the merits of any writer from his class, it is certain, however, that the first and fourth classes are the most distinguished. The first class possesses more genius, the fourth stronger intellectual powers. The cause is accounted for by the distinction which I have made between reason and feeling; for reason is the highest exercise of the intellectual powers, and genius the offspring of ardent feelings and impassioned sensibility. The first class we love, because they speak to our hearts; the fourth class we admire, because we find it difficult to pursue them through the depths of science, to investigate with them the attributes of material and immaterial being, and to ascend with them to the contemplation of effects which can be traced only to the universal cause. These writers have done what could be done in the intellectual pursuits to which they devoted themselves; but they are seldom to be depended upon in their views of human nature, though the science with which every man ought to be best acquainted. To know human nature, we must not only reason but feel; and therefore the world is more indebted to the third or middle class of writers than to either the first or fourth class, because they exercised the deliberative and sensitive faculties in nearly an equal degree. The first class never thought of improving mankind. They wrote only to please themselves, and by so doing they have pleased the world. But the world must seek elsewhere for that knowledge which is most valuable; namely, that happy medium of thought in which it is difficult to determine whether the dictates of reason, or the suggestions of feeling, predominate most. He who gives an unlimitted rein to the unexamined impulse of every feeling, must frequently deviate from virtue, or that line of rectitude which all men acknowledge ought to be pursued, even when nature has endowed him with the most amiable disposition; and he whose pride of knowledge, or reliance on the strength of

his own understanding, inclines him to despise feeling, will soon lose all attachment to virtue, because virtue itself is only a modification of feeling. It is not the manner in which we think, but the manner in which we feel, that makes us either virtuous or vicious; and therefore the man who never takes feeling into account, nor suffers himself to be directed by it's secret guidance, will not long retain any feeling to consult, and consequently must become incapable of relishing virtue. It is certain, however, that no writer ever pleased mankind whose sentiments did not appear to be founded in a virtuous feeling. Man is naturally virtuous; and though he may be seduced for a moment to sanction licentious wit by an approving smile, he soon begins to despise it's author. Virtue is not an enemy to pleasure, and therefore a writer may please without corrupting us. "Not to turn human brutal, but to build Divine on human, pleasure came from

heaven:

Pleasure first succours virtue; in return, Virtue gives pleasure an eternal reign." YOUNG.

Having thus attempted to classify the different orders of kindred geniuses, I shall now proceed in my enquiry into the genius of Milton, the class to which he belongs, and the rank which he holds in this class. I shall observe the same method with regard to every poet of whom I shall hereafter treat; so that the reader will be able to perceive, as in a scale of genius, not only the class to which every poet belongs, but also the situation which he holds, or, at least, which I imagine he ought to hold in it. I shall not, however, determine arbitrarily; and the reasons which I shall assign for the rank in which I place him, if they do not convince the reader, may, perhaps, lead him into that train of investigation which will enable him to judge for himself, and to assign him that just degree of elevation in the scale to which his genius entitles him.

M. M. D.