which, if they were strangers, would be a matter of course.

THE ELEMENTS OF GENIUS.

THIS article will derive additional force and interest, if we mention that it is from the pen of Elihu Burritt, "the learned blacksmith," who himself affords a living exemplification of the truth of these remarks.

An individual, with a laudable spirit of emulation, sees men standing upon an eminence which he has determined to reach. He appreciates the nature and necessity of the exertion, and sets himself to work with an earnest assiduity that never tires nor faints. At first, he labors like a prisoner who is trying to dig through the granite dungeon wall with a nail or a knife e; he conceals every stroke from the pub

lic eye, lest his friends and neighbors should laugh at his tortoise step. He goes on: every inch is gained by a painful effort. He bends every opposing circumstance to his service; he lays seige to every obstacle and carries it, as one would carry a redoubt, and turns it against the next obstruction. A steep over-hanging rock blocks up his path and threatens him with destruction. He must scale this, or never ascend another inch. Years roll on, and find him cutting his winding way up the precipitous bulwark : steadily he keeps his eye to the top, until the last niche is finished; and, when he proudly plants his foot upon the vanquished rock, he finds himself the lord of a fortress which commands every other post that intervenes between him and the summit-goal of his ambition. Every obstacle he meets serves only to increase his upward gradation. He reaches the top, and, as he wipes his brow and casts his eye

down his winding path, he sees that all the obstacles he encountered were like friendly though frowning giants that lifted him from one steep to another, till he reached the goal. Did Fortune, Chance, or Native Genius help him up the eminence? No; fortune was his first foe; and he fought with her at every inch, and dragged her with him to the top, a docile prisoner. What did chance do for him in the outset ? It was a screeching phantom, that struck its black wings in his face, and rolled rocks in his path at every step. He braced up his heart and bearded the providence of fate, and allied himself to a more available auxiliary, the common providence of God. But he had native genius on his side? Yes; but it was a genius which he begat himself; it was the legitimate offspring of his own faculties; which he believed and proved were able to produce this attribute of the intellectual soul. He had a mind; and

and that mind

so has every other man; had just so many faculties, and no more. True they were weak at first, and he knew it, and his fellows might have laughed at him for it; but he found by experiment that these faculties, like those of every other man, were endowed with a susceptibility of cultivation and a capacity of strength sufficient for any emergency or attainment. He dared not tell the world so; for it would have been disrespectful to the royal blood of genius, and he would have been denounced a heretic to the established faith. But he went to work in secret, as every man is obliged to do; and he was half way up the eminence before the world knew it. From that point to the apex of his career, he was called and crowned a genius. The prerogatives of this title are fixed with precision, and the ceremonies of the coronation are the same now as they were under the dynasty of Mount Olympus. The

modern process is something after this fashion:

it too.

A man, called a biographer, is sent after the genius, with all the machinery invented for the operation. As soon as the candidate for immortality has ceased to climb, the biographer, or rather biotapher, sets to work might and main. He knows his task and performs He strikes into the base of the eminence, and digs away every footprint of his hero's ascent; he tears away the rocks he scaled, and the shrubs he grasped. He cuts away the acclivity, and shows the man standing upon the jutting edge of a perpendicular mountain, steep and inaccessible as the sides of Gibraltar. One stroke more,

and his work is done; it is the crowning touch of the apotheosis; he writes upon the forehead of his unresisting victim, Nascitur non fit, in glaring capitals; then, turning to the world, exclaims, ECCE HOMO !

This is the history of genius, given