Literary Character of Men of Genius Part 20

Literary fame, which is the sole preserver of all other fame, partic.i.p.ates little, and remotely, in the remuneration and the honours of professional characters. All other professions press more immediately on the wants and attentions of men, than the occupations of LITERARY CHARACTERS, who from their habits are secluded; producing their usefulness often at a late period of life, and not always valued by their own generation.

It is not the commercial character of a nation which inspires veneration in mankind, nor will its military power engage the affections of its neighbours. So late as in 1700 the Italian Gemelli told all Europe that he could find nothing among us but our _writings_ to distinguish us from a people of barbarians. It was long considered that our genius partook of the density and variableness of our climate, and that we were incapacitated even by situation from the enjoyments of those beautiful arts which have not yet travelled to us--as if Nature herself had designed to disjoin us from more polished nations and brighter skies.

At length we have triumphed! Our philosophers, our poets, and our historians, are printed at foreign presses. This is a perpetual victory, and establishes the ascendancy of our genius, as much at least as the commerce and the prowess of England. This singular revolution in the history of the human mind, and by its reaction this singular revolution in human affairs, was effected by a glorious succession of AUTHORS, who have enabled our nation to arbitrate among the nations of Europe, and to possess ourselves of their involuntary esteem by discoveries in science, by principles in philosophy, by truths in history, and even by the graces of fiction; and there is not a man of genius among foreigners who stands unconnected with our intellectual sovereignty. Even had our country displayed more limited resources than its awful powers have opened, and had the sphere of its dominion been enclosed by its island boundaries, if the same _national literary character_ had predominated, we should have stood on the same eminence among our Continental rivals. The small cities of Athens and of Florence will perpetually attest the influence of the literary character over other nations. The one received the tribute of the mistress of the universe, when the Romans sent their youth to be educated at the Grecian city, while the other, at the revival of letters, beheld every polished European crowding to its little court.

In closing this imperfect work by attempting to ascertain the real influence of authors on society, it will be necessary to notice some curious facts in the history of genius.

The distinct literary tastes of different nations, and the repugnance they mutually betray for the master-writers of each other, is an important circ.u.mstance to the philosophical observer. These national tastes originate in modes of feeling, in customs, in idioms, and all the numerous a.s.sociations prevalent among every people. The reciprocal influence of manners on taste, and of taste on manners--of government and religion on the literature of a people, and of their literature on the national character, with other congenial objects of inquiry, still require a more ample investigation. Whoever attempts to reduce this diversity, and these strong contrasts of national tastes to one common standard, by forcing such dissimilar objects into comparative parallels, or by trying them by conventional principles and arbitrary regulations, will often condemn what in truth his mind is inadequate to comprehend, and the experience of his a.s.sociations to combine.

These attempts have been the fertile source in literature of what may be called national prejudices. The French nation insists that the northerns are defective in taste--the taste, they tell us, which is established at Paris, and which existed at Athens: the Gothic imagination of the north spurns at the timid copiers of the Latin cla.s.sics, and interminable disputes prevail in their literature, as in their architecture and their painting. Philosophy discovers a fact of which taste seems little conscious; it is, that genius varies with the soil, and produces a nationality of taste. The feelings of mankind indeed have the same common source, but they must come to us through the medium and by the modifications of society. Love is a universal pa.s.sion, but the poetry of love in different nations is peculiar to each; for every great poet belongs to his country. Petrarch, Lope de Vega, Racine, Shakspeare, and Sadi, would each express this universal pa.s.sion by the most specific differences; and the style that would be condemned as unnatural by one people, might be habitual with another. The _concetti_ of the Italian, the figurative style of the Persian, the swelling grandeur of the Spaniard, the cla.s.sical correctness of the French, are all modifications of genius, relatively true to each particular writer. On national tastes critics are but wrestlers: the Spaniard will still prefer his Lope de Vega to the French Racine, or the English his Shakspeare, as the Italian his Ta.s.so and his Petrarch. Hence all national writers are studied with enthusiasm by their own people, and their very peculiarities, offensive to others, with the natives const.i.tute their excellences. Nor does this perpetual contest about the great writers of other nations solely arise from an a.s.sociation of patriotic glory, but really because these great native writers have most strongly excited the sympathies and conformed to the habitual tastes of their own people.

Hence, then, we deduce that true genius is the organ of its nation. The creative faculty is itself created; for it is the nation which first imparts an impulse to the character of genius. Such is the real source of those distinct tastes which we perceive in all great national authors.

Every literary work, to ensure its success, must adapt itself to the sympathies and the understandings of the people it addresses. Hence those opposite characteristics, which are usually ascribed to the master-writers themselves, originate with the country, and not with the writer. LOPE DE VEGA, and CALDEBON, in their dramas, and CERVANTES, who has left his name as the epithet of a peculiar grave humour, were Spaniards before they were men of genius. CORNEILLE, RACINE, and RABELAIS, are entirely of an opposite character to the Spaniards, having adapted their genius to their own declamatory and vivacious countrymen. PETRARCH and Ta.s.sO display a fancifulness in depicting the pa.s.sions, as BOCCACCIO narrates his facetious stories, quite distinct from the inventions and style of northern writers. SHAKSPEARE is placed at a wider interval from all of them than they are from each other, and is as perfectly insular in his genius as his own countrymen were in their customs, and their modes of thinking and feeling.

Thus the master-writers of every people preserve the distinct national character in their works; and hence that extraordinary enthusiasm with which every people read their own favourite authors; but in which others cannot partic.i.p.ate, and for which, with all their national prejudices, they often recriminate on each other with false and even ludicrous criticism.

But genius is not only the organ of its nation, it is also that of the state of the times; and a great work usually originates in the age.

Certain events must precede the man of genius, who often becomes only the vehicle of public feeling. MACHIAVEL has been reproached for propagating a political system subversive of all human honour and happiness; but was it Machiavel who formed his age, or the age which created Machiavel? Living among the petty princ.i.p.alities of Italy, where stratagem and a.s.sa.s.sination were the practices of those wretched courts, what did that calumniated genius more than lift the veil from a cabinet of bandt.i.ti? MACHIAVEL alarmed the world by exposing a system subversive of all human virtue and happiness, and, whether he meant it or not, certainly led the way to political freedom. On the same principle we may learn that BOCCACCIO would not have written so many indecent tales had not the scandalous lives of the monks engaged public attention. This we may now regret; but the court of Rome felt the concealed satire, and that luxurious and numerous cla.s.s in society never recovered from the chastis.e.m.e.nt.

MONTAIGNE has been censured for his universal scepticism, and for the unsettled notions he drew out on his motley page, which has been attributed to his incapacity of forming decisive opinions. "Que scais-je?"

was his motto, The same accusation may reach the gentle ERASMUS, who alike offended the old catholics and the new reformers. The real source of their vacillations we may discover in the age itself. It was one of controversy and of civil wars, when the minds of men were thrown into perpetual agitation, and opinions, like the victories of the parties, were every day changing sides.

Even in its advancement beyond the intelligence of its own age genius is but progressive. In nature all is continuous; she makes no starts and leaps. Genius is said to soar, but we should rather say that genius climbs. Did the great VERULAM, or RAWLEIGH, or Dr. MORE, emanc.i.p.ate themselves from all the dreams of their age, from the occult agency of witchcraft, the astral influence, and the ghost and demon creed?

Before a particular man of genius can appear, certain events must arise to prepare the age for him. A great commercial nation, in the maturity of time, opened all the sources of wealth to the contemplation of ADAM SMITH.

That extensive system of what is called political economy could not have been produced at any other time; for before this period the materials of this work had but an imperfect existence, and the advances which this sort of science had made were only partial and preparatory. If the principle of Adam Smith's great work seems to confound the happiness of a nation with its wealth, we can scarcely reproach the man of genius, who we shall find is always reflecting back the feelings of his own nation, even in his most original speculations.

In works of pure imagination we trace the same march of the human intellect; and we discover in those inventions, which appear sealed by their originality, how much has been derived from the age and the people in which they were produced. Every work of genius is tinctured by the feelings, and often originates in the events, of the times. The _Inferno_ of DANTE was caught from the popular superst.i.tions of the age, and had been preceded by the gross visions which the monks had forged, usually for their own purposes. "La Citta dolente," and "la perduta gente," were familiar to the imaginations of the people, by the monkish visions, and it seems even by ocular illusions of h.e.l.l, exhibited in Mysteries, with its gulfs of flame, and its mountains of ice, and the shrieks of the condemned.[A] To produce the "Inferno" only required the giant step of genius, in the sombre, the awful, and the fierce, DANTE. When the age of chivalry flourished, all breathed of love and courtesy; the great man was the great lover, and the great author the romancer. It was from his own age that MILTON derived his greatest blemish--the introduction of school-divinity into poetry. In a polemical age the poet, as well as the sovereign, reflected the reigning tastes.

[Footnote A: Sismondi relates that the bed of the river Arno, at Florence, was transformed into a representation of the Gulf of h.e.l.l, in the year 1304; and that all the variety of suffering that monkish imagination had invented was apparently inflicted on real persons, whose shrieks and groans gave fearful reality to the appalling scene.--ED.]

There are accidents to which genius is liable, and by which it is frequently suppressed in a people. The establishment of the Inquisition in Spain at one stroke annihilated all the genius of the country. Cervantes said that the Inquisition had spoilt many of his most delightful inventions; and unquestionably it silenced the wit and invention of a nation whose proverbs attest they possessed them even to luxuriance. All the continental nations have boasted great native painters and architects, while these arts were long truly foreign to us. Theoretical critics, at a loss to account for this singularity, accused not only our climate, but even our diet, as the occult causes of our unfitness to cultivate them.

Yet Montesquieu and Winkelmann might have observed that the air of fens and marshes had not deprived the gross feeders of Holland and Flanders of admirable artists. We have teen outrageously calumniated. So far from any national incapacity, or obtuse feelings, attaching to ourselves in respect to these arts, the n.o.blest efforts had long been made, not only by individuals, but by the magnificence of Henry VIII., who invited to his court Raphael and t.i.tian; but unfortunately only obtained Holbein. A later sovereign, Charles the First, not only possessed galleries of pictures, and was the greatest purchaser in Europe, for he raised their value, but he likewise possessed the taste and the science of the connoisseur.

Something, indeed, had occurred to our national genius, which had thrown it into a stupifying state, from which it is yet hardly aroused. Could those foreign philosophers have ascended to moral causes, instead of vapouring forth fanciful notions, they might have struck at the true cause of the deficiency in our national genius. The jealousy of puritanic fanaticism had persecuted these arts from the first rise of the Reformation in this country. It had not only banished them from our churches and altar-pieces, but the fury of the people, and the "wisdom" of parliament, had alike combined to mutilate and even efface what little remained of painting and sculpture among us. Even within our own times this deadly hostility to art was not extinct; for when a proposal was made gratuitously to decorate our places of worship by a series of religious pictures, and English artists, in pure devotion to Art, zealous to confute the Continental calumniators, asked only for walls to cover, George the Third highly approved of the plan. The design was put aside, as some had a notion that the cultivation of the fine arts in our naked churches was a return to Catholicism. Had this glorious plan been realized, the golden age of English art might have arisen. Every artist would have invented a subject most congenial to his powers. REYNOLDS would have emulated Raphael in the Virgin and Child in the manger, WEST had fixed on Christ raising the young man from the dead, BARRY had profoundly meditated on the Jews rejecting Jesus. Thus did an age of genius perish before its birth! It was on the occasion of this frustrated project that BARRY, in the rage of disappointment, immortalised himself by a gratuitous labour of seven years on the walls of the Society of Arts, for which, it is said, the French government under Buonaparte offered ten thousand pounds.

Thus also it has happened, that we have possessed among ourselves great architects, although opportunities for displaying their genius have been rare. This the fate and fortune of two Englishmen attest. Without the fire of London we might not have shown the world one of the greatest architects, in Sir CHRISTOPHER WREN; had not a St. Paul's been required by the nation he would have found no opportunity of displaying the magnificence of his genius, which even then was mutilated, as the original model bears witness to the world. That great occasion served this n.o.ble architect to multiply his powers in other public edifices: and it is here worth remarking that, had not Charles II. been seized by apoplexy, the royal residence, which was begun at Winchester on a plan of Sir Christopher Wren's, by its magnificence would have raised a Versailles for England.

The fate of INIGO JONES is as remarkable as that of WREN. Whitehall afforded a proof to foreigners that among a people which, before that edifice appeared, was reproached for their total deficiency of feeling for the pure cla.s.sical style of architecture, the true taste could nevertheless exist. This celebrated piece of architecture, however, is but a fragment of a grander composition, by which, had not the civil wars intervened, the fame of Britain would have balanced the glory of Greece, or Italy, or France, and would have shown that our country is more deficient in marble than in genius. Thus the fire of London produces a St.

Paul's, and the civil wars suppress a Whitehall. Such circ.u.mstances in the history of art among nations have not always been developed by those theorists who have calumniated the artists of England.

In the history of genius it is remarkable that its work is often invented, and lies neglected. A close observer of this age pointed out to me that the military genius of that great French captain, who so long appeared to have conquered Europe, was derived from his applying the new principles of war discovered by FOLARD and GUIBERT. The genius of FOLARD observed that, among the changes of military discipline in the practice of war among European nations since the introduction of gunpowder, one of the ancient methods of the Romans had been improperly neglected, and, in his Commentaries on Polybius, Folard revived this forgotten mode of warfare.

GUIBERT, in his great work, "Histoire de la Milice Francaise," or rather the History of the Art of War, adopted Folard's system of charging by columns, and breaking the centre of the enemy, which seems to be the famous plan of our Rodney and Nelson in their maritime battles. But this favourite plan became the ridicule of the military; and the boldness of his pen, with the high confidence of the author, only excited adversaries to mortify his pretensions, and to treat him as a dreamer. From this perpetual opposition to his plans, and the neglect he incurred, GUIBEBT died of "vexation of spirit;" and the last words on the death-bed of this man of genius were, "One day they will know me!" FOLARD and GUIBERT created a BUONAPARTE, who studied them on the field of battle; and he who would trace the military genius who so long held in suspense the fate of the world, may discover all that he performed in the neglected inventions of preceding genius.

Hence also may we deduce the natural gradations of genius. Many men of genius must arise before a particular man of genius can appear. Before HOMER there were other epic poets; a catalogue of their names and their works has come down to us. CORNEILLE could not have been the chief dramatist of France had not the founders of the French drama preceded him, and POPE could not have preceded DRYDEN. It was in the nature of things that a GIOTTO and a CIMABUE should have preceded a RAPHAEL and a MICHAEL ANGELO.

Even the writings of such extravagant geniuses as BRUNO and CAEDAN gave indications of the progress of the human mind; and had RAMUS not shaken the authority of the _Organon_ of Aristotle we might not have had the _Novum Organon_ of BACON. Men slide into their degree in the scale of genius often by the exercise of a single quality which their predecessors did not possess, or by completing what at first was left imperfect. Truth is a single point in knowledge, as beauty is in art: ages revolve till a NEWTON and a LOCKE accomplish what an ARISTOTLE and a DESCARTES began. The old theory of animal spirits, observes Professor Dugald Stewart, was applied by DESCARTES to explain the mental phenomena which led NEWTON into that train of thinking, which served as the groundwork of HARTLEY'S theory of vibrations. The learning of one man makes others learned, and the influence of genius is in nothing more remarkable than in its effects on its brothers. SELDEN'S treatise on the Syrian and Arabian Deities enabled MILTON to comprise, in one hundred and thirty beautiful lines, the two large and learned syntagma which Selden had composed on that abstract subject. LELAND, the father of British antiquities, impelled STOWE to work on his "Survey of London;" and Stowe's "London" inspired CAMDEN'S stupendous "Britannia." Herodotus produced Thucydides, and Thucydides Xenophon. With us HUME, ROBERTSON, and GIBBON rose almost simultaneously by mutual inspiration. There exists a perpetual action and reaction in the history of the human mind. It has frequently been inquired why certain periods seem to have been more favourable to a particular cla.s.s of genius than another; or, in other words, why men of genius appear in cl.u.s.ters. We have theories respecting barren periods, which are only satisfactorily accounted for by moral causes. Genius generates enthusiasm and rivalry; but, having reached the meridian of its cla.s.s, we find that there can be no progress in the limited perfection of human nature. All excellence in art, if it cannot advance, must decline.

Important discoveries are often obtained by accident; but the single work of a man of genius, which has at length changed the character of a people, and even of an age, is slowly matured in meditation. Even the mechanical inventions of genius must first become perfect in its own solitary abode ere the world can possess them. Men of genius then produce their usefulness in privacy; but it may not be of immediate application, and is often undervalued by their own generation.

The influence of authors is so great, while the author himself is so inconsiderable, that to some the cause may not appear commensurate to its effect. When EPICURUS published his doctrines, men immediately began to express themselves with freedom on the established religion, and the dark and fearful superst.i.tions of paganism, falling into neglect, mouldered away. If, then, before the art of multiplying the productions of the human mind existed, the doctrines of a philosopher in ma.n.u.script or by lecture could diffuse themselves throughout a literary nation, it will baffle the algebraist of metaphysics to calculate the unknown quant.i.ties of the propagation of human thought. There are problems in metaphysics, as well as in mathematics, which can never be resolved.

A small portion of mankind appears marked out by nature and by study for the purpose of cultivating their thoughts in peace, and of giving activity to their discoveries, by disclosing them to the people. "Could I,"

exclaims MONTESQUIEU, whose heart was beating with the feelings of a great author, "could I but afford new reasons to men to love their duties, their king, their country, their laws, that they might become more sensible of their happiness under every government they live, and in every station they occupy, I should deem myself the happiest of men!" Such was the pure aspiration of the great author who studied to preserve, by ameliorating, the humane fabric of society. The same largeness of mind characterises all the eloquent friends of the human race. In an age of religious intolerance it inspired the President DE THOU to inculcate, from sad experience and a juster view of human nature, the impolicy as well as the inhumanity of religious persecutions, in that dedication to Henry IV., which Lord Mansfield declared he could never read without rapture. "I was not born for myself alone, but for my country and my friends!" exclaimed the genius which hallowed the virtuous pages of his immortal history.

Even our liberal yet dispa.s.sionate LOCKE restrained the freedom of his inquiries, and corrected the errors which the highest intellect may fall into, by marking out that impa.s.sable boundary which must probably for ever limit all human intelligence; for the maxim which LOCKE constantly inculcates is that "Reason must be the last judge and guide in everything." A final answer to those who propagate their opinions, whatever they may be, with a sectarian spirit, to force the understandings of other men to their own modes of belief, and their own variable opinions. This alike includes those who yield up nothing to the genius of their age to correct the imperfections of society, and those who, opposing all human experience, would annihilate what is most admirable in its inst.i.tutions.

The public mind is the creation of the Master-Writers--an axiom as demonstrable as any in Euclid, and a principle as sure in its operation as any in mechanics. BACON'S influence over philosophy, and GROTICS'S over the political state of society, are still felt, and their principles practised far more than in their own age. These men of genius, in their solitude, and with their views not always comprehended by their contemporaries, became themselves the founders of our science and our legislation. When LOCKE and MONTESQUIEU appeared, the old systems of government were reviewed, the principle of toleration was developed, and the revolutions of opinion were discovered.

A n.o.ble thought of VITRUVIUS, who, of all the authors of antiquity, seems to have been most deeply imbued with the feelings of the literary character, has often struck me by the grandeur and the truth of its conception. "The sentiments of excellent writers," he says, "although their persons be for ever absent, exist in future ages; and in councils and debates are of greater authority than those of the persons who are present."

But politicians affect to disbelieve that abstract principles possess any considerable influence on the conduct of the subject. They tell us that "in times of tranquillity they are not wanted, and in times of confusion they are never heard;" this is the philosophy of men who do not choose that philosophy should disturb their fireside! But it is in leisure, when they are not wanted, that the speculative part of mankind create them, and when they are wanted they are already prepared for the active mult.i.tude, who come, like a phalanx, pressing each other with a unity of feeling and an integrity of force. PALEY would not close his eyes on what was pa.s.sing before him; for, he has observed, that during the convulsions at Geneva, the political theory of ROUSSEAU was prevalent in their contests; while, in the political disputes of our country, the ideas of civil authority displayed in the works of LOCKE recurred in every form. The character of a great author can never be considered as subordinate in society; nor do politicians secretly think so at the moment they are proclaiming it to the world, for, on the contrary, they consider the worst actions of men as of far less consequence than the propagation of their opinions. Politicians have exposed their disguised terrors. Books, as well as their authors, have been tried and condemned. Cromwell was alarmed when he saw the "Oceana" of HARRINGTON, and dreaded the effects of that volume more than the plots of the Royalists; while Charles II. trembled at an author only in his ma.n.u.script state, and in the height of terror, and to the honour of genius, it was decreed, that "Scribere est agere."--"The book of Telemachus," says Madame de Stael, "was a courageous action." To insist with such ardour on the duties of a sovereign, and to paint with such truth a voluptuous reign, disgraced Fenelon at the court of Louis XIV., but the virtuous author raised a statue for himself in all hearts.

Ma.s.sILLON'S _Pet.i.t Careme_ was another of these animated recals of man to the sympathies of his nature, which proves the influence of an author; for, during the contests of Louis XV. with the Parliaments, large editions of this book were repeatedly printed and circulated through the kingdom.

In such moments it is that a people find and know the value of a great author, whose work is the mighty organ which convoys their voice to their governors.

But, if the influence of benevolent authors over society is great, it must not be forgotten that the abuse of this influence is terrific. Authors preside at a tribunal in Europe which is independent of all the powers of the earth--the tribunal of Opinion! But since, as Sophocles has long declared, "Opinion is stronger than Truth," it is unquestionable that the falsest and the most depraved notions are, as long as these opinions maintain their force, accepted as immutable truths; and the mistakes of one man become the crimes of a whole people.

Authors stand between the governors and the governed, and form the single organ of both. Those who govern a nation cannot at the same time enlighten the people, for the executive power is not empirical; and the governed cannot think, for they have no continuity of leisure. The great systems of thought, and the great discoveries in moral and political philosophy, have come from the solitude of contemplative men, seldom occupied in public affairs or in private employments. The commercial world owes to two retired philosophers, LOCKE and SMITH, those principles which dignify trade into a liberal pursuit, and connect it with the happiness and the glory of a people. A work in France, under the t.i.tle of "L'Ami des Hommes," by the Marquis of MIRABEAU, first spread there a general pa.s.sion for agricultural pursuits; and although the national ardour carried all to excess in the reveries of the "Economistes," yet marshes were drained and waste lands inclosed. The "Emilius" of ROUSSEAU, whatever may be its errors and extravagances, operated a complete revolution in modern Europe, by communicating a bolder spirit to education, and improving the physical force and character of man. An Italian marquis, whose birth and habits seemed little favourable to study, operated a moral revolution in the administration of the laws. BECCARIA dared to plead in favour of humanity against the prejudices of many centuries in his small volume on "Crimes and Punishments," and at length abolished torture; while the French advocates drew their principles from that book, rather than from their national code, and our Blackstone quoted it with admiration! LOCKE and VOLTAIRE, having written on "Toleration," have long made us tolerant. In all such cases the authors were themselves entirely unconnected with their subjects, except as speculative writers.

Such are the authors who become universal in public opinion; and it then happens that the work itself meets with the singular fate which that great genius SMEATON said happened to his stupendous "Pharos:" "The novelty having yearly worn off, and the greatest real praise of the edifice being that nothing has happened to it--nothing has occurred to keep the talk of it alive." The fundamental principles of such works, after having long entered into our earliest instruction, become unquestionable as self-evident propositions; yet no one, perhaps, at this day can rightly conceive the great merits of Locke's Treatises on "Education," and on "Toleration;" or the philosophical spirit of Montesquieu, and works of this high order, which first diffused a tone of thinking over Europe. The principles have become so incorporated with our judgment, and so interwoven with our feelings, that we can hardly now imagine the fervour they excited at the time, or the magnanimity of their authors in the decision of their opinions. Every first great monument of genius raises a new standard to our knowledge, from which the human mind takes its impulse and measures its advancement. The march of human thought through ages might be indicated by every great work as it is progressively succeeded by others. It stands like the golden milliary column in the midst of Rome, from which all others reckoned their distances.

But a scene of less grandeur, yet more beautiful, is the view of the solitary author himself in his own study--so deeply occupied, that whatever pa.s.ses before him never reaches his observation, while, working more than twelve hours every day, he still murmurs as the hour strikes; the volume still lies open, the page still importunes--"And whence all this business?" He has made a discovery for us! that never has there been anything important in the active world but what is reflected in the literary--books contain everything, even the falsehoods and the crimes which have been only projected by men! This solitary man of genius is arranging the materials of instruction and curiosity from every country and every age; he is striking out, in the concussion of new light, a new order of ideas for his own times; he possesses secrets which men hide from their contemporaries, truths they dared not utter, facts they dared not discover. View him in the stillness of meditation, his eager spirit busied over a copious page, and his eye sparkling with gladness! He has concluded what his countrymen will hereafter cherish as the legacy of genius--you see him now changed; and the restlessness of his soul is thrown into his very gestures--could you listen to the vaticinator! But the next age only will quote his predictions. If he be the truly great author, he will be best comprehended by posterity, for the result of ten years of solitary meditation has often required a whole century to be understood and to be adopted. The ideas of Bishop BERKELEY, in his "Theory of Vision," were condemned as a philosophical romance, and now form an essential part of every treatise of optics; and "The History of Oracles," by FONTENELLE, says La Harpe, which, in his youth, was censured for its impiety, the centenarian lived to see regarded as a proof of his respect for religion.

"But what influence can this solitary man, this author of genius, have on his nation, when he has none in the very street in which he lives? and it may be suspected as little in his own house, whose inmates are hourly practising on the infantine simplicity which marks his character, and that frequent abstraction from what is pa.s.sing under his own eyes?"

This solitary man of genius is stamping his own character on the minds of his own people. Take one instance, from others far more splendid, in the contrast presented by FRANKLIN and Sir WILLIAM JONES. The parsimonious habits, the money-getting precepts, the wary cunning, the little scruple about means, the fixed intent upon the end, of Dr. FRANKLIN, imprinted themselves on his Americans. Loftier feelings could not elevate a man of genius who became the founder of a trading people, and who retained the early habits of a journeyman; while the elegant tastes of Sir WILLIAM JONES could inspire the servants of a commercial corporation to open new and vast sources of knowledge. A mere company of merchants, influenced by the literary character, enlarges the stores of the imagination and provides fresh materials for the history of human nature.

FRANKLIN, with that calm good sense which is freed from the pa.s.sion of imagination, has himself declared this important truth relating to the literary character:--"I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan; and cutting off all amus.e.m.e.nts, or other employments that would divert his attention, makes the execution of that same plan his sole study and business." Fontenelle was of the same opinion, for he remarks that "a single great man is sufficient to accomplish a change in the taste of his age." The life of GRANVILLE SHARP is a striking ill.u.s.tration of the solitary force of individual character.

It cannot be doubted that the great author, in the solitude of his study, has often created an epoch in the annals of mankind. A single man of genius arose in a barbarous period in Italy, who gave birth not only to Italian, but to European literature. Poet, orator, philosopher, geographer, historian, and antiquary, PETRARCH kindled a line of light through his native land, while a crowd of followers hailed their father-genius, who had stamped his character on the age. DESCARTES, it has been observed, accomplished a change in the taste of his age by the perspicacity and method for which he was indebted to his mathematical researches; and "models of metaphysical a.n.a.lysis and logical discussions"

in the works of HUME and SMITH have had the same influence in the writings of our own time.

Even genius not of the same colossal size may aspire to add to the progressive ma.s.s of human improvement by its own single effort. When an author writes on a national subject, he awakens all the knowledge which slumbers in a nation, and calls around him, as it were, every man of talent; and though his own fame may be eclipsed by his successors, yet the emanation, the morning light, broke from his solitary study. Our naturalist, RAY, though no man was more modest in his claims, delighted to tell a friend that "Since the publication of his catalogue of Cambridge plants, many were prompted to botanical studies, and to herbalise in their walks in the fields." Johnson has observed that "An emulation of study was raised by CHEKE and SMITH, to which even the present age perhaps owes many advantages, without remembering or knowing its benefactors. ROLLIN is only a compiler of history, and to the antiquary he is nothing! But races yet unborn will be enchanted by that excellent man, in whose works 'the heart speaks to the heart,' and whom Montesquieu called 'The Bee of France'." The BACONS, the NEWTONS, and the LEIBNITZES were insulated by their own creative powers, and stood apart from the world, till the dispersers of knowledge became their interpreters to the people, opening a communication between two spots, which, though close to each other, were long separated --the closet and the world! The ADDISONS, the FONTENELLES, and the FEYJOOS, the first popular authors in their nations who taught England, France, and Spain to become a reading people, while their fugitive page imbues with intellectual sweetness every uncultivated mind, like the perfumed mould taken up by the Persian swimmer. "It was but a piece of common earth, but so delicate was its fragrance, that he who found it, in astonishment asked whether it were musk or amber. 'I am nothing but earth; but roses were planted in my soil, and their odorous virtues have deliciously penetrated through all my pores: I have retained the infusion of sweetness, otherwise I had been but a lump of earth!'"

I have said that authors produce their usefulness in privacy, and that their good is not of immediate application, and often unvalued by their own generation. On this occasion the name of EVELYN always occurs to me.

This author supplied the public with nearly thirty works, at a time when taste and curiosity were not yet domiciliated in our country; his patriotism warmed beyond the eightieth year of his age, and in his dying hand he held another legacy for his nation. EVELYN conveys a pleasing idea of his own works and their design. He first taught his countrymen how to plant, then to build: and having taught them to be useful _without doors_, he then attempted to divert and occupy them _within doors_, by his treatises on chalcography, painting, medals, libraries. It was during the days of destruction and devastation both of woods and buildings, the civil wars of Charles the First, that a solitary author was projecting to make the nation delight in repairing their evil, by inspiring them with the love of agriculture and architecture. Whether his enthusiasm was introducing to us a taste for medals and prints, or intent on purifying the city from smoke and nuisances, and sweetening it by plantations of native plants, after having enriched our orchards and our gardens, placed summer-ices on our tables, and varied even the salads of our country; furnishing "a Gardener's Kalendar," which, as Cowley said, was to last as long "as months and years;" whether the philosopher of the Royal Society, or the lighter satirist of the toilet, or the fine moralist for active as well as contemplative life--in all these changes of a studious life, the better part of his history has not yet been told. While Britain retains her awful situation among the nations of Europe, the "Sylva" of EVELYN will endure with her triumphant oaks. In the third edition of that work the heart of the patriot expands at its result; he tells Charles II.

"how many millions of timber trees, besides infinite others, have been propagated and planted _at the instigation and by the sole direction of this work_." It was an author in his studious retreat who, casting a prophetic eye on the age we live in, secured the late victories of our naval sovereignty. Inquire at the Admiralty how the fleets of Nelson have been constructed, and they can tell you that it was with the oaks which the genius of EVELYN planted.[A]

[Footnote A: Since this was first printed, the "Diary" of EVELYN has appeared; and although it could not add to his general character, yet I was not too sanguine in my antic.i.p.ations of the diary of so perfect a literary character, who has shown how his studies were intermingled with the business of life.]

The same character existed in France, where DE SERRES, in 1599, composed a work on the cultivation of mulberry-trees, in reference to the art of raising silkworms. He taught his fellow-citizens to convert a leaf into silk, and silk to become the representative of gold. Our author encountered the hostility of the prejudices of his times, even from Sully, in giving his country one of her staple commodities; but I lately received a medal recently struck in honour of DE SERRES by the Agricultural Society of the Department of the Seine. We slowly commemorate the intellectual characters of our own country; and our men of genius are still defrauded of the debt we are daily incurring of their posthumous fame. Let monuments be raised and let medals be struck! They are sparks of glory which might be scattered through the next age!

There is a singleness and unity in the pursuits of genius which is carried on through all ages, and will for ever connect the nations of the earth.

THE IMMORTALITY OF THOUGHT EXISTS FOR MAN! The veracity of HERODOTUS, after more than two thousand years, is now receiving a fresh confirmation.

The single and precious idea of genius, however obscure, is eventually disclosed; for original discoveries have often been the developments of former knowledge. The system of the circulation of the blood appears to have been obscurely conjectured by SERVETUS, who wanted experimental facts to support his hypothesis: VESALIUS had an imperfect perception of the right motion of the blood: CaeSALPINUS admits a circulation without comprehending its consequences; at length our HARVEY, by patient meditation and penetrating sagacity, removed the errors of his predecessors, and demonstrated the true system. Thus, too, HARTLEY expanded the hint of "the a.s.sociation of ideas" from LOCKE, and raised a system on what LOCKE had only used for an accidental ill.u.s.tration. The beautiful theory of vision by BERKELEY, was taken up by him just where LOCKE had dropped it: and as Professor Dugald Stewart describes, by following out his principles to their remoter consequences, BERKELEY brought out a doctrine which was as true as it seemed novel. LYDGATE'S "Fall of Princes," says Mr. Campbell, "probably suggested to Lord SACKVILLE the idea of his 'Mirror for Magistrates'." The "Mirror for Magistrates" again gave hints to SPENSER in allegory, and may also "have possibly suggested to SHAKSPEARE the idea of his historical plays." When indeed we find that that great original, HOGARTH, adopted the idea of his "Idle and Industrious Apprentice," from the old comedy of _Eastward Hoe_, we easily conceive that some of the most original inventions of genius, whether the more profound or the more agreeable, may thus be tracked in the snow of time.

In the history of genius therefore there is no chronology, for to its votaries everything it has done is PRESENT--the earliest attempt stands connected with the most recent. This continuity of ideas characterizes the human mind, and seems to yield an antic.i.p.ation of its immortal nature.

There is a consanguinity in the characters of men of genius, and a genealogy may be traced among their races. Men of genius in their different cla.s.ses, living at distinct periods, or in remote countries, seem to reappear under another name; and in this manner there exists in the literary character an eternal transmigration. In the great march of the human intellect the same individual spirit seems still occupying the same place, and is still carrying on, with the same powers, his great work through a line of centuries. It was on this principle that one great poet has recently hailed his brother as "the ARIOSTO of the North," and ARIOSTO as "the SCOTT of the South." And can we deny the real existence of the genealogy of genius? Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton! this is a single line of descent!