Page images
PDF
EPUB

with the degree of proficiency to which he has attained when he has finished it.

He who is now an eminent philosopher or a sublime poet, was formerly neither the one nor the other. Many a man has been overtaken by a premature death, and left nothing behind him but compositions worthy of ridicule and contempt, who, if he had lived, would perhaps have risen to the highest literary eminence. If we could examine the school-exercises of men who have afterwards done honour to mankind, we should often find them inferior to those of their ordinary competitors. If we could dive into the port-folios of their early youth, we should meet with abundant matter for laughter at their senseless incongruities, and for contemptuous astonishment.

There is no "divinity that hedges"* the man of genius. There is no guardian spirit that accompanies him through life. If you tell me that you are one of those who are qualified to instruct and guide mankind, it may be that I admit it; but I may reasonably ask, When did you become so, and how long has this been your character?

There is no man knows better than the man of talents, that he was a fool: for there is no man that finds in the records of his memory such asto* Shakespear.

nishing disparities to contrast with each other. He can recollect up to what period he was jejune, and up to what period he was dull. He can call to mind the innumerable errors of speculation he has committed, that would almost disgrace an idiot. His life divides itself in his conception into distinct periods, and he has said to himself ten times in his course, From such a time I began to live; the mass of what went before, was too poor to be recollected with complacence. In reality each of these stages was an improvement upon that which went before; and it is perhaps only at the last of them that he became, what the ignorant vulgar supposed he was from the moment of his birth.

ESSAY V.

OF AN EARLY TASTE FOR READING.

THE first indications of genius disclose themselves at a very early period. A sagacious observer of the varieties of intellect, will frequently be able to pronounce with some confidence upon a child of tender years, that he exhibits marks of future eminence in eloquence, invention or judg

ment.

The embryon seed that contains in it the pro

C

mise of talent, if not born with a man, ordinarily takes its station in him at no great distance from the period of birth. The mind is then, but rarely afterwards, in a state to receive and to foster it.

The talents of the mind, like the herbs of the ground, seem to distribute themselves at random. The winds disperse from one spot to another the invisible germs; they take root in many cases without a planter; and grow up without care or observation.

It would be truly worthy of regret, if chance, so to speak, could do that, which all the sagacity of man was unable to effect *; if the distribution of the noblest ornament of our nature, could be subjected to no rules, and reduced to no system.

He that would extend in this respect the province of education; must proceed, like the improvers of other sciences, by experiment and observation. He must watch the progress of the dawning mind, and discover what it is that gives it its first determination.

The sower of seed cannot foretel which seed shall fall useless to the ground, destined to wither and to perish, and which shall take root, and display the most exuberant fertility. As among the

**This suggestion is by no means inconsistent with the remark in Essay III. that the production of genius perhaps never was the work of the preceptor. What never yet has been accomplished, may hereafter be accomplished.

seeds of the earth, so among the perceptions of the human mind, some are reserved, as it were, for instant and entire oblivion, and some, undying and immortal, assume an importance never to be superseded. For the first we ought not to torment ourselves with an irrational anxiety; the last cannot obtain from us an attention superior to their worth.

There is perhaps nothing that has a greater tendency to decide favourably or unfavourably respecting a man's future intellect, than the question whether or not he be impressed with an early taste for reading.

Books are the depositary of every thing that is most honourable to man. Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the human and the animal kingdoms. He that loves reading, has every thing within his reach. He has but to desire; and he may possess himself of every species of wisdom to judge, and power to perform.

The chief point of difference between the man of talent and the man without, consists in the different ways in which their minds are employed during the same interval. They are obliged, let us suppose, to walk from Temple-Bar to HydePark-Corner. The dull man goes straight forward; he has so many furlongs to traverse. He observes if he meets any of his acquaintance; he

enquires respecting their health and their, family. He glances perhaps the shops as he passes; he admires the fashion of a buckle, and the metal of a tea-urn. If he experience any flights of fancy, they are of a short extent; of the same nature as the flights of a forest-bird, clipped of his wings, and condemned to pass the rest of his life in a farm-yard. On the other hand the man of talent gives full scope to his imagination. He laughs and cries. Unindebted to the suggestions of surrounding objects, his whole soul is employed. He enters into nice calculations; he digests sagacious reasonings. In imagination he declaims or describes, impressed with the deepest sympathy, or elevated to the loftiest rapture. He makes a thousand new and admirable combinations. He passes through a thousand imaginary scenes, tries his courage, tasks his ingenuity, and thus becomes gradually prepared to meet almost any of the many-coloured events of human life. He consults by the aid of memory the books he has read, and projects others for the future instruction and delight of mankind. If he observe the passengers, he reads their countenances, conjectures their past history, and forms a superficial notion of their wisdom or folly, their virtue or vice, their satisfaction or misery. If he observe the scenes that occur, it is with the eye of a connoisseur or an artist. Every object is capable of suggesting to

« PreviousContinue »