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the good Genius ftrengthened it with any fupernatural Force, or diffipated Part of the Mift that was before too thick for the Eye to penetrate) I faw the Valley opening at the further End, and spreading forth into an immenfe Ocean, that had a huge Rock of Adamant running through the midst of it, and dividing it' into two equal Parts. The Clouds ftill rested on one Half of it, infomuch that I could difcover nothing in it: But the other appeared to me a vaft Ocean planted ⚫ with innumerable Iflands, that were covered with Fruits and Flowers, and interwoven with a thousand little fhining Seas that ran among them. I could fee Persons dreffed in glorious Habits with Garlands upon their Heads, paffing among the Trees, lying down by the Sides of Fountains, or refting on Beds of Flowers; and • could hear a confufed Harmony of finging Birds, falling Waters, human Voices, and mufical Inftruments. Gladness grew in me upon the Discovery of fo delightful a Scene. I wifhed for the Wings of an Eagle, that I might fly away to thofe happy Seats; but the Genius told me there was no Paffage to them, except through the Gates of Death that I faw opening every Moment upon the Bridge. The Iflands, faid he, that lie fo fresh and green before thee, and with which the whole Face of the Ocean appears fpotted as far as thou canft see, are more in Number than the Sands on the Sea hore; there are Myriads of Islands behind those ⚫ which thou here difcovereft, reaching further than thine Eye or even thine Imagination can extend it felf. These are the Mansions of good Men after Death, who ac'cording to the Degree and Kinds of Virtue in which they excelled, are diftributed among thefe feveral Inlands, which abound with Pleasures of different Kinds and Degrees, fuitable to the Relishes and Perfections of thofe who are fettled in them; every Ifland is a Paradife accommodated to its respective Inhabitants, Are not these, O Mirza, Habitations worth contending for? Does Life appear miferable, that gives thee Opportunities of earning fuch Reward? Is Death to be feared, that will convey thee to fo happy an Existence? Think not Man was made in vain, who has fuch an Eternity referved for him. I gazed with ⚫ inexpreffible

inexpreffible Pleasure on thefe happy Islands. At length, faid I, fhew me now, I beseech thee, the Secrets that lye hid under thofe dark Clouds which cover the • Ocean on the other Side of the Rock of Adamant. The • Genius making me no Anfwer, I turned about to addrefs my felf to him a fecond time, but I found that he had left me; I then turned again to the Vision which I had been fo long contemplating, but inftead of the rolling Tide, the arched Bridge, and the happy Iflands, I faw nothing but the long hollow Valley of Bagdat, with Oxen, Sheep, and Camels, grazing upon the < Sides of it.

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Monday, September 3.

Cui mens divinier, atque os

Magna fonaturum, des nominis hujus honorem. Hor.

HERE is no Character more frequently given to a Writer, than that of being a Genius. I have heard many a little Sonneteer called a fine Genius. There is not an Heroick Scribler in the Nation, that has not his Admirers who think him a great Genius; and as for your Smatterers in Tragedy, there is fcarce a Man among them who is not cried up by one or other for a prodigious Genius.

MY Defign in this Paper is to confider what is properly a great Genius, and to throw fome Thoughts together on fo uncommon a Subject.

AMONG great Genius's, thofe few draw the Admiration of all the World upon them, and ftand up as the Prodigies of Mankind, who by the meer Strength of natural Parts, and without any Affiftance of Art or Learning, have produced Works that were the Delight of their own Times, and the Wonder of Pofterity. There appears fomething nobly wild and extravagant in thefe great natural Genius's, that is infinitely more beautiful than all VOL. II.

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The Turn and Polishing of what the French call a Bel Efprit, by which they would express a Genius refined by Converfation, Reflection, and the Reading of the moft polite Authors. The greatest Genius which runs through the Arts and Sciences, takes a kind of Tincture from them, and falls unavoidably into Imitation.

MANY of thefe great natural Genius's that were never difciplined and broken by Rules of Art, are to be found among the Ancients, and in particular among thofe of the more Eaftern Parts of the World. Homer has innumerable Flights that Virgil was not able to reach, and in the Old Teftament we find feveral Paffages more elevated and fublime than any in Homer. At the fame time that we allow a greater and more daring Genius to the Ancients, we must own that the greatest of them very much failed in, or, if you will, that they were much above the Nicety and Correctness of the Moderns. In their Similitudes and Allufions, provided there was a Likenefs, they did not much trouble themselves about the Decency of Comparison: Thus Solomon refembles the Nose of his Beloved to the Tower of Libanon which looketh toward Damafcus; as the Coming of a Thief in the Night, is a Similitude of the fame kind in the New Testament. It would be endless to make Collections of this Nature: Homer illuftrates one of his Heroes encompaffed with the Enemy, by an Afs in a Field of Corn that has his Sides belaboured by all the Boys of the Village without ftirring a Foot for it: and another of them toffing to and fro in his Bed and burning with Refentment, to a Piece of Flesh broiled on the Coals. This particular Failure in the Ancients, opens a large Field of Raillery to the little Wits, who can laugh at an Indecency but not relifh the Sublime in these forts of Writings. The prefent Emperor of Perfia, conform able to this Eastern way of Thinking, amidft a great many pompous Titles, denominates himself the Sun of Glory, and the Nutmeg of Delight. In fhort, to cut off all Cavilling against the Ancients, and particularly thofe of the warmer Climates, who had moft Heat and Life in their Imaginations, we are to confider that the Rule of obferving what the French call the Bienfeance in an Allafion, has been found out of latter Years, and in the colder Regions of the World; where we would make

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fome Amends for our want of Force and Spirit, by a fcrupulous Nicety and Exactnefs in our Compofitions." Our Countryman Shakespear was a remarkable Inftance of this first kind of great Genius's.

I cannot quit this Head without obferving that Pindar was a great Genius of the firft Clafs, who was hurried on by a natural Fire and Impetuofity to vaft Conceptions of Things and noble Sallies of Imagination. At the fame time, can any thing be more ridiculous than for Men of a fober and moderate Fancy to imitate this Poet's Way of Writing in thofe monftrous Compofitions which go among us under the Name of Pindaricks? When I fee People copying Works, which, as Horace has reprefented them, are fingular in their Kind, and inimitable; when I fee Men following Irregularities by Rule, and by the little Tricks of Art ftraining after the moft unbounded Flights of Nature, I cannot but apply to them that Paffage in Terence:

Incerta hac fi tu poftules

Ratione certa facere, nihilo plus agas,

Quàm fi des operam, ut cum ratione infanias.

IN short, a modern Pindarick Writer, compared with Pindar, is like a Sifter among the Camifars compared with Virgil's Sybil: There is the Distortion, Grimace, and outward Figure, but nothing of that divine Impulfe which raises the Mind above it felf, and makes the Sounds more than humane.

THERE is another kind of great Genius's which I fhall place in a fecond Clafs, not as I think them inferior to the first, but only for Diftinction's fake, as they are of a different kind. This fecond Clafs of great Genius's are those that have formed themselves by Rules, and fubmitted the Greatness of their natural Talents to the Corrections and Restraints of Art. Such among the Greeks were Plato and Ariftotle, among the Romans Virgil and Tully, among the English Milton and Sir Francis Bacon.

THE Genius in both thefe Claffes of Authors may be equally great, but fhews it felf after a different Manner. In the first it is like a rich Soil in a happy Climate, that produces

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produces a whole Wilderness of noble Plants rifing in a thousand beautiful Lanskips, without any certain Ŏrder or Regularity. In the other it is the fame rich Soil under the fame happy Climate, that has been laid out in Walks and Parterres, and cut into Shape and Beauty by the Skill of the Gardener.

THE great Danger in these latter kind of Genius's, is, left they cramp their own Abilities too much by Imitation, and form themfelves altogether upon Models, without giving the full Play to their own natural Parts. An Imitation of the beft Authors is not to compare with a good Original; and I believe we may obferve that very few Writers make an extraordinary Figure in the World, who have not fomething in their Way of thinking or expreffing themselves that is peculiar to them, and entirely their own.

IT is odd to confider what great Genius's are fometimes thrown away upon Trifles.

I once faw a Shepherd, fays a famous Italian Author, who ufed to divert himself in his Solitudes with toffing up Eggs, and catching them again without breaking them: In which he had arrived to fo great a Degree of Perfection, that he would keep up four at a Time for feveral Minutes together playing in the Air, and falling into his Hand by Turns. I think, fays the Author, I never faw a greater Severity than in this Man's Face; for by his wonderful Perfeverance and Application, he had contracted the Serioufnefs and Gravity of a Privy-Counfellor; and I could not but reflect with my felf, that the fame Affiduity and Attention, had they been rightly ap plyed, might have made him a greater Mathematician than Archimedes.

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Tuesday,