Tible Pleasure on these happy Islands. At length, thew me now, I beseech thee, the Secrets that under those dark Clouds which cover the On the other Side of the Rock of Adamant. The making me no Answer, I turned about to ady felf to him a fecond time, but I found that he me; I then turned again to the Vision which I en so long contemplating, but instead of the Tide, the arched Bridge, and the happy Islands, nothing but the long hollow Valley of Bagdat, Oxen, Sheep, and Camels, grazing upon the

it.

The End of the first vision of Mirzah.

C

。. Monday, September 3.

-Cui mens divinior, atque os

Ina fonaturum, des nominis hujus honorem. Hor.

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

us.

Design in this Paper is to consider what is progreat Genius, and to throw fome Thoughts toon so uncommon a Subject.

ONG great Genius's, those few draw the Admiof all the World upon them, and stand up as the es of Mankind, who by the meer Strength of naarts, and without any Afsistance of Art or Learnve produced Works that were the Delight of their Fimes, and the Wonder of Pofterity. There apomething nobly wild and extravagant in these great Genius's, that is infinitely more beautiful than all

. 11.

N

the

rhe Turn and Polishing of what the French call a Bel Esprit, by which they would express a Genius refined by Conversation, Reflection, and the Reading of the most 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 these great natural Genius's that were never disciplined and broken by Rules of Art, are to be found among the Ancients, and in particular among those of the more Eastern Parts of the World. Homer has innumerable Flights that Virgil was not able to reach, and in the Old Testament we find several Passages more elevated and fublime than any in Homer. At the same 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 Allusions, provided there was a Likeness, they did not much trouble themselves about the Decency of Comparison: Thus Solomon resembles the Nose of his Beloved to the Tower of Libanon which looketh toward Damascus; as the Coming of a Thief in the Night, is a Similitude of the same kind in the New Testament. It would be endless to make Collections of this Nature: Homer illustrates one of his Heroes encompassed 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 tossing to and fro in his Bed and burning with Resentment, 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 relish the Sublime in these sorts of Writings. The present Emperor of Perfia, conformable to this Eastern way of Thinking, amidst a great many pompous Titles, denominates himself the Sun of Glory, and the Nutmeg of Delight. In short, to cut off all Cavilling against the Ancients, and particularly those of the warmer Climates, who had most Heat and Life in their Imaginations, we are to confider that the Rule of obferving what the French call the Bienseance in an Allufion, has been found out of latter Years, and in the colder Regions of the World; where we would make

for

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mends for our want of Force and Spirit, by a is Nicety and Exactness in our Compofitions, antryman Shakespear was a remarkable Instance ft kind of great Genius's.

not quit this Head without obferving that Pindar -eat Genius of the first Class, who was hurried natural Fire and Impetuofity to vaft ConceptiThings and noble Sallies of Imagination. At the me, can any thing be more ridiculous than for

fober and moderate Fancy to imitate this Poet's Writing in those monstrous Compositions which ng us under the Name of Pindaricks? When I -le copying Works, which, as Horace has reprehem, are fingular in their Kind, and inimitable, fee Men following Irregularities by Rule, and little Tricks of Art straining after the moft unFlights of Nature, I cannot but apply to them Tage in Terence:

- Incerta bac si tu postules
tione certa facere, nibilo plus agas,

am si des operam, ut cum ratione infanias.

hort, a modern Pindarick Writer, compared with is like a Sister among the Camifars compared with Sybil: There is the Distortion, Grimace, and

Figure, but nothing of that divine Impulse aises the Mind above it felf, and makes the Sounds man humane.

ERE is another kind of great Genius's which I Lace in a fecond Class, not as I think them ino the first, but only for Distinction's fake, as e of a different kind. This fecond Class of great "s are those that have formed themselves by Rules, mitted the Greatness of their natural Talents to rections and Restraints of Art. Such among the were Plato and Aristotle, among the Romans and Tully, among the English Milton and Sir

- Bacon,

E Genius in both these Classes of Authors may be great, but shews it felf after a different Manner, first it is like a rich Soil in a happy Climate, that produces

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produces a whole Wilderness of noble Plants rising in a thousand beautiful Lanskips, without any certain Order or Regularity. In the other it is the fame rich Soil under the same 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 themselves altogether upon Models, without giving the full Play to their own natural Parts. An Imitation of the best Authors is not to compare with a good Original; and I believe we may observe that very few Writers make an extraordinary Figure in the World, who have not something in their Way of thinking or expreffing themselves that is peculiar to them, and entirely their own.

IT is odd to consider what great Genius's are sometimes thrown away upon Trifles.

I once faw a Shepherd, says a famous Italian Author, who used to divert himself in his Solitudes with tofsing up Eggs, and catching them again without breaking them: In which he had arrived to so 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, says the Author, I never faw a greater Severity than in this Man's Face, for by his wonderful Perseverance and Application, he had contracted the Seriousness and Gravity of a Privy-Counsellor; and I could not but reflect with my felf, that the fame Affiduity and Attention, had they been rightly applyed, might have made him a greater Mathematician than Archimedes.

Tuesday,

61. Tuesday, September 4.

Lies agitat festos: Fufusque per herbam, ubi in medio & socii cratera coronant. Bans, Lenae, vocat: pecorisque magistris is Faculi certamina ponit in ulmo, praque agrefti nudat pradura Palastra. olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini, Remus Frater: Sic fortis Etruria crevit, et rerum facta eft pulcherrima Roma, Virg. G. 2.

glad that my late going into the Country has enafed the Number of my Correspondents, one of om sends me the following Letter.

R,

HOUGH you are pleased to retire from us fo foon into the City, I hope you will not think the Firs of the Country altogether unworthy of your Intion for the future. I had the Honour of feeing your -t Face at Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY'S, and have esince thought your Person and Writings both extraEnary. Had you stayed there a few Days longer you ald have feen a Country Wake, which you know in t Parts of England is the Eve-Feast of the Dedication of Churches. I was laft Week at one of these Assemblies, ch was held in a neighbouring Parish; where I found ar Green covered with a promiscuous Multitude of all es and both Sexes, who esteem one another more or the following Part of the Year according as they diaguila themselves at this Time. The whole Commy were in their Holy-day Cloaths, and divided into eral Parties, all of them endeavouring to shew themves in those Exercises wherein they excelled, and to In the Approbation of the Lookers-on. I found a Ring of Cudgel Players, who were breaking e another's Heads in order to make some Impreffion their Mistresses Hearts. I observed a lusty young Fellow,

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