Har fer سلام t as ted as far as thou canst see, are more in Number than the Sands on the Sea-shore; there are Myriads of Islands 'behind those which thou here discoverest, reaching fur'ther than thine Eye or even thine Imagination can extend it self. These are the Mansions of good Men after Death, who according to the Degree and Kinds of Virtue in which they excelled, are diftributed among these several * Islands, which abound with Pleasures of different Kinds ' and Degrees, fuitable to the Relishes and Perfections of those who them; every Island is a Paradise accommodated to its respective Inhabitants. Are not these, Mirza, Habitations worth contending for? Does Life appear miferable, that gives thee Opportunities of ' earning fuch a Reward? Is Death to be feared, red, that will fettled in are convey thee to so happy an Existence? Think not Man • was made in vain, who has fuch an Eternity reserved ⚫ for him. I gazed with inexpressible Pleasure on these ⚫ happy Islands. At length faid I, thew me now, I be• seech thee, the Secrets that lye hid under those dark • Clouds which cover the Ocean on the other Side of the • Rock of Adamant. The Genius making meno Answer, • I turned about to address my felf to him a second time, but I found that he had left me; I then turned again to ⚫ the Vision which I had been so long contemplating, but s instead of the rolling Tide, the arched Bridge, and the ⚫ happy Islands, I faw nothing but the long hollow Valley • of Bagdat, with Oxen, Sheep, and Camels, grazing up' on the Sides of it. 6 10 The End of the first Vision of Mirzah. Liw C N° 160. Monday, September 3. T un buszorov enser -Cui mens divinior, atque os απς της Hor Magna fonaturum, des nomimis hujus Lonorem. 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 이 분다 dow Admi Admirers who think him a great Genius; and as for your Smatterers in Tragedy, there is scarce a Man among them who is not cried up by one or other for a prodigious Genius. MY Design 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, those few draw the Admiration of all the World upon them, and stand up as the Prodigies of Mankind, who by the meer Strength of natural Parts, and without any Assistance of Art or Learning, have produced Works that were the Delight of their own Times and the Wonder of Pofterity. There appears something nobly wild and extravagant in these great natural Genius's, that is infinitely more beautiful than all the Turn and Polishing of what the French calla 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 difciplined 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 Teftament we find several Passages more elevated and fub. lime 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 Allusions, provided there was a Likeness, they did not much trouble themselves about the Decency of the Comparison: Thus Solomon resembles the Nofe 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 fame Kind in the New Testament. It would be endless to make Collections of this Nature: Homer illustrates one of his Heroes encompaffed with the Enemy, by an Ass in a Field of Corn that has his Sides belaboured by all the Boys of the Village without stirring a Foot for it; and another of them toffing to and fro in his Bed and burning with Refentment, sentment, 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 Persia, 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 Cavelling against the Ancients, and particularly those of the warmer Climates, who had most Heat and Life in their Imaginations, we are to consider that the Rule of obferving what the French call the Bienfeance in an Allufion, has been found out of latter Years and in the colder Regions of the World; where we would make some Amends for our want of Force and Spirit, by a serupulous Nicety and Exactness in our Compofitions. Our Countryman Shakespear was a remarkable Instance of this first kind of great Genius's. I cannot quit this Head without obferving that Pindar was a great Genius of the first Class, who was hurried on by a natural Fire and Impetuosity to vast 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 those monstrous Compositions which go among us under the Name of Pindaricks? When I fee People copying Works, which, as Horace has represented them, are fingular in their Kind and inimitable; when I see Men føllowing Irregularities by Rule, and by the little Tricks of Art straining after the most unbounded Flights of Nature, I cannot but apply to them that Passage in Terence. -incerta hac si tu postules Quàm fi des operam, ut cum ratione infanias, IN short, a modern pindarick Writer compared with Pindar, is like a Sister among the Camifars compared with Virgil's Sybil: There is the Distortion, Grimace, and outward Figure, but nothing of that divine Impulse which raises the Mind above it self, and makes the Sounds more than humane THERE is another kind of Great Genius's which I shall place in a fecond Class, not as I think them inferior to the first, but only for Distinction's fake as they are of a different kind. This second Class of great Genius's are those that have formed themselves by Rules, and submitted the Greatness of their natural Talents to the Corrections and Restraints of Art. Such among the Greeks were Plato and Aristotle, among the Romans Virgil and Tully, among the English Milton and Sir Francis Bacon. Thane 2018 THE Genius in both these Classes of Authors may be equally great, but shews it self after a different Manner. In the first it is like a rich Soil in a happy Climate, that produces a whole Wilderness of noble Plants rifing in a thousand beautiful Landskips 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 cut into Shape and und Beauty by the Skill of the Gardener.อราว THE great Danger in these latter kind of Genius's, is, leaft 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 fomething in their Way of thinking or expressing themselves that is peculiar to them and entirely their own. IT is odd to confider 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 toffing up Eggs and catching them again without breaking them: In which he had arrived to so great Degree of Perfection, that he would keep up four at a Time for several Minutes together playing in the Air, and falling into his Hand by Turns. I think, says the Author, I never saw a greater Severity than in this Man's Face; for by his wonderful Perseverance and Application, he had contracted the Serioufness and Gravity of a Privy-Councellor; and I could not but reflect with my self, that the same Affiduity and Attention, had they been rightly applied, might have made him a greater Mathematician than Archimedes. C hoi OK N° 161. Tuesday, September 4. Ipfe dies agitat feftos: Fususque per Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabir Am glad that my late going into the has en I created the Number of my Correfpondents, one of whom sends me the following Letter. SIR, HOUGH you are pleased to retire from us fo foon a 'T Company were in their Holy-day Cloaths, and divided ⚫ into several Parties, all of them endeavouring to shew ⚫ themselves in those Exercises wherein they excelled, and 6 to gain the Approbation of the Lookers on. I found a Ring of Cudgel-Players, who were breaking ⚫ one another's Heads in order to make some Impression 6 on their Mistresses Hearts. I observed a lusty young Fel- 1 h |