Away hath pass'd the heather-bell, I cannot refrain from giving one more specimen, taken from the Third Epistle. "Thus while I ape the measure wild Though no broad river swept along Though scarce a puny streamlet's speed By the green hill and clear blue heaven. Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green; I deem'd such nooks the sweetest shade, my mind Of Forayers, who, with headlong force, Down from that strength had spurr'd their horse, Their southern rapine to renew, Far in the distant Cheviots blue, And, home returning, filled the hall Methought grim features, seam'd with scars, Of witch's spells, of warriors' arms; By Wallace wight and Bruce the bold; And onward still the Scottish lion bore, March 17, 1808. N° XXVIII. Genius incompatible with a narrow Taste. THAT mighty gift of the Deity, which enables mankind to cast a glance over the whole surface of creation, and even to penetrate occasionally with some success into its internal movements, is sadly limited in its faculties by the exclusive contemplation of individual excellence, even though the most wonderful and super-eminent in the annals of human existence. I have therefore always thought, that the sort of idolatry, which for nearly half a century we have been called on to pay even to Shakspeare himself, has been carried a little too far to. be consistent with a due expansion of our intellects. A sound candour must admit that the words bigotry and idolatry are indeed literally applicable to this confined occupation of our taste and pleasures. Lord Grey, on Tuesday last,e applied the terms besotted bigotry to another occasion; and, whether applicable or not, described the evils of bigotry with * March 15, 1808, in the House of Lords, on the Reversion Bill. f I do not mean to insinuate that the application was just. On that I give no opinion. I allude to his positions as general truths, well expressed. great force and animation of language, and a poignant acuteness of discrimination. Warton in his account of Sackville's Gorboduc remarks that such has been the undistinguishing or ill-placed fondness for the bard of Avon, that some of his worst and most tinsel passages, and surely a more unequal poet never wrote, have been admired the most. The diversities of mental excellence are endless ; and never did Providence, in its most favoured productions, unite all the varied powers, of which the progress of time is continually developing new hues. To bind ourselves fearfully to models is the mark of a secondary genius. When I perceive a man incapable of deriving pleasure from more than one style of composition, and dogmatising on its exclusive merit, I pity his weakness, and despise his presumption. When he narrows his curiosity either to what is old or what is new, when he confines his praise to the dead, or to the living, though in both cases he is ridiculous, perhaps his folly is more venial in the last. Why should one man of genius be envious or jealous of another? There is room enough for all. Another thousand years may roll over us without encumbering the stores of intellectual delight, or exhausting the topics of intellectual attention! Even in a selfish point of view, such envy or |