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GENIUS.
- Cui mens divinior, atque os
Magna sonaturum des nominis hujus honorem.
HOR., Sat. i. 4, 43.
On him confer the poet's sacred name,
Whose lofty voice declares the heavenly flame.
There 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 a heroic scribbler in the nation that has not
his 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 consider what is properly a great
genius, and to throw some thoughts together on so uncommon a
subject.
Among great geniuses those few draw the admiration of all the world
upon them, and stand up as the prodigies of mankind, who, by the
mere 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 posterity. There appears something nobly
wild and extravagant in these great natural geniuses, that is
infinitely more beautiful than all 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.
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