sermons, speeches, and periodicals, choke up the river of Lethe-across that stream who can venture unless first drugged to sleep by the pages of a writer

Sleepless himself, to give his readers sleep?

Taste is a natural sensibility to excellence, heightened by the nicest observation, and perfected by close study. If we allow this, how dare the great multitude of readers to set up their critical claims? Every man now is a reader, and a critic of course. What a monstrous absurdity is this! In other things we see its ridiculousness, but we seem blind here.

The purest poetry and the noblest philosophy are so much above the comprehension of vulgar minds, that they never can be popular-so with the most delicate wit and humor, and the finest works of fancy. Pure language and an elegant simplicity, are also out of the reach of common intellects.

Sure fame is a very different thing from notoriety. Cowley has placed the idea of fame in the proper light. He says, "I love and commend a true good fame because it is the shadow of virtue: not that it doth any good to the body which it accompanies, but it is an efficacious shadow, and, like that of St. Peter, cures the diseases of others."* The true fame is, "that which follows, not that which is run after;" the companion of goodness, not the lacquey of fashion.

We have treated notoriety as a fraud of men; it is sometimes the dream of youth-an honest dream. When we are young, we are goaded by a false impulse, and would

* Essay on Obscurity.

be famous without any regard to the conditions of obtaining fame; but when years have brought a certain equable gravity of temper, and calmness of judgment, we begin to see things in their true colors, and to value a life of virtue above a life of honors. We at last discover the pitiful shifts of those who would obtain notoriety, and the incredible meannesses to which they subject themselves, by their ignorant zeal in the pursuit of worldly glory. Titles, wealth, applause, what chimeras ye are ! what bubbles ye make of us your greedy followers! The highest powers of intellect, the most brilliant gems of poesy, are incomparably inferior to the possession of a peaceful conscience, and a heart filled with none but good intentions.

The fame of the popular poet, or the great general, has an almost overpowering charm for the young man; but a later age, which cools his blood, clears his mind also, and he only wonders how he ever happened to entertain such images of greatness, as the gods of his idolatry. The flashes of the skilful rhetorician captivate the youthful student; but the powers of the philosophic reasoner attract his maturer judgment. Light, airy poetry, is fit food for the raw critic; but experience and reflection give the palm to a deeper and more majestic vein. then, but instruction holds us now. have learnt all that is to be known; ignorance of the highest mysteries, and would die learning. Thus we see the love of applause (in its place, and in its integrity, a noble incentive to generous action) is still an insufficient motive. Milton, in that well known passage, which summons all the powers of the soul as with the sound of a trumpet, has written nobly of fame—as

Amusement gains us Then, we imagine we now, we feel our real

Grammar and rhetoric* (after a clear statement of the elementary chief rules) are best learnt in the perusal of classic authors, the essayists, &c.; and, in the same way, the theory of taste and the arts. The most important of accomplishments is not systematically treated in any system-conversation. But a father and mother, of education, can teach this better than any professor. Expensive schools turn out half-trained pupils. Eight years at home, well employed, and two at a good but not fashionable school, are better than ten years spent in the most popular female seminary, conducted in the ordinary style.

*The benefit flowing from these studies is chiefly of a negative character.

IV.

THE EARLY MATURITY OF GENIUS.

WE design the present article rather as a sketch of literary statistics, a table of instances, to illustrate the general principle we aim to establish, than as anything like a complete survey or accurate digest of the subject which it would require a volume to contain. We consider the fact as having a historical basis, as founded in the history of letters, that true genius comes to maturity much sooner than is generally supposed. In a word, we have merely collected a number of witnesses to confirm the maxim stated by Steele, though in a rather restricted form. It occurs in a paper of the Lover, number twenty-two: "I am apt to think that before thirty, a man's natural and acquired parts are at that strength, with a little experience, to enable him (if he can be enabled) to acquit himself well in any business or conversation he shall be admitted to."

The vulgar error is to rate the growth of the individual intellect of the original with the ordinary progress of "the common mind;" to measure the giant by the common standard of human stature. This is evidently absurd. Yet no error is so common as to attempt to depress cleverness by sneers at the youthful age of the aspirant, like the taunts of Walpole directed against Pitt, and like those of

every dull man, of middle age, who has a fixed position (beyond which he is not likely to rise), at those who are evidently fast rising above him. No young man of talent, but has had enemies such as these to encounter; men who seem to take a certain fiendish delight, and cherish a malicious pleasure in seeking to depress everything like genuine enthusiasm and the buoyant ambition of the bright boy or the brilliant young man. This arises half from sheer malice, and as much from pure ignorance of the nature and temperament of genius. When the "climber upward" has gained his place among his peers, then these miserable flatterers cringe and fawn as basely as they formerly maligned and ridiculed him; and would fain crowd out of sight his old friends and staunch adherents. In his green age and budding season the youth of genius craves and requires sympathy. It is with him, especially (and, in a measure, with all men), an intellectual want, as evident as the coarsest necessary elements of existence.

No

By early maturity of genius we mean no prodigies of childish or boyish talent-such we always distrust, as unhealthy prematureness, generally resulting in a feeble manhood. Wonderful boys are almost always dull men. particular point of time can be fixed, but manly intellects are at their maturity somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, and in good constitutions, this vigor and freshness remain sometimes to a great age. Youth is a heavy charge to lay against any writer, yet one becoming daily of less weight. Surely it is a season which furnishes qualities and feelings not to be expected in later life, and at least to be cherished for that reason. To the contemners of youthful genius, we would reply, in the words of the admirable Cowley, himself an example of precocity of talent: "It is