ESSAY

ON

THE GENIUS OF MRS. HEMANS.

SELDOM has the early possession of poetical genius been more clearly determined, than in the case of the gifted individual, whose collected works are here presented to the public. Its infantine indications, both through the affections and the intellect, were too strong to be overlooked, and too peculiar to be mistaken. The temperament of that art, which has been styled by one of its masters, "the breath, and finer spirit of all knowledge," revealed itself, in tremulous sensibility—in deep love of the beautiful — in lonely and intense communings with nature- and in those restless aspirations, which earth can neither satisfy nor control. Passionate desires for knowledge, - rapid, almost intuitive appropriation of it, and exceedingly strong retentive powers, were also precociously developed. The genius permitted thus vigorously to unfold, was also eminently fortunate, in the circumstances of its education, throughout the whole of life. It is pleasant to trace the influences, which both from "heaven above, and earth beneath," conspired to nurture, and mature it, for its high destiny.

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First in order, we place maternal culture. The strength of this agency, none will question, who has beheld in the illustrious, from the Gracchi to him of Mount Vernon, the hand of the mother, polishing the mental gem, or leading in paths of wisdom, the young footsteps of the Father of his Country. If such influence is so powerful, over the elements of masculine character, with how much more ease and certainty must it modify the plastic nature of woman! Still, the guides of genius have a delicate and adventurous office. Its lineaments are not easily understood, where there is no strong sympathy with its structure; and as it is not often a transmitted inheritance, the felicity of correct early training must be proportionably rare. A fine writer has said that true genius can never receive justice from the world, until it shall be tried by a jury of its peers. Such a jury is not readily empanneled; and there is sometimes danger, in entrusting genius even to the love of her who bore it, lest its impulses should be mistaken for waywardness, or its idioms accounted a strange language. She may not, always, like Mary, the mother of our Lord, "keep those sayings, and ponder them in her heart," whose import she fails to understand. Unskilfully, though with the best intentions, she may lay her hand upon the Ark of God, and disarrange its mystic treasures. But in the case which we contemplate, there was no such peril. There was no transplantation of the water-lily to a dry place; no shredding away the faint shoots of the mimosa, with a pruning-knife. She who had the high honour of the first watch over the cradle of genius, enjoyed also the privilege of knowing