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All present were much affected, when Sabaoth, of whom no one had thought in these arrangements, said, sorrowfully," And what is to become of me then?" On turning their eyes on him, the sight of his bald head, his beard, that had been so inhumanly torn by the terrible Minstrel, and his dress all in tatters, together with his strange countenance, formed such a spectacle, that even at this melting moment, it was impossible to check a laugh. Even Ernestine herself smiled, for the first time, since her separation from Amurat-precious smileit was a prelude to the happiness she was about to enjoy. The Lord Abbot thrice opened his mouth to address Sabooth, and thrice burst out into laughter-he recovered himself, however, but it was not without difficulty, to say, "Sir Sabaoth, after the brilliant situation you lately occupied under a Zegris, it may perhaps be indecorous in me to offer you the less honourable employment of taking care of the mule, the ass, and two cart horses of the convent, together with my hackney-but it is all I can offer you, and the only employment that is now vacant."

"I have been

occasionally to put on. every thing that it has pleased you to make me-I have been cuckolded and beaten, and yet, my dear, I am happy."-His wife continued to cook, in her best manner, for all the ladies who sought hospitality; and Ernestine had the attention to keep the apartments very clean, and the beds well made. The young boys now became as big as father and mother; passed one of them for the best chimer, and the other for the best raker of walks in all the country of Cambresis.

The Lord Abbot felicitated himself on having attached so many worthy people to his monastery. There were none, not even Sabaoth, who did not feel pride in their employment, and he was quoted as the first of all grooms in that neighbourhood. The Abbot seeing them all so contented by his means, was happy himself from having been the cause-but we may search now alas in vain, for such worthiness in monasteries or elsewhere.

THE PRISONER'S PRAYER TO SLEEP.

of Sir John Moore.)

"My reverend father," replied the old Moor, "beasts for beasts, it is all one to me; and I shall like as well to (By the Author of the Lines on the Funeral curry asses and mules, as Andalusian mares. My misery and troubles have eured me of ambition; I therefore accept your offer, and will be the head of your stud, whatever it may consist

of"

The marriage-day of Amurat and Ernestine was fixed, it was a holy day for all the vassals of the monastery of Vaucelles; and Amurat, on becoming a husband, did not cease being a lover. Ernestine recovered her good looks, and the gayety of her age. She had only one chagrin, when her husband departed with the young Cambresian, of whom we have said so much in the course of this true history; but this chagrin was not of any duration, for the war in Finland was neither perilous nor long.

The Minstrel gayly grew old under the shade of his serpent-the others began to taste happiness, but for him, he had always been happy. Feeling, however, an increase of happiness at the comfortable arrangements, he addressed his chaste companion in a dignified manner, which he knew how

O gentle Sleep! wilt Thou lay thy head
For one little hour on thy Lover's bed,
And none but the silent stars of night
Shall witness be to our delight!
Alas! 'tis said that the Couch must be
of the Eider-down that is spread for Thee,
So, I in my sorrow must lie alone,
For mine, sweet Sleep! is a Couch of stone.
Music to Thee I know is dear;

Then, the saddest of music is ever here,
For Grief sits with me in my cell,
And she is a Syren who singeth well.

But Thou, glad Sleep! lov'st gladsome airs,
And wilt only come to thy Lover's prayers
When the bells of merriment are ringing,
And bliss with liquid voice is singing.

Fair Sleep! so long is thy beauty wooed,
No Rival hast Thou in my solitude;
Be mine, my Love! and we two will lie
Embraced for ever-or awake to die!
Dear Sleep! farewell!-hour, hour, hour,

hour,

Will slowly bring on the gleam of Morrow, But Thou art Joy's faithful Paramour, And lie wilt Thou not in the arms of Sorrow

THE LITERARY CHARACTER, ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY OF MEN

OF GENIUS, &C. BY MR D'ISRAELI.*

THIS is one of the most amusing works of one of the most amusing of our English authors. Mr D'Israeli possesses a great fund of literary anecdote, and it is at all times disposeable. He has not, perhaps, a very reasoning mind, and being aware of that, he rarely enters into any lengthened discussion of principles; but being a man of sensibility, observation, and fancy, he is perpetually throwing out very true and delicate remarks and sentiments, expressed with much warmth and earnestness, and accompanied with rich and lively illustration. Open where we may a volume of his writings, and we are sure at once to come on something entertaining; and if we be in the habit of thinking for ourselves as we read, every page is so sprinkled over with hints, suggestions, and feelings, that, like the conversation of a well-informed and intelligent friend, Mr D'Israeli's compositions put our minds upon the alert, and exereise, without fatiguing our faculties. Though a great story-teller, he is never a gossip; his stories, too, are all of interesting people, and they are uniformly narrated with a moral purpose. Indeed, the principal charm of all his works, and especially of the present, is that we always find ourselves in the very best company. Famous names shine over every page-the voices of the illustrious dead become familiar to our ears-we see the great men of great times, not like ghosts rising from the grave, but clothed in all the glad ness of animation, and we constantly shut his volumes with brightened fancies, a heightened enthusiasm, and a more vital sympathy with the noblest of our kind. We are inclined to think, that in English literature at least, Mr D'Israeli is a writer sui generis, for we know not any other person in whom is combined the same light literary information with such power of lively expression, the same unaffected and empassioned enthusiasm towards every thing in the shape of genius, with so considerable a share of that rare faculty in himself, the same eager, rambling, and desultory spirit of youth,

London, John Murray, Albemarle

Street. 1818.

with so much of the shrewdness, and even wisdom of age; in short, we know of nobody else who seems to be a Man of Letters, so entirely from the pure love of literature, who follows so unrestrainedly the bent of his nature, and who therefore unites with the knowledge, we might almost say the erudition, of the author-the liberal spirit and accomplishments of the gentleman.

If we have formed a just estimate of the value of this volume, an abstract of some of its most interesting chapters cannot fail to afford pleasure to such of our readers as may not have seen the original book. And in our abstract we shall imitate the desultory manner of Mr D'Israeli himself.

In his chapter "On the Youth of Genius," Mr D'Israeli observes, that many sources of genius have been laid open to us, but though these may sometimes call it forth, they have nev→ er supplied its place. The equality of minds, in their native state, he justly considers as monstrous a paradox as the equality of men in a political state. Johnson has defined genius as mind of general powers accidentally determined by some particular direction," a theory which rejects any native aptitude, and according to which the reasoning Locke, without an ear or eye, might have become the musical and fairy Spencer. Reynolds again thought that pertinacious labour could do every thing. Akenside more truly says, that "from Heaven descends the flame of genius to the human heart." But though the origin of genius be dark, its history may be clear, and although we cannot be her legislator, we may be her annalist. In reading the memoirs of a man of genius, we have often cause to reprobate the domestic persecutions of those who opposed his inclinations. The Port Royal Society thrice burned the romance which Racine at length got by heart. Pascal's father would not suffer him to study Euclid. The father of Petrarch burnt the poetical library of his son, amid the shrieks, groans, and tears of the youth. The uncle of Alfieri for twen ty years suppressed the poetical character of the noble bard. The truth is, that the parents of a man of genius have had another association of ideas concerning him than we have had, We see a great man, they a disobedi ent child,-we track him through his

glory, they are wearied by the sullen resistance of his character.

The love of repose and of musing generally attends the "Youth of Genius," and Mr D'Israeli asserts that it is retained through life. He asserts too, that a man of fine genius is rarely enamoured of common amusements or robust exercises. Beattie has expressly told us of his Minstrel, "The exploit of strength, dexterity, or speed To him nor vanity nor joy could bring." Alfieri could never be taught to dance -Horace was a bad rider-Metastasio a bad shot-the younger Pliny was charmed by the Roman mode of fowl ing, which admitted him to sit a whole day with his tablets and stylus-and Thomson was the hero of his own Castle of Indolence. All this is very inconclusive. Beattie, though a man of real poetical genius, was sadly deficient in strength and vigour, both of intellect and passion-and "young Edwin," though assuredly "no vulgar boy," is very far indeed from being a fine ideal impersonation of a young poet. He is much too effeminate and timid, and too much troubled with debicate nerves. There can be no reason in nature why a man of imagination and passion (and that man is a Poet) should not, in the exuberance of animal spirits and delight, pour out his very soul in the ardent enjoyment of all those pursuits, for which young Edwin, who was probably but weak and sickly, had no relish. Much depends on his bodily frame-much on the age in which he lives-much on his country-much on his early reading-much on his rank in life. Nothing can be asserted generally, on this point, of the Youth of Genius, nor indeed of its manhood. Poets, philosophers, statesmen, divines, there have been, who loved and excelled in all manly accomplishments. In those objects and pursuits which Beattie and Mr D'Israeli would exclude from the thoughts and passions of a youth of genius, there is much to kindle and to feed those very powers and feelings most essential to the character of genius. There can be no doubt that the greatest poets of all countries have been men eminently endowed with bodily powers, and that they rejoiced and excelled in all manly exercises or pursuits. So has it been with the greatest poets of Greece, Italy, and England.

The Youth of Genius assumes so many forms that, from the habits of mere boys, it is impossible to prognosticate with much certainty any thing of the future character. The natures of men, Mr D'Israeli well says, are as varied as their fortunes. Some like diamonds must receive their splendour from the slow touches of the polisher, while others, resembling pearls, appear at once born with their beauteous lustre. It is delightful, however, when a great man has reached his glo ry, to look back on little trifling circumstances, by which he, in his boyhood, strove to anticipate it. Ariosto, when a boy, composed a tragedy from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe; and Pope indicated his passion for Homer in these rough verses, which he drew up from Ogilby's version. Sir William Jones, at Harrow, divided the fields according to a map of Greece, and portioned out to each school-fellow a dominion.

The first efforts of genius are often wholly inauspicious. Indeed, though some great men have, in very early youth, produced perfect specimens of composition, it may in general be remarked, that their early writings have been worse than the early writings of very inferior minds. They are troubled and overmastered by their own conceptions-or it may be that great and glorious visions are seen by them dimly and at a distance then, which afterwards burst upon them in perfect splendour. The causes of this Mr D'Israeli has not even alluded to, but has merely given some examples. The first attempts of Dryden and Swift were hopeless-Racine's earliest compositions abounded in all the faults from which his later productions were so remarkably free— Gibbon, in his "Essay on Literature," is but a feeble person-and Raphael, under Perugino, drew meagre and miserable forms, though afterwards the sole master of ideal beauty.

Genius has even proceeded to manhood without its splendour.Goldsmith had no love of poetry till he was thirty. It was said of Johnson, that he would never offend in conversation, and of Boileau, that he had no great understanding, but would never speak ill of any one. The great Isaac Barrow's father used to say of him, that if it pleased God to take from him any of his children, he hop

ed it might be Isaac, as the least promising. Unfortunately for our knowledge of the human soul, men of genius do not themselves attend philosophically to all the numberless causes that from childhood are constantly affecting, forming, and moulding their characters. There is not much autobiography in the world, and but a small part of it is valuable. It is a difficult thing to live over again a lifetime, without losing either its lights or shadows. It is also a formidable thing. But if men of genius will not do it for themselves, none else can do it for them; and in the very best memoir that ever was written of a man of genius by another mind, how little is there in which we can discover the cause of any one part of his character. Mr D'Israeli, we think, might have entered a little more into the philosophy of this matter; for, from the multitude of his anecdotes, conclusions the most contradictory might be drawn. One good remark he does make, "that it has happened to some men of genius during a long period of their lives, to have an unsettled impulse, without having discovered the object of its aptitude, a thirst and fever in the temperament of a too sentient being, which cannot find the occupation to which it can only attach itself," but that the instant the latent talent has declared itself, they have at once shone forth as men of genius.

Mr D'Israeli says, that in general, perhaps a master-mind exhibits precocity, and we are inclined to agree with him. He gives a great many instances of this in his usual way, but undoubtedly, as many might be given to the contrary, according to imperfect biographies. We conceive that if a mind of genius were accurately observed in boyhood, it would always exhibit that genius in some form of expression. All the truly great spirits of whose youth we know any thing authentic, have done so. Traits of such thought in boys of genius are not to be seen by common eyes; nay, often seem to ordinary observers to denote dulness or stupidity. The common remark that boys of great talents seldom turn out first-rate men, is good for nothing, because by great talents, no more is meant than some of the most unimportant qualities of the mind, by which clever boys are enabled to make a figure at school. That such boys should

prove very dull men, is not at all surprising. But the fact is, that even at school, their superiority over boys of genius was not real, but apparent. There can be nothing that is not encouraging and hopeful in the exhibition of early genius, if we are assured that it is genius. Disappointment only follows mistake. We misconceive the nature and essence of the qualities exhibited by some favourite boy,-we anticipate a glorious future from an erroneous view of the present, and then we very wisely lay it down as a grand truth, that nature is often not true to her promises, when her operations have only falsified our hasty and unauthorised prophecies.

Mr D'Israeli then gives us a chapter on the first studies of genius. Many of those peculiarities, he observes, of men of genius, both fortunate and unfortunate, may be easily traced to them. As physicians tell us that there is a certain point in youth at which the constitution is formed, and on which the sanity of life revolves, so is it with the mind of genius. Johnson's early attachment to the works of Sir Thomas Brown, produced his excessive admiration of Latinized English. Rembrandt's father had a mill which received light from an aperture at the top, and this habituated that great artist to view all objects as if seen in that magical light. Pope, when a child, read a small library of mystical devotion, which he found in his mother's closet; and from the seraphic raptures of these erotic mystics, he partly conceived the feelings of Heloise; and to speak of great living men,-from the perusal of Rycaut's folio of Turkish History in childhood, Lord Byron, it is said, derived impressions which gave life and motion to the Giaour, the Corsair and Alp.

The education of genius must, in a great measure, be its own work. But too often men of genius have through half their lives held a contest with bad or no education. Men of genius who have been late taught, with powers capable of placing them in the first rank, are mortified to discover themselves only on a level with those by nature much their inferiors. They have of necessity to go through in manhood, that discipline which others have undergone in boyhood. This alone is an evil never wholly to be surmounted, for it disarranges the fa

culties of the soul, and perplexes nature herself." I am unfortunately," says Winkleman, "one of those whom the Greeks named aussero sapientes, the late-learned, for I have appeared too late in the world and in Italy. To have done something, I should have had an education analagous to my pursuits, and this at your

The self-educated are accordingly marked by strong peculiarities. Sometimes the greater portion of their lives is past before they can throw themselves out of that world of mediocrity to which they have been confined. They are constantly struggling to realize their conceptions against many difficulties, which, with other persons, education has removed. They are apt to become stubborn-hard-cynical. But their enthusiasm is great, for it kindles equally at the sight of difficulties overcome, and those yet to be surmounted. No self-educated man ever sunk into despair with his art. "This race of the self-educated," says our Author, "are apt to consider some of their own insulated feelings those of all; their prejudices are often invincible, and their tastes unsure and capricious; glorying in their strength, while they are betraying their weak nesses, yet mighty even in that enthusiasm which is only disciplined by its own fierce habits. Bunyan is the Spenser of the people. The fire burned towards heaven, although the altar was rude and rustic."

Friends who, in ordinary cases, are so valuable in youth, are, according to Mr D'Israeli, usually prejudicial in the youth of genius. Real genius, he says, has often been disconcerted and thrown into despair, by the ill judgments of his domestic circle. Taste is of such variety, that not one of ten thousand well-educated intelligent men, possess that prophetic kind of it which anticipates the public opinion. Had some of our first writers set their fortunes on the cast of their friend's opinion, we might have lost many precious compositions. Thomson's early friends saw little or no merit in his "Winter." Parnel was reckoned something of a dunce till Swift introduced him to Bolingbroke; and when Reynolds returned from Italy, with all the excellence of his art, his old teacher Hudson exclaimed, that he did not paint so well as when he left VOL. IV.

England. In short, Mr D'Israeli is of opinion, that it is equally dangerous for a young writer to resign himself to the opinions of his friends, and to pass them with inattention; so that he must be in a great embarrassment.

We are not sure if we understand Mr D'Israeli very distinctly, and he will pardon us for hinting, that he does not appear very distinctly to understand himself. If the youth of genius was likely to be blasted by the mere blindness of friends to its excellence, blasted it would indeed too often be. But we conceive that genius so exists for and in itself, and works in such a strong spirit of uncommunicated and uncommunicable delight, that the favourable or unfavourable opinion of others respecting its young productions, is not likely to have any bad effect whatever on its strength or happiness. The love of a young mind for its own creations, is not dependent on the love of others. Thomson, we dare say, cared little about the stupidity of his worthy friends. True genius, we conceive, may be, and often is, greatly benefited by wise, kind, and judicious friends,-rarely injured by the mere ignorance of duller spirits. We mean to apply this merely to their compositions,-their early poems or pictures, as Mr D'Israeli has done.

But if we take a larger view of the friendship of young men of genius, and think of their friends as objects of love, tenderness, or veneration, then we do conceive, that so far from their being" usually prejudicial," they are as breezes and stars to the soul of genius; that without deep, strong, pure, and intellectual friendship, for some mind similar to itself, genius would wither into desolate decay; and that almost all the first noble efforts of genius have been in the joy and the strength of human affec"tions.

One of the best Chapters in the Book is that on the " Irritability of Genius." Mr D'Israeli, however, seems too broadly to admit, that men of genius are generally of an irritable temperament. He ought to have stated, a little more precisely, first, what is meant by irritability applied to them; and, secondly, how far the charge is a true one. Some sorts of genius there unquestionably are, which, so far from inclining their possessors to irritability, seem naturally

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