ments.

I

Gladness grew in me upon the difcovery of fo delightful a fcene. wished for the wings of an eagle, that I might fly away to thofe happy feats; but the genius told me there was no paffage to them, except through the gates of death that I faw opening every moment upon the bridge. The iflands,' faid he, that lie to fresh and green before thee, and with which the whole face of the ocean appears fpotted as far as thou canft fee, are more in number than the fands of the fea-fhore; there are myriads of iflands behind thofe which thou here difcovereft, reaching farther than even thine eye, or even thy imagination, can extend itself. Thefe are the manfions of good men C after death, who according to the degree and kinds of virtue in which they excelled, are diftributed among thefe feveral iflands, which abound with pleafures of different kinds and degrees, fuitable to the relifhes and perfections of thofe who are fettled in them; every inland is a paradife accommodated to it's refpective inha

bitants. Are not thefe, O Mirzah, habitations worth contending for? Does life appear miferable, that gives the opportunities of earning fuch a reward? Is death to be feared, that will convey thee to fo happy an exiftence? Think not man was made in vain, who has fuch an eternity referved for him.' gazed with inexpreffible pleasure on thefe happy islands. At length, faid I Shew me now, I befeech thee, the fecrets that lie hid under thofe dark clouds which cover the ocean on the other fide of the rock

I

of adamant. The genius making me no answer, I turned about to addrefs myfelf to him a fecond time, but I found that he had left me; I then turned again to the vifion which I had been fo long contemplating; but instead of the rolling tide, the arched bridge, and the happy iflands, I faw nothing but the long hollow vailey of Bagdat, with oxen, fheep, and camels, grazing upon the

fides of it.

The end of the first vision of Mirzah.

HOR. SAT. IV. L. I. V.43.

THERE is no character more frequently given to a writer than that of being a genius, I have heard many a little fonneteer called a fine genius, There is not an heroic fcribbler in the nation that has not his admirers who think him a great genius; and as for your fmatterers in tragedy, there is fcarce a man among them who is not cried up by one or other for a prodigious genius.

My defign in this paper is to confider what is properly a great genius, and tò throw fome thoughts together on fo uncommon a fubject.

Among great geniuses thofe 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 affistance of art or learning, have produced works that were the delight of their own times,

CREECH.

C

and the wonder of pofterity. There appears' fomething nobly wild and extravagant in thefe great natural geniuses, that is infinitely more beautiful than all ̧ the turn and polishing, of what the French call a Bel Efprit, by which they would exprefs a genius refined by converfation, reflection, and the reading of the moft polite authors. The greateft genius which runs through the arts and fciences, takes a kind of tincture from them, and falls unavoidably into imitation.

Many of these great natural geniuses that were never difciplined and broken by rules of art, are to be found among the ancients, and in particular among those of the more eastern parts of the world. Homer has innumerable flights that Virgil was not able to reach, and in the Old Teftament we find feveral paffages more elevated and fublime than

any

any in Homer. At the fame time that we allow a greater and more daring genius to the ancients, we must own that the greatest of them very much failed in, or, if you will, that they were much above the nicety and correctnefs of the moderns. In their fimilitudes and alJufions, provided there was a likeness, they did not much trouble themfelves about the decency of the comparison: thus Solomon resembles the note of his

beloved to the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damafcus; as the coming of a thief in the night is a fimilitude of the fame kind in the New Testament. It would be endlefs to make collections of this nature; Homer illuftrates one of his heroes encompaffed with the enemy, by an afs in a field of corn, that has his fides belaboured by all the boys of the village without ftirring a foot for it: and another of them toffing to and fro in his bed and burning with refentment, to a piece of flesh broiled on the coals. This particular failure in the ancients, opens a large field of raillery to the little wits, who can laugh at an indecency but not relish the fublime in thefe forts of writings. The prefent Emperor of Perfia, conformable to this eaftern way of thinking, amidst a great many pompous titles, denominates himself the Sun of Glory and the Nutmeg of Delight. In short, to cut off all cavilling against the ancients, and particularly thole of the warmer climates, who had moft heat and life in their imaginations, we are to confider that the rule of obferving what the French call the Bien feance in an allufion, has been found out of later years, and in the colder regions of the world; where we would make fome amends for our want of force and fpirit, by a fcrupulous nicety and exactness in our compofitions. Our Countryman Shakespeare was a remarkable inftance of this firft kind of great geniuses.

I cannot quit this head without obferving that Pindar was a great genius of the first clafs, who was hurried on by a natural fire and impetuofity to vast conceptions of things and noble fallies of imagination. At the fame time, can any thing be more ridiculous than for men of a fober and moderate fancy to imitate this poet's way of writing in thefe monstrous compofitions which go among us under the name of Pindarics? When I fee people copying works, which,

You may as well pretend to be mad and in your fenfes at the fame time, as to think of reducing thefe uncertain things to any certainty by reafon.

In short, a modern pindaric writer, compared with Pindar, is like a fitter, among the Camifars compared with Virgil's Sibyl: there is the distortion, grimace, and outward figure, but nothing of that divine impulfe which raises the mind above itfelf, and makes the founds more than human.

This

There is another kind of great geniufes which I fhall place in a fecond clafs, not as I think them inferior to the first, but only for diftin&tion's fake, as they are of a different kind. fecond clafs of great geniufes are thofe that have formed them:felves by rules, and fubmitted the greatnefs of their natural talents to the corrections and reftraints of art. Such among the Greeks were Plato and Ariftotie; among the Romans, Virgil and Tully; among the English, Milton and Sir Francis Bacon.

The genius in both thefe claffes of authors may be equally great, but shews itself after a different manner. In the firft it is like a rich foil in a happy climate, that produces a whole wilderness of noble plants ring in a thousand beautiful landskips, without any certain order or regularity. In the other it is the fame rich foil under the fame happy climate; that has been laid out in walks and parterres, and cut into thape and beauty by the fkill of the gardener.

The great danger in thefe latter kind of geniufes, is, left they cramp their own abilities too much by imitation, and form themselves altogether upon models, without giving the full play to their own natural parts. An imitation of the best authors is not to compare with a good original; and I believe we may observe that very few writers make an extraordinary figure in the world, who have not fomething in their way of thinking

order to make some impreffion on their miftreffes hearts. I obferved a lufty young fellow, who had the misfortune of a broken pate; but what confiderably added to the anguifh of the wound, was his over-hearing an old man, who fhook his head and faid, that he queftioned now if Black Kate would marry him thefe three years. I was diverted from a farther obfervation of thefe combatants, by a foot-ball match, which was on the other fide of the green; where Tom Short behaved himself fo well, that most people feemed to agree it was impoffible that he fhould remain a bachelor until the next wake. Having played many a match myself, I could have looked lenger on this fport, had I not observed a country girl, who was posted on an eminence at fome distance from me, and was making so many odd grimaces, and writhing and diftorting her whole body in fo ftrange a manner, as made me very defirous to know the meaning of it. Upon my coming up to her, I found that the was overlooking a ring of wreftlers, and that her fweetheart, a perfon of fmall ftature, was contending with an huge brawny fellow, who twirled him about, and hook the little man fo violently, that by a fecret fympathy of hearts it produced all thofe agitations in the person of his mittress, who, I dare fay, like Cælia in Shakespeare on the fame occafion, could have withed herself invifible to catch the strong fellow by the leg. The 'Squire of the parish treats the whole Company every year with a hogshead of ale; and propofes a beaver hat as a recompence to him who gives moft falls. This has raifed fuch a fpirit of emulation in the youth of the place, that fome of them have rendered themselves very expert at this exercife; and I was often furprised to fee a fellow's heels fly up, by a trip which was given him fo fmartly that I could fcarce difcern it. I found that the old wreftlers feldom entered the ring, until fome one was grown formidable by having thrown two or three of his opponents; but kept themselves as it were in a referved body to defend the hat, which is always hung up by the perfon who gets it in one of the most confpicuous parts of the houfe, and lookd upon by the whole family as fomething redounding much more to their honour than a coat of arms. There was a fellow who was fo bufy in regulating all the ceremonies, and feemed to carry

fuch an air of importance in his looks, that I could not help inquiring who he' was, and was immediately anfwered, That he did not value himself upon no thing, for that he and his ancestors had won fo many hats, that his parlour looked like a haberdafher's fhop: however this thirst of glory of them all, was the reafon that no one man stood lord of the ring for above three falls while I was among them.

The young maids, who were not lookers-on at thefe exercifes, were themfelves engaged in fome diverfions; and upon my afking a farmer's fon of my own parith what he was gazing at with fo much attention, he told me, that he was feeing Betty Welch, who I knew to be his fweetheart, pitch a bar.

In short, I found the men endeavoured to fhew the women they were no cowards, and that the whole company ftrived to recommend themselves to each other, by making it appear that they were all in a perfect state of health, and fit to undergo any fatigues of bodily labour.

Your judgment upon this method of love and gallantry, as it is at present practifed amongst us in the country, will very much oblige, Sir,

Your's &c.

If I would here put on the fcholar and polititian, I might inform my readers how thefe bodily exercifes or games were formerly encouraged in all the commonwealths of Greece: from whence the Romans afterwards borrowed their Pentathlum, which was compofed of running, wrestling, leaping, throwing, and boxing, though the prizes were generally nothing but a crown of cypress or parfley, hats not being in fashion in thofe days that there is an old ftatute, which obliges every man in England, having fuch an eftate, to keep and exercife the long bow; by which means our ancestors excelled all other nations in the ufe of that weapon, and we had all the real advantages, without the inconvenience of a ftanding army; and that I once met with a book of projects, in which the author confidering to what noble ends that spirit of emulation, which fo remarkably fhews itself among our common people in thefe wakes, might be directed, propofes that for the improvement of all our handicraft trades there should be annual prizes fet up for fuch

perfons