Concord Register

Literature.

REMARKS ON THE DIVERSITY OF GENIUS.

"Different minds
Incline to different objects; one pursues
The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild:
Another sighs for harmony, and grace,
And gentlest beauty."
AKENSIDE.

Nothing is more remarkable in nature than its variety. The flowers of the field, and the leaves of the forest have, each and all, their general likeness, and their particular dissimilarity. It is easy for a Botanist to determine the species of a plant from its specific and invariable outlines, when examined by itself; yet no leaves on the same stem, or indeed on any other stem, will be found exactly correspondent. It would be endless to specify and particularize. The same holds true with respect to all the other works of the Creator, and constitutes the eternal distinction between nature and art. The one is bounded and imitative, the other infinite.

The human face is another remarkable and striking illustration. It is scarcely comprehensible by our limited faculties, how, within such a narrow compass, there could possibly exist such a variety of modifications-such a diversity of lines and lineaments—such a general resemblance-and such an individuality. Nevertheless, such holds true with respect to all the families, and kindreds, and cities, and kingdoms, and regions of the earth, from Zombla to the Tropics, from the swarthy Moor to the blue-eyed Russ. Though an inhabitant of an extensive metropolis is in the daily habit of seeing a thousand different faces, we are bold to affirm that no one, even allowing him to have lived to the age of Thomas Parr, ever beheld two human beings exactly the reflected shadows of each other.

We may turn from the physical to the intellectual world. Mankind differ not more in external features than in mental physiognomy. That all men of sound minds possess a range of faculties in common, may be laid down as an axiom: yet in no two individuals will be discerned those minute peculiarities, those undefinable tendencies, which, however trifling in themselves, go far, when taken in the aggregate, in forming the conduct, and stamping upon the character that complexion which it is destined to bear in the eyes of the world.

When the principles are different, so must necessarily be the produce. We never gather gooseberries from an apple-tree, nor figs from a thorn bush. Circumstances and situations, no doubt have their peculiar effects, both in regard to the direction and improvement of the intellectual faculties; but there are inherent varieties of disposition, and inherent tendencies of mind, which neither time nor art are sufficient to counterbalance or eradicate. Children at the most tender age, frequently exhibit the dawnings of that disposition which is to characterize them through life; while, in other cases, the utmost excellencies of mind have lain dormant and unmarked for a very long period, even the greater portion of life, and have, perhaps, been only at length called into exhibition by a fortuitous circumstance. It has been a matter of dispute for half a century among critics, to whom the palm of superiority should be allotted, Dryden or Pope.

The powerful minds of these two men modelled the literature of the age in which they flourished; and when we speak of a certain cast of thought, and a certain manner of expressing that thought, we designate it as an imitation of the school of Pope or Dryden. Yet such was the diversity in the development of the faculties of those two men, that the one literally "lisped in numbers," while the other exhibited few tokens of excellence till an advanced period of life. When we are told that, in the falling of apples from a tree, the theory of gravitation, from which such stupendous discoveries arose, suggested itself to the comprehensive soul of Newton; or that, to the tones of a Welch harp, posterity are indebted for the Bard of Gray, we are not for a moment to suppose, that the like results would have followed from the same circumstances, in any other conceivable situations. They are not links in the chain of invariable sequences; they do not stand in the relation of cause and effect; for every one does not look on nature with the eyes of a philosopher, or draw from the melody of sweet sounds the inspiration of poetry.

Allowing even the groundwork to be the same, the objects of thought, whether relating to the physical or intellectual world, are tinctured by the very mood of mind in which they are dwelt upon; the scene is coloured by the eye that views it. A foreigner does not look on the landscape around with that keen relish and partiality displayed by the native. The bloomy vales of Languedoc do not appear, in the eyes and estimation of the Swiss emigrant, equal to his own Alpine scenery; not because bare rocks, and cold lakes and mud cabins, are preferable to rich pastures, and gardens, and palaces, but because with the former are associated a thousand endearing recollections.

"Our first, best country, ever is at home."

A European looks with pity on the helplessness, and with contempt on the acquirements of an African negro. The negro on the other hand, looks upon us as the serpents of mankind, as the very embodied essences of cunning and cruelty.

They paint their devils white.

Some Kamscatdales were brought to the capital of Russia, that they might be educated, and carry back to their tribes some notion of the accomplishments of civilized life. But the purpose was defeated; they pined in spirit, and died of ennui. The American-Scotsman kindles to flame at the recital of the martial achievements of his ancestors; and while his hand is guiding the plough on the banks of the Mississippi, his heart is far away, among the hills of Athole or Argyle—while he sees, in thought,

"The lone sepulchral cairn upon the moor,
And distant isles that hear the loud Corbrechtan roar."

Even the smallest thing in a foreign land that bears reference to the land of nativity is treasured up; the likeness of a face—of a tree—of a stream—of a mountain. In the journal of Park's second Travels in the interior of Africa, we are told that the heart of that illustrious man was, in the extreme, affected by the loss of a soldier, who was wont to amuse their evening loneliness by singing the ballads and songs of his native land. The anniversary of Burns' birth is fondly commemorated by his countrymen in India. Lord Byron, in his travels through the mountainous tracts of Albania, passes over many a more important topic, to remark, that the dress of these Greeks resembled that of the Scottish Highlanders. Nothing is more delightful than to hear the accents of our native clime beneath far foreign skies. This has always been, and well it may, a favourite theme for poets. Scott compares the tone of a mournful melody to

"The lament of men.
Who languish for their native glen."

The author of Childe Harold, in his splendid description of the dying Gladiator, transports himself back to the barbarous shows of Rome, and portrays the slave, as he sinks into the embrace of death, in the midst of the Circus, forgetful of the gazing throngs around, beholding in thought his young barbarians at play, their Dacian mother, and the banks of the Danube. Campbell has given scope to the same train of sentiment, in the beautiful lyrics of "the Harper," and "the Exile of Erin." Grahame, in his "Birds of Scotland," has, in his own person, given vent, in the most rapturous and passionate language, to the same patriotic feelings; and Wilson, in his fine sketch of "the French Exile," has represented the blind man lifting up his hoary head in ecstacy, at hearing the accents of his native tongue:-

"He seemed as if restored to sight
So suddenly his eyes grew bright,
When that music touched his ear;
The lilied fields of France, I ween,
Before him swam in softened light,
And the sweet waters of the Seine
They all were murmuring near."

Let us turn from fancy to fact.-Let us traverse the regions of history and science, and we shall be convinced that it is the same in all. Scotland claims Ossian: and Ireland claims him. England has no shadow of claim to him, and, therefore, does not hesitate to declare, that he never existed. Let us take, for example, the annals of our native country. How fabulous in their commencement! how contradictory in their progress! And to what is this owing, but to the sympathies or antipathies of the narrators? Look to the legends of Blind Harry and Barbour, to the histories of Boethius and Buchanan; how seemingly plausible they are, and yet how deplorably chimerical and groundless. Lord Hailes puts the whole unconcocted mass into his crucible, and, behold, there are nine parts of baser metal, for one of gold. Like the enchanted castles of romance, the whole pageant vanishes, and a desert wilderness remains. Rinaldo blows the horn of Truth, and the magic structures of Fancy disappear.

It was owing to this circumstance that Voltaire remarked, that a historian ought to have no country. That is to say, he must divest himself of every prejudice, consider himself as a citizen of the world, and look on the land that gave him birth, not with the fondness and feelings of a patriot, but as a branch of the general family of mankind. But where shall such a character be found? We may as well set to the task, which it is said the enemy of man prescribed to Michael Scott, and commence our operations in twining cables from the sea sands.

There seem to be two great varieties of mind, in which excellency is equally inherent, but in which the development of genius is extremely different. The former is remarkable for strength, and energy, and precision; the latter for softness, harmony, and grace. The one delights in the tempests and tornadoes of passion; in the roaring of the ocean: and the bursting of the volcano: the other, in the gentler emotions of the soul; in tenderness, in pity, and in tears; in the smiling of the pastoral landscape, and the smoothness of the summer sea. Nor is this variety, in the temperament of genius, discernible only in the authors, who appeal chiefly to imagination. It pervades the whole commonwealth of intellect. Demosthenes, for example, takes the heart by storm; he overruns our convictions, and tyrannizes over the judgment with a despotic sway: he overpowers us by the strength of his appeals, and, after having silenced the voice of reason itself, rouses us from a trance, and incites our passions to take a share in the contest. Cicero, on the other hand, endeavors to gain the feelings to his side; he appeals to our bosoms by every effort of persuasive eloquence. He convinces the understanding; he elevates us into regions of fancy. He enlists reason in his cause, and shows us, that the arguments he adduces are accordant with its dictates. In the same opposition of excellence, stand Homer and Virgil; Dante and Spencer; Johnson and Addison; Chalmers and Alison. Not, perhaps, opposed in the exact attributes which we have pointed out in the Grecian and Roman orators, but, in the general tone and contexture of their compositions. In painting, likewise, as an illustration of our position, we may adduce the examples of Salvator Rosa, and Claude Lorraine. In the drama, of Kean and Kemble.

There seem to be an order of minds, indeed, in which the whole faculties have exhibited extraordinary development, and which are not more distinguished for inventiveness of imagination, than for strength of judgment. Proudly pre-eminent stands Shakspeare, the prince of poets, and supreme sovereign of the human heart. In him, it is utterly impossible to say, where lay his strength, or where lay his weakness. We hear of the manner of Chaucer, of the manner of Spencer, of the manner of Pope, of the manner of Cowper, but we never hear of the manner of Shakspeare. His excellencies are of every conceivable kind; he is a giant in all his faculties. Lay his forte in strength, he was more delicate than Fletcher; lay it in tenderness, he was more masculine than Ben Jonson. He draws us to him "with the cords of a man;" he rouses us into horror, or incites us into tears; he convinces the understanding, or, if it suits his purpose, overthrows reason, and seizes upon the passions. His scene is on earth, or in the air. His personages embrace the sum of human society, and are of all ages and nations. "He exhausts worlds, and imagines new."

After having explored every creek in the spacious ocean of the human soul, "the haunt and the main region of his song," he turns to the spiritual and superhuman world. Incomparable Shakspeare!

"Take him for all in all," the world has never seen his like, and, most probably, shall never see his like again. There are others of the same class, but not in the same rank of excellence. Walter Scott and Goethe are the only two men we dare mention in the same breath.

Leaving the manners of individuals, we may generalize, for every age has its characteristic and specific marks. The tone of English literature, in the age of Elizabeth, was of a far more lofty and majestic character than that of the age that followed. In the writings of Milton, Isaac Barrow, and Jeremy Taylor, there is a capacity and a comprehensiveness, combined with an extent of illustration, which we shall in vain look for in Addison, Pope, Swift, and the other "wits" of Queen Ann's reign.

Thirty years ago, the literature of Great Britain was as different from what it is at the present time, as it is possible almost to imagine. About the commencement of the French revolution—but whether connected with it or not, we do not pretend to say -our authors exhibited, in dawning vigour, an originality of thought, a boldness, and a latitude of expression, together with a freshness of observation, of which their more immediate predecessors afford no examples. Perhaps the grand error of our present system is diffuseness; but we have some excellencies which will counterbalance that. No one whose mind is penetrated with a deep sense of beauty will lay aside Scott, Wordsworth, or Southey, because they sometimes indulge in unnecessary prolixity of detail; while, to the most fastidious, we can safely bring forward Mackenzie, Campbell and Rogers. The writings of Byron alone, even though we could adduce no more, are of themselves a host, and are sufficient to carry down, to remotest posterity, a powerful impression of the genius of the age that produced them.

Moreover, the different lights in which actions and events are viewed, do not refer exclusively to historians; the same principle extends to every branch of philosophy and literature, and not in the substance alone, but in the very words in which the ideas are embodied. Look to the prose style of Addison, to that of Sterne, to that of Goldsmith, to that of Johnson, more especially to the first and last mentioned-the one, plain, elegant, chaste, and perspicuous, classically pure, and beautifully simple; the other, lofty, impetuous, and majestic, conveying the highest aspirations of mind in tones of the most delightful melody and music. The same age has produced "the Pleasures of Hope," of Campbell, and "the Ancient Mariner," of Coleridge. It is the same with the colourings of painters; it is the same with the expression of poets.

"The blank verse of Thomson," says Johnson, "is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley." "Compare the blank verse of Thomson, Cowper, Wordsworth, with that of Milton," says Hazlitt, "and it will be found to be little better than lumbering prose." "Lord Byron," says Jeffrey, "has not the variety of Scott, nor the delicacy of Campbell, nor the absolute truth of Crabbe, nor the polished sparkling of Moore; but in power of expression, and in unextinguishable energy of sentiment, he clearly surpasses them all." We need go no farther; let part of the living genius of Britain speak for itself. We shall select a theme, for example, of which several of them treat-pictures of desolation. We must, however, limit ourselves to three specimens. The first is from "the Giaour" of Lord Byron, and completely worthy of his powerful genius.

The steed is vanished from the stall;
No serf is seen in Hassan's hall;
The lonely spider's thin gray pall
Waves slowly widening o'er the wall;
The bat builds in his Haram bower,
And in the fortress of his power
The owl usurps the beacon tower.
The wild-dog howls o'er the fountain's brim.
With baffled thirst and famine grim,
For the stream hath shrunk from its marble bed,
Where the weeds and the desolate dust are spread.
The last sad shriek that filled the gale
Was woman's wildest funeral wail.
That quenched in silence, all is still,
Save the lattice that flaps when the wind is shrill:
Tho' raves the gust, and floods the rain,
No hand shall close its clasp again.

If any thing can surpass this sublime description, it is the following, from "Gertrude of Wyoming."

After the funeral of Albert and his daughter, Outalissi, the Indian, thus pours out the fervour and enthusiasm of his spirit to the drooping survivor Waldegrave.

To-morrow let us do or die!
But when the bolt of death is hurl'd
Ah! whither then with thee to fly.
Shall Outalissi roam the world?
Seek we thy once-loved home?
The hand is gone that cross'd its flowers!
Unheard their clock repeats its hours!
Cold is the heart within their bowers!
And should we thither roam,
Its echoes, and its empty tread,
Would sound like voices from the dead!

The next, though in a very different style from either of the preceding, is equally characteristic of its author, and possesses that peculiar tone of simple pathos, which forms one of the great excellencies in the compositions of Wordsworth.

Her cottage, then a cheerful object, wore
Its customary look, only I thought.
The honeysuckle, crowding round the porch,
Hung down in heavier tufts; and that bright weed
The yellow stone-crop, suffered to take root
Along the window's edge, profusely grew,
Blinding the lower panes.

-I return'd,
And took my rounds along this road again
Ere on its sunny bank the primrose flower
Peep'd forth, to give an earnest of the spring,
I found her sad and drooping; she had learn'd
No tidings of her husband; if he lived
She knew not that he lived; if he were dead
She knew not he was dead. She seemed the same
In person and appearance; but her house
Bespake a sleepy hand of negligence.

Meantime her house by frost, and thaw, and rain,
Was sapped; and while she slept the nightly damp
Did chill her breast; and in the stormy day
Her tattered clothes were ruffled by the winds
Even at the side of her own fire. Yet still
She loved this wretched spot; and here, my friend,
In sickness she remained; and here she died,
Last human tenant of these ruined walls.

Blackwood's Magazine.