Literary Character of Men of Genius Part 7

Parties confederate against a man of genius,--as happened to Corneille, to D'Avenant,[A] and Milton; and a Pradon and a Settle carry away the meed of a Racine and a Dryden. It was to support the drooping spirit of his friend Racine on the opposition raised against Phaedra, that Boileau addressed to him an epistle "On the Utility to be drawn from the Jealousy of the Envious." The calm dignity of the historian DE THOU, amidst the pa.s.sions of his times, confidently expected that justice from posterity which his own age refused to his early and his late labour. That great man was, however, compelled by his injured feelings, to compose a poem under the name of another, to serve as his apology against the intolerant court of Rome, and the factious politicians of France; it was a n.o.ble subterfuge to which a great genius was forced. The acquaintances of the poet COLLINS probably complained of his wayward humours and irritability; but how could they sympathise with the secret mortification of the poet, who imagined that he had composed his Pastorals on wrong principles, or when, in the agony of his soul, he consigned to the flames with his own hands his unsold, but immortal odes? Can we forget the dignified complaint of the Rambler, with which he awfully closes his work, appealing to posterity?

[Footnote A: See "Quarrels of Authors," p. 403, on the confederacy of several wits against D'Avenant, a great genius; where I discovered that a volume of poems, said "to be written by the author's friends," which had hitherto been referred to as a volume of panegyrics, contains nothing but irony and satire, which had escaped the discovery of so many transcribers of t.i.tle-pages, frequently miscalled literary historians.]

Genius contracts those peculiarities of which it is so loudly accused in its solitary occupations--that loftiness of spirit, those quick jealousies, those excessive affections and aversions which view everything as it pa.s.ses in its own ideal world, and rarely as it exists in the mediocrity of reality. If this irritability of genius be a malady which has raged even among philosophers, we must not be surprised at the temperament of poets. These last have abandoned their country; they have changed their name; they have punished themselves with exile in the rage of their disorder. No! not poets only. DESCARTES sought in vain, even in his secreted life, for a refuge for his genius; he thought himself persecuted in France, he thought himself calumniated among strangers, and he went and died in Sweden; and little did that man of genius think that his countrymen would beg to have his ashes restored to them. Even the reasoning HUME once proposed to change his name and his country; and I believe did. The great poetical genius of our own times has openly alienated himself from the land of his brothers. He becomes immortal in the language of a people whom he would contemn.[A] Does he accept with ingrat.i.tude the fame he loves more than life?

[Footnote A: I shall preserve a ma.n.u.script note of Lord BYRON on this pa.s.sage; not without a hope that we shall never receive from him the genius of Italian poetry, otherwise than in the language of his "_father land_"; an expressive term, which I adopted from the Dutch language some years past, and which I have seen since sanctioned by the pens of Lord Byron and of Mr. Southey.

His lords.h.i.+p has here observed, "It is not my fault that I am obliged to write in English. If I understood my present language equally well, I would write in it; but this will require ten years at least to form a style: no tongue so easy to acquire a little of, or so difficult to master thoroughly, as Italian." On the same page I find the following note: "What was rumoured of me in that language? If true, I was unfit for England: if false, England was unfit for me:--'There is a world elsewhere.' I have never regretted for a moment that country, but often that I ever returned to it at all."]

Such, then, is that state of irritability in which men of genius partic.i.p.ate, whether they be inventors, men of learning, fine writers, or artists. It is a state not friendly to equality of temper. In the various humours incidental to it, when they are often deeply affected, the cause escapes all perception of sympathy. The intellectual malady eludes even the tenderness of friends.h.i.+p. At those moments, the lightest injury to the feelings, which at another time would make no impression, may produce a perturbed state of feeling in the warm temper, or the corroding chagrin of a self-wounded spirit. These are moments which claim the encouragements of a friends.h.i.+p animated by a high esteem for the intellectual excellence of the man of genius; not the general intercourse of society; not the insensibility of the dull, nor the levity of the volatile.

Men of genius are often reverenced only where they are known by their writings--intellectual beings in the romance of life; in its history, they are men! ERASMUS compared them to the great figures in tapestry-work, which lose their effect when not seen at a distance. Their foibles and their infirmities are obvious to their a.s.sociates, often only capable of discerning these qualities. The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces.

CHAPTER VIII.

The spirit of literature and the spirit of society.--The Inventors.

--Society offers seduction and not reward to men of genius.--The notions of persons of fas.h.i.+on of men of genius.--The habitudes of the man of genius distinct from those of the man of society.--Study, meditation, and enthusiasm, the progress of genius.--The disagreement between the men of the world and the literary character.

The Inventors, who inherited little or nothing from their predecessors, appear to have pursued their insulated studies in the full independence of their mind and development of their inventive faculty; they stood apart, in seclusion, the solitary lights of their age. Such were the founders of our literature--Bacon and Hobbes, Newton and Milton. Even so late as the days of Dryden, Addison, and Pope, the man of genius drew his circle round his intimates; his day was uniform, his habits unbroken; and he was never too far removed, nor too long estranged from meditation and reverie: his works were the sources of his pleasure ere they became the labours of his pride.

But when a more uniform light of knowledge illuminates from all sides, the genius of society, made up of so many sorts of genius, becomes greater than the genius of the individual who has entirely yielded himself up to his solitary art. Hence the character of a man of genius becomes subordinate. A conversation age succeeds a studious one; and the family of genius, the poet, the painter, and the student, are no longer recluses.

They mix with their rivals, who are jealous of equality, or with others who, incapable of valuing them for themselves alone, rate them but as parts of an integral.

The man of genius is now trammelled with the artificial and mechanical forms of life; and in too close an intercourse with society, the loneliness and raciness of thinking is modified away in its seductive conventions. An excessive indulgence in the pleasures of social life const.i.tutes the great interests of a luxuriant and opulent age; but of late, while the arts of a.s.sembling in large societies have been practised, varied by all forms, and pushed on to all excesses, it may become a question whether by them our happiness is as much improved, or our individual character as well formed as in a society not so heterogeneous and unsocial as that crowd termed, with the sort of modesty peculiar to our times, "a small party:" the simplicity of parade, the humility of pride engendered by the egotism which multiplies itself in proportion to the numbers it a.s.sembles.

It may, too, be a question whether the literary man and the artist are not immolating their genius to society when, in the shadowiness of a.s.sumed talents--that counterfeiting of all shapes--they lose their real form, with the mockery of Proteus. But nets of roses catch their feet, and a path, where all the senses are flattered, is now opened to win an Epictetus from his hut. The art of multiplying the enjoyments of society is discovered in the morning lounge, the evening dinner, and the midnight coterie. In frivolous fatigues, and vigils without meditation, perish the unvalued hours which, true genius knows, are always too brief for art, and too rare to catch its inspirations. Hence so many of our contemporaries, whose card-racks are crowded, have produced only flashy fragments.

Efforts, but not works--they seem to be effects without causes; and as a great author, who is not one of them, once observed to me, "They waste a barrel of gunpowder in squibs."

And yet it is seduction, and not reward, which mere fas.h.i.+onable society offers the man of true genius. He will be sought for with enthusiasm, but he cannot escape from his certain fate--that of becoming tiresome to his pretended admirers.

At first the idol--shortly he is changed into a victim. He forms, indeed, a figure in their little pageant, and is invited as a sort of _improvisatore_; but the esteem they concede to him is only a part of the system of politeness; and should he be dull in discovering the favourite quality of their self-love, or in partic.i.p.ating in their volatile tastes, he will find frequent opportunities of observing, with the sage at the court of Cyprus, that "what he knows is not proper for this place, and what is proper for this place he knows not." This society takes little personal interest in the literary character. HORACE WALPOLE lets us into this secret when writing to another man of fas.h.i.+on, on such a man of genius as GRAY--"I agree with you most absolutely in your opinion about Gray; he is the worst company in the world. From a melancholy turn, from living reclusely, and from a little too much dignity, he never converses easily; all his words are measured and chosen, and formed into sentences: his writings are admirable--he himself is not agreeable." This volatile being in himself personified the quintessence of that society which is called "the world," and could not endure that equality of intellect which genius exacts. He rejected Chatterton, and quarrelled with every literary man and every artist whom he first invited to familiarity--and then hated.

Witness the fates of Bentley, of Muntz, of Gray, of Cole, and others. Such a mind was incapable of appreciating the literary glory on which the mighty mind of BURKE was meditating. WALPOLE knew BURKE at a critical moment of his life, and he has recorded his own feelings:--"There was a young Mr. BURKE who wrote a book, in the style of Lord Bolingbroke, that was much admired. He is a sensible man, but has not _worn off his authorism yet_, and thinks there is nothing so charming as writers, and to be one: _he will know better one of these days_" GRAY and BURKE! What mighty men must be submitted to the petrifying sneer--that indifference of selfism for great sympathies--of this volatile and heartless man of literature and rank!

That thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of a.s.s's milk!

The confidential confession of RACINE to his son is remarkable:--"Do not think that I am sought after by the great for my dramas; Corneille composes n.o.bler verses than mine, but no one notices him, and he only pleases by the mouth of the actors. I never allude to my works when with men of the world, but I amuse them about matters they like to hear. My talent with them consists, not in making them feel that I have any, but in showing them that they have." Racine treated the great like the children of society; CORNEILLE would not compromise for the tribute he exacted, but he consoled himself when, at his entrance into the theatre, the audience usually rose to salute him. The great comic genius of France, who indeed was a very thoughtful and serious man, addressed a poem to the painter MIONARD, expressing his conviction that "the court," by which a Frenchman of the court of Louis XIV. meant the society we call "fas.h.i.+onable," is fatal to the perfection of art--

Qui se donne a la cour se derobe a son art; Un esprit partage rarement se consomme, Et les emplois de feu demandent tout l'homme.

Has not the fate in society of our reigning literary favourites been uniform? Their mayoralty hardly exceeds the year: they are pushed aside to put in their place another, who, in his turn, must descend. Such is the history of the literary character encountering the perpetual difficulty of appearing what he really is not, while he sacrifices to a few, in a certain corner of the metropolis, who have long fantastically styled themselves "the world," that more dignified celebrity which makes an author's name more familiar than his person. To one who appeared astonished at the extensive celebrity of BUFFON, the modern Pliny replied, "I have pa.s.sed fifty years at my desk." HAYDN would not yield up to society more than those hours which were not devoted to study. These were indeed but few: and such were the uniformity and retiredness of his life, that "He was for a long time the only musical man in Europe who was ignorant of the celebrity of Joseph Haydn." And has not one, the most sublime of the race, sung,

--che seggendo in piuma, In Fama non si vien, ne sotto coltre; Sanza la qual chi sua vita consuma Cotal vestigio in terra di se lascia Qual fummo in aere, ed in acqua la schiuma

For not on downy plumes, nor under shade Of canopy reposing, Fame is won: Without which, whosoe'er consumes his days, Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth As smoke in air, or foam upon the wave.[A]

[Footnote A: Cary's Dante, Canto xxiv.]

But men of genius, in their intercourse with persons of fas.h.i.+on, have a secret inducement to court that circle. They feel a perpetual want of having the reality of their talents confirmed to themselves, and they often step into society to observe in what degree they are objects of attention; for, though ever accused of vanity, the greater part of men of genius feel that their existence, as such, must depend on the opinion of others. This standard is in truth always problematical and variable; yet they cannot hope to find a more certain one among their rivals, who at all times are adroitly depreciating their brothers, and "dusking" their l.u.s.tre. They discover among those cultivators of literature and the arts who have recourse to them for their pleasure, impa.s.sioned admirers, rather than unmerciful judges--judges who have only time to acquire that degree of illumination which is just sufficient to set at ease the fears of these claimants of genius.

When literary men a.s.semble together, what mimetic friends.h.i.+ps, in their mutual corruption! Creatures of intrigue, they borrow other men's eyes, and act by feelings often even contrary to their own: they wear a mask on their face, and only sing a tune they have caught. Some hierophant in their mysteries proclaims their elect whom they have to initiate, and their profane who are to stand apart under their ban. They bend to the spirit of the age, but they do not elevate the public to them; they care not for truth, but only study to produce effect, and they do nothing for fame but what obtains an instant purpose. Yet their fame is not therefore the more real, for everything connected with fas.h.i.+on becomes obsolete. Her ear has a great susceptibility of weariness, and her eye rolls for incessant novelty. Never was she earnest for anything. Men's minds with her become tarnished and old-fas.h.i.+oned as furniture. But the steams of rich dinners, the eye which sparkles with the wines of France, the luxurious night which flames with more heat and brilliancy than G.o.d has made the day, this is the world the man of coterie-celebrity has chosen; and the Epicurean, as long as his senses do not cease to act, laughs at the few who retire to the solitary midnight lamp. Posthumous fame is--a nothing! Such men live like unbelievers in a future state, and their narrow calculating spirit coldly dies in their artificial world: but true genius looks at a n.o.bler source of its existence; it catches inspiration in its insulated studies; and to the great genius, who feels how his present is necessarily connected with his future celebrity, posthumous fame is a reality, for the sense acts upon him!

The habitudes of genius, before genius loses its freshness in this society, are the mould in which the character is cast; and these, in spite of all the disguise of the man, will make him a distinct being from the man of society. Those who have a.s.sumed the literary character often for purposes very distinct from literary ones, imagine that their circle is the public; but in this fact.i.tious public all their interests, their opinions, and even their pa.s.sions, are temporary, and the admirers with the admired pa.s.s away with their season. "It is not sufficient that we speak the same language," says a witty philosopher, "but we must learn their dialect; we must think as they think, and we must echo their opinions, as we act by imitation." Let the man of genius then dread to level himself to the mediocrity of feeling and talent required in such circles of society, lest he become one of themselves; he will soon find that to think like them will in time become to act like them. But he who in solitude adopts no transient feelings, and reflects no artificial lights, who is only himself, possesses an immense advantage: he has not attached importance to what is merely local and fugitive, but listens to interior truths, and fixes on the immutable nature of things. He is the man of every age. Malebranche has observed, that "It is not indeed thought to be charitable to disturb common opinions, because it is not truth which unites society as it exists so much as opinion and custom:" a principle which the world would not, I think, disagree with; but which tends to render folly wisdom itself, and to make error immortal.

Ridicule is the light scourge of society, and the terror of genius.

Ridicule surrounds him with her chimeras, which, like the shadowy monsters opposing aeneas, are impalpable to his strokes: but remember when the sibyl bade the hero proceed without noticing them, he found these airy nothings as harmless as they were unreal. The habits of the literary character will, however, be tried by the men and women of the world by their own standard: they have no other; the salt of ridicule gives a poignancy to their deficient comprehension, and their perfect ignorance, of the persons or things which are the subjects of their ingenious animadversions. The habits of the literary character seem inevitably repulsive to persons of the world. VOLTAIRE, and his companion, the scientific Madame DE CHATELET, she who introduced Newton to the French nation, lived entirely devoted to literary pursuits, and their habits were strictly literary. It happened once that this learned pair dropped unexpectedly into a fas.h.i.+onable circle in the _chateau_ of a French n.o.bleman. A Madame de Stael, the _persifleur_ in office of Madame Du Deffand, has copiously narrated the whole affair.

They arrived at midnight like two famished spectres, and there was some trouble to put them to supper and bed. They are called apparitions, because they were never visible by day, only at ten at night; for the one is busied in describing great deeds, and the other in commenting on Newton. Like other apparitions, they are uneasy companions: they will neither play nor walk; they will not dissipate their mornings with the charming circle about them, nor allow the charming circle to break into their studies. Voltaire and Madame de Chatelet would have suffered the same pain in being forced to an abstinence of their regular studies, as this circle of "agreables" would have at the loss of their meals and their airings. However, the _persifleur_ declares they were ciphers "en societe," adding no value to the number, and to which their learned writings bear no reference.

But if this literary couple would not play, what was worse, Voltaire poured out a vehement declamation against a fas.h.i.+onable species of gambling, which appears to have made them all stare. But Madame de Chatelet is the more frequent victim of our _persifleur_. The learned lady would change her apartment--for it was too noisy, and it had smoke without fire--which last was her emblem. "She is reviewing her _Principia_; an exercise she repeats every year, without which precaution they might escape from her, and get so far away that she might never find them again.

I believe that her head in respect to them is a house of imprisonment rather than the place of their birth; so that she is right to watch them closely; and she prefers the fresh air of this occupation to our amus.e.m.e.nts, and persists in her invisibility till night-time. She has six or seven tables in her apartments, for she wants them of all sizes; immense ones to spread out her papers, solid ones to hold her instruments, lighter ones, &c. Yet with all this she could not escape from the accident which happened to Philip II., after pa.s.sing the night in writing, when a bottle of ink fell over the despatches; but the lady did not imitate the moderation of the prince; indeed, she had not written on State affairs, and what was spoilt in her room was algebra, much more difficult to copy out." Here is a pair of portraits of a great poet and a great mathematician, whose habits were discordant with the fas.h.i.+onable circle in which they resided--the representation is just, for it is by one of the coterie itself.

Study, meditation, and enthusiasm,--this is the progress of genius, and these cannot be the habits of him who lingers till he can only live among polished crowds; who, if he bear about him the consciousness of genius, will still be acting under their influences. And perhaps there never was one of this cla.s.s of men who had not either first entirely formed himself in solitude, or who amidst society will not be often breaking out to seek for himself. WILKES, no longer touched by the fervours of literary and patriotic glory, suffered life to melt away as a domestic voluptuary; and then it was that he observed with some surprise of the great Earl of CHATHAM, that he sacrificed every pleasure of social life, even in youth, to his great pursuit of eloquence. That ardent character studied Barrow's Sermons so often as to repeat them from memory, and could even read twice from beginning to end Bailey's Dictionary; these are little facts which belong only to great minds! The earl himself acknowledged an artifice he practised in his intercourse with society, for he said, "when he was young, he always came late into company, and left it early." VITTORIO ALFIERI, and a brother-spirit, our own n.o.ble poet, were rarely seen amidst the brilliant circle in which they were born. The workings of their imagination were perpetually emanc.i.p.ating them, and one deep loneliness of feeling proudly insulated them among the unimpa.s.sioned triflers of their rank. They preserved unbroken the unity of their character, in constantly escaping from the processional _spectacle_ of society.[A] It is no trivial observation of another n.o.ble writer, Lord SHAFTESBURY, that "it may happen that a person may be so much the worse author, for being the finer gentleman."

[Footnote A: In a note which Lord BYRON has written in a copy of this work his lords.h.i.+p says, "I fear this was not the case; I have been but too much in that circle, especially in 1812-13-14."

To the expression of "one deep loneliness of feeling," his lords.h.i.+p has marked in the margin "True." I am gratified to confirm the theory of my ideas of the man of genius, by the practical experience of the greatest of our age.]

An extraordinary instance of this disagreement between the man of the world and the literary character, we find in a philosopher seated on a throne. The celebrated JULIAN stained the imperial purple with an author's ink; and when he resided among the Antiochians, his unalterable character shocked that volatile and luxurious race. He slighted the plaudits of their theatre, he abhorred their dances and their horse-races, he was abstinent even at a festival, and incorrupt himself, perpetually admonished the dissipated citizens of their impious abandonment of the laws of their country. The Antiochians libelled their emperor, and petulantly lampooned his beard, which the philosopher carelessly wore neither perfumed nor curled. Julian, scorning to inflict a sharper punishment, pointed at them his satire of "the Misopogon, or the Antiochian; the Enemy of the Beard," where, amidst irony and invective, the literary monarch bestows on himself many exquisite and characteristic touches. All that the persons of fas.h.i.+on alleged against the literary character, Julian unreservedly confesses--his undressed beard and awkwardness, his obstinacy, his unsociable habits, his deficient tastes, while at the same time he represents his good qualities as so many extravagances. But, in this Cervantic pleasantry of self-reprehension, the imperial philosopher has not failed to show this light and corrupt people that the reason he could not possibly resemble them, existed in the unhappy circ.u.mstance of having been subject to too strict an education under a family tutor, who had never suffered him to swerve from the one right way, and who (additional misfortune!) had inspired him with such a silly reverence for Plato and Socrates, Aristotle and Theophrastus, that he had been induced to make them his models. "Whatever manners," says the emperor, "I may have previously contracted, whether gentle or boorish, it is impossible for me now to alter or unlearn. Habit is said to be a second nature; to oppose it is irksome, but to counteract _the study of more than thirty years_ is extremely difficult, especially when it has been imbibed with so much attention."

And what if men of genius, relinquis.h.i.+ng their habits, could do this violence to their nature, should we not lose the original for a fact.i.tious genius, and spoil one race without improving the other? If nature and habit, that second nature which prevails even over the first, have created two beings distinctly different, what mode of existence shall ever a.s.similate them? Antipathies and sympathies, those still occult causes, however concealed, will break forth at an unguarded moment. Clip the wings of an eagle that he may roost among domestic fowls,--at some unforeseen moment his pinions will overshadow and terrify his tiny a.s.sociates, for "the feathered king" will be still musing on the rock and the cloud.

The man of genius will be restive even in his trammelled paces. Too impatient amidst the heartless courtesies of society, and little practised in the minuter attentions, he has rarely sacrificed to the unlaughing graces of Lord Chesterfield. Plato ingeniously compares Socrates to the gallipots of the Athenian apothecaries; the grotesque figures of owls and apes were painted on their exterior, but they contained within precious balsams. The man of genius amidst many a circle may exclaim with Themistocles, "I cannot fiddle, but I can make a little village a great city;" and with Corneille, he may be allowed to smile at his own deficiencies, and even disdain to please in certain conventional manners, a.s.serting that "wanting all these things, he was not the less Corneille."

But with the great thinkers and students, their character is still more obdurate. ADAM SMITH could never free himself from the embarra.s.sed manners of a recluse; he was often absent, and his grave and formal conversation made him seem distant and reserved, when in fact no man had warmer feelings for his intimates. One who knew Sir ISAAC NEWTON tells us, that "he would sometimes be silent and thoughtful, and look all the while as if he were saying his prayers." A French princess, desirous of seeing the great moralist NICOLLE, experienced an inconceivable disappointment when the moral instructor, entering with the most perplexing bow imaginable, silently sank into his chair. The interview promoted no conversation, and the retired student, whose elevated spirit might have endured martyrdom, shrunk with timidity in the unaccustomed honour of conversing with a princess and having nothing to say. Observe Hume thrown into a most ridiculous att.i.tude by a woman of talents and coterie celebrity. Our philosopher was called on to perform his part in one of those inventions of the hour to which the fas.h.i.+onable, like children in society, have sometimes resorted to attract their world by the rumour of some new extravagance. In the present, poor HUME was to represent a sultan on a sofa, sitting between two slaves, who were the prettiest and most vivacious of Parisians. Much was antic.i.p.ated from this literary exhibition. The two slaves were ready at repartee, but the utter simplicity of the sultan displayed a blockishness which blunted all edge.

The phlegmatic metaphysician and historian only gave a sign of life by repeating the same awkward gesture, and the same ridiculous exclamation, without end. One of the fair slaves soon discovered the unchangeable nature of the forlorn philosopher, impatiently exclaiming, "I guessed as much, never was there such a calf of a man!"--"Since this affair," adds Madame d'Epinay, "Hume is at present banished to the cla.s.s of spectators."

The philosopher, indeed, had formed a more correct conception of his own character than the volatile sylphs of the Parisian circle, for in writing to the Countess de Boufflers, on an invitation to Paris, he said, "I have rusted on amid books and study; have been little engaged in the active, and not much in the pleasurable, scenes of life; and am more accustomed to a select society than to general companies." If Hume made a ridiculous figure in these circles, the error did not lie on the side of that cheerful and profound philosopher.--This subject leads our inquiries to the nature of _the conversations of men of genius_.

CHAPTER IX.

Conversations of men of genius.--Their deficient agreeableness may result from qualities which conduce to their greatness.--Slow-minded men not the dullest.--The conversationists not the ablest writers.--Their true excellence in conversation consists of a.s.sociations with their pursuits.

In conversation the sublime DANTE was taciturn or satirical; BUTLER sullen or caustic; GRAY and ALFIERI seldom talked or smiled; DESCARTES, whose habits had formed him for solitude and meditation, was silent; ROUSSEAU was remarkably trite in conversation, not an idea, not a word of fancy or eloquence warmed him; ADDISON and MOLIERE in society were only observers; and DRYDEN has very honestly told us, "My conversation is slow and dull, my humour saturnine and reserved; in short, I am none of those who endeavour to break jests in company, or make repartees." POPE had lived among "the great," not only in rank but in intellect, the most delightful conversationists; but the poet felt that he could not contribute to these seductive pleasures, and at last confessed that he could amuse and instruct himself much more by another means: "As much company as I have kept, and as much as I love it, I love reading better, and would rather be employed in reading, than in the most agreeable conversation." Pope's conversation, as preserved by Spence, was sensible; and it would seem that he had never said but one witty thing in his whole life, for only one has been recorded. It was ingeniously said of VAUCANSON, that he was as much an automaton as any which he made. HOGARTH and SWIFT, who looked on the circles of society with eyes of inspiration, were absent in company; but their grossness and asperity did not prevent the one from being the greatest of comic painters, nor the other as much a creator of manners in his way. Genius, even in society, is pursuing its own operations, and it would cease to be itself were it always to act like others.

Men of genius who are habitually eloquent, who have practised conversation as an art, for some, even sacrifice their higher pursuits to this perishable art of acting, have indeed excelled, and in the most opposite manner. HORNE TOOKE finely discriminates the wit in conversation of SHERIDAN and CURRAN, after having pa.s.sed an evening in their company.

"Sheridan's wit was like steel highly polished and sharpened for display and use; Curran's was a mine of virgin gold, incessantly crumbling away from its own richness." CHARLES BUTLER, whose reminiscences of his ill.u.s.trious contemporaries are derived from personal intercourse, has correctly described the familiar conversations of PITT, FOX, and BURKE: "The most intimate friends of Mr. Fox complained of his too frequent ruminating silence. Mr. Pitt talked, and his talk was fascinating. Mr.

Burke's conversation was rambling, but splendid and instructive beyond comparison." Let me add, that the finest genius of our times, is also the most delightful man; he is that rarest among the rare of human beings, whom to have known is nearly to adore; whom to have seen, to have heard, forms an era in our life; whom youth remembers with enthusiasm, and whose presence the men and women of "the world" feel like a dream from which they would not awaken. His _bonhomie_ attaches our hearts to him by its simplicity; his legendary conversation makes us, for a moment, poets like himself.[A]

[Footnote A: This was written under the inspiration of a night's conversation, or rather listening to Sir WALTER SCOTT.--I cannot bring myself to erase what now, alas! has closed in the silence of a swift termination of his glorious existence.]

But that deficient agreeableness in social life with which men of genius have been often reproached, may really result from the nature of those qualities which conduce to the greatness of their public character. A thinker whose mind is saturated with knowledge on a particular subject, will be apt to deliver himself authoritatively; but he will then pa.s.s for a dogmatist: should he hesitate, that he may correct an equivocal expression, or bring nearer a remote idea, he is in danger of sinking into pedantry or rising into genius. Even the fulness of knowledge has its tediousness. "It is rare," said MALEBRANCHE, "that those who meditate profoundly can explain well the objects they have meditated on; for they hesitate when they have to speak; they are scrupulous to convey false ideas or use inaccurate terms. They do not choose to speak, like others, merely for the sake of talking." A vivid and sudden perception of truth, or a severe scrutiny after it, may elevate the voice, and burst with an irruptive heat on the subdued tone of conversation. These men are too much in earnest for the weak or the vain. Such seriousness kills their feeble animal spirits. SMEATON, a creative genius of his cla.s.s, had a warmth of expression which seemed repulsive to many: it arose from an intense application of mind, which impelled him to break out hastily when anything was said that did not accord with his ideas. Persons who are obstinate till they can give up their notions with a safe conscience, are troublesome intimates. Often too the cold tardiness of decision is only the strict balancing of scepticism or candour, while obscurity as frequently may arise from the deficiency of previous knowledge in the listener. It was said that NEWTON in conversation did not seem to understand his own writings, and it was supposed that his memory had decayed. The fact, however, was not so; and Pemberton makes a curious distinction, which accounts for Newton _not always being ready to speak_ on subjects of which he was the sole master. "Inventors seem to treasure up in their own minds what they have found out, after another manner than those do the same things that have not this inventive faculty. The former, when they have occasion to produce their knowledge, in some means are obliged immediately to investigate part of what they want. For this they are not equally fit at all times; and thus it has often happened, that such as retain things chiefly by means of a very strong memory, have appeared off-hand more expert than the discoverers themselves."

A peculiar characteristic in the conversations of men of genius, which has often injured them when the listeners were not intimately acquainted with the men, are those sports of a vacant mind, those sudden impulses to throw out paradoxical opinions, and to take unexpected views of things in some humour of the moment. These fanciful and capricious ideas are the grotesque images of a playful mind, and are at least as frequently misrepresented as they are misunderstood. But thus the cunning Philistines are enabled to triumph over the strong and gifted man, because in the hour of confidence, and in the abandonment of the mind, he had laid his head in the lap of wantonness, and taught them how he might be shorn of his strength. Dr. JOHNSON appears often to have indulged this amus.e.m.e.nt, both in good and ill humour. Even such a calm philosopher as ADAM SMITH, as well as such a child of imagination as BURNS, were remarked for this ordinary habit of men of genius; which, perhaps, as often originates in a gentle feeling of contempt for their auditors, as from any other cause.