A LOGICAL DISQUISITION ON EXALTED GENIUS. 119 



I well remember, when a boy, being particularly delighted with 

 Thomson as a poet ; and charmed even to idolatry with the follow- 

 ing invocation : 



" Falsely luxurious, will not man awake, 



And springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy 



The cool, the fragrant and the silent hour 



To meditation due, and sacred song ; 



For is there ought in sleep can charm the wise ? 



Total extinction of the enlightened soul ! 



Or else to feverish vanities alive." 



My " mind" became so suddenly and deeply imbued I remember with 

 this " solemn admonition*' of the amiable author of the " Seasons," 

 (who himself, by the way, was a notorious bed-lier, and as slothful 

 as WENABLE'S horses of allwork) that ever afterwards I practised 

 early rising ; I roamed abroad, far and wide, before sunrise ; and 

 not unfrequently had the supreme felicity of beholding, from the 

 beetling cliff or rugged mountain's brow, the fading of Hesperus* 

 beams before the uprising glory of the illustrious sun of the morning. 

 'Twas thus, by degrees, I became enamoured of nature, and devoted 

 my mind betimes to the study of nature and of man. As I grew in 

 stature I waxed strong, and, having put away childish things, I sought 

 diligently after " knowledge ;" not the lore taught with so much 

 mechanical pomp at your extravagant seminaries ; but a real know- 

 ledge of what had taken place before I was brought into the world, 

 in order to arrange my ideas concerning more recent events, as well 

 as to regulate and stimulate thought upon all other momentous and 

 conflicting subjects whether religious, moral, literary or otherwise. 

 I had travelled also pretty extensively on the continent; which, 

 together with an intimate knowledge of my own country, afforded 

 me infinite advantages. But in addition to these I have before 

 mentioned (according to my own estimate of them, however), I 

 conceive the circumstance of my means affording me the power 

 of indulging my inclinations to be of corresponding import ; for I 

 was born to a great share of ideal grandeur and no money ; and, 

 having from first to last, found the " world" a severe schoolmistress, 

 I determined somewhat early in life to try the quality of my rapier 

 in the field of battle. So drawing it from the scabbard in the spring 

 of 1818, and finding it to possess rather a keen edge, I entered on 

 the arena, sword in hand and not unworthy of my manhood 

 began my combat with the world ! 



To those of my literary contemporaries who have battled with the 

 " schoolmistress" who have gone on to conquer, and are now in 

 literary competence and retirement in a garret, if you please : I 

 am free to confess mine is a palace rather than a garret but I will 

 say a " garret" (for the sake of lofty minds, and to keep up the 

 animus of my tissue paper), I need not say I am deeply concerned 

 to think, how much mankind in general make distant evils present 

 by reflection ; and even take pains, before death, to lose all the 

 comforts this life is capable of affording. But, as I said, having been 

 born to ideal grandeur and no money, I found the " wide world" a 

 proper place in which to indulge my pride, and either add to or 



