GENIUS AND PRE CO CITY. 479 



bias to dreamy contemplation and solitude. In respect of methodic 

 learning, a good number, if not the majority, appear to have been 

 sadly wanting. 



Poets rank high, too, in the matter of early production. After 

 going through a series of sixty names, I find that thirty-eight, or very 

 nearly two thirds, wrote before twenty. Of the others, seventeen be- 

 gan to write before thirty. Thus only five, that is to say, one out of 

 every twelve, took to poetic composition after thirty. 



The plant of poetic genius is not only early in disclosing its young 

 shoot, but grows rapidly to the stature that commands admiration and 

 renown. In some cases, as those of Tasso, Goethe, Coleridge, Camp- 

 bell, and Moore, recognition follows almost instantaneously. In a 

 much larger number, including Milton, Pope, Byron, Keats, and Vol- 

 taire, fame is reached after a very few years. 



After examining forty-nine cases, I find that twenty-eight, or four 

 out of seven, won renown by the age of twenty-five. The proportion 

 of those who were famous by thirty is thirty-six, or more than five out 

 of seven. Finally, forty-five, or nearly thirteen out of fourteen, had 

 attained fame before forty, leaving only four who attained this point 

 later in life. 



Turning now to our list of exceptions, it is to be observed that in 

 some cases e. g., Chaucer, Marlowe, and Corneille the record of 

 early life is too meager to allow of our being sure that there were no 

 manifestations of precocity.* One of our exceptions, indeed Dante 

 appears to have shared with Byron a precocious development of the 

 sexual emotion. But, allowing for uncertainties, there is a clear residue 

 of cases in which the gift of poetic utterance revealed itself late. 

 Camoens, Racine, Goldsmith, Cowper, "Wordsworth, may be cited as 

 examples. The last two poets, together with Dryden and Dante, make 

 up the four who missed renown till after forty. Of these, Cowper ap- 

 pears not to have begun to write till after {hat age. Dante, like Milton, 

 passed his early manhood in the service of the state. Dryden and 

 Wordsworth began to write when young, and so are signal examples 

 of a long, unrewarded fidelity to the Muse.f 



Novelists. Among writers of fiction we find a number who dis- 

 played imaginative power in early life. Scott, who was at the Univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh at twelve, neglecting the regular academic studies 

 for romances, began about this date to practice the invention of stories 

 with a college friend. Dickens is a more impressive instance still. 

 Forced, when a child of nine, to go out into the world and earn his 

 livelihood, he indulged his irresistible bent to fiction not only by a 



* Much the same remark applies to Shakespeare, whose first poetic effort I have set 

 down as dating from his twenty-eighth year. 



f The Greek and Latin poets supply several alleged instances of precocity. Living 

 poets seem, as far as I can judge from the date of their first publication, to be somewha 

 below the average in this respect. 



