On Genius. All 
he had the misfortune to be the son of the 
most illustrious genius of ancient Rome; yet 
Middleton has shewn that, however inferior 
he might be to his father in the amiable and 
temperate virtues, he was by no means defi- 
cient either in talents or literary taste, and 
enjoyed the friendship of Brutus, and the 
respect of Augustus.(s) The lives too of 
men of Genius are often so irregular and ec- 
centric, and their pecuniary means so nar- 
row and precarious, that their posterity en- 
joy perhaps fewer advantages of education, 
and of introduction into life, than the off- 
spring of inferior men: and hence they sink 
in the scale of society, and pass their days 
in insignificance and poverty. 
According to the theory then, which we 
have attempted to establish, men of Genius 
are distinguished from other men, first, by 
receiving fromthe hand of nature a more 
than ordinary share of constitutional suscept- 
ibility; and secondly, by having their sen- 
sibilities and their attention directed, at an 
early period, by some accidental, but lasting, 
association, into a particular channel and 
concentrated upon a certain class of objects.(¢) 
(s) Middleton’s Life of Cicero, Vol. III. p. 401, et seq. 
(t) We believe there are very few, if any, examples of universal 
