466 



ON TASTE, GENIUS, 



clouds — the sweet tranquillity of a summer evening^the rural gayety of 

 vineyards, hop-grounds, and cornfields — the cheerful hum of busy cities— 

 the stillness of village solitude — the magic face of human beauty — the tear 

 of distressed innocence — the noble struggle of worth with poverty, of pa- 

 triotism with usurpation, of piety with persecution ;— these, and innumerable 

 images like these — tender, touching, dignified — are the subjects for which 

 they fondly hunt, the themes on which they daily expatiate. To say nothing 

 of the higher banqueting, " the food of angels," that religion sets before them. 



It is true, that the mind thus constituted has its pains as well as its plea- 

 sures, nor are its pains few or of trifling magnitude. Wherever misery is 

 to be found it seeks for it with restless assiduity, broods over it, and shares 

 it; and where it is not to be found it fancies it.. How often, waking to the 

 roar of the midnight tempest, while dijii^id:^^uttonous indolence snores on 

 in happy forgetfulness, does tlj^'^^^^i^^^'O" of those who are thus divinely 

 gifted mount the dizzj- ciiariot of the whirlwind, and picture evils that have 

 no real existence ; how, figuring to herself some neat and thrifty cottage 

 where virtue delights to reside, she sees it swept away in a moment by the 

 torrent, and despoiled of the little harvest just gathered in ; now, following 

 the lone traveller in some narrow and venturous pathway, over the edge of 

 Alpine precipices, where a single slip is instant destruction, she tracks him 

 alone by fitful flashes of lightning ; and at length, struck by the flash, she 

 beholds him tumbling headlong from rock to rock, to the bottom of the dread 

 abyss, the victim of a double death. Or, possibly, she takes her stand on 

 the jutting foreland of some bold, terrific coast, and eyes the foundering vessel 

 straight below; she mixes with the spent and despairing crew; she dives 

 into the cabin, and singles out, perhaps, from the rest, some lovely maid, 

 who, in all the bloom of recovered beauty, is voyaging back to her native 

 land from the healing airs of a foreign climate, in thought just bounding over 

 the scenes of her youth, or panting in the warm embraces of a father's arms 



She marks th' erected ear the bloodless cheek, 



The rigid eye that never irtore shall weep ; 

 She hears the horrors of the last loud shriek, 



And sees the vessel plunge beneath the deep. 



Such are the painful pictures on which the keen soul of sensibility feeds 

 too frequently in imagination, when the sigh of real misery is hushed, and 

 its generous hand is not needed. But is there nothing to counterbalance the 

 distress ? To call forth the tear of joy, as well as of sorrow ? And to 

 reward the nice sympathy with which the mind labours 1 I pursued this pleas- 

 ing train of contemplation, many years ago, in an elegy expressly directed to 

 the present subject, from which, indeed, 1 have taken the linca just quoted; 

 and, as I do not know that I can answer this important question in prose 

 better than in verse, I will beg leave to close the lecture, and with it the general 

 task I have undertaken, with an additional extract. Having pointed out to 

 those who are highly gifted with taste, genius, imagination, and fine feeling, 

 the pains and anxieties which such a constitution of mind must necessarily 

 give rise to, the poem proceeds as follows : — 



Yet murmur not, nor deem the fates reserve, 



No drop of solace mid the bitter stream ; 

 Virtue is yours, — and slill each trembling nerve 



Oft proves ail avenue to bliss supreme. 



Ye cannot wade through filih that dulness dares; 



Your nobler spirits soar above the clod: 

 Ye nmst be pure, while yet your bosom bears 



Thti clear, unsullied impress of your God. 



Nor dnes the world, in every scene that springs, 



Nor Fancy's sell", portray perpetual gloom, 

 yen! ye no joy when sickness similes and icings? 



When woi lb suoietcLi 1 or cui^iits uieet tiieir doom 1 



