528 



ON TASTE, GENIUS, 



marries his own mother ; and at length, discovering that he had committed 

 both parricide and incest, he becomes frantic and dies in the utmost misery. 

 Such a subject excites horror rather than pity. As conducted by Sopho- 

 cles, it is, indeed, extremely affecting, but it conveys no instruction ; it 

 awakens in the mind no tender sympathy ; it leaves no impression favour- 

 able to virtue or humanity.* It is without the moral for which tragedy 

 was invented. 



Genius, then, may exist without taste ; in like manner, taste may exist 

 without genms. Of this we meet with a thousand instances every day of 

 our lives. How countless are the numbers that are perpetually poring 

 over the elegant and picturesque poems of Lord Byron and Mr. (now Sir) 

 Walter Scott ; or that are perpetually hurrying to Mr. West's impressive 

 picture of the " Healing the Sick in the Temple or that of " Christ 

 rejected ;" entering with the nicest feelings into the various groupings, 

 characters and scenery which are so exquisitely presented to them ; and 

 who, nevertheless, though endowed with a taste that enables them to relish 

 such excellencies, have no genius whatever that could either invent or copy 

 them, in like manner, 1 have occasionally met with men, who for strength 

 of feeling and elegance of taste are almost unrivalled, and whom the 

 world has long regarded, and justly so, as among the finest critics of the 

 present day on subjects of polite literature ; yet, notwithstanding such 

 possession of exquisite and acknowledged taste, who have never been 

 successful in the exercise of genius, and have uniformly failed in poetry 

 and original fiction. It is rarely that taste and genius do not co-exist in the 

 same mind ; but it is also rarely, that they co-exist in an equal degree. 

 Ariosto and Shakspeare excel in genius ; Tasso and Racine in taste. 

 Mr, Windham had as much genius as Mr. Burke ; his imagination was 

 as vivacious and rapid, his combination of congruous ideas as instantaneous, 

 his wit, perhaps, even more ready and brilliant — But Mr. Burke was vastly 

 his superior on the score of taste. 



Taste and genius cannot but be favourable to virtue. They cannot exist 

 conjointly without sensibility. While it is of the very essence of vice to 

 have its feelings blunted, its conscience seared, their pleasures are notori- 

 ously derived from elevated and virtuous sources. There may, perhaps, 

 be a few exceptions to the remark, but I am speaking of the general 

 principle. The lovely, the graceful, the elegant, the novel, the wonder- 

 ful, the sublime — these are the food on which they banquet ; the grandeur 

 and magnificence of the heavens ; — the terrible majesty of the tempest- 

 uous ocean — the romantic wildness of forests, and precipices, and moun- 

 tains that lose themselves in the clouds — the sweet tranquillity of a 

 summer evening — the rural gayety of vineyards, hop-grounds and corn- 

 fields—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 patriotism with usurpation, of 

 piety with persecution ; — these, and innumerable images like these — ten- 

 der, 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 

 pleasures, 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. 



* See 131{»ir's Lectures, vol. iii, sect. xlvi. 



