104 
Modern Genius not 
Gr, in Ejtgl.^np, reject the claims of a 
Shakespeare 
Pope 
Fielding 
Bacon 
Thortfpson 
Richardoon 
Milton 
Johnson 
Berkeley 
Newton 
Wolcot 
Foote 
Dryden 
Robertson 
Watts 
Locke 
Gibbon 
Priestley 
Addison 
Hume 
Burke, 
and a score 
others ? 
We will then give them Cervantes, 
Lopez de Vega, Leibnitz, Euler, Klop- 
stock, Puffendorf, Grotiiis, Linnsus, 
Franklin, Goldoni, Wieland, Alfieri, Gal- 
lileo, Goethe, Gesner, Kepler, Camoens, 
and a hundred others as an overplus. 
I purpose moreover to establish the 
position, that the works of the ancients 
are not genuine portraits of the unaided 
mental powers of those writers, and 
therefore ought not to be brought into 
comparison with works which are the 
result of the unaided mental powers of 
the moderns. In other words I maintain, 
that,' if many modern writers had pro¬ 
duced their works under the same mecha¬ 
nical advantages as those under which the 
works of tlie ancient writers were produc¬ 
ed, the works of those moderns would not 
only equal, but would greatly transcend, 
the analogous works of the ancients. 
Let us exercise our reason on this sub¬ 
ject, and not abandon a great and im¬ 
portant truth to the mistakes of blind 
superstition, or to the early prejudices of 
that monkish education, which still fet¬ 
ters the understandings of the literary and 
superior classes of European society ! 
Wlmt was the mode of publishing a 
work in the days of Aristotle or Virgil ? 
—The author prepared perhaps a dozen 
copies for his immediate friends and pa¬ 
trons, and those were issued in the first 
instance. If the work excited admira¬ 
tion, other copies would be called for, 
and for every copy new directions would 
he to be given to the transcriber, accom¬ 
panied by such additional revisions and 
corrections, as the author or his friends 
could suggest. 
Hence, in fact, every copy became a 
new edition, benefited by emendations 
suggested by the taste of the Author, or 
by the opinions of his Friends and .the 
Public. The sale of five hundred copies 
in two or three years, or of five thousand 
in the life-time of the author, would 
therefore become so many editions, suc¬ 
cessively and regularly purged of errors, 
redundancies and obscurities, and at the 
same time enriched with every pos¬ 
sible beauty of sentiment and elegancy 
of expression. 
mferior to ancient, [Sept. 
The known power of an Author to cor¬ 
rect ills work from day to day, or frora 
copy to copy, would prompt every reader 
to send him observations, and he would 
thus be enabled to avail himself of all the 
results of his own attention, and of ad 
the criticisms of his frieivds and foes. 
Need one explain or dwell on the 
united effects of such continued revisions 
and corrections on the perfection of a 
work of genius, amended by its antho? 
in many thousand editions, wiiicb, by 
claiming his notice from day to day, 
would receive and reward his constant 
care ? 
On the other hand, what fs the 
situation of a modern author subject to 
the obligations of the press ?—To repay 
the enormous expense of setting up the 
types he is obliged to work off a large 
edition from his first copy, and, how¬ 
ever important may be the suggestions 
and criticisms of others, or his own sub¬ 
sequent observations, he finds himself 
unable to make any revision till the sale 
of the edition justifies him in repritrting. 
The faults wlrich an ancient author had 
it in his power by renewed copies to re¬ 
move in a week, tend of tlieinselves, 
therefore in a modern work, to retard the 
sale, to preverst it from ever being re¬ 
printed, and consequently from receiving 
improvements that might have conferred 
on it classical perfection and fasting re¬ 
nown. 
In regard to corrections at any period, 
a modern author feels fiimself in so pecu¬ 
liar and delicate a situation, that the 
question has often been started how far 
he is justified after havitrg committed 
himself to the purchasers of his first edi¬ 
tion, in making any material alterations 
in future ones. Many authors, therefore, 
instead of making corrections in the mat¬ 
ter and form of their original work, con¬ 
ceive themselves bound to print all their 
improvements in the distinct shape of an 
appendix, publicly apprizing their first 
purchasers of the circumstance that it 
may be annexed to their copies. Such 
then are the combined impediments 
which oppose themselves to the gradual 
and ultimate perfection of a modern 
work! 
The Press has, from these causes, been 
the means of fixing works of modern 
genius at a standard of mediocrity; yet, 
in thus stating a general argument, it is by 
no means intended to question its super¬ 
lative utility. If the ancients, by their 
means of multiplying copies, were en¬ 
abled to raise the i'eputatiou of a h-un- 
dred 
