of men of birth and fortune. If this train of circumftances had not taken place, would he ever have been the hiftorian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? Yet how unusual were his attainments in confequence of these events, in learning, in acuteness of refearch, and intuition of genius!

Circumftances decide the purfuits in which we fhall engage. Thefe purfuits again generate the talents that difcover themselves in our progrefs.

We are accuftomed to fuppofe fomething myfterious and fupernatural in the cafe of men of genius.

But, if we will difmifs the first astonishment of ignorance, and defcend to the patience of inveftigation, we fhall probably find that it falls within the ordinary and established course of

human events.

If a man produce a work of uncommon talents, it is immediately fuppofed that he has been through life an extraordinary creature, that the ftamp of divinity was upon him, that a circle of glory, invifible to profaner eyes, furrounded his head, and that every accent he breathed contained an indication of his elevated destiny.

It is no fuch thing.

When

When a man writes a book of methodical inveftigation, he does not write because he understands the subject, but he understands the subject because he has written. He was an uninftructed tyro, exposed to a thousand foolish and miferable mistakes, when he began his work, compared with the degree of proficiency to which he has attained, when he has finished it.

He who is now an eminent philofopher or a fublime poet, was formerly neither the one nor the other. Many a man has been overtaken by a premature death, and left nothing behind him but compofitions worthy of ridicule and contempt, who, if he had lived, would perhaps have rifen to the highest literary eminence. If we could examine the fchool-exercifes of men who have afterwards done honour to mankind, we fhould often find them inferior to those of their ordinary competitors. If we could dive into the port-folios of their early youth, we fhould meet with abundant matter for laughter at their fenfelefs incongruities, and for contemptuous astonishment.

There is no "divinity that hedges*" the man of genius. There is no guardian spirit that accompanies him through life. If you tell me that you are one of those who are qualified to instruct

* Shakespear.

and guide mankind, it may be that I admit it; but I may reasonably afk, When did you become fo, and how long has this been your character?

There is no man knows better than the man of talents, that he was a fool: for there is no man that finds in the records of his memory such astonishing difparities to contrast with each other. He can recollect up to what period he was jejune, and up to what period he was dull. He can call to mind the innumerable errors of fpeculation he has committed, that would almoft difgrace an idiot. His life divides itself in his conception into diftinct periods, and he has faid to himself ten times in its course, From fuch a time I began to live; the mafs of what went before, was too poor to be recollected with complacence. In reality each of these stages was an improvement upon that which went before; and it is perhaps only at the last of them that he became, what the ignorant vulgar fuppofed he was from the moment of his birth.

ESSAY

ESSAY V.

OF AN EARLY TASTE FOR READING.

THE firft indications of genius difclose them

felves at a very early period. A fagacious obferver of the varieties of intellect, will frequently be able to pronounce with fome confidence upon a child of tender years, that he exhibits marks of future eminence in eloquence, invention or judgment.

The embryon feed that contains in it the promife of talent, if not born with a man, ordinarily takes its station in him at no great distance from the period of birth. The mind is then, but rarely afterwards, in a ftate to receive and to fofter it.

The talents of the mind, like the herbs of the ground, feem to diftribute themselves at random. The winds difperfe from one fpot to another the invifible germs; they take root in many cafes without a planter; and grow up without care or obfervation.

It would be truly worthy of regret, if chance,

fo

fo to speak, could do that, which ail the fagacity of man was unable to effect; if the diftribution of the nobleft ornament of our nature, could be subjected to no rules, and reduced to no fyf

tem.

He that would extend in this respect the province of education, muft proceed, like the improvers of other sciences, by experiment and obfervation. He must watch the progrefs of the dawning mind, and difcover what it is that gives it its firft determination.

The fower of feed cannot foretel which feed fhall fall useless to the ground, deftined to wither and to perish, and which shall take root, and difplay the most exuberant fertility. As among the feeds of the earth, so among the perceptions of the human mind, fome are reserved, as it were, for inftant and entire oblivion, and fome, undying and immortal, affume an importance never to be fuperfeded. For the first we ought not to torment ourselves with an irrational anxiety; the last cannot obtain from us an attention fuperior to their worth.

*This fuggeftion is by no means inconfiftent with the remark in Effay III. that the production of genius perhaps. never was the work of the preceptor. What never yet has been accomplished, may hereafter be accomplished.

There