nefs are foothed by the beft concerted eftablishments, and the lofs fuftained by the calamities of a conflagration repaired; but our enemies, when reduced to a state of captivity, are furnished with every comfort which their condition can admit, and all the malignity of party-hatred melts into kindness under the operation of charity. From the accumulated efforts of a cominunity of philanthropists, fuch as our nation may be called, a fum of good is produced, far greater than any recorded of the heroes of antiquity, from Bacchus down to Cæfar.

It has been faid, that the ages of extraordinary bounty are paffed. No colleges are founded in the prefent times, it is true; yet not because there is no public fpirit remaining, but because there is already a fufficient number raifed by the pious hands of our forefathers, to anfwer all the purpofes of academical improvement. When a want is fupplied, it is not parfimony, but prudence, which withholds additional munificence. The infirmaries difffed over every part of the kingdom, are most honourable teftimonies of that virtue which is to cover a multitude of fins. And there is one inftance of beneficence uncommon both in its degree and circumftances, which, though done without a view to human praife, must not lofe even the fubordinate reward of human virtue. He who lately devoted, during his life, a noble fortune to the relief of the blind, will be placed higher in the efteem of pofterity, than the numerous train of pofthumous benefactors, who gave what they could no longer retain, and fometimes from motives reprefented by the cenforious as little laudable. While angels record the name of Hetherington in the book of life, let men infcribe it in the rolls of fame.

The motive of praife, though by no means the best, is a generous and a powerful motive of commendable conduct. He would do an injury to mankind who fhould stifle the love of fame. It has burnt with strong and steady heat in the bofoms of the moft ingenuous. It has infpired enthufiafm in the caufe of all that is good and great. Where patience muft have failed, and perfeverance been wearied, it has urged through troubles

troubles deemed intolerable, and ftimulated through difficulties dreaded as infurmountable. Pain, penury, danger, and death, have been incurred with alacrity in the fervice of mankind, with the expectation of no other recompence than an honourable diftinction. And let not the frigidity of philofophical rigour damp this noble ardour, which raifes delightful fenfations in the heart that harbours it, and gives rife to all that is subline in life and in the arts. When we are so far refined and fubdued as to act merely from the flow fuggeftions of the reafoning faculty, we fhall indeed feldom be involved in error; but we fhall as feldom atchieve any glorious enterprise, or fnatch a virtue beyond the reach of prudence.

The spirit of adventure in literary undertakings, as well as in politics, commerce, and war, muft not be difcouraged. If it produces that which is worth little notice, neglect is eafy. There is a great probability,. however, that it will often exhibit fomething conducive to pleasure and improvement. But when every new attempt is checked by feverity, or neglected without examination, learning ftagnates, and the mind is depreffed, till its productions fo far degenerate as to juftify difregard. Tafte and literature are never long stationary. When they cease to advance, they become retrograde.

Every liberal attempt to give a liberal entertainment is entitled to a kind excufe, though its execution should not have a claim to praife. For the fake of encouraging fubfequent endeavours, lenity fhould be difplayed where there is no appearance of incorrigible ftupidity, of affuming ignorance, and of empty felf-conceit. Severity chills the opening powers, as the froft nips the bud that would elfe have been a bloffom. It is blameable morofenefs to cenfure thofe who fincerely mean to pleafe, and fail only from caufes not in their own difpofal.

The praife, however, of well meaning has ufually been allowed with a facility of conceffion, which leads to fufpect that it was thought of little value. It has alfo been received with apparent mortification. This

B S

furely

furely is the result of a perverted judgment; for intention is in the power of every man, though no man can command ability.

No. LXXXIV. ON PHILOSOPHICAL CRITICISM, AND ON THE LITTLE ASSISTANCE IT GIVES TO GENIUS.

A

RISTOTLE was the firft of thofe writers who endeavoured to render tafte fubject to philofophy. His poetics are almoft the only parts of his works which continue to be efteemed with a degree of implicit veneration. Mutilated and imperfect as they have come down to us, they yet contain many fentences pregnant with matter, and which lead the mind into the most curious theory. Yet it is certain, that they never yet formed a fingle poet, nor affifted him in any other refpect than in the mechanical contrivance of a plan; a defect in which is eafily forgiven, when it is fupplied by the native charms of real genius. Of this our Shakespeare is a proof, who, with all his ignorance of critical refinement, wrote in fuch a manner, as not only to be preferred by those who idolife him through prejudice, but by the moft impartial readers, to f chylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

Though the old fcholaftic metaphyfics were scarcely ever more exploded than in the prefent times, yet there is a tafte for metaphyfical criticifm particularly prevalent among our thoughtful neighbours in North Britain. The author of the Elements of Criticism has penetrated deeply to difcern the cause of those emotions, which literary compofitions are found to produce. He has difplayed great tafte, great elegance, great reading, and a fubtilty of enquiry, which muft have refulted from unwearied labour, and from a fingular fhare of natural fagacity. But I believe no reader ever found himself better able to compofe, after having perufed his volumes, than before he faw them. Nor

is it faid, that their author, with all his theoretical knowledge of poetry, is himself a poet or an orator. This is not advanced to detract from his merit; for it is true of Aristotle, and of all those writers who, with a genius for logic and metaphyfics, have entered on the provinces of tafte and criticism. Dr. Campbell's Philofophy of Rhetoric is a book of uncommon merit; it is read with great pleasure and improvement; yet it will be readily owned, that it tends little to form the orator. The author of the Origin and Progrefs of Language has difplayed, as Harris fays, "many ju"dicious and curious remarks on ftyle, compofition, language, particularly the English; obfervations of "the laft confequence to those who wish either to write

or judge with accuracy and elegance." This is certainly true; and yet many have written, and many will write, with accuracy and elegance, without even hearing of this excellent treatise.

Most of the books which the world has agreed to admire, were compofed previously to the appearance of fyftematical and abftrufe theories of criticifm, or by authors who, it is well known, paid them no attention. Homer, who is ftill the best heathen author in the world, had neither archetype nor inftructor. Had his mind been called off from the book of nature, to fuch fpeculations as the Stagyrite afterwards fabricated from his noble inventions, there is great reason to believe, that the Iliad and Odyffey had long ago gone whither all the coldly correct productions are daily hafteningTheocritus would probably have written with much less eafe and fimplicity, had he read all that critical ingenuity has advanced on paftoral poetry. The Orations of Demofthenes, however elaborate, were not formed on the models of profeffed rhetoricians No Boffu had written when Virgil produced his magnificent work. No treatifes on the fublime and beautiful had appeared, when Milton poured his majestic fong. Nature, glowing nature, fuggefted the exquifitely fine ideas as they flowed, and left laborious criticism to weary herself in forming rules and fyftems from the unftudied efforts of her happier temerity.

It must not, however, be immediately concluded, that these books, which difplay great ingenuity, are useless, and the refult of ill-employed time and talents. They conftitute a moft elegant fpecies of philofophy. They lead to a knowledge of the human heart, and the operation of the paffions. They require genius of a peculiar kind, the fubtile and penetrating, and they please readers who are poffeffed of a correfponding tafte. The point which we wish to evince is, that the lover of poetry, of oratory, of all the objects of claffical tafte, who means to exercise himself in the compofition of them, will find himself mistaken in his plan of ftudy, if he reads fuch writers as a preparatory dif cipline. Original authors muft at firft engrofs his attention; and from thefe, if he is poffeffed of abilities, he will infenfibly catch a portion of fire, with which he will invigorate his own compofitions; and in confequence of which he will be read with pleasure, though he fhould not have ftudied one metaphysical critic from Ariftotle to the latest modern.

To learn in what this noble diftinction of genius confifts, has been the fubject of enquiry. Little fuccefs has hitherto attended it; for the mind, as it has been often faid, like the eye, though it calls up all nature to its view, cannot procure a fight of itself. With great probability, it has been fuppofed, that genius is an extraordinary power of attention; a capacity in the mind of attaching itself closely and ftrongly, at a glance, to every object that folicits its regard; of taking in the whole of it in all its diftant relations, dependencies, modifications, origin, and confequences. But if we allow an extraordinary power of attention to be genius, which perhaps cannot be allowed, the queftion recurs, by what means this attention is caufed and fecured? Thus far the name is only changed, and the fubject is ftill involved in diffi culty.

It is too obviously true to be controverted, that there is an effential difference in the organization of different men; not merely in the external form, but in the interior ftructure of the invifible fprings, which regulate

all