Volume 3 — INFIRMITIES OF GENIUS.

We must, in the first place, deny that there is any necessary connection between genius and vice, or madness, or eccentricity. Genius is a ray from heaven; and is naturally akin to all those things on earth "which are lovely and pure, and of a good report." Its very name shows its connection with the genial nature; its main moral element is love. Men are now in their hearts so conscious of this, that when they hear of instances of disconnection between genius and virtue, it is with a start of surprise and horror; and we believe that though all the men of genius who ever lived had been tainted with vice, still the thoughtful would have been slow of drawing the horrible inference, that the brightest and most divine-seeming power in the human mind was a fiend in the garb of a radiant angel, and would have sought elsewhere for the real solution of the problem. But when we remember that so many of this gifted order have been true to themselves and to their mission, the belief is strengthened, that the instances of a contrary kind can be accounted for upon principles or facts which leave intact alike the sanity, the health, and the morality, of genius per se.

Such principles and facts there do exist; and we now proceed to enumerate some of them. And first, some of the most flagrantly bad of literary men have had no real pretensions to genius. Savage, for example, Boyce, and Dermody, were men of tolerable talent, and intolerable impudence, conceit, and profligacy. Churchill was of a higher order, but has been ridiculously overrated by whoever it was that wrote a paper on him, not long since, in the "Edinburgh Review"—a disgraceful apology for a disgraceful and disgusting life. Swift and Chatterton, with all their vast talents, wanted, we think, the fine differentia, and the genial element of real poetic genius. And time would fail us to enumerate the hundreds of lesser spirits who have employed their small modica of light, which they mistook for genius, as lamps allowing them to see their way more clearly down to the chambers of death. Talent, however great, is not genius. Wit, however refined, is not genius. Learning, however profound, is not genius. But genius has been confounded not only with these respectable and valuable powers, but with glibness of speech, a knack of rhyming, the faculty of echoing others, elegance of language, fury of excitation, and a hundred other qualities, either mechanical or morbid, and then the faults of such feeble or

Secondly, real genius has not always received its due meed from the world. Like real religion, it has found itself in an enemy's land. Resisted, as it has often been, at every step, it has not been able uniformly to maintain the dignity, or to enjoy the repose, to which it was entitled. Men of genius have occasionally soured in temper, and this has bred now the savage satisfaction with which Dr. Johnson wrote and printed, in large capitals, the line in his "London"—

"Slow rises worth by poverty depressed;"

and now feelings still fiercer, more aggressive, and more destructive to the moral balance of the soul. It is a painful predicament in which the man of genius has often felt himself. Willing to give to all men a portion of the bread of life, and unable to obtain the bread that perisheth—balked in completing the unequal bargain of light from heaven with earthly pelf—carrying about fragments of God's great general book of truth from reluctant or contemptuous bookseller to bookseller—subject even after his generous and noble thoughts are issued to the world, to the faint praise, or chilly silence, or abusive fury of oracular dunces—to the spurn of any mean slave who can find an assassin's cloak in the "Anonymous," and who does not even, it may be, take the trouble of looking at the divine thing he stabs, but strikes in blind and brutal fury; such has been and is the experience of many of whom the world is not worthy; and can it be wondered at, that some of them sink in the strife, and that others, even while triumphing, do so at the expense of much of the bloom, the expansive generosity, the all-embracing sympathy which were their original inheritance? Think of Byron's first volume, trampled like a weed in the dust—of Shelley's magnificent "Revolt of Islam," insulted and chased out of public view—of Keats's first volume and its judicial murder—of other attempts, less successful, such as the treatment of Carlyle's "French Revolution," at its first appearance, by a weekly journal (the "Athenæum"), which now follows his proud path with its feeble and unaccepted adulation, and then speak with more pity of the aberrations into which the weaker sons of the muse have been hurried, and with more respect of the stern insulation and growing indifference to opinion and firmness of antagonistic determination which characterize her stronger children.

Thirdly, the aberrations of genius are often unduly magnified. The spots in a star are invisible—those in a sun are marked by every telescope. No man is a hero to his valet de chambre. And the reason often is, the valet is an observant but malicious and near-sighted fool. He sees the spots without seeing their small proportion to the magnitude of the orb. Nay, he creates spots if he can not see them. The servants of Mrs. Siddons, while she was giving her famous private readings from Milton and Shakspeare, thought their mistress mad, and used to say, "There's the old lady making as much noise as ever." Many and microscopic are the eyes which follow the steps of genius; and, too often, while they mark the mistakes, they are blind to the motives; to the palliations, to the resistance, and to the remorse. The world first idolizes genius—rates it even beyond its true worth—calls it perfect—remembers its divine derivation, but forgets that it must shine on us through earthly vessels, and then avenges on the earthly vessels the disappointment of its own exaggerated expectations. Hence each careless look, or word, or action of the hapless son of publicity, is noted, and, if possible, misinterpreted; his occasional high spirits are traced to physical excitement; his occasional stupidity voted a sin; his rapture and the reaction from it are both called in to witness against him: nay, an entire class of creatures arises, whose instinct it is to discover, and whose trade it is to tell his faults as a writer, and his failings as a man. It is under such a broad and searching glare, like that of a stage, that many men of warm temperament, strong passions, and sensitive feelings, have been obliged to play their part. And can we wonder that—sometimes sickened at the excessive and unnatural heat, sometimes dazzled by the overbearing and insolent light, and often disgusted at the falsehood of their position, and the cruelty or incompetence of their self-constituted judges—they have played it ludicrously or woefully ill?

But again, till of late, the moral nature, and moral culture of genius, were things ignored by general opinion, by critics, and even by men of genius themselves. Milton and a few others were thought lucky and strange exceptions to the general rule. The general rule was understood to be that the gifted were most apt to go astray—that the very light that was in them was darkness—that aberration, in a word, was the law of their goings. One of their own number said that

Critics, such as Hazlitt, too well qualified to speak of the errors of the genius which they criticised, were not content to palliate those by circumstances, but defended them on the dangerous principle of necessary connection. The powers of high intellect were magnified—its errors excused—and its solemn duties and responsibilities passed over in silence. The text, "Where much is given, much also shall be required," was seldom quoted. Genius was regarded as a chartered libertine—not as a child of divine law—guided, indeed, rather by the spirit than the letter, but still in accordance with law, as well as with liberty—as a capricious comet, not a planet, brighter and swifter than its fellows. Now, we think all this is changing, and that the true judges and friends of the poet, while admitting his fallibility, condemning his faults, and forewarning him of his dangers, are ever ready to contend that his gift is moral, that his power is conferred for holy purposes, that he is a missionary of God, in a lower yet lofty sense—andthey bear the whole blame? Must not a large portion of it accrue to the age in which they lived, and to that public opinion which they breathed like an atmosphere?

We attribute the higher and purer efforts which genius is beginning to make, both in art and in life, to the growing prevalence of a purer opinion, and of a more severe, yet charitable criticism. The public, indeed, has, as we have intimated above, much to learn yet, in its treatment of its gifted children; but the wiser and better among the critics have certainly been taught a lesson by the past. Into the judgment of literary works the consideration of their moral purpose has now entered as an irresistible element. And the same measure is also fast being applied, mercifully, yet sternly, to our literary men.

Finally, it follows from these remarks, that we expect every year to hear less and less of the aberrations of genius. And that for various reasons. First, fewer and fewer will, under our present state of culture, claim to be considered as men of genius, and the public is less likely to be troubled with the affected oddities of pretenders, and the niaiseries of monkeys run desperate. Then, again, the profession of letters is now less likely to be chosen by men of gifts, it is so completely overdone; and need we say, that as a profession, its exceeding precariousness and the indefinite position it gives to the literary man have been very pernicious to his morals and his peace. Then

"The old world is coming right,"

and as it rights, is learning more to respect the literary character, to understand its peculiar claims, and to allow for its sinless infirmities. Lastly—and chief of all, men of letters are beginning to awaken—are feeling the strong inspiration of common sense—are using literature less as a cripple's crutch and more as a man's staff—are becoming more charitable to each other, and are sensible with a profounder conviction that literature, as well as life, is a serious thing, and that for all its "idle words" they must give an account at the day of judgment. May this process be perfected in due time. And may all, however humble, who write, feel that they have each his special part to play in this work of perfectionment!

We are very far from being blind worshipers of Thomas Carlyle. We disapprove of much that he has written. We think, that unintentionally, he has done deep damage to the realities of faith, as well as to the "shams" of hypocrisy. He has gone out from the one ark and has not returned like the dove with the olive leaf—but rather, like the raven, strayed and croaked hopelessly over the carcasses of this weltering age. And our grief, at reading one or two of his recent pamphlets (which posterity will rank with such sins of power, as the wilder works of Swift and Byron), resembled that of a son whose father had disgraced his gray hairs by a crime or outrage. But even in the depth of this undiminished feeling of sorrow, we must acknowledge that no writer, save Milton and Wordsworth, has done so much in our country to restore the genuine respectability, and to proclaim the true mission of literature. In his hands and on his eloquent tongue it appears no idle toy for the amusement of the lovesick or the trifling—no mere excitement—but a profound, as well as beautiful reality—to be attested, if necessary, by a martyr's tears and blood, and at all events by the life and conversation of an honest and virtuous man. And he has himself so attested it. With Scott, literature was a great money-making machine. With Byron it was the trunk of a mad elephant, through which he squirted out his spite at man, his enmity at God, and his rage at even his own shadow. Carlyle has held his genius as a trust—has sought to unite it to his religion (whatever that may be)—has expressed it in the language of a determined life—and has made, by the power of his example, many to go and do likewise. If he has not produced a yet broader and more permanent effect—if Carlyleism, as a system, is fast weakening and dying away—if the young minds of the age are beginning to crave something better than a creed with no articles, a gospel of negations, a faith with no forms, a hope with no foundations, a Christianity without facts (like a man with life and blood, but without limbs)! the fault lies in the system, and not in the author of it. Although, to this also we are tempted to attribute his well-known disgust latterly at literature. He has tried to form his own sincere love and prosecution of it into a religion, and has failed. And why? Literature is only a subjective, and not an objective reality. It is made to adorn and explain religion—but no sincerity of prosecution, or depth of insight can change it into a religion itself. That must have not only an inward significance, but an outward sign, more vital and lasting than the Nature of the Poet. This the Christian finds in Jesus, and the glorious facts connected with him. But Carlyle, with all his deep earnestness, and purity of life, has become, we fear, a worshiper without a God, a devotee with the object of the devotion extinct—a strong swimmer in a Dead Sea, where no arm can cleave the salt and sluggish waters—and although he seems to despise the mere adorer of beauty, yet nothing else does he adore, and nothing else has he hitherto taught, but this, that one may worship no distinctly objective Deity, and be, nevertheless, a sincere, worthy,stand? and, although it may so far satisfy the conscience as to produce in one man, or a few like unto him, the satisfaction of sincerity, can it produce the perseverance of action, the patience of hope, and the energy of faith, which have worked, and are working, in thousands and millions of Christian men—alike high and humble, rich and poor, ignorant and refined? Still, great should be the praise of a man who has redeemed literature from degradation, and changed it into a noble, if not a thoroughly religious thing, by the sheer force of genius, and rugged sincerity.