Who can estimate all the effects of these hasty fragments of the poet's art? If we consider the subject well, and weigh it fairly, we shall confess, that their author has exercised an influence already greater, and far more abiding than any of the men of his country and age.It is thus that genius manifests the potency of the principle that inspires it, and that the simplest lays of the simplest bard, may have a power passing far, that of the triumphs of the statesman, or the warrior.The one wakens energy, otherwise dead, into action, the other merely directs that action.
"But," it may be said, and not without a show of reason: "why, if genius is roused and moved by principles so pure, does it happen, that the undoubted possessors of it, are themselves so often defaced by faults, and that we speak of them and their aberrations, as if naturally conjoined? Ambition, the desire of excelling, a much more questionable motive, would rather seem its proper stimulant."As we are not attempting to investigate the governing principles of classes, but of societies, it were, perhaps, enough in answer to observe, that the existence of genius among a people, implies at least, the diffusion of a tincture of generous feelings, somewhere throughout the mass.If we were to see an individual, periling his own life, to rescue another from impending danger, it might be doubtful to us whether the action proceeded from a desire of saving the person in danger, or of the applause and praises following the doing of it; but that applause, and those praises, would themselves evince a general perception of the moral worth of such an action, supposing it to proceed from the purest motives, and correspondent sympathy in the pleasure likely to be experienced from it.Vanity could receive no gratification from a deed of this sort, where the spectators, only regarded it as an incomprehensible piece of rashness.In like manner, though it seem to us, that many who have eminently succeeded in the pursuits of which we speak, have been actuated merely by the desire of gratifying a selfish vanity, still, that the attainment of these objects should be followed by the warm and sincere applause, that alone constitutes genuine fame, is a proof at least, of the existence somewhere, of a due appreciation of the motives from which these pursuits are supposed to proceed, and of sympathy with the pure gratifications their success is presumed to yield.
But it enters into my design to show, that, without supposing the two classes actuated by different principles, there are sufficient causes for those wanderings, as they are called, of genius from the common path, for that contrariety of course, that seldom intermitting opposition and strife, which have almost every where been maintained, between the society in which they existed, and the individuals, who have been ultimately the great instruments of ameliorating and elevating its condition.Such an exposition, removing part of the obstructions to our view, will make it appear, that it is not so much from the diversity of the moving powers, as from the imperfections of the bodies impelled, that this jarring and contrariety of action arises.
It is necessary to premise, that for the present purpose, two classes occasionally confounded together, must be kept apart.Real inventers, the men whom we have alone to consider, differ from mere transmitters of things already known.The latter are an acknowledged, and very useful class, in all societies, but, they neither encounter similar difficulties, nor produce similar effects to the former.They neither oppose, nor direct the current.
In the gradual progress of things, the media for communicating ideas have been changed; types have come to do, in a great measure, the office of the voice.What in ages past would have formed a discourse, or harangue, is now a book, or part of a book.Among the many vast consequences of the revolution, we overlook the small one of its occasioning the classing under one name, of those who are enlargers Of the stock of knowledge, and those who are merely efficient communicators of portions of it.They are all successful authors, authors, that is, of books which are read.Just so, the bard or bards of the elder ages of ancient Greece, who first embodied in song the deeds of the besiegers of Troy, and they who, in after times, repeated the verses they had learned, were all chanters of heroic lays, many too of the latter may have been more successful chanters than the former, for they sang to ears prepared, but there was between them notwithstanding, an essential difference.There is also a line distinguishing the mere framers of books, from the original makers of their materials; it may not be very easily drawn indeed; but this is unnecessary for our purpose, it is sufficient to have pointed out its existence.It may be observed, too, that as of bards, so of authors, they who are mere compilers and repeaters, may be more successful than they who are real inventers, they may better suit their productions to particular times, tastes, and exigencies, and, besides, they can always find an audience prepared, by previous training, to applaud.
