Eug. WERE you to examine thoroughly the difference between Taste and Genius, you would have the fatisfaction to find, that there are few men who are entitled to fubmiffion from you on this account. Afp. LET me, Eugenio, owe this obligation, as I have done many others, to you. Eug. As our conversation yesterday turned intirely on poetry, we may preferve a connexion, by confidering the qualities to be examined, folely as they relate to that art. When they are once determined in any one mode, it will be eafy to extend them to eloquence in general, and from thence to every art in which they are naturally ex erted. A POET A POET illustrates one object by a comparison with another: he discovers a just and beautiful relation between two ideas this is Genius. Afpafia feels in its whole force the merit of that invention; this is Tafte. Now, it is evident, that there must be a great difference between the perceiving a beauty that is difcovered for us, and the making that discovery ourselves: accordingly, we are affured by experience, that a man of quick perception, may be of flow, invention; and that a lively reader may be a dull poet. Hor. We are fo apt to over-rate our own talents, that I do not at all wonder, that fo many men should, in themselves, mistake Senfibility for Genius. Are we not too much encouraged in this error by the vanity of Critics and Commentators, who are con tinually tinually infinuating to us, that they par take, in fome measure, of that Divinity, which they attribute to their poets, Eug. UNHAPPILY, they fupport their pretenfion by the [n] authority of Cicero, who was himself the ftrongeft exception to it. In fhort, Hortenfio, the best Critic, confidered merely as fuch, is but a dependent, a fort of planet to his original; he does no more than receive and reflect that light, of which his poet is the fountain. Afp. If you mean that I should have a clear conception of Genius, you must defcend from these exalted ideas to its effects. [n] Quorum omnium interpretes, ut Grammatici Poetarum, proxime ad eorum, quos interpretantur, divinationem videntur accedere Cic. de Divin. 1. i. Eng. Eug. THE diftinctive property of Genius. is to furprize, either by original Beauty, or Greatness in the idea. These are the mafter fprings, but there are others which are fubordinate: for a fuperior genius will fo dress the most common thought, or familiar image, as to give it fome unexpected advantage; by which it becomes apparently, if not really, original: the refult is the fame; we are furprized; every fuch effect implies a degree of novelty, and, confe. quently, of Invention. Hor. Is not furprise rather the effect of wit than of genius ? Eug, To determine this, we must state the difference between them. This feems to me to depend on the degrees of our peF netration, netration, and the nature of our feelings. The man of wit has a limited view into the relations of ideas; and from those which he does fee, his feelings direct him to choose the most fingular, not the moft beautiful. He works upon us by furprise merely ; but the man of genius furprifes by an excefs of beauty. Hor. Ir fhould seem to follow from hence, that the genius may be a wit when he pleafes; yet we have feen fuch, who have made the attempt without fuccefs. Eug. VERY rarely, when they give into the practice of being playful; thus, who has more wit than Shakespear? If others! have failed, it must have been from the influence of a better habit: accustomed to unite ideas by their beauties, they overlook the |