styles, which defy all artificial rules to stunt them in their growth, or lop off their limbs, or strip them of their leaves, because there is a living sap within the stout trunk which must create for itself massive branches and an interminable foliage, we at once perceive what necessity there is that this power and its sister, genius, should never be separated. Where the logical power exists without the vital power, there is dryness, and coldness, and death. Where the vital power exists without the logical power, there is a strugglee-a vain and hopeless struggle to express feelings which will not find language for themselves. For (and it is to this point we would particularly draw our readers' attention, as being most connected with the history we are commenting on) the case of the mere logician who is without genius, is very different from that of the man of genius without logic. The whole mind of the one is so darkened by forms that he is quite unable to perceive the nature of the country through which he is moving, and consequently persuades himself, good easy man, that he has travelled a vast distance, when, like Mrs. Hardcastle, he has been merely driving round his own farmhouse; and thus he may be one of the happiest and most self-complacent of God's creatures. But the man of genius is in a very different predicament. He never indulges in the pleasing delusion that he has been speaking to the purpose when, like Goodman Dull, he has not said one word all the while, for he has something to say, something which he must speak and cannot, something which, finding no vent, turns inward and feeds upon the mind which produced it. A thousand vague images lie scattered in his fancy; but he cannot combine them into a picture: glimpses of glorious visions appear to him; but he cannot apprehend them : questionable shapes float by him; but, when he questions them, they will not answer. The unassisted effort to realise, is the most painful of all ef 54 ATHENEUM, VOL. 1, 3d series. forts; and, when it fails, then ensues that sickness of the soul, that miserable "mawkishness" which is so eloquently described by Keats in the preface to his "Endymion. The degree in which it is experienced seems to be in proportion to the genius of the sufferer. Chatterton had more of it than Neele, and Keats more of it than Chatterton. Nor is this strange. The spirit of genius is eminently a combining spirit: it is always busily hunting after connexions: in compositions, it loves long sentences and abhors epigrams. To a mind in which this spirit exists, the consciousness that it is deficient in the power of arranging and harmonizing the different elements of which it consists, that thoughts are every moment flying off in a thousand directions from some common centre to which they will not return to explain the nature of their route, and how often they intersected each other, must be agonizing to a degree of which common-place persons like ourselves can form no possible conception. And is there no remedy for it? Must the trophies of genius perishing under its own glorious excitement be hung up forever, that worldly men may laugh and exult in their own meanness and poverty? We trust not. All the men we have described have been alike in one particular, besides their genius: they have all wanted a calm, systematic, meditative education. It is this which would have conferred upon them that quality which, being absent, made those they possessed, not useless to the world, but cruelly painful to the possessor. Many have fallen victims to the disease, who might have been saved by this remedy; and the fortunate few who have escaped, are not ungrateful for their rescue, or unmindful of its cause. "That poets in their youth begin in gladness :" for this they are indebted to the faculty divine, which invests everything it touches with its own brilliancy and loveliness; but, if of any one of them it can be said, (and of whom can it be said so truly as of the writer of the line we are quoting,) good which they wrought to this one class of young poets, the former scale, heavily charged though it "That thereof comes not in the end despon- might be, would instantly kick the dency and madness," this they owe in a very great measure to the happy circumstances which enabled them to share in these early advantages from which so many are excluded by poverty and mischance. We believe, that, if into one scale were thrown all the mischiefs which our Universities have produced by the encouragement of improper motives to study, or of habits of extravagance and dissipation, and if to them were added all the mischiefs which have been falsely laid to their charge by mistaken or malicious adversaries and if into another scale were thrown the beam. But, on this very account, it is one of the very direst evils of these Universities, that their doors are closed against all such men upon whom the gifts of fortune have not been bestowed along with those of genius. If the founders of the two magnificent institutions which are rising up in London will lay this to heart, and will really determine to make the education they communicate a means of nursing instead of extinguishing genius, they will build for themselves livelong monuments for which "kings," and greater than kings, "might wish to die." MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ. As I am a sort of general reader of polite literature, I have thought it disgraceful not to have read Madame de Sévigné's Letters; those letters so celebrated for their wit, vivacity, originality, and the beauty of their style, and which the reading world had been unanimous in admiring during one hundred and fifty years. But these letters composed nine volumes, closely printed; and, as time was allotted to me only in a definite portion, I was not certain that I might not employ it to greater advantage than in reading nine volumes of letters, even of acknowledged excellence. Years have passed over my head, my stock of time is diminished, and, a month ago, I resolved to give a part of what remained to Madame de Sévigné's Letters. I found in them all I expected, and much that I had not been taught to expect; for they appeared to me as remarkable for the justness and propriety of the serious observations, as for the playfulness of fancy, or the ease and elegance of their style. Of many examples found in support of this fact, I extract the following, though they will suffer from not being read in connexion with the subjects to which they relate. "It appears to me truly wise to endure the tempest with resignation, and to enjoy the calm when it pleases heaven to restore it to us." "God knows that I desire nothing more than his will; the futility of wishes should always recal us to this submission." "Those who are disposed to be patient, and to take comfort, find reasons every where." "Should we not be just, and place ourselves in the situation of others?" "Attention to what others say, and the presence of mind by which we quickly comprehend and answer, are principal objects in our intercourse with the world." "We are more or less affected by great qualities, in proportion as we have more or less relation to them." "I am still alone, without being dull. I have plenty of books, work, and fine weather; these, with a little reason, go a great way.' "It seems to me that I have been dragged, against my will, to the fatal period when old age must be endured; I see it, I have attained it; and I would, at least, contrive not to go beyond it, not advance in the road of infirmities, pain, loss of memory, disfigurements, which are ready to lay hold of me ; and I hear a voice which says, 'You must go on, in spite of yourself; or, if you will not, you must die,' an alternative at which nature recoils. Such, however, is the fate of those who have reached a certain period; but a return to the will of God, and to that universal law which is imposed upon us, restores reason to its place, and makes us call in patience to our aid." beautiful, of high birth, and possess- In reading the letters of Madame But Madame de Sévigné, so just, so reasonable, in thought and in action, had one feeling which neither reason nor religion could control; this was her excessive love for her daughter; a love which passed the bounds of maternal love, and for which, as there is no precedent, there is no name. She lived but for her daughter, and she died because she feared THE JUNE JAUNT. A CHAPTER OMITTED IN THE LIFE OF AFTER Tommy Bodkin had been working with me on the board for more than four years in the capacity of foreman, superintending the workshop department, together with the conduct and conversation of Joe Breeky, Walter Cuff, and Timothy Tape, my three bounden apprentices, I thought I might lippen him awee, to try his hand in the shaping line, especially with the clothes of such of our customers as I knew were not very nice, provided they got enough of cutting from the Manchester manufacture, and room to shake themselves in. The upshot, however, proved to a moral certainty, that such a length of tether is not chancey for MANSIE WAUCH, TAILOR." It was in the pleasant month of him the length of Roslin, in his good brother's bit phieton, to eat a wheen strawberries, and see how the forthcoming harvest was getting on. That the offer was friendly, admitted not of doubt, but I did not like to accept for two-three reasons; among which was, in the first place, my awareness of the danger of riding in such vehicles, having read; sundry times in the newspapers, of folk having been tumbled out of them, drunk or sober, head-foremost, and having got eyes knocked ben, skulls clowred, and collar-bones broken; and, in the second place, the expense of feeding the horse, together with our finding ourselves in meat and drink during the journey, let alone tolls, strawberries and cream, bawbees to the waiter, and what not. But let me speak the knock-him-down truth, and shame the Deil,-above all, I was afraid of being seen by my employers, wheeling about, on a work day, like a gentleman, dressed out in my best, and leaving my business to mind itself, as it best could. Peter Farrel, however, being a man of determination, stuck to his text like a horse-leech; so, after a great to-do, and considerable argle-bargling, he got me, by dint of powerful persuasion, to give him my hand on the subject. Accordingly, at the hour appointed, I popped up the back-loan with my stick in my hand,-Peter having agreed to be waiting for me on the road-side, a bit beyond the head of the town. The cat should be let out of the pock by my declaring, that Nanse, the goodwife, had also a finger in the pie,-as, do what ye like, women will make their points good-she having overcome me in her wheedling way, by telling me, that it was curious I had no ambition to speel the ladder of gentility, and hold up my chin in imitation of my betters. That we had a most beautiful drive I cannot deny; for though I would not allow Peter to touch the horse with the whip, in case it might run away, fling, or trot over fast,—and so we made but slow progress-little more even than walking; yet, as I told him, it gave a man leisure to use his eyes, and make observation to the right and the left; and so we had a prime look of Lasswade,-and Newbottle Abbey,-and Melville Castle,—and Dryden woods,-and Hawthornden,— and the paper mills, and the bleachfield,-and so on. The day was bright and beautiful, and the feeling of summer came over our bosoms; the flowers blossomed and the birds sang; and, as the sun looked from the blue sky, the quiet of nature banished from our thoughts all the poor and paltry cares that embitter life, and all the pitiful considerations, which are but too apt to be the only concerns of the busy and bustling, from their awaking in the morning to their lying down on the pillow of evening rest. Peter and myself felt this forcibly, he, as he confessed to me, having entirely forgot the four pan-soled loaves, that were, that morning, left by his laddie, Peter Crust, in the oven, and burned to sticks; and, for my own part, do what I liked, I could not bring myself to mind what piece of work I had that morning finished, till, far on the road, I recollected that it was a pair of mouse-brown spatterdashes for worthy old Mr. Mooleypouch. Oh, it is a pleasant thing, now and then, to get a peep of the country. To them who live among shops and markets, and stone-walls, and butcherstalls, and fishwives,-and the smell of ready-made tripe, red herring, and Cheshire cheeses, the sights, and sounds, and smells of the country bring to mind the sinless days of the world before the fall of man, when all was love, peace, and happiness. Peter Farrel and I were transported out of our seven senses, as we feasted our eyes on the beauty of the green fields. The bumbees were bizzing among the gowans and blue-bells; and a thousand wee birds among the green trees were churm-churming away, filling earth and air with music, as it were a universal hymn of gratitude to the Creator for his unbounded goodness to all his creatures. We saw the trig world-had bought his own bounds, and built new ones-could lay down the blunt for his article, and take the measure of the markets, by laying up wheat in his granaries against the day of trouble-to wit-rise of prices. country lasses bleaching their snowwhite linen on the grass by the waterside, and they too were lilting their favorite songs. All the world seemed happy, and I could scarcely believe what I kent to be true for all thatthat we were still walking in the realms of sin and misery. The milkcows were nipping the clovery parks, and chewing their cuds at their leisure; the wild partridges whidding about in pairs, or birring their wings with fright over the hedges ;-and the blue-bonneted ploughmen on the road cracking their whips in wantonness, and whistling along amid the clean straw in their carts. And then the rows of snug cottages, with their kailyards and their gooseberry bushes, with the fruit hanging from the branches like ear-rings on the neck of a lady of fashion. How happy, thought we both,-Peter Farrel and me, how happy might they be, who, without worldly pride or ambition, passed their days in such situations, in the society of their wives and children. Ah! such were a blissful lot! During our ride, Peter Farrel and I had an immense deal of rational conversation on a variety of matters, Peter having seen great part of the world in his youth, from having made two voyages to Greenland with his uncle, who was the mate of a whalevessel. To relate all that Peter told me he had seen and witnessed in his far-away travels, among the white bears and the frozen seas, would take up a great deal of the reader's time, and of my paper; but as to its being very diverting, there is no doubt of that. However, when Peter came to the years of discretion, Peter had sense enough in his noddle to discover, that "a rolling stane gathers no fog;" and having got an inkling of the penny-pie manufacture when he was a wee smout, he yoked to the baking trade, tooth and nail; and, in the course of years, thumped butter-bakes with his elbows to some purpose; so that, at the time of our colleaguing together, Peter was well to do in the "Well, Peter," said I to him, "seeing that ye read the newspapers, and have a notion of things, what think ye, just at the present moment, of affairs in general?" Peter cocked up his lugs at this appeal, and, looking as wise as if he had been Solomon's nephew, gave a knowing smirk, and said,— "Is it foreign or domestic affairs that you are after, Maister Wauch? for the question is a six quarters wide one." I was determined not to be beat by man of woman born; so I answered with almost as much cleverality as himself, "Oh, Mr. Farrel, as to our foreign concerns, I trust I am ower loyal a subject of George the Third, to have any doubt at all about them, as the Bonaparte is yet to be born that will ever beat our regulars abroad -to say nothing of our volunteers at home; but what think you of the paper specie-the national debt-borough reform-the poor-rates-and the Catholic question ?" I do not think Peter jealoused I ever had so much in my noddle; but when he saw I had put him to his mettle, he did his best to give me satisfactory answers to my queries, saying, that till gold came in fashion, it would not be for my own interest, or that of my family, to refuse bank notes, for which he would, any day of the year, give me as many quarter loaves as I could carry, to say nothing of coorse flour for the prentices' scones, and bran for the pigs-that the national debt would take care of itself long after both him and I were gathered to our fathers; and that individual debt was a much more hazardous, pressing, and personal concern, far more likely to come home to our more immediate bosoms and businesses-that the best species of borough reform was every one's com |