they break down too many customs to be admired—they shock too many feelings to be loved. Generally dislike, fear, envy and hatred seem to be the only emotions they inspire, when they mix with the world-while, on the contrary, universal admiration and lasting renown are their lot, when they seclude themselves in devotion to the divinity that stirs within them. Then kindling to inspiration, they throw off the gems of heaven from the glowing laboratory of a fervid and exhaustless imagination, or compose treasures of knowledge for the instruction of posterity. Thus they never satisfy the world in their personal and moral character; and never, or very seldom, fail in the achievement of posterior glory.

This, one would naturally suppose, is a measure of affliction quite sufficient to rescue the unfortunate genius from further calamity; as we are all disposed to think that some countervailing good is always in store for those who suffer severe and protracted trials. Yet is this among the least of the evils which hurry down genius before the whirlwind of passion into the blackness of despair. The incapacity to satisfy its own expectations is a corrosive poison to its peace, and a gnawing worm that never dies. It cherishes a glowing and a boundless ambition for excellence unattainable, and for glory beyond the lot of mortals. Oh! I have seen genius weep away its nights of anguish into days of humiliation, that it could not equal in composition the shadowy imaginings of invention, as they flitted before it like the stars of heaven, now burning bright, and now lost in darkness, as if shining only to deceive and putting on their glories merely to lure us to ruin. Alexander wept when he heard of his father's victories, lest he should leave him no harvest of glory to reap. Cæsar too played the woman when he had con

quered the world, to find that his cup of fame was full and that his genius must become in future a prey to apathy and languor. For glory is the food of genius-its sole delight-its only occupation. Deny it that, and wo unutterable is the assured lot of that brilliant wretch whose ken pierces the veil that skreens eternity from the common gaze, and riots in visions that constitute the enjoyments of the gods. Thus it pants after perfection not easily reached; and, when attained, not satisfactory, because fresh glory must be gained, or ruin overwhelms the soul, when thus left without its natural aliment. It is for this reason, that genius seems never to be satisfied with itself; for as the fruition of glory cannot be incessant, the doom of its misery is as inevitable as it is dark and deep -combining all that can be conceived of horror, or imagined of anguish. Then it is, in these mysterious moments of despondency, that genius, despising its own destiny, perverts its might to its own destruction, in preference to wearing away an existence not illumined by the rays of glory or sweetened by the perpetual voice of praise.

For the same reason, no men are so susceptible of flattery and so liable to become victims to adulation as men of genius; yet their incredulity would save them from this deception, did they not prefer praise to sense, and fiction to judgment.

In the moments of despondency just described, the waywardness of genius is most observable; for when the sun of its fame is obscured, it loses itself in the labyrinth of its own woes, and begins to scorn that very glory which is the canopy of its ambition's throne. It is in such moments, oh, unhappy genius! that the fiery darts of thy sublimated soul pierce deep into thine own vitals; at such times, beware! Think not of the poisoned bowl,

or the bloody dagger! Reflect not on the woes that press thee down, but fly to NATURE for succour and repose. Expand the wide wings of thy sublime fancy over the beautiful and mysterious productions that lie spread before you in the glowing landscape and the gleaming river -in the foaming cataract and the placid vale-the humble cot of industry, or the virtuous habitation of content. Give up your soul to active solitude, or devote your days and nights to deeds of benevolence or designs of love. Fly to the coverts and the fields, or seek the abode of misery to succour its afflictions, and pour gilead into its wounds! But touch not, oh, son of vivid feeling and exquisite fancy! touch not the inebriating draught that smiling Bacchus proffers to your lips, as he chants the song of pleasure, which falsely promises oblivion to your woes. Fly! fly from the magic charms of his tabor and flute, and the delicious but intoxicating goblet that he holds forth dressed in wreaths of flowers, whose folds conceal the serpent death, and the hag despair! Touch it not, as thou hopest for the glory of earth or the sublime immortality of God! But to the fields repair; and climb the craggy cliffs that overhang the giddy cataract, and lose, in the sublime contemplation of nature, the littleness of thy own ambition.

Wayward child of genius! thus envied, thus admired, how shall I describe thy fickle temper, and thy mysterious career? When censured, irritable and melancholywhen praised, still wretched and dissatisfied with thy attainments, improvident and reckless; thou placest thy happiness in visions and neglectest the only means of rational felicity and permanent independence. Inhabiting a world of thy own creation, thou art the victim of realities, which, while they constitute the pleasure of rougher mortals, crush sensibilities like thine into unutterable wo!

Fame, how futile and vain are thy aspirations! Well mayest thou, proud genius! envy the carpenter at his bench-the smith at his forge-the tinker at his pots, and the shoemaker at his lapstone-their happiness is infinitely superior to that of all the boasted geniuses who lap unreal glory in a fancied elysium-or, at the best, purchase immortality by a life of wo, and a career of anguish, disappointment and disease.

LINES.

ON A BLIND BOY, SOLICITING CHARITY, BY PLAYING ON HIS FLUTE.

BY R. T. CONRAD.

'HAD not God, for some wise purpose, steel'd
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
And barbarism itself have pitied him.'

'Tis vain! They heed thee not. Thrills thine own breast alone.

Thy flute's meek tone

As streams that glide.

Over the desert rock, whose sterile frown

Melts not beneath the soft and crystal tide,

So passes thy sweet strain o'er hearts of stone.

Thine out-stretched hands, thy lips' unuttered moan, Thine orbs upturning to the darken'd sky,

(Darken'd alas! poor boy, to thee alone!) Are all unheeded here. They pass thee by. Away!-those tears, unmark'd, fall from thy sightless eye!

Ay, get thee gone, benighted one !—away!

This is no place for thee. The buzzing mart

Of selfish trade, the glad and garish day,

Are not for strains like thine. There is no heart
To echo to their soft appeal. Depart!

Go, seek the noiseless glen, where shadows reign,
Spreading a kindred gloom; and there, apart
From the cold world, breathe out thy pensive strain:

Better to trees and rocks, than heartless man, complain!