Singular inequalities are observable in the labours of genius; and
particularly in those which admit great enthusiasm, as in poetry, in
painting, and in music. Faultless mediocrity industry can preserve in
one continued degree; but excellence, the daring and the happy, can only
be attained, by human faculties, by starts.
Our poets who possess the greatest genius, with perhaps the least
industry, have at the same time the most splendid and the worst passages
of poetry. Shakspeare and Dryden are at once the greatest and the least
of our poets. With some, their great fault consists in having none.
Carraccio sarcastically said of Tintoret--_Ho veduto il Tintoretto hora
eguale a Titiano, hora minore del Tintoretto_--"I have seen Tintoret now
equal to Titian, and now less than Tintoret."
Trublet justly observes--The more there are _beauties_ and _great
beauties_ in a work, I am the less surprised to find _faults_ and _great
faults_. When you say of a work that it has many faults, that decides
nothing: and I do not know by this, whether it is execrable or
excellent. You tell me of another, that it is without any faults: if
your account be just, it is certain the work cannot be excellent.
It was observed of one pleader, that he _knew_ more than he _said_; and
of another, that he _said_ more than he _knew_.
Lucian happily describes the works of those who abound with the most
luxuriant language, void of ideas. He calls their unmeaning verbosity
"anemone-words;" for anemonies are flowers, which, however brilliant,
only please the eye, leaving no fragrance. Pratt, who was a writer of
flowing but nugatory verses, was compared to the _daisy_; a flower
indeed common enough, and without odour.