Universality of genius.--Limited notion of genius entertained by the
ancients.--Opposite faculties act with diminished force.--Men of genius
excel only in a single art.
The ancients addicted themselves to one species of composition; the tragic
poet appears not to have entered into the province of comedy, nor, as far
as we know, were their historians writers of verse. Their artists worked
on the same principle; and from Pliny's account of the ancient sculptors,
we may infer that with them the true glory of genius consisted in carrying
to perfection a single species of their art. They did not exercise
themselves indifferently on all subjects, but cultivated the favourite
ones which they had chosen from the impulse of their own imagination. The
hand which could copy nature in a human form, with the characteristics of
the age and the sex, and the occupations of life, refrained from
attempting the colossal and ideal majesty of a divinity; and when one of
these sculptors, whose skill was pre-eminent in casting animals, had
exquisitely wrought the glowing coursers for a triumphal car, he requested
the aid of Praxiteles to place the driver in the chariot, that his work
might not be disgraced by a human form of inferior beauty to his animals.
Alluding to the devotion of an ancient sculptor to his labours, Madame de
Staël has finely said, "The history of his life was the history of his
statue."
Such was the limited conception which the ancients formed of genius. They
confined it to particular objects or departments in art. But there is a
tendency among men of genius to ascribe a universality of power to a
master-intellect. Dryden imagined that Virgil could have written satire
equally with Juvenal, and some have hardily defined genius as "a power to
accomplish all that we undertake." But literary history will detect this
fallacy, and the failures of so many eminent men are instructions from
Nature which must not be lost on us.
No man of genius put forth more expansive promises of universal power than
LEIBNITZ. Science, imagination, history, criticism, fertilized the richest
of human soils; yet LEIBNITZ, with immense powers and perpetual knowledge,
dissipated them in the multiplicity of his pursuits. "The first of
philosophers," the late Professor Playfair observed, "has left nothing in
the immense tract of his intellect which can be distinguished as a
monument of his genius." As a universalist, VOLTAIRE remains unparalleled
in ancient or in modern times. This voluminous idol of our neighbours
stands without a rival in literature; but an exception, even if this were
one, cannot overturn a fundamental principle, for we draw our conclusions
not from the fortune of one man of genius, but from the fate of many. The
real claims of this great writer to invention and originality are as
moderate as his size and his variety are astonishing. The wonder of his
ninety volumes is, that he singly consists of a number of men of the
second order, making up one great man; for unquestionably some could rival
Voltaire in any single province, but no one but himself has possessed them
all. Voltaire discovered a new art, that of creating a supplement to the
genius which had preceded him; and without Corneille, Racine, and Ariosto,
it would be difficult to conjecture what sort of a poet Voltaire could
have been. He was master, too, of a secret in composition, which consisted
in a new style and manner. His style promotes, but never interrupts
thinking, while it renders all subjects familiar to our comprehension: his
manner consists in placing objects well known in new combinations; he
ploughed up the fallow lands, and renovated the worn-out exhausted soils.
Swift defined a good style, as "proper words in proper places." Voltaire's
impulse was of a higher flight, "proper thoughts on proper subjects."
Swift's idea was that of a grammarian. Voltaire's feeling was that of a
philosopher. We are only considering this universal writer in his literary
character, which has fewer claims to the character of an inventor than
several who never attained to his celebrity.
Are the original powers of genius, then, limited to a single art, and even
to departments in that art? May not men of genius plume themselves with
the vainglory of universality? Let us dare to call this a vainglory;
for he who stands the first in his class, does not really add to the
distinctive character of his genius, by a versatility which, however
apparently successful, is always subordinate to the great character on
which his fame rests. It is only that character which bears the raciness
of the soil; it is only that impulse whose solitary force stamps the
authentic work of genius. To execute equally well on a variety of subjects
may raise a suspicion of the nature of the executive power. Should it he
mimetic, the ingenious writer may remain absolutely destitute of every
claim to genius. DU CLOS has been refused the honours of genius by the
French critics, because he wrote equally well on a variety of subjects.
I know that this principle is contested by some of great name, who have
themselves evinced a wonderful variety of powers. This penurious principle
flatters not that egotism which great writers share in common with the
heroes who have aimed at universal empire. Besides, this universality may
answer many temporary purposes. These writers may, however, observe that
their contemporaries are continually disputing on the merits of their
versatile productions, and the most contrary opinions are even formed by
their admirers; but their great individual character standing by itself,
and resembling no other, is a positive excellence. It is time only, who is
influenced by no name, and will never, like contemporaries, mistake the
true work of genius.
And if it be true that the primary qualities of the mind are so different
in men of genius as to render them more apt for one class than for
another, it would seem that whenever a pre-eminent faculty had shaped the
mind, a faculty of the most contrary nature must act with a diminished
force, and the other often with an exclusive one. An impassioned and
pathetic genius has never become equally eminent as a comic genius.
RICHARDSON and FIELDING could not have written each other's works. Could
BUTLER, who excelled in wit and satire, like MILTON have excelled in
sentiment and imagination? Some eminent men have shown remarkable failures
in their attempts to cultivate opposite departments in their own pursuits.
The tragedies and the comedies of DRYDEN equally prove that he was not
blest with a dramatic genius. CIBBER, a spirited comic writer, was noted
for the most degrading failures in tragedy; while ROWE, successful in the
softer tones of the tragic muse, proved as luckless a candidate for the
smiles of the comic as the pathetic OTWAY. LA FONTAINE, unrivalled
humorist as a fabulist, found his opera hissed, and his romance utterly
tedious. The true genius of STERNE was of a descriptive and pathetic cast,
and his humour and ribaldry were a perpetual violation of his natural
bent. ALFIERI'S great tragic powers could not strike out into comedy or
wit. SCARRON declared he intended to write a tragedy. The experiment was
not made; but with his strong cast of mind and habitual associations, we
probably have lost a new sort of "Roman comique." CICERO failed in poetry,
ADDISON in oratory, VOLTAIRE in comedy, and JOHNSON in tragedy. The
Anacreontic poet remains only Anacreontic in his epic. With the fine arts
the same occurrence has happened. It has been observed in painting, that
the school eminent for design was deficient in colouring; while those who
with Titian's warmth could make the blood circulate in the flesh, could
never rival the expression and anatomy of even the middling artists of the
Roman school.
Even among those rare and gifted minds which have startled us by the
versatility of their powers, whence do they derive the high character of
their genius? Their durable claims are substantiated by what is inherent
in themselves--what is individual--and not by that flexibility which may
include so much which others can equal. We rate them by their positive
originality, not by their variety of powers. When we think of YOUNG, it is
only of his "Night Thoughts," not of his tragedies, nor his poems, nor
even of his satires, which others have rivalled or excelled. Of AKENSIDE,
the solitary work of genius is his great poem; his numerous odes are not
of a higher order than those of other ode-writers. Had POPE only composed
odes and tragedies, the great philosophical poet, master of human life and
of perfect verse, had not left an undying name. TENIERS, unrivalled in the
walk of his genius, degraded history by the meanness of his conceptions.
Such instances abound, and demonstrate an important truth in the history
of genius that we cannot, however we may incline, enlarge the natural
extent of our genius, any more than we can "add a cubit to our stature."
We may force it into variations, but in multiplying mediocrity, or in
doing what others can do, we add nothing to genius.
So true is it that men of genius appear only to excel in a single art, or
even in a single department of art, that it is usual with men of taste to
resort to a particular artist for a particular object. Would you ornament
your house by interior decorations, to whom would you apply if you sought
the perfection of art, but to _different artists_, of very distinct
characters in their invention and their execution? For your arabesques you
would call in the artist whose delicacy of touch and playfulness of ideas
are not to be expected from the grandeur of the historical painter, or the
sweetness of the _Paysagiste_. Is it not evident that men of genius
_excel_ only in one department of their art, and that whatever they do
with the utmost original perfection, cannot be equally done by another man
of genius? He whose undeviating genius guards itself in its own true
sphere, has the greatest chance of encountering no rival. He is a Dante, a
Milton, a Michael Angelo, a Raphael: his hand will not labour on what the
Italians call _pasticcios_; and he remains not unimitated but inimitable.