The Rhode-Island Republican. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1809-1841, 1832-11-06


employed on the lliad, he found it no
onIy occupy his thoughts by day, bu
haunting his dreams by night, and once
wished himself hanged to get rid Of Ho'
mer aud that he experienced often such
literary agonies, witness his description
of the depressions and elevations of gen.
ius:
"Who pants for glory finds bat short repose
A bresth tevives him, or breath o'erthrows.
Thus must the days of great author
be passed in labors rs unremitting and
|exhausting as those of the artizan. The
world are not always aware, that to some,
meditation, composition, and even con-
versation, may infiict pains undetected
|by The eye and the tenderness of friend
ship. When even Rousseau passed a
morning in company he tells us it was
observed that in the evening he was dis
satisfied and distressed and John Hun
ter, in mixed company, found that con-
versation fatigued instead of amusing
him. Hawkesworth, in the second pa-
per Of the Adventures, has composed
from his own feelings, an eloquent com
parative estimate of intellectual aud cor
poreal labor. 1t may console the hum
BILE machanic.
The anxious uncertainty Of an auther
for his compositions, resembles that of a
lover when he has written to mistress
mot yet decided on his claims /: he re-
pents his labor, for he thinks he has
written too much, while he is mortified
at recollecting that he had omitted some
things, which he imagines would have
secured the object Of his wishes. Mad
|ame de Steal, who has often entered in
to feelings familiar to literary and po-
Ii,ical family, in parallel between am
hilton with genius, has distinguished
them in this; that while ambition per-
scveres in the desire of acquiring power,
genius flags of itself. Genius, in the
midst of society, is pain an internal few
er which would require to be treated as
a real disease, if the records of glory did
nos soften the sufferings it produces"
The acqiaintances ofthe poet Collins
probably complained of his wayward
manners and irritabiIity but how could
they sympathize with tho secret mortii-
cation Of the poet for having failed in his
pastorals, imagining that they were com
posed on wrong principles; or with 9
secret agony of soul, burning, with his
own hands, his unsold but immortal odesl
Nor must we forget here the dignified
complaint of the Rambler, with which
he artfulIy closes his works, appealing
to posterity.
In its solitary occupations, genius con-
tracts its peculiarities, and in that SEN
sibility which accompanies it, that lofti-
ness of spirit, those quick jealous:es,
those excessive affections and aversions,
which Wow eYery thing "a ii passes in
i,s own ideal world, and rarely rs it ex-
lists in the mediocrity of reality. They
have abandoned their country, they have
changed their name, they have punished
themselves with exile in the rage other
disorder. Descartes sought in vain, even
in his secreted life, refuge for his gen
ius; he thought himself illuminated a.
mong strangers, and he went and died
in Sweden and little did that man oi
genius think that his countrymen would
beg to have his ashes restored TO them.
The great poetical genius of our times,
has openly alienated himself from the
land Of his brothers he becomes immor-
tai in the language Of n people whom
he could coniemn he accepts with in
gratitude the fame he loves more than
life, aud he is only truely great on that
spot of earth, whose genius, when he is
no more, will contemplate on his shade
in anger aud in sorrow.
Thus the state OF authorship is not
friendly to equality Of temper (; and in
those various humors incidental to il,
when authors are often affected deeply,
while the cause escapes all perception OF
sympathy, at those moments the lighte ST
injury to the feelings, which, at another
time, would make no impression, may
produce oven fury in the warm temper,
or the corrodng chagrin of self-woun-
deS spirit. These are moments which
claims the tenderness of friendship, ami
mated by high esteem for the interlsc-
tual excellence Of the man of genius
not the general intercourse Of society,
not the insensibility Of the dull. nor the
levity Of the volatile.
sByron.--These remarks were Of
course, written during the life-time and