The true Democrat., 1855-02-28

of them severally the pictures of Milton's, Young's, and Bunyan's minds? Ferguson lay down on his back and looked up at the earnest stars, as they reflected the brightness of the Eternal, and then mimicked the great God-mir- TOT, by whittling out an orrery through which. m Ike manner, to express himself and his own thought. Thus philosophy was common tnlng, tlil Bacon infused his own spirit into it and made 1t glorious; andstrue integrity vearn- ca e.1, TOT grand lmpersonation and significance. tlll there was an Aristides, the Just. History was sPlrltless and chaotic, till Gibbon, Niebuhr. and Macaulay wrote; and poesy was scarcely more than dreamy sentimentalism. till Homer and Milton, and Shakespeare threw a genius into song. The dark and dismal haunts of novertv were made pleasant by John Towards "Cir. cumnavlgation of Charity" By the spell of his genius the Baron Cuvier made dry bones live, and humanized the wild beasts: and since Harvey discovered to us the secret springs of lie, the old beat of the heart has had sound ot mysterious grandeur. Said Themistocles. when asked to play on the lute, "I cannot fid dle, but l can turn little village into great city," Caesar boasted not on his death bed. that he had preserved the same old features of the city of Rome; but his last words were "I found city of brick, left it marble" And thus the wand of true genius hallows and sub- Inmates everything 1t touches It puts the an- gel into man, and the man into oinsect. It the "thought on chip' that explores and con- quers oceans.
 It digs in the dirt, and for ever afterward fos- sls are venerable It stands on the orbit of the heavens, and, like some Adam, christens the signs of the Zodiac, and an empyrean dig nlty at once gathers around such paltry things as steelyards, dippers, fishers, and scorpions Its office is to show that nature is grand and beautiful ln the glow-worm as well as in the sun, III blrd's nests as we'll as in places. It de- velopes the Deity which God left in the dust after making man.
 Sacred and sublime gift May we not de- grade 1t by misconceptions and false names!- 100 olten ln the barrenness of our reasoning, have we made It carcature of human power "a pyramid of soul which, as if rapt in the silent visions of it's own stubborn, impracticable glory, like the pyramids of Egypt, serves but the poor purpose of proudly showing that it is not human enough. True genius is the truest form of practical life. It is the mediator. so to speak, between the world and mind-between the thing and the thought, whose divinity is intuition, whose type is the sunbeam, and whose gospel Is the spectrum. Genius is innocent of shgmatzed rank and inglorious greatness. It claims no property in the illustrious degradation of the Alexanders, Byrons, and Voltaries of the world. The reckless and random careers of men are not deviations of genius, but deviations WITH It. Genius would make all men greatly good, and 1t is only misdirected will that makes some men greatly bad And there is an equal inconsistency too, in charging upon this exalted gift blunt and unfamiliar egotism, such that common minds are compelled to blush and feel poor in its presence.i SIn doing this we subject ourselves to complete loss of those rich impressions which great minds would oth- erwise make. "Instead of feeling poverty says Emerson, "when we encounter grea, man, let us treat the w-comer like travel Ing geologlst who passes through our estate, and shows us good slate, or anthracite, or limestone Tn our brush pasture.'' We ought not to feel humbled, and to sigh, "What am ?" when we survey the great works of genius, but rather to regard them as the expressions of minds o1 the same sort as our own; and if there is any lack ln their capablllty to subserve this purpose, to speak 1t out with self-confdent frankness Just as the rustic did when, after having survey ed some great models of statuary in the rotunda ot one of our cities, he exclaimed, "Just see what waste! Here are no less than six scare crows in this little ten-foot patch, and any one of them could keep the crows of of five-acre lot" While man of genius has hands, and eyes, and feet, all like our own we should not be scared or belittled in his presence. It is only the head that differs-all hearts are warm; and while the blood in mans veins is red and warm, we have proof enough that the man pos sesses sociable sensibilites. Says the poet, '' Be noble then the noblenesS that lies
 In other men. sleeping, but never dead.
 Mill rise iu majesty O meet thine nIyn-,,