Sumite Materiam vestris qui scribitis aquam
       Veribus.  Horat.
      Weigh well your Strength, and never undertake
       What is above your Power.

And this brings to Mind another very common Occasion of ruining many a good Genius; I mean, wrong Application.  Nothing will satisfie Parents, but their Children must apply their Minds to one of the learned Professions, when, instead of consulting the Reputation or Interest of their Children, by such a preposterous Choice, they turn them out to live in an Element no way suited to their Nature, and expose them to Contempt and Beggary all their Days; while at the same Time they spoil an Head, admirably turn’d for Traffick or Mechanicks.  And he is left to bring up the Rear in the learned Profession, or it may be lost in the Crowd, who would have shined in Trade, and made a prime Figure upon the Exchange.  Many have by this Means run their Heads against a Pulpit, (as a Satyrical Genius once expressed it) who would have made admirable Ploughmen.

There is a different Taste in Men, as to the learned Professions themselves, which qualities and disposes them for the one, but would never make them appear with any Lustre in another.  This has been often made evident in the different Figures, which some, who lived in Obscurity before, have made upon a lucky Incident that led them out of the mistaken Track into which they were first put.  Where Providence does not relieve a Genius from this Error in setting out, the Man must be kept under the Hatches all his Days.

There are very different Manners of Writing, and each of them just and agreeable in their Kind, when Nature is followed, and a Man endeavours Perfection in that Style and Manner which suits his own Humour and Abilities.  Some please, and indeed excel in a Mediocrity, [L]who quite lose themselves if they attempt the Sublime.  Some succeed to a wonder in the Account of all Readers whilst they confine themselves to close Reasoning; who, if they are so ill advise’d, as to meddle with Wit; only make themselves the Jest. [M]That is easy and agreeable which is natural; what is forc’d, will appear distorted and give Disgust.

  [L] Dum vitat humum, nubes et inania captet.  Horat.

  [M] Ingenio, sicut in Agro, quanquam alia diu Serantur
       atque elaborentur, gratiora tamen quae sua sponte nascuntur. 
       Tacit. de Orator, c. 6.

It is of fatal Consequence to a good Genius to grasp at too much.  “A certain Magistrate (says Bruyere) arriving, by his Merit, to the first Dignities of the Gown, thought himself qualified for every Thing.  He printed a Treatise of Morality, and published himself a Coxcomb.”  Universal Genij and universal Scholars are generally excellent at nothing.  He is certainly the wisest Man, who endeavours to be perfectly furnished for some Business, and regards other Matters as no more than his Amusement.