work—­his Commentary on the Psalms.  He alludes to himself in the third person; yet who but the self-painter could have caught those delicious emotions which are so evanescent in the deep occupation of pleasant studies?  “He arose fresh in the morning to his task; the silence of the night invited him to pursue it; and he can truly say, that food and rest were not preferred before it.  Every part improved infinitely upon his acquaintance with it, and no one gave him uneasiness but the last, for then he grieved that his work was done.”

This eager delight of pursuing study, this impatience of interruption, and this exultation in progress, are alike finely described by MILTON in a letter to his friend Diodati.

“Such is the character of my mind, that no delay, none of the ordinary cessations for rest or otherwise, I had nearly said care or thinking of the very subject, can hold me back from being hurried on to the destined point, and from completing the great circuit, as it were, of the study in which I am engaged.”

Such is the picture of genius viewed in the stillness of MEDITATION; but there is yet a more excited state, when, as if consciousness were mixing with its reveries, in the allusion of a scene, of a person, of a passion, the emotions of the soul affect even the organs of sense.  This excitement is experienced when the poet in the excellence of invention, and the philosopher in the force of intellect, alike share in the hours of inspiration and the ENTHUSIASM of genius.

CHAPTER XII.

The enthusiasm of genius.—­A state of mind resembling a waking dream distinct from reverie.—­The ideal presence distinguished from the real presence.—­The senses are really affected in the ideal world, proved by a variety of instances.—­Of the rapture or sensation of deep study in art, in science, and literature.—­Of perturbed feelings in delirium.—­In extreme endurance of attention.—­And in visionary illusions.—­Enthusiasts in literature and art—­of their self-immolations.

We left the man of genius in the stillness of meditation.  We have now to pursue his history through that more excited state which occurs in the most active operations of genius, and which the term reverie inadequately indicates.  Metaphysical distinctions but ill describe it, and popular language affords no terms for those faculties and feelings which escape the observation of the multitude not affected by the phenomenon.

The illusion produced by a drama on persons of great sensibility, when all the senses are awakened by a mixture of reality with imagination, is the effect experienced by men of genius in their own vivified ideal world.  Real emotions are raised by fiction.  In a scene, apparently passing in their presence, where the whole train of circumstances succeeds in all the continuity of nature, and where a sort of real existences appear to rise up before them, they themselves become spectators or actors.  Their sympathies are excited, and the exterior organs of sense are visibly affected—­they even break out into speech, and often accompany their speech with gestures.