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.