There is a government of our thoughts.  The mind of genius can be made to take a particular disposition or train of ideas.  It is a remarkable circumstance in the studies of men of genius, that previous to composition they have often awakened their imagination by the imagination of their favourite masters.  By touching a magnet, they become a magnet.  A circumstance has been, recorded of GRAY, by Mr. Mathias, “as worthy of all acceptation among the higher votaries of the divine art, when they are assured that Mr. Gray never sate down to compose any poetry without previously, and for a considerable time, reading the works of Spenser.”  But the circumstance was not unusual with Malherbe, Corneille, and Racine; and the most fervid verses of Homer, and the most tender of Euripides, were often repeated by Milton.  Even antiquity exhibits the same exciting intercourse of the mind of genius.  Cicero informs us how his eloquence caught inspiration from a constant study of the Latin and Grecian poetry; and it has been recorded of Pompey, who was great even in his youth, that he never undertook any considerable enterprise without animating his genius by having read to him the character of Achilles in the first Iliad; although he acknowledged that the enthusiasm he caught came rather from the poet than the hero.  When BOSSUET had to compose a funeral oration, he was accustomed to retire for several days to his study, to ruminate over the pages of Homer; and when asked the reason of this habit, he exclaimed, in these lines—­

     —­magnam mihi mentem, animumque
  Delius inspiret Vates.

It is on the same principle of predisposing the mind, that many have first generated their feelings by the symphonies of music.  ALFIERI often before he wrote prepared his mind by listening to music:  “Almost all my tragedies were sketched in my mind either in the act of hearing music, or a few hours after”—­a circumstance which has been recorded of many others.  Lord BACON had music often played in the room adjoining his study:  MILTON listened to his organ for his solemn inspiration, and music was even necessary to WARBURTON.  The symphonies which awoke in the poet sublime emotions, might have composed the inventive mind of the great critic in the visions of his theoretical mysteries.  A celebrated French preacher, Bourdaloue or Massillon, was once found playing on a violin, to screw his mind up to the pitch, preparatory for his sermon, which within a short interval he was to preach before the court.  CURRAN’S favourite mode of meditation was with his violin in his hand; for hours together would he forget himself, running voluntaries over the strings, while his imagination in collecting its tones was opening all his faculties for the coming emergency at the bar.  When LEONARDO DA VINCI was painting his “Lisa,” commonly called La Joconde, he had musicians constantly in waiting, whose light harmonies, by their associations, inspired feelings of