THE rubs and difficulties which the public throw in the way of a genius at his first appearance, are frequently too great to be surmounted.

We are apt to form our opinion of a man’s abilities, by his resemblance to some other man of reputation in the art or science he professes. A painter, musician, or author perfectly new we are afraid to commend—like hounds, we wait for the opening of one whose cry we may venture to follow.—But it should be remembered that a sure mark of a genius is originality. As he is original, and therefore new, perhaps it may be necessary to conquer some prepossessions before we can judge of his merit; and as he is generally incapable, from that modesty which so frequently attends ability, of insisting on his own excellencies, the world should take that task from him.—But does it so? Or from the fear of commending too hastily, leave a Being to languish in obscurity, which should be protected and encouraged. The greatest part of those who seem to have been born to make mankind happy, were themselves miserable. A melancholy catalogue might be made of these. If we know any thing of Homer, it is, that he ran about ballad-singing. Poor, unhappy, half-starved Cervantes, CamÖens, Butler, Fielding! Does it not grieve you to be told that the author of Tom Jones lies in the factory’s burying-ground at Lisbon, undistinguished, unregarded—not a stone to mark the place! And would it not raise our indignation to behold stately monuments erected for those whose names were never heard of, until they appeared in their epitaph?——were they not considered rather as monuments of the sculptor’s art, than as preserving the memory of the persons whose dust they so pompously cover.

The instances of those original geniuses who in their life-time have enjoyed the public applause and lived by it, are very few—indeed I cannot recollect any—Garrick excepted. I do not consider Virgil or Pope in this light—they are not original. It is true that Shakspeare lived well enough, but the money he got was by acting, not writing. Milton was in tolerable circumstances, but if he had had nothing more to depend on than the profit arising from the sale of the finest poem in the world, he must have been starved.

It is common when we speak of a genius, to say, he will not be valued until he is dead—not that his death is essential to his reputation; but there is a necessity of his being known and understood, before he can be esteemed; and it generally happens that life is of too short duration for that purpose—