of the horizon, and the variously coloured glass throws a thousand different hues over every object; and the sweeping aisles, down whose length we look as if towards eternity, with the shrouded space between the columns, and the great height of the roof, that rises over us like the canopy of heaven, and the silence, save when our voices echo from the walls, form that deep and dark solemnity which, with the divine character of the place,, makes all sublime. At the first view of a great mind, there is an analogous effect. We know of the existence of great powers, because we have felt them; we know that there is a sublime creation near us, though we cannot analyse, explain, or even perceive with distinctness, the parts and their relations; we have been elevated as its energies awakened the slumbering sensibility of our souls; we feel, therefore, that it possesses a genial influence, and a power to enter the depths of the bosom. But it is in vain we ask how this is brought about. It cannot be by the exertion of a single faculty, but it must be by the combined exertion of all-and all in their highest degree. The burnished light of fancy plays over our feelings, the gorgeous glow of imagination spreads its vast splendour, and the wide grasp of thought roaming the universe, choosing its materials, and concentrating all it gathers to one great end, hold us in amazement at the nature and dominion of the human intellect. All these various powers exist in the greatest minds; each one aids the other, and the due exercise of each represses the predominance of any one, and forms the clear, well regulated capacity.

By the term greatest mind, we mean one like Milton's; where there was an equal balance of each faculty, and no irregular action with any, and with whom, under whatever circumstances, each was under control, and submissive to the mastery of his will. We will not say that Milton possessed a greater mind than Shakspeare, as there is something wonderful, and even more than wonderful, in the writings of the last. His versatility, his constant, acute, and ever-ready observation, with his tact of becoming intimate with all the workings of the heart, and throwing himself into the souls of men, till he became a part of their very being, are all unrivaled, and admit of no comparison or controversy. But his power was rude, while with the other, all was refined; there was often vulgarity, while the other does not appear to have known the meaning of the word; there was great beauty, which with the other was combined with elegance; and there is something gross, that strongly contrasts with the matchless purity, the perfect brilliance, the pellucid and delicate refinement of a flow of thought, that seems to have opened from a mass of crystal. But these differences were rather the result of education than nature; for,

Coleridge.

11

even if Shakspeare is relieved from the charge of ignorance, he of course can in no way compare with Milton in learning. And here, perhaps, we may strike the secret source of the power of the two, and at the same time, though with some allowance, of Coleridge.

We are inclined to think, though we make the assertion with hesitation, that there is a kind of activity of mind, which does not seem to admit, though it may not altogether preclude, the acquiring of great erudition. We are aware of the alteration circumstances may make in the destiny of all minds, but even with this obstacle placed strongly before us, there appears to be a limit, if nature has fixed no impassable barrier, to the mental action of individuals. This is probably the class · Bacon calls bird-witted, where the mind seizes quickly, but has no power to retain, or to acquire more. The intellect stops short, like a stone thrown upon the earth, and most happily appears contented with its acquisition. There is a degree of intelligence beyond this, which includes what are commonly called clever men; who are incapable of any thing very distinguished, but secure some reputation, and considerable rank with the world. This kind, acted on by the common ambition of common minds, seek worldly dignity, and consume life upon the things that die. Beyond this, is a class who, with various degrees of genius, and unequal power, seem to roam through and rule the whole realm of thought. Their title to the first rank is undisputed; and after death their station is still undenied, their dominion still undivided. These with propriety may be called the class of philosophers, including among them poets and statesmen. All great genius is philosophical-so that the term philosopher, is never used correctly when confined to men of a particular talent, and employed on certain pursuits. It extends beyond the naturalist or the moralist, beyond him whose thoughts are fixed on the study of the material world, or in analysing human feeling. It takes in those who strive to know the causes of things-who feel within themselves a resistless energy, ever directed towards the farthest reach the mind of man can go-towards the limit of all intelligence-to the fountain-head whence all flows, where all ends. But they are not merely speculative; for we believe there is no instance of a great mind, that was not practical, or rather the results of whose contemplations could not be brought into use, and made to subserve the interests of mankind.

The speculative mind, is not that idle, dreamy intellect, which inferior spirits, who cannot extend beyond the circle of personal interest, would make it; but it is the strong pioneer, exerting itself in regions others suppose impassable; clearing difficulties, and establishing principles beyond the space where

the mass of men repose in ignorance. It is an intellect restless and dissatisfied with its condition; yet, in its dissatisfaction, feels powerless from its own debility, and paralysed by the supremacy of some superior power. As Newton, in the beautiful and modest simplicity of his great mind, expresses it, after all his discoveries, which surpass, or nearly so, every other effort of intellect, "that he was but a child, picking up pebbles beside the great ocean of truth."

It should be remembered, by all ordinary and superficial minds, that they have no idea what contemplation is. They cannot conceive the pains of reflection, which are far deeper and more wasting than those of the passions; or imagine the vast space thought may traverse, when directed and urged by the ceaseless curiosity of a comprehensive capacity. It has the universe for its home, the world for its sphere of action. It has no limit, save the law of its creation. Like the ocean, it can draw and retain within itself every object that it meets. There is no fastidiousness, which recoils at the approach of that which is not to its taste, but all knowledge is its province, and the vast compass of its energies includes the power and extent of all science. But, like the mass of waters, it feels that there is a bound to its force-that, though unrestrained in its sphere, yet there is a control forbidding farther effort, and that its struggles become powerless before it, and seem made as if the mind were in chains. It is this incarceration of the spirit which the feeble cannot feel, but which with the strong forms the soul's most fearful contest; and a contest the more bitter, since it is fought in despair. After a victory over all within its reach, it is obliged to submit to confinement; and having sighed for more worlds to subdue, the mind wages war with itself. It desires perfection, and can only attain the imperfect; it elevates its views to the lofty and concealed realms, where rests the power which crushes it-where causes commence their action, and where the first impulse is given to the phenomena which attract and surprise-to the dark mysteries which awe and confuse--but it is compelled to retire, defeated and intimidated.

But in this struggle, where it feels and bows to its own weakness, it throws down the obstacles to the career of future minds, and succeeding intellects select and enrich themselves with the spoils of their predecessors; and find, like those who cultivate a field where some battle has left the bodies of thousands to manure the soil, that the wasted hours, the labours which once seemed as fragile and unworthy of remembrance as dreams, have become undying records; and from seeming ruin rise the harvest and the success of future effort. But in all great minds, there is a prophetic spirit; their sagacity looks

through the future, as if it were the passing hour. They observe the contradiction between things as they are, and things as they should be; and though they have no power to turn the current of circumstances, that flows with all the vehemence prejudice and passion can produce, yet they foresee and foretell the change with as much accuracy as if the life of all future events were before them, and as if they were already actors in the scene which is yet to come. Their influence is that of mind-the silent, but deep and lasting effect which reflection produces on all who are capable of appreciating the object it has toiled for. They make no sudden inroads, and create no violent revolutions, but improve man's social and moral condition by the gentler path of thought. Their sole sceptre is that of character-the high moral energy of virtue. Men are made to feel that their interests are in the care of their safest and only true benefactors, and the result of their exertions is seen in the slow, but constant progress of civilisation, which is both the proof and the consequence of intellectual improvement.

Their rule is not the barren one of mere station. There are no marshaled train of followers, no armies, no wealth, none of the common modes of clouding the perceptions of mankind by an imposing array of power, and none of the false dignity which men honour and fear in their hearts, but which continues not beyond the grave of its possessor, and holds its last day of state in his shroud. Their desire is to elevate manto make him feel the dignity of his nature, and not to be elated by, or in any way to honour the accidental importance that is derived from fortune, and not from the individual. If they err, it is in the commission of the generous error-and which none but the noblest and most liberal feelings could dictateof rating too high the human capacity, and fixing in too lofty a sphere the destinies of our race. The mistake, if it be one, is derived from themselves; in their own bosoms there is the consciousness of superiority to those about them, and if this were the only feeling, it would lead to a degrading opinion of all belonging to man; but there is at the same time a sense of inferiority, in finding that the energy of will, and that of intellect, are not equal-that our wishes and our attainments bear no proportion that the term of life is too short for effecting great things, and too precarious to do more, or even to expect to do more, than make the commencement, which others are to follow out, and which is all we leave behind us- -a bare and unfinished impression, that others are to correct, value, and

remould.

The sole energy that these great characters wield, is that of truth; and its simple majesty at last triumphs. Its modest appeals, which had been received theretofore with a haughty

rejection, now become commands; and the same form, that like a supplicant, stood trembling before the dominion of pride and prejudice, now dilates itself into grandeur. The small cloud that occupied no space in the vast circle of men's thoughts, now quickens to a tempest; and instead of being borne down by hostility, of conceding to feelings, of bowing to the prescriptive regulations of custom, and becoming but an integral portion of the past, it assumes a dignity, prepares for the contest, and is for ever fixed among and attached to all the events of all future time. It is a striking and beautiful view, thus to see the growth of truth; to see its quiet, gradual, often obstructed, but majestic development, from the point where, like an infant, it has no right, till it bears an authority of its own, and rears, it may be from ruins, the battlements of human institutions; till it has placed on the eternal basis of its own worth the principles which are hereafter to direct and govern the conduct of men. The sole wish of this class of the highly intellectual, is, as we have said, to elevate human nature. They feel, within themselves, a capacity for perfection,-a deep and unceasing admiration for that ideal and abstract beauty that exists in all the pursuits of mind; and which, shadowy and distant as may be its attainment, or, to the dull-edged apprehension of the mass, doubtful as may appear its existence, is with the higher order of intellect, the stimulus to effort, the source of all that is great and powerful and beautiful. It is the idol of all affection,--a being that the imagination has endowed with grace and loveliness, and breathed over it the life that has come warm with the rapture of our own souls. It evades expression, eludes being fixed, by the strongest grasp of our intelligence; but an unseen and yet pervading mystery, a vision, a mere dream, yet one to which memory clings, and though born in the idle and vacant hours of night, one that haunts us; that, like the eye of a portrait, beams with a life and lustre all the spirituality of the original; to which we can affix the shape, the real body, the majesty and grace of perfect beauty, though they are wrought by the glowing power of the imagination, and have no other basis than the fading colours of the canvass. It comes from the past, through all the glory we attach to the men of antiquity,--lives within us as the fountain of inspiration, a part of the same existence which has floated through the minds of myriads, and which, still unexhausted, freshens the energies of all it animates. We can imagine some of the great spirits who have trod, in an earthly form, this orb, and illuminated it with an intelligence that belonged to a higher sphere, after their labours were over, and time and their destiny had met, looking back on the past almost as if it were a waste: their intellectual creation, which, at the time, was wrought with the severest