No joys he knows but those which spring from strife, Rage, Malice, Envy, all his thoughts controul, Should fields of tillage yield their rich increase, Joy would break in upon the night of woe; 381 Knowledge would spread her mild, reviving ray, Hold o'er these climes thy sceptre of command; And let us live beneath thy noon of day.... 390 ARGUMENT. Education necessary to give Genius its full power and usefulness.....Beattie's Edwin described..... Milton.....Johnson.....Sir William Jones.....Subjects of Genius....Satire....Genius, though daring, excels also in subjects of the most soft and pleasing kind....Virgil's Eclogues....Petrarch.... Gray....Cowper....The force of Fiction.... Rousseau.....Richardson.....Fielding....Genlis....Bur ney....Radcliffe....Female Genius....The varied direction of Genius. THE POWERS OF GENIUS. THO' in the dreary depths of Gothic gloom, Genius will burst the fetters of her tomb; Yet Education should direct her way, And nerve, with firmer grasp, her powerful sway. To shun instruction from the ancient page, Despise the records of the classic age, Would be the folly of a truant-mind To counsel deaf, to its true interest blind. Whose richness would reward his utmost toil, Deserves more censure than the rugged swain 10 ....The mind on knowledge and on science bent, Would sooner learn from others, than invent. Where human footstep never was before. 20 Moving along beneath a load of years. 30 |