THE POLYANTHOS. FOR MAY, 1813. We shall never envy the honors, which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if we can be numbered among the writers who have given ardor to virtue and confidence to truth. Dr. Johnson. Ir has frequ.ly been a subject of speculation to the cu rious, that many or most of the greatest geniuses have lived cotemporary with each other. However singular the circumstance may appear, it certainly carries truth with it; and perhaps it is impossible to account for this phenomena. Some writers, who have speculated upon it have ascribed it to physical causes, such as the influence of climate, of air, or other less probable causes! others have thought it might be from mere chance; and others, with more probability, to the patronage literature may have received in the different ages. But as these reasons differ so much from one another, the true cause cannot be united in all of them. Many learned men have flourished in republics, particularly in Athens, and in Rome when the form of its government was républican. But no cause has ever yet been assigned that carries certainty with it the problem still remains unsolved. If it be fact, that genius is born with man, it cannot be attributed to physical causes. Climate may be an impediment to education; and indeed the merit of many celebrated men has been their perseverance in surmounting the greatest obstacles in the acquirements of their knowledge; namely, bodily and mental infirmity. But climate does not prevent the birth of any one. There must be some other cause than mere chance. The VOL II. : 8 constitutions of men are not alike; much less are their dispositions alike. The encouragement of literature and the advantages of cotemporary genius regulate the taste of every age. The desire for knowledge would soon subside if the influence of literature was not so obvious. "Learned men," says Dr. Blair, speaking of the learned ages, "have marked out four of these happy ages. The first is the Grecian age, which commenced near the time of the Peloponnesian war, and extended till the time of Alexander the Great: within which period we have Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Eschynes, Lysias, Isocrates, Pindar, Eschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Menander, Anacreon, Theocritus, Lysippas, Apelles, Phidias, Praxiteles. The second is the Roman age, included nearly within the days of Julius Cæsar and Augustus: affording us Catullus, Lucretius, Terence, Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid, Phaedrus, Cæsar, Cicero, Livy, Sallust, Varro, and Vitruvius. The third age is that of the restoration of learning under the Popes Julius 2d and Leo 10th; when flourished Ariosto, Tasso, Saunagarius, Vida, Michiavel, Guiaciardini, Davila, Erasmus, Paul Jovius, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian. The fourth age comprehends that of Louis 14th, and Queen Anne; when flourished in France, Corneille, Racine, De Retz, Moliere, Boileau, Fontaine, Baptiste, Rousscau, Bossuet, Fenelon, Bourdaloue, Pascall, Malebranche, Masillon, Bruyere, Bayle, Fontenelle, Vestot; and in England, Dryden, Pope, Addison, Prior, Swift, Parnell, Congreve, Otway, Young, Rowe, Atterbury, Shaftsbury, Bolingbroke, Tillotson, Temple, Boyle, Locke, Newton, Clarke." And I think we may with propriety add a fifth age, beginning the latter part of the reign of George 2d and extending to the present time. The improvement of every age has altered the turn of genius. The ancients excelled the moderns in their moral writings; but the superiority over them in philosophy and the arts, must be acknowledged to belong to the moderns REMARKABLE EFFECTS OF THE following very curious instances are mentioned by Mr. Locke of the effects of merely arbirary association. A friend of his knew one perfectly cured of madness, by a very harsh and offensive operation. The gentleman who was thus recovered, with great sense of gratitude and acknowledgement, owned the cure all his life after, as the greatest obligation he could have received; but, whatever gratitude and reason suggested to him, he could never bear the sight of the operator; that image brought back with it the idea of the agony which he suffered from his hands, which was too mighty and intolerable for him to endure. The other instance is of " a young gentleman, who, having learnt to dance, and that to great perfection, there happened to stand an old trunk in the room where he learnt. The idea of this remarkable piece of household stuff had so mixed itself with the turns and steps of all his dances, that, though in that chamber he could dance excellently well, yet it was only whilst that trunk was there; nor could he perform well in any other place, unless that, or some such other trunk, had its due position in the room." Nearly as whimsical as this, was the predilection which Des Cartes conceived in favour of squinting, from having fixed his affections when a youth upon a female of distorted vision. In consequence of accidental association, a very interesting train of thought may be excited by the most trivial circumstance. The following passage of captain King's continuation of Cooke's last voyage, furnishes a remarkable example of this: "Whilst we were at dinner in this miserable hut, on the banks of the river Awatska, the guests of a people with whose existence we had before been scarce acquainted, and at the extremity of the habitable globe; a solitary, half-worn, pewter spoon, whose shape was familiar to us, attracted our attention; and, on examination, we found it stamped on the back with the word London. I cannot pass over this circumstance in silence, out of gratitude for the many pleasant thoughts, the anxious hopes, and tender remembrances, it excited in us. Those who have experienced the effects that long absence, and extreme distance from their native country, produce in the mind, will readily conceive the pleasure such a trifling incident can give." This interesting description naturally recalls to our minds the wonderful effect which the tune called the Rans des Vaches formerly produced on the Swiss soldiers when at a distance from their native country; so ardent a desire did it excite to revisit their paternal woods and vallies, that they were frequently known to desert, or, if that was prevented, to sicken and die. The best preventive. of this singular disorder, called the Maladie du Pays, was found to be an interdiction of this heart-touching air, which, however, is by no means remarkable for its melody. The following case, from Dr. Percival's Dissertations, affords an example of that kind of association to which the name habit is commonly given: "Several years ago," says our author, "the countess of fell into an apoplexy about seven o'clock in the morning. Amongst other stimulating applications, I directed a feather dipped in hartshorn to be frequently introduced into her nostrils. Her ladyship, when in health, was much addicted to the taking of snuff; and the present irritation of the olfactory nerves produced a junction of the fore finger and thumb of the right hand; the elevation of them to the nose; and the action of snuffing in the nostrils. When the snuffing ceased, the hand and the arm dropped down in a torpid state. A fresh application of the stimulus renewed those successive efforts; and I was witness to their repetition, till the hartshorn lost its power of irritation, probably by destroying the sensibility of the olfactory nerves. The countess recovered from the fit, about six o'clock in the evening; but though it was neither long nor severe, her memory never afterwards furnished the least trace of consciousness, during its continuance." Another fact of the same kind, and furnished by the same author, is as follows: "Mr. W— had been long confined to his chamber by a palsy, and other ailments. Every even ing about six o'clock he played at cards with some of the family. He was seized in June, 1780, at three o'clock in the afternoon, with a fit, which terminated in decipiency. At the stated hour of card playing, he fancied himself to be engaged in his usual game; talked of cards, as if they were in his hand; and was very angry at his daughter, when she endeavored to rectify his mistaken imagination. His fatuity was of short continuance; but, when recovered from it, he expressed no recollection of what had passed." The story related by Dr. Willis, in his essay De Anim. Brut. pars i. c. 16. is still more remarkable. It is of an ideot, who, residing within the sound of a clock, regularly amused himself with counting aloud the hours of the day, whenever the hammer of that instrument struck : but being afterwards removed to a situation where there was no clock, he still retained the former impressions so strongly, that he continued to distinguish the ordinary divisions of time, repeating at the end of every hour the precise number of strokes which the clock would have struck at that period. Mr. Addison has quoted this fact, in one of the Spectators, not from the original, but from Dr. Plott's History of Staffordshire, and has deduced from it many important moral reflections. DIFFERENCE OF TALENTS Necessary to shine in conversation and writing. FAVONIO is conspicuous for his conversable talents; he is always the spirit and the oracle of every circle he frequents; he has an infinity of interesting tales, and, with admirable address, he can, as he pleases, either convulse his auditors with laughter, by comic descriptions, or melt them into tears, by pathetic incidents; he can maintain an argument with logical propriety and erudition; discuss politics, criticise literature, or trifle with the fashionable nonsense of the day. In short, all topics are familiar to him, and he expatiates on all subjects with propriety, spirit, and elegance. Yet this same be * |