Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Birth and Education of GENIUS.

A TALE.

Yes, Harriet! say whate'er you can,
'Tis education makes the man:
Whate'er of Genius we inherit,
Exalted sense, and lively spirit,
Must all be disciplin'd by rules,
And take their colour from the schools.

'Twas nature gave that cheek to glow,
That breast to rise in hills of snow,

Those sweetly-temper'd eyes to shine
Above the sapphires of the mine.
But all your more majestic charms,
Where grace presides, where spirit warms,
That shape which falls by just degrees,
And flows into the pomp of ease;
That step, whose motion seems to swim,
That melting harmony of limb,
Were form'd by Glover's skilful glance,
At Chelsea, when you learnt to dance.

'Tis so with man.—His talents rest
Misshapen embrios in his breast;
Till education's eye explores
The sleeping intellectual pow'rs,
Awakes the dawn of wit and sense,
And lights them into excellence.
On this depends the patriot-flame,
The fine ingenuous feel of fame,

The manly spirit, brave, and bold,
Superior to the taint of gold,
The dread of infamy, the zeal
Of honour, and the public weal,
And all those virtues which presage
The glories of a rising age.

But, leaving all these graver things
To statesmen, moralists, and kings,
Whose business 'tis such points to settle—
Ring—and bid Robin bring the kettle.
Mean while the muse, whose sportive strain
Flows like her voluntary vein,
And impudently dares aspire
To share the wreath with Swift and Prior,
Shall tell an allegoric tale,
Where truth lies hid beneath the veil.

One April-morn as Phœbus play'd
His carols in the delphic shade,

A nymph, call'd Fancy, blithe, and free,
The fav'rite child of liberty,
Heard, as she rov'd about the plain,
The bold enthusiastic strain;
She heard, and, led by warm desire,
To know the artist of the lyre,
Crept softly to a sweet alcove,
Hid in the umbrage of the grove,
And, peeping thro' the myrtle, saw
A handsome, young, celestial beau,
On nature's sopha stretch'd along,
Awaking harmony, and song.

Struck with his fine majestic mien,
As certain to be lov'd as seen,
Long e'er the melting air was o'er
She cry'd, in extacy, encore:
And, what a prude will think but odd,
Popp'd out, and curtsied to the God.

Phœbus, gallant, polite, and keen as
Each earth-born votary of Venus,
Rose up, and with a graceful air,
Address'd the visionary fair;
Excus'd his morning-dishabille,
Complain'd of late he had been ill.
In short, he gaz'd, he bow'd, he sigh'd,
He sung, he flatter'd, press'd, and ly'd,
With such a witchery of art,
That Fancy gave him all her heart;
Her catechism quite forgot,
And waited on him to his grot.

In length of time she bore a son,
As brilliant as his sire the sun.
Pure Æther was the vital ray
That lighted up his finer clay;
The nymphs, the rosy-finger'd hours,
The dryads of the woods and bow'rs,

The graces with their loosen'd zones,
The muses with their harps and crowns,
Young zephyrs of the softest wing,
The loves that wait upon the spring,
Wit with his gay associate mirth,
Attended at the infant's birth,
And said, let Genius be his name,
And his the fairest wreath of fame.

The gossips gone, the christning o'er,
And Genius now 'twixt three and four,
Phœbus, according to the rule,
Resolv'd to send his son to school:
And, knowing well the tricks of youth,
Resign'd him to the matron Truth,
Whose hut, unknown to pride and pelf, was
Near his own oracle at Delphos.
The rev'rend dame, who found the child
A little mischievous, and wild,

Taught him at first to spell and read,
To say his prayers, and get his creed—
Wou'd often tell him of the sky,
And what a crime it is to lye.
She chid him when he did amiss,
When well, she bless'd him with a kiss.
Her sister Temp'rance, sage, and quiet,
Presided at his meals and diet:
She watch'd him with religious care,
And fed him with the simplest fare;
Wou'd never let the urchin eat
Of pickled pork, or butcher's meat.
But what of aliment earth yields
In gardens, orchards, woods, and fields;
Whate'er of vegetable wealth
Was cultured by the hand of health,
She cropp'd and dress'd it, as she knew well,
In many a mess of soup and gruel:
And now and then, to cheer his heart,
Indulg'd him with a Sunday's tart.

A lusty peasant chanc'd to dwell
Hard by the solitary cell:
His name was Labour.—E'er the dawn
Had broke upon the upland-lawn
He hied him to his daily toil,
To turn the glebe, or mend the soil.
With him young Genius oft wou'd go
O'er dreary wastes of ice and snow,
With rapture climb the cloud-topt hill,
Or wade across the shallow rill:
Or thro' th' entangled wood pursue
The footsteps of a straggling ewe.
By these fatigues he got at length
Robustness, and athletic strength
Spirits as light as flies the gale
Along the lilly-silver'd vale.
The cherub health, of dimple sleek,
Sat radiant on his rosy cheek,
And gave each nerve's elastic spring
The vigour of an eaglet's wing.

Time now had roll'd, with smooth career,
Our hero thro' his seventh year.
Tho' in a rustic cottage bred,
The busy imp had thought and read:
He knew th' adventures, one by one,
Of Robin Hood and Little John;
Cou'd sing with spirit, warmth, and grace,
The woeful hunt of Chevy Chace;
And how St. George, his fiery nag on,
Destroy'd the vast Egyptian dragon.
Chief he admir'd that learned piece
Wrote by the fabulist of Greece,
Where wisdom speaks in crows and cocks,
And cunning sneaks into a fox.
In short, as now his op'ning parts,
Ripe for the culture of the arts,
Became in ev'ry hour acuter,
Apollo look'd out for a tutor:
But had a world of pains to find
This artist of the human mind.

For, in good truth, full many an ass was
Among the doctors of Parnassus,
Who scarce had skill enough to teach
Old Lilly's elements of speech:
And knew as much of men and morals
As doctor Rock of ores and corals.
At length, with much of thought and care,
He found a master for his heir;
A learned man, adroit to speak
Pure Latin, and your attic Greek:
Well known in all the courts of fame,
And Criticism was his name.

Beneath a tutor keen and fine as
Or Aristotle, or Longinus,
Beneath a lynx's eye that saw
The slightest literary flaw,
Young Genius trod the path of knowledge,
And grew the wonder of the college.

Old authors were his bosom friends—
He had them at his fingers-ends—
Became an acc'rate imitator
Of truth, propriety, and nature;
Display'd in every just remark
The strong sagacity of Clark;
And pointed out the false and true
With all the sunbeams of Bossu.

But tho' this critic-sage refin'd
His pupil's intellectual mind,
And gave him all that keen discerning,
Which marks the character of learning:
Yet, as he read with much of glee,
The trifles of antiquity,
And Bently-like would write epistles,
About the origin of whistles;
The scholar took his master's trim,
And grew identically him:

Employ'd a world of pains to teach us
What nation first invented breeches;
Asserted that the Roman socks
Were broider'd with a pair of clocks;
That Capua serv'd up with her victuals
An oglio of Venafran pickles;
That Sisygambis dress'd in blue,
And wore her tresses in a queue.
In short, he knew what Paulus Jovius,
Salmasius, Grævius, and Gronovius,
Have said in fifty folio volumes,
Printed by Elzevir in columns.

Apollo saw, with pride and joy,
The vast improvement of his boy;
But yet had more than slight suspicion,
That all this load of erudition,
Might overlay his parts at once,
And turn him out a letter'd dunce.

He saw the lad had fill'd his sense
With things of little consequence;
That tho' he read, with application,
The wits of every age and nation,
And could, with nice precision, reach
The boldest metaphors of speech:
Yet warp'd too much, in truth's defiance,
From real to fictitious science,
He was, with all his pride and parts,
A mere mechanic in the arts,
That measures with a rule and line
What nature meant for great and fine.

Phoebus, who saw it right and wise was,
To counteract this fatal byas,
Took home his son with mighty haste,
And sent him to the school of taste.
This school was built by wealth and peace,
Some ages since, in elder Greece,

Just when the Stagyrite had writ
His lectures on the pow'rs of wit.
Here, flush'd in all the bloom of youth,
Sat beauty in the shrine of truth.
Here, all the finer arts were seen,
Assembled round their virgin queen.
Here, sculpture on a bolder plan,
Enobled marble into man.
Here, music, with a soul on fire,
Impassion'd, breath'd along the lyre:
And here, the painter-muse display'd
Diviner forms of light and shade.

But, such the fate, as Hesiod sings,
Of all our sublunary things,
When now the Turk, with sword and halters,
Had drove religion from her altars,
And delug'd with a sea of blood
The academic dome and wood;

Affrighted Taste, with wings unfurl'd,
Took refuge in the western world;
And settled on the Tuscan main,
With all the muses in his train.

In this calm scene, where Taste withdrew,
And Science trimm'd her lamp anew;
Young Genius rang'd in every part
The visionary worlds of art,
And from their finish'd forms refin'd
His own congenial warmth of mind,
And learnt with happy skill to trace
The magic powers of ease and grace:
His style grew delicately fine,
His numbers flow'd along his line,
His periods manly, full, and strong,
Had all the harmony of song.
Whene'er his images betray'd
Too strong a light, too weak a shade;

Or in the graceful and the grand
Confess'd inelegance of hand,
His noble master, who cou'd spy
The slightest fault with half an eye,
Set right by one ethereal touch,
What seem'd too little or too much;
Till every attitude and air
Arose supremely full and fair.

Genius was now among his betters
Distinguish'd as a man of letters.
There wanted still, to make him please,
The splendor of address and ease,
The soul enchanting mien and air,
Such as we see in Grosvenor Square,
When Lady Charlotte speaks and moves,
Attended by a swarm of loves.

Genius had got, to say the truth,
A manner aukward and uncouth;

Sure fate of all who love to dwell
In wisdom's solitary cell:
So much a clown in gait, and laugh,
He wanted but a scrip and staff;
And such a beard as hung in candles
Down to Diogenes's sandals,
And planted all his chin thick,
To be like him a dirty cynic.

Apollo, who, to do him right,
Was always perfectly polite,
Chagrin'd to see his son and heir
Dishonour'd by his gape and stare,
Resolv'd to send him to Versailles,
To learn a minuet of Marseilles:
But Venus, who had deeper reading
In all the mysteries of breeding,
Observ'd to Phœbus that the name
Of fop and Frenchman was the same.

French manners were, she said, a thing which
Those grave misguided fools, the English,
Had, in despite of common sense,
Mistook for manly excellence;
By which their nation strangely sunk is,
And half their nobles turn'd to monkies.
She thought it better, as the case was,
To send young Genius to the graces:
Those sweet divinities, she said,
Wou'd form him in the myrtle shade;
And teach him more, in half an hour,
Than Lewis or his Pompadour.

Phoebus agreed—the graces took
Their noble pupil from his book,
Allow'd him at their side to rove
Along their own domestic grove,
Amidst the sound of melting lyres,
Soft-wreathing smiles, and young desires:

And when confin'd by winds or show'rs,
Within their Amaranthine bow'rs,
They taught him with address and skill
To shine at ombre and quadrille;
Or let him read an ode or play
To wing the gloomy hour away.

Genius was charm'd—divinely plac'd
'Midst beauty, wit, politeness, taste;
And, having every hour before him,
The finest models of decorum,
His manners took a fairer ply,
Expression kindled in his eye;
His gesture, disengag'd, and clean,
Set off a fine-majestic mien;
And gave his happy pow'r to please
The noblest elegance of ease.

Thus, by the discipline of art,
Genius shone out in head and heart.

Form'd from his first fair bloom of youth,
By Temp'rance and her sister Truth,
He knew the scientific page
Of every clime, and every age;
Had learnt with critic-skill to rein
The wildness of his native vein:
That critic-skill, tho' cool and chaste,
Refin'd beneath the eye of taste;
His unforbidding mien and air,
His aukward gait, his haughty stare,
And every stain that wit debases,
Were melted off among the graces:
And Genius rose, in form and mind,
The first, the greatest of mankind.