eft to pine neglected in obscure places, as it is too
much the fashion with a certain set of discontented declaimers to give
out; but that in no other country has such provision been made for the
meritorious children of the enlightened poor as in England. But we fear
that the talent and the genius which, according to them, have been so
often left or sent to beggary, to the great reproach even of our
national character, have not been of a kind which a thoughtful humanity
would in its benefactions have recognised; for it looks not with very
hopeful eyes on mere irregular sallies of fancy, least of all when
spurning prudence and propriety, and symptomatic of a mental
constitution easily excited, but averse to labour, and insensible to the
delight labour brings with it, when the faculties are all devoted in
steadfastness of purpose to the acquisition of knowledge and the
attainment of truth.

'Tis not easy to know, seeing it is so difficult to define it, whether
this or that youth who thinks he has genius, has it or not: the only
proof he may have given of it is perhaps a few copies of verses, which
breathe the animal gladness of young life, and are tinged with tints of
the beautiful, which joy itself, more imaginative than it ever again
will be, steals from the sunset; but sound sense, and judgment, and
taste which is sense and judgment of all finest feelings and thoughts,
and the love of light dawning on the intellect, and ability to gather
into knowledge facts near and from afar, till the mind sees systems, and
in them understands the phenomena which, when looked at singly,
perplexed the pleasure of the sight--these, and aptitudes and capacities
and powers such as these, are indeed of promise, and more than promise;
they are already performance, and justify in minds thus gifted, and in
those who watch their workings, hopes of a wiser and happier future when
the boy shall be a man.

Perhaps too much honour, rather than too little, has been shown by this
age to mediocre poetry and other works of fiction. A few gleams of
genius have given some writers of little worth a considerable
reputation; and great waxed the pride of poetasters. But true poetry
burst in beauty over the land, and we became intolerant of "false
glitter." Fresh sprang its flowers from the "daedal earth," or seemed,
they were so surpassingly beautiful, as if spring had indeed descended
from heaven, "veiled in a shower of shadowing roses," and no longer
c