nd painters; less so in poets, because he who deals
with words, not signs and tones, must perpetually compare his senses
with the pure images of which the senses only see the appearances,--in a
word, he must employ his intellect, and his self-education must be large
and comprehensive. But with most real genius, however fed merely by the
senses,--most really great painters, singers, and musicians, however
easily led astray into temptation,--the richness of the soil throws
up abundant good qualities to countervail or redeem the evil; they are
usually compassionate, generous, sympathizing. That Varney had not such
beauties of soul and temperament it is unnecessary to add,--principally,
it is true, because of his nurture, education, parental example, the
utter corruption in which his childhood and youth had passed; partly
because he had no real genius,---it was a false apparition of the divine
spirit, reflected from the exquisite perfection of his frame (which
rendered all his senses so vigorous and acute) and his riotous fancy and
his fitful energy, which was capable at times of great application, but
not of definite purpose or earnest study. All about him was flashy
and hollow. He had not the natural subtlety and depth of mind that had
characterized his terrible father. The graft of the opera-dancer was
visible on the stock of the scholar; wholly without the habits of method
and order, without the patience, without the mathematical calculating
brain of Dalibard, he played wantonly with the horrible and loathsome
wickedness of which Olivier had made dark and solemn study. Extravagant
and lavish, he spent money as fast as he gained it; he threw away all
chances of eminence and career. In the midst of the direst plots of
his villany or the most energetic pursuit of his art, the poorest
excitement, the veriest bauble would draw him aside. His heart was with
Falri in the sty, his fancy with Aladdin in the palace. To make a show
was his darling object; he loved to create effect by his person, his
talk, his dress, as well as by his talents. Living from hand to mouth,
crimes through which it is not our intention to follow him had at times
made him rich to-day, for vices to make him poor again to-morrow.
What he called "luck," or "his star," had favoured him,--he was not
hanged!--he lived; and as the greater part of his unscrupulous career
had been conducted in foreign lands and under other names, in his own
name and in his own coun