to suit
the "high" Biblical subject, result in personifications, compound
epithets, and a Miltonic vocabulary, by which the very simplicity
he himself found in the Bible is destroyed.

Another decade was to pass before John Husbands would demonstrate
a clear appreciation for the true simplicity of the Bible and
praise its "penmen" in terms close to those employed to describe
original genius.

Gretchen Graf Pahl

Pomona College

The essay "Of Genius," from the _Occasional Paper_ (1719), is
reproduced from a copy in the New York Public Library. The
typescript of Aaron Hill's preface is based on a copy in the
Henry E. Huntington Library. Both works are used with
permission.

THE

OCCASIONAL PAPER.

VOL. III. NUMB. X.

OF

GENIUS.

The Cartesian _Categories are contain'd in these two
Verses,_

Mens, mensura, quies, motus, positura, Figura, Sunt,
cum materia, cunctarum Exordia rerum.

_The Spiritual Nature_, Mens, _is at the head of All. It
ought to be look'd on here, as a Transcendent Nature,_
quae vagatur per omnes Categorias.

Bayle's Diction. _on the Heathen Doctrine of
many_ Genij. See _CAINITES_.

_LONDON_:

Printed for EM. MATTHEWS at the _Bible_
in _Pater-Noster-Row_; J. ROBERTS, in
_Warwick-Lane_; J. HARRISON, under the
_Royal Exchange_; and A. DODD, without
_Temple-Bar_. MDCCXIX.

OF

GENIUS.

It is a Matter of common Observation, that there is a vast
Variety in the Bent of Mens Minds. Some have a Taste of one Way
of Living, some of another; some have a Turn for one kind of
Employment, others for what is quite different. Whether this be
from the Constitution of the Mind itself, as some Soils are more
apt to produce some Plants and Herbs than others; or from the
Laws of Union between the Body and Mind, as some Climates are
more kindly to nurse particular Vegetables than others; or from
the immediate Impulse of that Power which governs the World, is
not so easy to determine.

We a