not always
philosophers, were always men of genius, saw, or imagined they saw, a
divinity within the man. This enthusiasm is alike experienced in the
silence of study and amidst the roar of cannon, in painting a picture or
in scaling a rampart. View DE THOU, the historian, after his morning
prayers, imploring the Divinity to purify his heart from partiality and
hatred, and to open his spirit in developing the truth, amidst the
contending factions of his times; and HAYDN, employed in his "Creation,"
earnestly addressing the Creator ere he struck his instrument. In moments
like these, man becomes a perfect unity--one thought and one act,
abstracted from all other thoughts and all other acts. This intensity of
the mind was felt by GRAY in his loftiest excursions, and is perhaps the
same power which impels the villager, when, to overcome his rivals in a
contest for leaping, he retires hack some steps, collects all exertion
into his mind, and clears the eventful bound. One of our admirals in the
reign of Elizabeth held as a maxim, that a height of passion, amounting to
frenzy, was necessary to qualify a man for the command of a fleet; and
NELSON, decorated by all his honours about him, on the day of battle, at
the sight of those emblems of glory emulated himself. This enthusiasm was
necessary for his genius, and made it effective.

But this enthusiasm, prolonged as it often has been by the operation of
the imaginative existence, becomes a state of perturbed feeling, and can
only be distinguished from a disordered intellect by the power of volition
possessed by a sound mind of withdrawing from the ideal world into the
world of sense. It is but a step which may carry us from the wanderings of
fancy into the aberrations of delirium. The endurance of attention, even
in minds of the highest order, is limited by a law of nature; and when
thinking is goaded on to exhaustion, confusion of ideas ensues, as
straining any one of our limbs by excessive exertion produces tremor and
torpor.

With curious art the brain too finely wrought
Preys on herself and is destroyed by Thought;
Constant attention wears the active mind,
Blots out her powers, and leaves a blank behind--
The greatest genius to this fate may bow.

Even minds less susceptible than high genius may become overpowered by
their imagination. Often, in the deep silence around us, we seek to
relieve ourselves by some voluntary noise or action which may direct our
at