ails. Hence came the monotony which the frivolous and
the desultory would have found in his conversation. I however, who am
perhaps the person best qualified to speak of him, must pronounce him
to have been a man of great genius; and, with reference to his
conversation, of great eloquence. That these were not better known and
acknowledged was owing to two disadvantages; one grounded in his
imperfect education, the other in the peculiar structure of his mind.
The first was this: like the late Mr. Shelley he had a fine vague
enthusiasm and lofty aspirations in connexion with human nature
generally and its hopes; and like him he strove to give steadiness, a
uniform direction, and an intelligible purpose to these feelings, by
fitting to them a scheme of philosophical opinions. But unfortunately
the philosophic system of both was so far from supporting their own
views and the cravings of their own enthusiasm, that, as in some
points it was baseless, incoherent, or unintelligible, so in others it
tended to moral results, from which, if they had foreseen them, they
would have been themselves the first to shrink as contradictory to the
very purposes in which their system had originated. Hence, in
maintaining their own system they both found themselves painfully
entangled at times with tenets pernicious and degrading to human
nature. These were the inevitable consequences of the [Greek: proton
pseudos] in their speculations; but were naturally charged upon them
by those who looked carelessly into their books as opinions which not
only for the sake of consistency they thought themselves bound to
endure, but to which they gave the full weight of their sanction and
patronage as to so many moving principles in their system. The other
disadvantage under which Walking Stewart laboured was this: he was a
man of genius, but not a man of talents; at least his genius was out
of all proportion to his talents, and wanted an organ as it were for
manifesting itself; so that his most original thoughts were delivered
in a crude state--imperfect, obscure, half developed, and not
producible to a popular audience. He was aware of this himself; and,
though he claims everywhere the faculty of profound intuition into
human nature, yet with equal candour he accuses himself of asinine
stupidity, dulness, and want of talent. He was a disproportioned
intellect, and so far a monster; and he must be added to the long list
of original-minded men who have bee