Genius making me no Answer, I turned about to address myself to
him a second time, but I found that he had left me; I then turned
again to the Vision which I had been so long contemplating; but
Instead of the rolling Tide, the arched Bridge, and the happy Islands,
I saw nothing but the long hollow Valley of _Bagdat_, with Oxen,
Sheep, and Camels grazing upon the Sides of it.

_The End of the first Vision of Mirzah_.

C.

[Footnote 1: "have been laid for them", corrected by an erratum in No.
161.]

* * * * *

No. 160. Monday, September 3, 1711. Addison.

'... Cui mens divinior, atque os
Magna sonaturum, des nominis hujus honorem.'

Hor.

There is no Character more frequently given to a Writer, than that of
being a Genius. I have heard many a little Sonneteer called a _fine
Genius_. There is not an Heroick Scribler in the Nation, that has not
his Admirers who think him a _great Genius_; and as for your Smatterers
in Tragedy, there is scarce a Man among them who is not cried up by one
or other for a _prodigious Genius_.

My design in this Paper is to consider what is properly a great Genius,
and to throw some Thoughts together on so uncommon a Subject.

Among great Genius's those few draw the Admiration of all the World upon
them, and stand up as the Prodigies of Mankind, who by the meer Strength
of natural Parts, and without any Assistance of Arts or Learning, have
produced Works that were the Delight of their own Times, and the Wonder
of Posterity. There appears something nobly wild and extravagant in
these great natural Genius's, that is infinitely more beautiful than all
the Turn and Polishing of what the _French_ call a _Bel Esprit_, by
which they would express a Genius refined by Conversation, Reflection,
and the Reading of the most polite Authors. The greatest Genius [which
[1]] runs through the Arts and Sciences, takes a kind of Tincture from
them, and falls unavoidably into Imitation.

Many of these great natural Genius's that were never disciplined and
broken by Rules of Art, are to be found among the Ancients, and in
particular among those of the more Eastern Parts of the World. _Homer_
has innumerable Flights that _Virgil_ was not able to reach, and in the
Old Testament we find several Passages more elevated and sublime than
any in _Homer_. At the same time that we allow a greater an