landscapes without any certain order or
regularity; in the other it is the same rich soil, under the same happy
climate, that has been laid out in walks and parterres, and cut into
shape and beauty by the skill of the gardener.

The great danger in these latter kind of geniuses is lest they cramp
their own abilities too much by imitation, and form themselves altogether
upon models, without giving the full play to their own natural parts. An
imitation of the best authors is not to compare with a good original; and
I believe we may observe that very few writers make an extraordinary
figure in the world who have not something in their way of thinking or
expressing themselves, that is peculiar to them, and entirely their own.

It is odd to consider what great geniuses are sometimes thrown away upon
trifles.

"I once saw a shepherd," says a famous Italian author, "who used to
divert himself in his solitudes with tossing up eggs and catching them
again without breaking them; in which he had arrived to so great a degree
of perfection that he would keep up four at a time for several minutes
together playing in the air, and falling into his hand by turns. I
think," says the author, "I never saw a greater severity than in this
man's face, for by his wonderful perseverance and application he had
contracted the seriousness and gravity of a privy councillor, and I could
not but reflect with myself that the same assiduity and attention, had
they been rightly applied, 'might' have made a greater mathematician than
Archimedes."

THEODOSIUS AND CONSTANTIA.

_Illa_; _Quis et me_, _inquit_, _miseram et te perdidit_, _Orpheu_?--
_Jamque vale_: _feror ingenti circumdata nocte_,
_Invalidasque tibi tendens_, _heu_! _non tua_, _palmas_.

VIRG., _Georg._, iv. 494.

Then thus the bride: "What fury seiz'd on thee,
Unhappy man! to lose thyself and me?--
And now farewell! involv'd in shades of night,
For ever I am ravish'd from thy sight:
In vain I reach my feeble hands, to join
In sweet embraces--ah! no longer thine!"

DRYDEN.

Constantia was a woman of extraordinary wit and beauty, but very unhappy
in a father who, having arrived at great riches by his own industry, took
delight in nothing but his money. Theodosius was the younger son of a
decayed family, of great parts and learning, improved by a genteel and
virtuous education. When he was in the twentieth year of his age he
became acquai