es who have aimed at universal empire. Besides, this universality may
answer many temporary purposes. These writers may, however, observe that
their contemporaries are continually disputing on the merits of their
versatile productions, and the most contrary opinions are even formed by
their admirers; but their great individual character standing by itself,
and resembling no other, is a positive excellence. It is time only, who is
influenced by no name, and will never, like contemporaries, mistake the
true work of genius.

And if it be true that the primary qualities of the mind are so different
in men of genius as to render them more apt for one class than for
another, it would seem that whenever a pre-eminent faculty had shaped the
mind, a faculty of the most contrary nature must act with a diminished
force, and the other often with an exclusive one. An impassioned and
pathetic genius has never become equally eminent as a comic genius.
RICHARDSON and FIELDING could not have written each other's works. Could
BUTLER, who excelled in wit and satire, like MILTON have excelled in
sentiment and imagination? Some eminent men have shown remarkable failures
in their attempts to cultivate opposite departments in their own pursuits.
The tragedies and the comedies of DRYDEN equally prove that he was not
blest with a dramatic genius. CIBBER, a spirited comic writer, was noted
for the most degrading failures in tragedy; while ROWE, successful in the
softer tones of the tragic muse, proved as luckless a candidate for the
smiles of the comic as the pathetic OTWAY. LA FONTAINE, unrivalled
humorist as a fabulist, found his opera hissed, and his romance utterly
tedious. The true genius of STERNE was of a descriptive and pathetic cast,
and his humour and ribaldry were a perpetual violation of his natural
bent. ALFIERI'S great tragic powers could not strike out into comedy or
wit. SCARRON declared he intended to write a tragedy. The experiment was
not made; but with his strong cast of mind and habitual associations, we
probably have lost a new sort of "Roman comique." CICERO failed in poetry,
ADDISON in oratory, VOLTAIRE in comedy, and JOHNSON in tragedy. The
Anacreontic poet remains only Anacreontic in his epic. With the fine arts
the same occurrence has happened. It has been observed in painting, that
the school eminent for design was deficient in colouring; while those who
with Titian's warmth could make the blood circulate in the flesh,