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INGENUOUS YOUTH! if, in a constant perusal of the master-writers, you see your own sentiments anticipated if, in the tumult of your mind, as it comes in contact with theirs, new sentiments arise if, sometimes, looking on the public favourite of the hour, you feel that within which prompts you to imagine that you could rival or surpass him if, in meditating on the confessions of every man of genius, for they all have their confessions, you find you have experienced the same sensations from the same circumstances, encountered the same difficulties and overcome them by the same means; then let not your courage be lost in your admiration, but listen to that "still small voice" in your heart which cries with CORREGGIO and with MONTESQUIEU, "Ed io anche son pittore!"
Thus the master-writers of every people preserve the distinct national character in their works; and hence that extraordinary enthusiasm with which every people read their own favourite authors; but in which others cannot participate, and for which, with all their national prejudices, they often recriminate on each other with false and even ludicrous criticism.
This alike includes those who yield up nothing to the genius of their age to correct the imperfections of society, and those who, opposing all human experience, would annihilate what is most admirable in its institutions. The public mind is the creation of the Master-Writers an axiom as demonstrable as any in Euclid, and a principle as sure in its operation as any in mechanics.
Hence those opposite characteristics, which are usually ascribed to the master-writers themselves, originate with the country, and not with the writer. LOPE DE VEGA, and CALDEBON, in their dramas, and CERVANTES, who has left his name as the epithet of a peculiar grave humour, were Spaniards before they were men of genius.
True Genius always the organ of its nation. Master-writers preserve the distinct national character. Genius the organ of the state of the age. Causes of its suppression in a people. Often invented, but neglected. The natural gradations of genius. Men of Genius produce their usefulness in privacy. The public mind is now the creation of the public writer. Politicians affect to deny this principle.
Thus a Hebrew vagrant, first perplexed in the voluminous labyrinth of Judaical learning, in his middle age oppressed by indigence and malady, and in his mature life wrestling with that commercial station whence he derived his humble independence, became one of the master-writers in the literature of his country.
In closing this imperfect work by attempting to ascertain the real influence of authors on society, it will be necessary to notice some curious facts in the history of genius. The distinct literary tastes of different nations, and the repugnance they mutually betray for the master-writers of each other, is an important circumstance to the philosophical observer.
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