'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation

Anonymous, Of Genius , in The Occasional Paper, Volume III, Number 10 (1719) and Aaron Hill, Preface to The Creation (1720)
With an Introduction by Gretchen Graf Pahl The Augustan Reprint Society March, 1949 Price: One Dollar
GENERAL EDITORS RICHARD C. BOYS, University of Michigan EDWARD NILES HOOKER, University of California, Los Angeles H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., University of California, Los Angeles ASSISTANT EDITOR W. EARL BRITTON, University of Michigan ADVISORY EDITORS EMMETT L. AVERY, State College of Washington BENJAMIN BOYCE, University of Nebraska LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, University of Michigan CLEANTH BROOKS, Yale University JAMES L. CLIFFORD, Columbia University ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, University of Chicago SAMUEL H. MONK, University of Minnesota ERNEST MOSSNER, University of Texas JAMES SUTHERLAND, Queen Mary College, London
Lithoprinted from copy supplied by author by Edwards Brothers, Inc. Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.
CONTENTS
The anonymous essay Of Genius, which appeared in the Occasional Paper of 1719, still considers genius largely a matter of aptitude or talent, and applies the term to the mechanick as well as the fine arts. The work is, in fact, essentially a pamphlet on education. The author's main concern is training, and study, and conscious endeavor. Naturally enough, his highest praise—even where poetry is in question—is reserved for those solid Augustan virtues of judgment and good sense.
And yet the pamphlet reveals some of the tangled roots from which the later concept of the original or primitive genius grew. For here are two prerequisites of that later, more extravagant concept. One is the author's positive delight in the infinite differences of human temperaments and talents—a delight from which might spring the preference for original or unique works of art. The other is his conviction that there is something necessary and foreordained about those differences: a conviction essential to faith in the artist who is apparently at the mercy of a genius beyond his own control. The importance of this latter belief was long ago indicated in Paul Kaufman's Heralds of Original Genius.