CHAPTER XIV.
Want of mutual esteem among men of genius often originates in a deficiency of analogous ideas.—It is not always envy or jealousy which induces men of genius to undervalue each other.
Among men of genius, that want of mutual esteem, usually attributed to envy or jealousy, often originates in a deficiency of analogous ideas, or of sympathy, in the parties. On this principle, several curious phenomena in the history of genius may be explained.
Every man of genius has a manner of his own; a mode of thinking and a habit of style, and usually decides on a work as it approximates or varies from his own. When one great author depreciates another, his depreciation has often no worse source than his own taste. The witty Cowley despised the natural Chaucer; the austere classical Boileau the rough sublimity of Créibillon; the refining Marivaux the familiar Molière. Fielding ridiculed Richardson, whose manner so strongly contrasted with his own; and Richardson contemned Fielding, and declared he would not last. Cumberland escaped a fit of unforgiveness, not living to read his own character by Bishop Watson, whose logical head tried the lighter elegancies of that polished man by his own nervous genius, destitute of the beautiful in taste. There was no envy in the breast of Johnson when he advised Mrs. Thrale not to purchase "Gray's Letters," as trifling and dull, no more than there was in Gray himself when he sunk the poetical character of Shenstone, and debased his simplicity and purity of feeling by an image of ludicrous contempt. I have heard that WILKES, a mere wit and elegant scholar, used to treat GIBBON as a mere bookmaker; and applied to that philosophical historian the verse by which Voltaire described, with so much caustic facetiousness, the genius of the Abbé Trablet—
Il a compilé, compilé, compilé.
The deficient sympathy in these men of genius for modes of feeling opposite to their own was the real cause of their opinions; and thus it happens that even superior genius is so often liable to be unjust and false in its decisions.
The same principle operates still more strikingly in the remarkable contempt of men of genius for those pursuits which require talents distinct from their own, and a cast of mind thrown by nature into another mould. Hence we must not be surprised at the poetical antipathies of Selden and Locke, as well as Longuerue and Buffon. Newton called poetry "ingenious nonsense." On the other side, poets undervalue the pursuits of the antiquary, the naturalist, and the metaphysician, forming their estimate by their own favourite scale of imagination. As we can only understand in the degree we comprehend, and feel in the degree in which we sympathize, we may be sure that in both these cases the parties will be found altogether deficient in those qualities of genius which constitute the excellence of the other. To this cause, rather than to the one the friends of MICKLE ascribed to ADAM SMITH, namely, a personal dislike to the poet, may we place the severe mortification which the unfortunate translator of Camoens suffered from the person to whom he dedicated "The Lusiad." The Duke of Buccleugh was the pupil of the great political economist, and so little valued an epic poem, that his Grace had not even the curiosity to open the leaves of the presentation copy.
A professor of polite literature condemned the study of botany, as adapted to mediocrity of talent, and only demanding patience; but LINNÆUS showed how a man of genius becomes a creator even in a science which seems to depend only on order and method. It will not be a question with some whether a man must be endowed with the energy and aptitude of genius, to excel in antiquarianism, in natural history, and similar pursuits. The prejudices raised against the claims of such to the honours of genius have probably arisen from the secluded nature of their pursuits, and the little knowledge which the men of wit and imagination possess of these persons, who live in a society of their own. On this subject a very curious circumstance has been revealed respecting PEIRESC, whose enthusiasm for science was long felt throughout Europe. His name was known in every country, and his death was lamented in forty languages; yet was this great literary character unknown to several men of genius in his own country; Rochefoucauld declared he had never heard of his name, and Malherbe wondered why his death created so universal a sensation.
Madame DE STÄEL was an experienced observer of the habits of the literary character, and she has remarked how one student usually revolts from the other when their occupations are different, because they are a reciprocal annoyance. The scholar has nothing to say to the poet, the poet to the naturalist; and even among men of science, those who are differently occupied avoid each other, taking little interest in what is out of their own circle. Thus we see the classes of literature, like the planets, revolving as distinct worlds; and it would not be less absurd for the inhabitants of Venus to treat with contempt the powers and faculties of those of Jupiter, than it is for the men of wit and imagination those of the men of knowledge and curiosity. The wits are incapable of exerting the peculiar qualities which give a real value to these pursuits, and therefore they must remain ignorant of their nature and their result.
It is not then always envy or jealousy which induces men of genius to undervalue each other; the want of sympathy will sufficiently account for the want of judgment. Suppose NEWTON, QUINAULT, and MACHIAVEL accidentally meeting together, and unknown to each other, would they not soon have desisted from the vain attempt of communicating their ideas? The philosopher would have condemned the poet of the Graces as an intolerable trifler, and the author of "The Prince" as a dark political spy. Machiavel would have conceived Newton to be a dreamer among the stars, and a mere almanack-maker among men; and the other a rhymer, nauseously doucereux. Quinault might have imagined that he was seated between two madmen. Having annoyed each other for some time, they would have relieved their ennui by reciprocal contempt, and each have parted with a determination to avoid henceforward two such disagreeable companions.