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The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Addison, Joseph, 1672-1719, Steele, Richard, Sir, 1672-1729

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H. M. To The Right Honourable John Lord Sommers, Baron Of Evesham. [1]

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T. End Of Volume I.

_The End of the first Vision of Mirzah_.

C.

[Footnote 1: "have been laid for them", corrected by an erratum in No. 161.]

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No. 160. Monday, September 3, 1711. Addison.

'... Cui mens divinior, atque os
Magna sonaturum, des nominis hujus honorem.'Hor.

There is no Character more frequently given to a Writer, than that of being a Genius. I have heard many a little Sonneteer called a _fine Genius_. There is not an Heroick Scribler in the Nation, that has not his Admirers who think him a _great Genius_; and as for your Smatterers in Tragedy, there is scarce a Man among them who is not cried up by one or other for a _prodigious Genius_.

My design in this Paper is to consider what is properly a great Genius, and to throw some Thoughts together on so uncommon a Subject.

Among great Genius's those few draw the Admiration of all the World upon them, and stand up as the Prodigies of Mankind, who by the meer Strength of natural Parts, and without any Assistance of Arts or Learning, have produced Works that were the Delight of their own Times, and the Wonder of Posterity. There appears something nobly wild and extravagant in these great natural Genius's, that is infinitely more beautiful than all the Turn and Polishing of what the _French_ call a _Bel Esprit_, by which they would express a Genius refined by Conversation, Reflection, and the Reading of the most polite Authors. The greatest Genius [which [1]] runs through the Arts and Sciences, takes a kind of Tincture from them, and falls unavoidably into Imitation.