, &c.
Very spirited, is it not? One has only to overlook a little
threadbareness in the similes, and it is very good oratorical verse. But
would we believe in it, we must never read Mr. Moore's own journal, and
find out how thin a piece of veneering his own life was,--how he lived in
sham till his very nature had become subdued to it, till he could
persuade himself that a sham could be written into a reality, and
actually made experiment thereof in his Diary.
One verse in this diatribe deserves a special comment,--
"What an impostor Genius is!"
In two respects there is nothing to be objected to in it. It is of eight
syllables, and "is" rhymes unexceptionably with "his." But is there the
least filament of truth in it? We venture to assert, not the least. It
was not Rousseau's genius that was an impostor. It was the one thing in
him that was always true. We grant that, in allowing that a man has
genius. Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose
power a man is. That is the very difference between them. We might turn
the tables on Moore, the man of talent, and say truly enough, What an
impostor talent is! Moore talks of the mimetic power with a total
misapprehension of what it really is.
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