are excessively rare.  It may be a painful reflection to those who, having had a great deal of money spent on their education, and having given a great deal of time to their solid aquirements, now see genius and original power of all kinds more esteemed than their learning; but they should reflect that what is learning now is only the diffused form of what was once invention.  “Solid acquirement” is the genius of wits become the wisdom of reviewers.

IV.

Authors are styled an irritable race, and justly, if the epithet be understood in its physiological rather than its moral sense.  This irritability, which responds to the slightest stimulus, leads to much of the misdirection of talent we have been considering.  The greatness of an author consists in having a mind extremely irritable, and at the same time steadfastly imperial:—­irritable that no stimulus may be inoperative, even in its most evanescent solicitations; imperial, that no solicitation may divert him from his deliberately chosen aims.  A magisterial subjection of all dispersive influences, a concentration of the mind upon the thing that has to be done, and a proud renunciation of all means of effect which do not spontaneously connect themselves with it—­these are the rare qualities which mark out the man of genius.  In men of lesser calibre the mind is more constantly open to determination from extrinsic influences.  Their movement is not self-determined, self-sustained.  In men of still smaller calibre the mind is entirely determined by extrinsic influences.  They are prompted to write poems by no musical instinct, but simply because great poems have enchanted the world.  They resolve to write novels upon the vulgarest provocations:  they see novels bringing money and fame; they think there is no difficulty in the art.  The novel will afford them an opportunity of bringing in a variety of scattered details; scraps of knowledge too scanty for an essay, and scraps of experience too meagre for independent publication.  Others, again, attempt histories, or works of popular philosophy and science; not because they have any special stores of knowledge, or because any striking novelty of conception urges them to use up old material in a new shape, but simply because they have just been reading with interest some work of history or science, and are impatient to impart to others the knowledge they have just acquired for themselves.  Generally it may be remarked that the pride which follows the sudden emancipation of the mind from ignorance of any subject, is accompanied by a feeling that all the world must be in the state of darkness from which we have ourselves emerged.  It is the knowledge learned yesterday which is most freely imparted today.