ever-verdant bowers of maternal tenderness; had the burning ardour of his restless spirit been allayed by the gentle current of a mother's love; had he been soothed and melted by her voice at morning and evening devotions; had he kindled his poetic fire at the pages of Divine Inspiration, who can say what might have been the labours of this master spirit?

"The early years of life," says the author of Home Education, "are all ideality. The real charm of a toy is derived from the power it possesses to excite the conceptive faculty, hence it is, that the more it leaves to be filled up by the imagination-the ruder it is, so much the keener and the more lasting is the pleasure it affords." It is much better to give to children materials upon which to exercise their ingenuity, and implements for work, than those finished, gilded toys, whose costliness is their least disadvantage. A fine painted carriage which the little boy has only to draw about, will soon tire him, while a few bits of board, a saw, a hammer and some nails will afford him amusement for hours, by giving exercise to the faculty of invention.

During the hours of recess at school, when other boys were engaged in their amusements, the mind of Newton was engrossed with mechanical contrivances, either in imitation of what he had seen, or in original conceptions of

his own. He made a model of a windmill that was erected in his neighborhood, and then conceived the idea of turning it with animal power; this project he executed by enclosing in it a mouse, that he called the miller, and which by acting upon a sort of tread-wheel, gave motion to the machine. He also invented a waterclock, and a mechanical carriage, put in motion by the person who sat in it. Newton though a "silent and thinking lad," and averse to engage in the sports of his companions, took great pleasure in providing for their amusements, all of the scientific kind, such as attaching paper lanterns to kites, which flying by night had the appearance of comets.

Imagination is the foundation of both Taste and Genius. In the musician, the painter, the sculptor and the poet, it is the creative power; in those who enjoy the wonders of ideality brought into existence by genius, it is the power of conceiving the ideal, and when combined with judgment it becomes taste. Imagination is an original power of the rational mind; we find it in children, in savages, among all nations, and in all ages. It built the tower of Babel, it constructed the Pyramids of Egypt; it framed the disgusting Mythology of the Egyptians, and that more refined abomination of the Greeks. It invented alike the paradise of Odin, whose war

riors revel in the enjoyment of eternally slaying their enemies and drinking blood from their skulls; and the celestial bowers of Mahomet, where the followers of the false Prophet recline amid all the delights of the senses. Imagination tuned its lyre in the immortal strains of Homer; it still raves in the fantastic measures of the war-dance and death-song of the Indian. It framed the hideous Idol of the Ganges, whose tremendous car is tracked by a stream of human blood; and it guided the chisel of the Grecian sculptor, in forming an image of such transcendent beauty, that he prayed the gods to animate it with a living soul.

A fine instance of the creative exercise of the imagination, connected with sensible imagery, is seen in the Paradise Lost of Milton. His garden of Eden is an assemblage of beautiful objects divested of all that can give offence to the most delicate conception. His Eve, in her innocence, is a fine model of female excellence; and Adam the beau ideal of man as he came from the hand of his Maker. While Satan, the "dread commander" of the fallen spirits, stands

66

proudly eminent;" not having yet lost "all his original brightness," he appears "archangel ruined," and the excess of glory obscured:

As when the sun, new risen,

Looks through the horizontal misty air,

Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs. Darken'd so, yet shone
Above them all the archangel.

That effort of the imagination found in the fine arts, affords us rich and varied sources of enjoyment. Statuary and Painting have preserved the form and lineaments of the great and the virtuous, who for ages have slept in the dust; while the Poet, "glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven," sets before the intellect a repast culled from the richest rarities of the natural and the moral world. He seizes upon the light and the shade, and the most delicate touches of the Painter's palette and outdoes them all; for he presses into his service the melody of music and the power of language; nay, he bestows enchantment upon language, filling it with metaphors and imagery, giving motion and soul to the inanimate universe.

In the voluntary and persevering employment of the creative energy given by imagination, under the direction of Reason, do we find the highest exercise of the intellect; and this we may term Genius. It is the characteristic of great minds; it carries the "feelings and freshness of youth into the matured strength of manhood," its greenness appears, even among the

whitening frosts of age, and its light and warmth cast a cheerful beam over the chilling shades that hover around the tomb. The truly great mind is continually progressing, continually accumulating, and when called to clothe itself with immortality, it leaves behind it an immortality of fame.*

Genius has been compared to the diamond which has the peculiar property of refracting and reflecting the prismatic colours. Thus genius refracts and reflects the light it receives from other minds, and arranges thoughts thus furnished, so that the light of truth falls upon us bright and with added lustre. "A Newton or a Shakspeare," says a modern author, "deprived of kindred minds and born among savages-savages had been." Doubtless they had been great among savages, perhaps revered as demi-gods, either for some surprising invention, or some unknown power of controuling minds.

The early youth of Sir Isaac Newton shews the developement of his imagination in both painting and poetry, and his kind and social nature constantly directed his inventive power to the labour that might be agreeable or beneficial to others. His Reason set before him necessary truth in all its vividness, and his móral nature, being renewed and sanctified by the • Note P.