This is owing to successive Improvements. The Ear is
formed to an elegant Judgment by Degrees. What is harsh and
harmonious is discovered and corrected. By many Advantages, some
at last come to find out what, in the whole Compass of Sounds, is
most soft and touching, most brisk and enlivening, most lofty and
elevating. So that whatever the Artist intends, whether to set an
Air, or compose a _Te Deum_, he does either, with an equal
_Genius_, that is, with equal Propriety and Elegance. Thus long
ago,
Timotheus _to his breathing flute, and sounding Lyre,
Could swell the Soul to Rage, or kindle soft Desire._
And,
_Thus_ David'_s Lyre did_ Saul'_s wild Rage controul,
And tune the harsh Disorders of his Soul._
This may direct us to another Cause, from whence a _Genius_
arises: A _Genius_ that is formed and acquired. For the Turn that
Education, Company, Business, the Taste of the Age, and above
all, Principles of vitious or virtuous Manners, give to a Man's
natural Capacities, is what chiefly forms his _Genius_. Thus we
say of some, they have a rude unpolish'd _Genius_; of others,
they have a fine, polite _Genius_. The manner of applying the
natural Powers of the Mind, is what alone may produce the most
different and opposite _Genij_. Libertine Principles, and
Virtuous Morals, may form the Genius of a _Rake_, from the same
natural Capacity, out of which Virtuous Principles might have
form'd an _Hero_.
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