_Genius_ is a part of natural Constitution, not acquir'd, but
born with us. Yet it is capable of Cultivation and Improvement.
It has been a common Question, whether a Man be born a Poet or
made one? but both must concur. Nature and Art must contribute
their Shares to compleat the Character. Limbs alone will not make
a Dancer, or a Wrestler. Nor will _Genius_ alone make a good
Poet; nor the meer Strength of natural Abilities make a
considerable Artist of any kind. Good Rules, and these reduc'd to
Practice, are necessary to this End. And Use and Exercise in
this, as well as in all other Cases, are a second Nature. And,
oftentimes, the second Nature makes a prodigious Improvement of
the Force and Vigour of the first.
It has been long ago determined by the great Masters of Letters,
that good Sense is the chief Qualification of a good Writer.
_Scribendi certe sapere est & Principium & Fons._
Horat.
Yet the best natural Parts in the World are capable of much
Improvement by a due Cultivation.
_Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam,
Rectique cultus Pectora roborant._
Horat.
The Spectator's golden Scales, let down from Heaven to discover
the true Weight and Value of Things, expresses this Matter in a
Way which at once shews, a _Genius_, and its Cultivation. "There
is a Saying among the _Scots_, that an Ounce of Mother-Wit, is
worth a Pound of Clergy.
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