The Doctor says, 'That Cowley having, when very young, read Spenser, became _irrecoverably_ a poet[83].' And he adds a remark that shows his good sense: 'Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and sometimes perhaps forgotten, PRODUCE that particular designation of mind and propensity for some certain science or employment, which is commonly called genius. The true genius is a mind of large general powers, _accidentally_ determined to some particular direction. The great painter of the present age had the first fondness for his art excited by a perusal of Richardson's treatise.' This drawling definition contradicts common sense. Does the Doctor mean that Cowley would have become a painter by perusing Richardson? or that Reynolds would have become a poet by perusing Spenser? This is the clear inference from his words, and its absurdity is 'too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation[84].' At this rate Garrick might have eclipsed Newton, and Voltaire defeated Frederick. Plato possessed 'a mind of large general powers.' He read Homer. He wrote verses, and he found that he could not be a poet. The Doctor himself has 'large general powers;' but he could never have been made a decent dancing master. Marcel might have broke his heart, before his pupil had acquired three steps of a minuet. In his dictionary the Doctor, without a word of _accidental_ determination, defines genius to be 'disposition of _nature_, by which any one is qualified for some peculiar employment.' And here I cannot help adding, that 'the great painter' has by stepping out of his own line, discovered the narrowness of even a great man's knowledge. He affirms[85], That _scarce a poet from Homer down to Dryden ever felt his fire diminished merely by his advance in years_. There is nothing more absurd, says Cicero, than what we hear asserted by some of the philosophers. Even in painting, the President's own profession, that rule does not hold. Cellini tells us, that Michael Angelo's genius decayed with years; and he speaks of it as common to all artists. His notion was perhaps grafted on an opinion of the Doctor's about the durability of Waller's genius[86]. But Waller was a feeble poet; he never had a genius, so that we need not wonder he never lost it. All his verses are hardly worth one of Dr Johnson's imitations of Juvenal.