And if it be true that the primary qualities of the mind are so different in men of genius as to render them more apt for one class than for another, it would seem that whenever a pre-eminent faculty had shaped the mind, a faculty of the most contrary nature must act with a diminished force, and the other often with an exclusive one. An impassioned and pathetic genius has never become equally eminent as a comic genius. RICHARDSON and FIELDING could not have written each other's works. Could BUTLER, who excelled in wit and satire, like MILTON have excelled in sentiment and imagination? Some eminent men have shown remarkable failures in their attempts to cultivate opposite departments in their own pursuits. The tragedies and the comedies of DRYDEN equally prove that he was not blest with a dramatic genius. CIBBER, a spirited comic writer, was noted for the most degrading failures in tragedy; while ROWE, successful in the softer tones of the tragic muse, proved as luckless a candidate for the smiles of the comic as the pathetic OTWAY. LA FONTAINE, unrivalled humorist as a fabulist, found his opera hissed, and his romance utterly tedious. The true genius of STERNE was of a descriptive and pathetic cast, and his humour and ribaldry were a perpetual violation of his natural bent. ALFIERI'S great tragic powers could not strike out into comedy or wit. SCARRON declared he intended to write a tragedy. The experiment was not made; but with his strong cast of mind and habitual associations, we probably have lost a new sort of "Roman comique." CICERO failed in poetry, ADDISON in oratory, VOLTAIRE in comedy, and JOHNSON in tragedy. The Anacreontic poet remains only Anacreontic in his epic. With the fine arts the same occurrence has happened. It has been observed in painting, that the school eminent for design was deficient in colouring; while those who with Titian's warmth could make the blood circulate in the flesh, could never rival the expression and anatomy of even the middling artists of the Roman school.