compositions, if they wanted that knowledge of men, that subtle
comprehension of the true state of parties, that happy temperance in
which the crowning wisdom of statesmen must consist,--qualities which
experience alone can give,--excited considerable attention by their bold
eloquence and hardy logic. They were suited to the time. But John
Ardworth had that solidity of understanding which betokens more than
talent, and which is the usual substratum of genius. He would not depend
alone on the precarious and often unhonoured toils of polemical
literature for that distinction on which he had fixed his steadfast
heart. Patiently he plodded on through the formal drudgeries of his new
profession, lighting up dulness by his own acute comprehension, weaving
complexities into simple system by the grasp of an intellect inured to
generalize, and learning to love even what was most distasteful, by the
sense of difficulty overcome, and the clearer vision which every step
through the mists and up the hill gave of the land beyond. Of what the
superficial are apt to consider genius, John Ardworth had but little. He
had some imagination (for a true thinker is never without that), but he
had a very slight share of fancy. He did not flirt with the Muses; on
the granite of his mind few flowers could spring. His style, rushing and
earnest, admitted at times of a humour not without delicacy,--though less
delicate than forcible and deep,--but it was little adorned with wit, and
still less with poetry. Yet Ardworth had genius, and genius ample and
magnificent. There was genius in that industrious energy so patient in
the conquest of detail, so triumphant in the perception of results.
There was genius in that kindly sympathy with mankind; genius in that
stubborn determination to succeed; genius in that vivid comprehension of
affairs, and the large interests of the world; genius fed in the labours
of the closet, and evinced the instant he was brought into contact with
men,--evinced in readiness of thought, grasp of memory, even in a rough,
imperious nature, which showed him born to speak strong truths, and in