Page:The Harveian Oration1876.djvu/12

 All men have some musical power, but every now and then a man is born with such an extraordinary genius that he is quite lifted out of the crowd of common musicians. Mozart was at five years of age trying to compose a concerto for the harpsichord, and at eight years composing six sonatas which were good enough to be published; Mendelssohn at twelve conducting his own operas; Beethoven deaf, yet knowing how to harmonize and combine the notes of diverse instruments not one of which he could hear. All these and many others are examples that an universal faculty may rise into a region which seems above common humanity. In the same way poets are truly said to be born, not made, for admitting all the power of education, when we see that scarce ten centuries can claim an epic, we cannot but doubt whether education alone will ever elevate the poetical faculty, more or less possessed by all men, into those splendid examples which the names of Homer, Æschylus, Dante, Milton, or Shakspeare recall. And