vision, and is content thus to impress her image on his page; but Milton, although profoundly acquainted with all the higher poetic verities, was lacking in this close and large acquaintance with nature. Books told him much, his own glorious imagination told him more; but neither learning, nor even genius-although it performs marvelscan supply the place of observation and daily intercourse.

STANLEY. You have yet to prove, HARTLEY, that Milton's rural sketches are not original. You have shown us, or rather told us, for your sparse quotations prove little-what other poets have done; but you have not yet given us sound reason for doubting Milton's greatness as a rural, any more than as an epic poet.

HARTLEY. I wish any one would define for me exactly the meaning of the word "plagiarist." More or less, every author, whether small or great, must borrow from his predecessors. Ideas are unconsciously appropriated, fancies once handed about in the rough ore are changed into sterling coin; flowers which opened their small and lustreless eyes on a barren soil, are transferred to the garden, and nursed into size and beauty, and by such a process, simple and healthful as any of Nature's movements, the whole world is benefited and gladdened. There is no theft in an appropriation like this; as well might you accuse a mighty stream of larceny, because it gathers into its own bosom the wealth of every tiny rivulet, and bears it off exultingly to its ocean home. Shakspeare was perfectly justified in founding his dramas on extant plays, or stories, and Milton was justified in the use he probably made of the "Faithful Shepherdess," or the "Old Wives' Tale," while com

66

posing his "Comus"; and the seeds of "Paradise Lost" may perhaps be found in Sylvester and in the poems of earlier writers.* "Poets of the higher order," it has been well said by Mr. Keightley, are not very solicitous about the appearance of originality.” There is no reason why they should be. If they are conscious of their genius, they are aware at the same time, that that genius will conduct them to an heritage of which they will be undisputed possessors. Some of its wealth and beauty may own a foreign origin, but these elements mingle freely with that which is indigenous to the soil, and so become naturalized to it. I believe Milton, with all his learning, to be every whit as original as Shakspeare with his "little Latin and less Greek;" at the same time I feel some misgivings as to how far his bright and lively descriptions of rural nature in the "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso are really drawn from the life. I can find but few lines in them which seem to come fresh from the poet's own observation; some are inaccurate, some common-place, and some

TALBOT. Oh! oh! This is like the criticism of Warton and his confrères, who are ever labouring to show how Milton borrowed one idea from Spenser, and another from Shakspeare, and another from some Italian nonentity.

* Sylvester, aptly called by his contemporaries the "silvertongued," was a Christian poet, and despite his fame with princesno common temptation in those days-a truly Christian man. The folio edition of his translation of Du Bartas appeared when Milton was about thirteen years of age. It was printed on Bread-streethill, and such a treasure could not have escaped a boy, who was even then a zealous student, and a passionate lover of poetry.

Take care that you do not fall into any of the ruts made by the awkward heavy wheels of the critics, who drove their cart horses over Milton's genius a hundred years ago.

HARTLEY. No; my admiration of John Milton is far too warm and sincere to make it likely I shall stumble in this way. Such admiration, however, is a poor quality if it deprive a man of judgment. I am not a Claud Halcro ; and my "glorious John," though one of the noblest of poets, is by no means immaculate. In looking through "L'Allegro," for instance, and I have lately done so with. the aid of Warton-not a favourite critic of mine, but a useful one in this instance-I find a number of phrases and verbal combinations, which would never have occurred to Milton had they not been used by some earlier poet. I do not mean that there is anything of this sort, striking enough to mar the originality of the entire poem; but there is, I think, enough to show that Nature and Milton, were not in those days such familiar friends as we might well have anticipated. How shall I prove this? For you surely would not wish me to examine each line of the poems with my critical microscope. The easiest, and therefore best course I can take is to throw upon you the burden of proving that Milton knew more about nature than I have given him credit for knowing.

STANLEY. A most unreasonable proposition, but no doubt mightily convenient. However, I shall not undertake the burden you propose casting on me.

TALBOT. Neither will I; we are simply listeners in this case, ready to be convinced if you can convince us; but by no means disposed to allow the scales to be turned, and to attempt to convince you.

HARTLEY. Well, then, if you are so determined, I will give you my views in as few words as possible.

The first pleasure in which the cheerful man indulges, is

"To hear the lark begin his flight,

And singing, startle the dull night."

a beautiful idea, but one which is the offspring of fancy, not of observation. It will not, therefore, affect my argument; but a line or two further on, the poet describes the bird as bidding him good-morrow at his window, which is a false conceit, as no sky-lark was ever known to rest upon a window-ledge. Anon he writes of the eglantine and the sweet-brier, as though they were distinct plants; after this we have a number of pretty lines, forming a pleasant cluster, but they might have been written by a cockney poet, who had only read of the country. The picture of country customs and amusements within doors, has, I will allow, a rural charm about it; but the ideas are borrowed, although with exquisite taste and art.

"Such sights as youthful poets dream,

On summer eves by haunted stream,"

a charming couplet, is Milton's own. So also is his commendation of "Sweetest Shakspeare warbling his native wood-notes wild ;" but such a description would suit almost any poet in the language better than Shakspeare; for no poet ever sang with more consummate skill, or with a profounder knowledge of what is artistically correct.

"Il Penseroso is the finer poem of the two; and it contains one line describing a simple incident in nature,

for which one can believe the poet did not turn to his books.

"With minute drops from off the eaves,"

is the line to which I allude; but it describes a natural circumstance which might as easily have been seen or heard in Cheapside, as at Horton. However, a little further on; as if to atone for this draft on nature, Milton writes of "the bee with honied thigh" which is a bookish blunder. I might note more errors of the same kind, but have no wish to leash myself with Dr. Johnson, or with any other critic, who has ventured to find fault with Milton.

STANLEY. A very Johnsonese piece of criticism. I should scarcely have expected such wilful nonsense even from a William Lauder. Adieu for ever to criticism, if it leads a sensible man like HARTLEY to take, on these trivial grounds, such perverse views of two glorious poems.

HARTLEY. When a woman wishes to argue, she generally declaims instead. Both of you must possess the same feminine cast of mind, for you have given me no argument in reply to my assertions.

TALBOT. I suspect that they were not made in earnest; for to toss over two such poems, as lightly as Hetty Sorel tossed her butter, would betray a loss of sanity.

HARTLEY. Admit at least that there is some truth in what I have said, and I will own, which you can scarcely doubt, that I admire the "L'Allegro" and its twin brother as much as you do. But it is time now to turn to "Lycidas," a poem in which Johnson declares there is