ready to make a ftand. Many repetitions are neceffary to fix in memory lines not underftood; and why fhould Milton wish or want to hear them fo often? Thefe lines were at the beginning of the poems. Of a book written in a language not understood, the beginning raifes no more attention than the end; and as thofe that understand it know commonly the beginning beft, its rehearsal will feldom be neceffary. It is not likely that Milton required any paffage to be fo much repeated as that his daughter could learn it; nor likely that he defired the initial lines to be read at all; nor that the daughter, weary of the drudgery of pronouncing unideal founds, would voluntarily commit them to memory.

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To this gentlewoman Addison made a fent, and promised fome establishment; but died foon after. Queen Caroline fent her fifty guineas. She had feven fons and three daughters; but none of them had any children, except her fon Caleb and her daughter Elizabeth. Caleb went to Fort St. George in the Eaft Indies, and had two fons, of whom

whom nothing is now known. Elizabeth married Thomas Fofter, a weaver in Spitalfields; and had feven children, who all died. She kept a petty grocer's or chandler's fhop, first at Holloway, and afterwards in Cocklane near Shoreditch Church. She knew little of her grandfather, and that little was not good. She told of his harshness to his daughters, and his refufal to have them taught to write; and, in oppofition to other accounts, represented him as delicate, though temperate, in his diet.

In 1750, April 5, Comus was played for her benefit. She had fo little acquaintance with diverfion or gaiety, that he did not know what was intended when a benefit was offered her. The profits of the night were only one hundred and thirty pounds, though Dr. Newton brought a large contribution; and twenty pounds were given by Tonfon, a man who is to be praised as often as he is named. Of this fum one hundred pounds were placed in the ftocks, after fome debate between her and her husband in whofe name it should be entered; and the reft augmented

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their little ftock, with which they removed to Iflington. This was the greatest benefaction that Paradife Loft ever procured the author's defcendents; and to this he, who has now attempted to relate his Life, had the honour of contributing a Prologue.

IN the examination of Milton's poetical works, I fhall pay fo much regard to time as to begin with his juvenile productions. For his early pieces he seems to have had a degree of fondnefs not very laudable: what he has once written he refolves to preferve, and gives to the publick an unfinished poem, which he broke off because he was nothing satisfied with what he had done, fuppofing his readers lefs nice than himself. Thefe preludes to his future labours are in Italian, Latin, and English. Of the Italian I cannot pretend to speak as a critick; but I have heard them commended by a man well qualified to decide their merit. The Latin pieces are lufcioufly elegant; but the delight which they afford is rather by the exquifite imitation of the ancient writers, by the purity of the diction, and the harmony of the numbers, than by any power of invention, or vigour of fentiment. They are not all of equal value; the elegies excell the odes; and fome of the exercises on Gunpowder Treafon might have been spared.

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The English poems, though they make no promifes of Paradife Loft, have this evidence of genius, that they have a caft original and unborrowed. But their peculiarity is not excellence; if they differ from verfes of others, they differ for the worfe; for they are too often distinguished by repulfive harshness; the combination of words are new, but they are not pleafing; the rhymes and epithets feem to be laboriously fought, and violently applied.

That in the early parts of his life he wrote with much care appears from his manufcripts, happily preferved at Cambridge, in which many of his smaller works are found as they were firft written, with the fubfequent corrections. Such reliques fhew how excellence is acquired; what we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

Those who admire the beauties of this great poet fometimes force their own judgement into falfe approbation of his little pieces, and prevail upon themselves to think that admirable which is only fingular. All that short VOL. I. Q

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