These critics have felt all the charms of literary history; and their curious researches intereft us much more by the pleasure we feel in their perusal, than by that recondite erudition in English literature, which they fo admirably display *.

Pope, whofe criticifm is almoft ever unerring, miferably failed when he fatirized those who applied to the forgotten volumes of our old authors, to elucidate the writings and manners of another age. Attached to the claffics of Greece and Rome, he perhaps did not recollect that there is a time in the literature of every polished nation, when it has claffics of it's own. There is a bigotry in literature, as well as in religion. ignorant was Pope of our old English writers, that he la mented he had not been acquainted with the fatires of Bishop Hall, when he devoted his mufe to fatirical compofition. How many other authors are there, on whofe foil his industry would have gleaned many a rich fheaf! Had he known more of these writers, he would have hardly ventured to commit depredations on Milton.

We are not, therefore, any more to be told of,

• All fuch reading, as was never read.'

The great critic, after he gave this farcaftic obfervation, amply confuted himself by his own edition of Shakespeare.

I transcribe the judicious opinion which Mr. Warton has made in his cbfervations on Spenfer. He fays, In criti

cifing upon Milton, Jonfon and Spenfer, and fome other of our elder poets, not only a competent knowledge of all • ancient claffical learning is requifite, but also an acquaintance with those books, which, though now forgotten and loft, were yet in repute about the time in which each author ⚫ respectively wrote, and which it is moft likely he had read.'

Without

Without the use of literary anecdote, it Literary is in vain to attempt literary biography.

He should

A biographer should be more folicitous of displaying the genius of the man whofe hiftory he writes, than his own. not obtrude his own talents on the eye, fo much as those of the person whose life he records. Some have written the life of another, merely to fhew that they were themfelves fine writers.

When Richardfon, the father, gave the life of Milton, he did not compofe it in the ordinary style of biographers. If we take away fome of his excentricities, his manner is admirable. It is very poffible to write the life of a poet, a lord chancellor, and a general, almost in a fimilar ftyle *. What

* It was faid of Mallet, after he had given the life of Bacon, and who pretended to be employed on that of Marlborough, that, as he had forgotten that Verulam had been a philofopher, he would probably forget that Marlborough had been a general. He did better. He took .500 for his Life, and never wrote a page of it. By the way, this has been no uncommon practice among authors. Some have published a variety of titles of works, as if they were ready for the press; but of which the titles only had been written. Pafchal, who was hiftoriographer to Francis I. forged fuch titles, that the pension which he received for occupying himself on the French hiftory might be continued. When he died, all his historical performances did not exceed fix pages!

biography cannot be accomplish

ed without a of anecdote.

copious use

is the confequence of fuch idle biography? With much trouble we find, at length, that the genius of either remains yet to be known. One poet is made to resemble another; and, what is worse, a poet resembles a lord chancellor. Richardfon, a Miltonic enthusiast, was beft qualified to give the biography of Milton an enthusiast. He did not remain fatisfied with collecting the information which industrious enquiry produced, but he studied to give the character of Milton from his own descriptions. He connected, with an ardour of research, for which posterity fhould be grateful, from all his works, in verse and in profe, the minute circumstances, and peculiar fentiments, which our fublime poet had recorded of himself.

In reading this sketch of the manners, and the genius, of Milton, we seem to live with him; we participate in the momentary griefs which afflicted him, and the momentary triumphs in which he exulted. We join the old blind bard at the door of his house, near Bunhill-fields*; we see him fit there in a grey coarse cloth coat, in the

Moft of the following particulars are given in the lively expreffions of Richardson.

warm

warm funny weather, breathing the fresh air. His houfe is, indeed, small, (and what true poet ever poffeffed a large one?) It has but one room on a floor. Up one pair of ftairs, hung in rufty green, fits John Milton, in an elbow chair, in black clothes, yet neat enough. Pale, but not cadaverous; his hands gouty.

And what does Milton fay on his blindness, when his enemies reproach him with it as a crime? These are his words, taken from his fecond defence of the English nation: I prefer my blindness to your's,' (he addreffes his adverfaries) your's is funk into your deepeft fenfes, blinding your minds, fo that you can fee nothing that is found and folid. Mine takes from me only the colour and surface of things, but ⚫ does not take away from the mind's contemplation, what is in thofe things of true and conftant. Moreover, how many things ' are there which I would not fee! How many ' which I can be debarred the fight without repining! How few left which I much

defire to fee! Vile men! who mock us!

The blind have a protection from the in'juries of men, and we are rendered almost 'facred.

facred. To this I impute, that my friends ' are more ready and officious to serve me than before, and more frequently vifit me. They do not think that the only worth of an honeft man is placed in his eyes.'

Richardfon would have confidered himfelf as fortunate, had he been enabled to add another lively scene to the domestic life of Milton. This has been obtained by the late laureat, who, in his fecond edition of his juvenile poems, has given the nuncupative will of our poet. I gather from a mass of the barren fuperfluities of legal information, those interesting strokes with which every man of fenfibility and taste will sympathize. We must recollect, that at the period to which they relate, Milton was no more the secretary of the commonwealth, and his friends were deftroyed or dispersed. These little facts describe more forcibly than the most eloquent declamation, thofe fecret miseries which preyed on the heart of Milton, and which must not only have disturbed his fublime contemplations, but impeded the vigour of his fancy, and the corrections of his criticifm.

It is here we learn that his children combined to cheat and to rob him; to embitter

his