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and fimple, less figurative and metaphorical, and better fuited to the nature of history, has enough of the Latin turn and idiom to give it an air of antiquity, and fometimes rifes to a furprising dignity and majefty.

In 1670 likewife his Paradise Regain'd and Samfon Agonistes were licenced together, but were not published till the year following. It is fomewhat remarkable, that these two poems were not printed by Simmons, the fame who printed the Paradife Loft, but by J. M. for one Starkey in Fleetstreet: and what could induce Milton to have recourse to another printer? was it because the former was not enough encouraged by the fale of Paradife Loft to become a purchaser of the other copies? The first thought of Paradife Regain'd was owing to Elwood the quaker, as he himself relates the occafion in the history of his life. When Milton had lent him the manuscript of Paradife Loft at St. Giles Chalfont, as we faid before, and he returned it, Milton asked him how he liked it, and what he thought of it: "Which I modeftly, but freely told him, fays El"wood; and after fome further difcourfe about it, "I pleasantly faid to him, Thou hast said much of "Paradife Loft, but what haft thou to fay of Paradife "Found? He made me no anfwer, but fat fome "time in a mufe; then broke off that discourse, "and fell upon another fubject." When Elwood afterwards waited upon him in London, Milton showed him his Paradife Regain'd, and in a pleasant tone faid to him, "This is owing to You, for You put it into my head by the queftion You put me at Chalfont, which before I had not thought of."

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It is commonly reported, that Milton himself preferred this poem to the Paradife Loft: but all that we can affert upon good authority is, that he could not indure to hear this poem cried down fo much as it was, in comparison with the other. For certainly it is very worthy of the author, and contrary to what Mr. Toland relates, Milton may be seen in Paradife Regain'd as well as in Paradife Loft; if it is inferior in poetry, I know not whether it is not superior in sentiment; if it is lefs defcriptive, it is more argumentative; if it doth not fometimes rife fo high, neither doth it ever fink fo low; and it has not met with the approbation it deferves, only because it has not been more read and confidered. His fubject indeed is confined, and he has a narrow foundation to build upon; but he has raised as noble a fuperftructure, as fuch little room and fuch fcanty materials would allow. The great beauty of it is the contraft between the two characters of the Tempter and our Saviour, the artful fophiftry and fpecious infinuations of the one refuted by the ftrong fenfe and manly eloquence of the other. This poem has also been tranflated into French together with fome other pieces of Milton, Lycidas, L'Allegro, Il Penferofo, and the Ode on Chrift's nativity and in 1732 was printed a Critical Differtation with notes. upon Paradife Regain'd, pointing out the beauties of it, and written by Mr. Meadowcourt, Canon of Worcester and the very learned and ingenious Mr. Jortin has added fome obfervations upon this work at the end of his excellent Remarks upon Spenfer, published in 1734: and indeed this poem of Milton, to be more admired, needs only to be

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better known. His Samfon Agoniftes is the only tragedy that he has finished, tho' he has sketched out the plans of several, and propofed the fubjects of more, in his manufcript preferved in Trinity College library: and we may fuppofe that he was determined to the choice of this particular fubje&t by the fimilitude of his own circumstances to those of Samfon blind and among the Philiftins. This I conceive to be the laft of his poetical pieces; and it is written in the very fpirit of the Ancients, and equals, if not exceeds, any of the moft perfect tragedies, which were ever exhibited on the Athenian stage, when Greece was in its glory. As this work was never intended for the ftage, the divifion into acts and scenes is omitted. Bishop Atterbury had an intention of getting Mr. Pope to divide it into acts and fcenes, and of having it acted by the King's Scholars at Westminster: but his commitment to the Tower put an end to that defign. It has fince been brought upon the stage in the form of an Oratorio; and Mr. Handel's mufic is never employed to greater advantage, than when it is adapted to Milton's words. That great artist has done equal juftice to our author's L'Allegro and Il Penferofo, as if the fame fpirit poffeffed both mafters, and as if the God of mufic and of verfe was ftill one and the fame.

There are alfo fome other pieces of Milton, for he continued publishing to the laft. In 1672 he published Artis Logica plenior Inftitutio ad Petri Rami methodum concinnata, an Inftitution of Logic after the method of Petrus Ramus; and the year following, a treatife of true Religion and the best means to prevent the growth of popery, which had

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greatly increased thro' the connivance of the King, and the more open encouragement of the Duke of York; and the fame year his poems, which had been printed in 1645, were reprinted with the addition of feveral others, His familiar epistles and fome academical exercifes, Epiftolarum familiarium Lib, I. et Prolusiones quædam Oratoriæ in Collegio Christi habitæ, were printed in 1674; as was alfo his translation out of Latin into English of the Pole's Declaration concerning the election of their king John III, fetting forth the virtues and merits of that prince. He wrote also a brief History of Mufcovy, collected from the relations of feveral travelers; but it was not printed till after his death in 1682. He had likewife his ftate-letters transcribed at the request of the Danish refident, but neither were they printed till after his death in 1676, and were tranflated into English in 1694; and to that translation a life of Milton was prefixed by his nephew Mr. Edward Philips, and at the end of that life his excellent fonnets to Fairfax, Cromwell, Sir Henry Vane, and Cyriac Skinner on his blindness were first printed. Befides thefe works which were published, he wrote a fyftem of divinity, which Mr. Toland fays was in the hands of his friend Cyriac Skinner, but where at prefent is uncertain. And Mr. Philips fays, that he had prepared for the prefs an answer to fome little fcribbling quack in London, who had written a fcurrilous libel against him; but whether by the diffuafion of friends, as thinking him a fellow not worth his notice, or for what other caufe Mr. Philips knoweth not, this anfwer was never published. And indeed the best

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vindicator of him and his writings hath been Time. Pofterity hath univerfally paid that honor to his merits, which was denied him by great part of his contemporaries.

After a life thus fpent in ftudy and labors for the public he died of the gout at his houfe in Bunhill Row on or about the 10th of November 1674, when he had within a month completed the fixty fixth year of his age. It is not known when he was first attacked by the gout, but he was grievoufly afflicted with it several of the laft years of his life, and was weakened to fuch a degree, that he died without a groan, and thofe in the room perceived not when he expired. His body was decently interred near that of his father (who had died very aged about the year 1647) in the chancel of the Church of St. Giles's Cripplegate; and all his great and learned friends in London, not without a friendly concourfe of the common people, paid their laft refpects in attending it to the grave. Mr. Fenton in his fhort but elegant account of the life of Milton, fpeaking of our author's having no monument, fays that "he defired a friend to inquire at St. Giles's

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Church; where the fexton fhowed him a fmall monument, which he faid was fuppofed to be Milton's; but the infcription had never been legible fince he was employed in that office, "which he has poffeffed about forty years. This "fure could never have happened in fo fhort a

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fpace of time, unless the epitaph had been induftrioufly erafed: and that fuppofition, fays "Mr. Fenton, carries with it fo much inhumanity, "that I think we ought to believe it was not erected

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