many more readers than were fupplied at first the nation did not afford. Only three thousand were fold in eleven years; for it forced its way without affiflance: its admirers did not dare to publish their opinion; and the opportunities now given of attracting notice by advertisements were then very few; for the means of proclaiming the publication of new books have been produced by that general literature which now pervades the nation through all its ranks. But the reputation and price of the copy ftill advanced, till the Revolution put an end to the fecrecy of love, and Paradise Loft broke into open view with fufficient fecurity of kind reception.' Our Author clofes his vindication of the public tafte with a conjecture that does great credit to his own: Fancy, fays he, can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton furveyed the filent progrefs of his work, and marked his reputation ftealing its way in a kind of fubterraneous current through fear and filence. I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit with fteady confcioufnefs, and waiting, without impatience, the viciffitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future generation.' To point out the beauty of the above quoted paffage is certainly needlefs; an image more exquifitely pleafing can hardly be presented to the mind! What is faid of Milton's religion is, no doubt, juftly founded, and is applicable to many who have not his piety: He has not affociated himself with any denomination of Proteftants: we know rather what he was not, than what he was. He was not of the church of Rome; he was not of the church of England. To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are diftant, and which is animated only by Faith and Hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind, unless it be invigorated and reimpreffed by external ordinances, by ftated calls to worship, and the falutary influence of example. Milton, who appears to have had full conviction of the truth of Christianity, and to have regarded the Holy Scriptures with the profoundeft veneration, to have been untainted by any heretical peculiarity of opinion, and to have lived in a confirmed belief of the immediate and occafional agency of Providence, yet grew old without any vifible worship. In the diftribution of his hours, there was no hour of prayer, either folitary, or with his household; omitting public prayers, he omitted all. Of this omiffion the reafon has been fought, upon a supposition which ought never to be made, that men live with their own appro bation, and juftify their conduct to themselves. Prayer certainly was not thought fuperfluous by him, who reprefents our first parents as praying acceptably in the flate of innocence, and efficaciously af ter their fall. That he lived without prayer can hardly be affirmed; his ftudies and meditations were an habitual prayer. The neglect of it in his family was probably a fault for which he condemned himfelf, and which he intended to correct, but that death, as too often happens, intercepted his reformation." Though to Though it be not improbable that Milton's republicanism might be, in fome degree, founded in petulance, impatient of controul, and pride difdainful of fuperiority,' yet he furely was able to give fome better reason for adopting republican principles than that a popular government was the most frugal; for the trappings of a monarchy would fet up an ordinary commonwealth. Though it be fhallow policy, as Dr. Johnfon observes, fuppofe money the chief good, and though the fupport and expence of a Court be, for the most part, only a particular kind of traffic, by which money is circulated, without any national impoverishment, yet it is equally true that the extravagance of a Court, by taking from the many to lavish on the few, may be guilty of great national injury. C Through the whole of his narrative Dr. Johnson feems to have no great partiality for Milton as a man: as a poct, however, he is willing to allow him every merit he is entitled to. In the examination of his poetical works he begins with his juvenile productions. The first that offer themselves to him are his Latin pieces. Thefe, fays he, are lufcioufiy 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. This character, we apprehend, will generally fuit our modern Latin poetry; but we may particuTarly except that noble ode of Mr. Gray's, written at the Grande Chartreufe, and fome few others; there are not many of the portata Anglorum that contain much power of invention or vigour of sentiment. The English poems, though they make no promifes of Paradife Left, have this evidence of genius, that they have a caft original and Buborrowed. But their peculiarity is not excellence: if they differ from the verses of others, they differ for the worfe; for they are too often diftinguished by repulfive harthnefs; the combinations of words are new, but they are not pleafing; the rhymes and epithets feem to be laborioufy fought, and violently applied. That in the early part of his life he wrote with much care appears from his manufcripts, happily preferved at Cambridge, in. which many of his fmaller 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 eafe, we may learn firit to do with diligence. Those who admire the beauties of this great pret, fometimes force their own judgment into falfe approbation of his little pieces, and prevail upon themselves to think that admirable which is only fingular. All that thort compofitions can commonly attain is neatnels and elegance. Milton never learned the art of doing little things with grace; he overlooked the milder excellence of fuavity and loftnefs; he was a Lion that had no skill in dandling the Kid? On On Lycidas his cenfures are fevere, and well enforced: he is of opinion no man could have fancied that he read Lycidas with pleasure, had he not known its author. L'Allegro and Il Penferofo are of different eftimation. These he acknowledges to be two noble efforts of the imagination. But the greatest of his juvenile performances is the Mafk of Comus; in which, fays the Critic, may very plainly be difcovered the dawn or twilight of Paradife Loft Milton appears to have formed very early that fyftem of diction, and mode of verse, which his maturer judgment approved, and from which he never endeavoured nor defired to deviate. • Nor does Comus afford only a fpecimen of his language; it exhibits likewife his power of defcription, and his vigour of fentiment, employed in the praife and defence of virtue. A work more truly poetical is rarely found; allufions, images, and defcriptive epithets, embellifh almoft every period with lavifh decoration. As a series of lines, therefore, it may be confidered as worthy of all the admiration with which the votaries have received it. As a drama it is deficient.' This deficiency is unfolded in a masterly manner. Thefe werd The Sonnets come next to be confidered. written in different parts of Milton's life, upon different occafions. They deferve not, we are told, any particular criticism; for of the beft it can only be faid, that they are not bad; and perhaps only the eighth and the twenty-first are truly entitled to this flender commendation. The fabric of a fonnet, however adapted to the Italian language, has never fucceeded in ours, which, having greater variety of termination, requires the rhymes to be often changed. Of the inconveniency of the fabric of a fonnet many of our writers feem to have been aware, having deviated, and, as we think, judiciously, from the ftrict Italian model, by giving to their rhymes a greater liberty of change. But even of the legitimate fonnet we are not without many beautiful examples: no one will doubt this affertion who has read Mr. Warton's. We are far from thinking the fonnet, especially when emancipated from the unneceffary reftraint under which it has hitherto laboured, to be ill adapted to the English language. By uniting the elegance and dignity of the ode with the fimplicity and concifenefs of the ancient epigram, it feems to be a fpecies of compofition well fuited to convey effufions of tenderness and affec tion; fuch incidental effufions, we mean, as flow not from a confluence of various ideas, but fuch rather as proceed from a fingle fentiment. The Paradife Loft comes next to be examined: A Poem, which, confidered with refpect to defign, may claim the first place, and with refpect to performance, the fecond among the productions productions of the human mind.' Dr. Johnfon's criticism on this immortal work extends through fifty pages. To give any adequate idea of it would much exceed our present limits. We cannot, however, refift the temptation of presenting our Readers with one extract from it: The thoughts which are occafionally called forth in the progress, are fuch as could only be produced by an imagination in the highest degree fervid and active, to which materials were fupplied by inceffant study and unlimited curiofity. The heat of Milton's mind might be faid to fublimate his learning, to throw off into his work the fpirit of science, unmingled with its groffer parts. • He had confidered creation in its whole extent, and his defcriptions are therefore learned. He had accuftomed his imagination to unrestrained indulgence, and his conceptions therefore were extenfive. The characteristic quality of his poem is fublimity. He fometimes defcends to the elegant, but his element is the great. He can occafionally invest himself with grace; but his natural port is gigantic loftinefs. He can pleafe when pleafure is required; but it is his peculiar power to astonish. He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to know what it was that Nature had beftowed upon him more bountifully than upon others; the power of difplaying the vaft, illuminating the fplendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful: he therefore chose a subject on which too much could not be faid, on which he might tire his fancy without the cenfure of extravagance. • The appearances of nature, and the occurrences of life, did not fatiate his appetite of greatnefs. To paint things as they are, requires a minute attention, and employs the memory rather than the fancy. Milton's delight was to fport in the wide regions of poffibility; reality was a fcene too narrow for his mind. He fent his faculties out upon difcovery, into worlds where only imagination can travel, and delighted to form new modes of exiflence, and furnish fentiment and action to fuperior beings, to trace the counfels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven. But he could not be always in other worlds: he muft fometimes revifit earth, and tell of things visible and known. When he cannot raise wonder by the fublimity of his mind, he gives delight by its fertility.' The above extract is given, not as having peculiar excellence, but merely as, from its detached nature, it beft admitted of felection. Of this truly excellent analysis and criticism, it is fcarcely hyperbolical to affirm that it is executed with all the fkill and penetration of Ariftotle, and animated and embellished with all the fire of Longinus. It is every way worthy of its subject: the Paradife Loft is a poem which the mind of Milton only could have produced; the criticifm before us is fuch as, perhaps, the pen of Johnfon only could have written. [Dr. Johnfon's Prefaces will be concluded in our next.] 'Algarotti terms it gigantefca Sublimità Milteniana. ART. ART. II. The Jewish Bard. In Four Odes, to the Holy Mountains. By John Wheeldon, A. M. Rector of Wheathamstead, Herts, and Prebendary of Lincoln. 4to. Is. Goldsmith: 1779. Up to the holy mountains, and from Horeb, Nor mortal ears to hear. Perchance, above, around, thefe holy mountains, And "drink amazement at this fource of light." But hark! the fings! From Horeb bursts the mighty found! Mortals attend, and wonder! for wonder Much ye may, but must not understand. Jehovah reigns! awake my harp of Salem ! Which the Most High hath bended, wave their wings; And let them think anutterable things. So flept the prophets of Dodona's grove, *Their feet unwash'd, their flumbers on the ground: In folemn-breathing mufings more profound t |