gested to the reader, and not obtruded on him; and if any person will substitute better, he will deserve every reader's thanks; though it is to be hoped even these will not be found absurd, or disagreeing from the Miltonian character.

'Sunt et mihi Carmina, me quoque dicunt

Vatem Pastores, sed non ego credulus illis.'

The

The few notes which are now for the first time published, are partly designed to prove, that Bentley did not generally attempt to substitute the actual and genuine words of Milton in the place of the fictitious and adulterated text (v. Book vii. 653); but only to restore what he conceived to be the sense and meaning of the passage. conjectures which, in his own printed edition, I find waiting in the margin, and eager for admittance into the verse; in his MS. copy are attended with a numerous train, as little plausible or satisfactory as themselves. He had a large store of arrows in his quiver, besides that which he had shot: nor can a reason be readily assigned for his preference of the one selected. The hypothesis which he formed, is, I presume, generally known, and known only to be repudiated. celebrated author, being obnoxious to the gout, poor, friendless, and, what is worst of all, blind with a gutta serena, could only dictate his verses to be writ by another: when it necessarily follows that any errors in pointing, spelling, nay, even in whole words, of a like or near sound, are not to be charged upon the poet, but the amanu

Our

ensis. The friend or acquaintance to whom Milton committed his copy, and the overseers of the press, did so vilely execute that trust, that Paradise, under his ignorance and audaciousness, may be said to be twice lost. But these typographical faults, occasioned by the negligence of his acquaintance, if all may be imputed to that, and not several wilfully made, were not the least blemishes brought upon our poem. For this supposed friend, knowing Milton's bad circumstances, thought that he had a fit opportunity to foist into the work several of his own verses, without the blind poet's discovery. This trick has too frequently been played, but especially in works published after the author's death; and poor Milton, in that condition, with sixty years' weight upon his shoulders, might be reckoned half dead.'-The whole of this visionary fabric seems to have been built by Bentley on the slender foundation that, owing to Milton's blindness, some mistakes in the text of the poem certainly did occur; and that such a one, as is found in P. L. x. 260, should pervade both editions (being an error which Milton himself had no means of detecting), certainly betrays the negligence or ignorance of those to whose care his edition was entrusted.

Feeling as truly as others, the absurdity of

8 See Note on P. L. i. 197. Knowing by the passages, that our poet blind, and then poor and friendless, had frequently foul play.'

Bentley's system, the flatness of his prosaic alterations, and his great want of poetic feeling, I must still in justice say, that his remarks display the shrewdness of a person accustomed to read with curious and scrutinizing attention,9 to pay regard to the proper force and meaning of words, and the construction of sentences: that his observations are often ingenious, and his emendations sometimes acute: but that which strikes me as peculiarly offensive, is the apparent carelessness, and indifference with which he proceeds on his work of criticism. So far from approaching his author's text with a timid or reluctant hand, his boldest conjectures are proposed either with a confidence meant to overawe the reader, and compel conviction; or what is worse, with an apparent 10 disregard as to whether they are

9 Warburton lent Dr. Newton Pope's copy of Bentley's Milton, wherein Pope had all along with his own hand set some mark of approbation rectè, benè, pulchrè, in the margin over against such emendations of the Doctor's as seemed to him just and reasonable. It was a satisfaction to see what so great a genius thought particularly of that edition, and he appears throughout the whole to have been a very candid reader, and to have approved of more than really merits approbation. Newton's Preface, p. 35.

T. Warton says, 'Many of Bentley's emendations are acute, but he did not understand Milton's manner, nor the genius of the language of English poetry.' v. Todd's Milton, vol. vi. p. 307; see Hollis's Memoirs, p. 478. 522.

10 See the indifference shown in notes, iii. 597, iv. 769, vii. 406, one of the most objectionable notes is v. 415, one ludicrously ingenious, vi. 513, those at vii. 463, ix. 592, and

accepted or not. In P. L. ii. 1021, he strikes out the whole passage of Sin and Death following Satan, amounting to ten entire lines, and then says, 'Perhaps I shall have some votes to accompany mine, that this too is an interpolation.' As he approached the last pages of his work, and looked back on the deformities he had left behind him in his ruthless path, and when he saw the ragged and meagre branches of the Critic's ivy eating into the noble and finished column, round which it had been trained; he seemed to entertain some misgivings of the soundness and success of his plan. He says, 'If one small alteration appeared to be so presumptuous, what censure must I expect to receive who have presumed to make so many, but jacta est alea, non injussa cecini.

-πὰρ ἐμοίγε κ' ἄλλοι,

Οἵ κέ με τιμήσουσι, μάλιστα δὲ μητιέτα Ζεὺς. Bentley's ungrounded hypothesis, and the alterations which he built upon it, called forth a xi. 387, are flippant and trifling. The conjecture, at xi. 187, is confirmed by Milton's own editions, which Bentley did not know. In one note he appears designedly unjust, (i. 717,) where he accuses Milton of a false quantity in the use of the word 'Serapis.' Bentley of course knew that the word was used with the middle syllable long: and Milton had a right to select the quantity most agreeable to his ear. Akenside uses the word 'Hyperion,' with the penultimate syllable long, and Gray with it, short; the former adhering to the true quantity, the latter adopting the more agreeable or convenient pronunciation; but Milton had authority, though inferior, on his side.

volume of remarks from Dr. Zachary Pearce : which may be recommended as a model of sound ard temperate reasoning in criticism. Bentley's innovations are for the most part refuted, but in a manner never wanting in respect to the fame or the age of that illustrious scholar.

Since writing the above, I have had an opportunity of perusing Newton's Life of Milton; it is not written with any spirit or elegance of style, but it contains an impartial and accurate account of what is known of the Poet's history; and there is a temperance and propriety in its language, that might put some later biographers to the blush. Occasionally a smile may be excited, when he speaks of Milton's never having hunted (Milton hunting!!), or when he laments that the sale of Paradise Lost produced only ten pounds to the author, while Mr. Hoyle gained two hundred by the copyright of his Game at Whist. Some useful notes and illustrations have been added by Mr. Hawkins to the latest edition; but in one, he has unaccountably attributed the famous attack on Milton by Bishop Horsley, to a Prelate of very different opinions, talents, and character.11

Every successive volume of the biography of Milton is rapidly increasing in size. The elegant Memoir by Fenton is included in fifteen small pages; the narrative of Dr. Symmons has extended to nearly seven hundred; while the increase of bulk is not compensated by a propor11 See Newton's Milton, ed. Hawkins, p. xlii.