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opponents; yet surely these two devout men were both wrong, and both in fome degree unchristian in this principle. To what fingular iniquities of judgment fuch a principle may lead, we might, perhaps, have had a most striking, and a double proof, had it been poffible for these two energetic writers to exhibit alternately a portrait of each other. Milton, adorned with every graceful endowment, highly and holily accomplished as he was, appears, in the dark colouring of Johnson, a moft unamiable being; but could he revisit earth in his mortal character, with a wish to retaliate, what a picture might be drawn, by that fublime and offended genius, of the great moralist, who has treated him with fuch excefs of afperity. The paffions are powerful colourists, and marvellous adepts in the art of exaggeration; but the portraits executed by love (famous as he is for overcharging them) are infinitely more faithful to nature, than gloomy sketches from the heavy hand of hatred; a paffion not to be trufted or indulged even in minds of the highest purity or power; finçe hatred, though it may enter the field of contest under the banner of juftice, yet generally becomes fo blind and outrageous, from the heat of contention, as to execute, in the name of virtue, the worst purposes of vice. Hence arifes that species of calumny the most to be regretted, the calumny lavished by men of talents and worth on their equals or fuperiors, whom they have rafhly and blindly hated for a difference of opinion. To fuch hatred the fervid and oppofite characters, who gave rife to this obfervation, were both more inclin

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ed, perhaps, by nature and by habit, than chriftia nity can allow. The freedom of these remarks on two very great, and equally devout, though different writers, may poffibly offend the partizans of both in that cafe my confolation will be, that I have endeavoured to fpeak of them with that temperate, though undaunted fincerity, which may fa tisfy the spirit of each in a purer ftate of existence. There is one characteristic in Milton, which ought to be confidered as the chief fource of his happiness and his fame; I mean his early and perpetual attachment to religion. It muft gratify every chriftian to reflect, that the man of our country moft eminent for energy of mind, for intenfenefs of ap plication, and for frankness and intrepidity in afferting whatever he believed to be the cause of truth, was fo confirmedly devoted to christianity, that he seems to have made the Bible, not only the rule of his conduct, but the prime director of his genius. His poetry flowed from the fcripture, as if his unparalleled poetical powers had been exprefsly given him by Heaven for the purpofe of imparting to religion such luftre as the most splendid of human faculties could bestow. As in the Paradife Loft he feems to emulate the fublimity of Mofes and the prophets, it appears to have been his wifh, in the Paradise Regained, to copy the sweetness and fimplicity of the milder evangelifts. If the futile remarks that were made upon the latter work, on its first appearance, excited the spleen of the great author, he would probably have felt still more indignant, could he have seen the comment of War

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burton. That disgusting writer, whofe critical dictates form a fantastic medley of arrogance, acuteness, and absurdity, has afferted, that the plan of Paradise Regained is very unhappy, and that nothing was eafier than to have invented a good one.

Much idle cenfure feems to have been thrown on more than one of Milton's poetical works, from want of due attention to the chief aim of the poet :

If we fairly confider it in regard to Paradife Regained, the aim I allude to, as it probably occafioned, will completely justify, the plan which the prefumptuous critic has fo fupercilioufly condemned. Milton had already executed one extenfive divine poem, peculiarly distinguished by richness and fublimity of defcription; in framing a fecond, he would naturally wish to vary its effect; to make it rich in moral fentiment, and fublime in its mode of unfolding the highest wisdom that man can learn; for this purpose it was neceffary to keep all the ornamental parts of the poem in due fubordination. to the preceptive. This delicate and difficult point is accomplished with such felicity, they are blended together with fuch exquifite harmony and mutuał aid, that instead of arraigning the plan, we might rather doubt if any poffible change could improve it; affuredly, there is no poem of epic form, where the fublimeft moral inftruction is fo forcibly and abundantly united to poetical delight: the fplendour of the poet does not blaze, indeed, so intensely as in his larger production; here he resembles the Apollo of Ovid, softening his glory in fpeaking to his fon, and avoiding to dazzle the fancy, that he

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may defcend into the heart. His dignity is not impaired by his tenderness. The Paradife Regained is a poem, that deferves to be particularly recommended to ardent and ingenious youth, as it is admirably calculated to infpire that spirit of felf-command, which is, as Milton esteemed it, the truest heroism, and the triumph of christianity.

It is not my intention to enter into a critical analysis of the beauties and the blemishes that are visible in the poetry of Milton, not only because Addison and Johnson have both written admirably. on his greatest work, but because my moft excellent friend, the poet (whofe fpirit I esteem moft congenial to that of Milton) is engaged in fuch illuftration of his honoured predeceffor; I shall therefore confine myself to a fingle effay, narrative, under the title of “ Origin of the Paradife Loft."

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I must not, however, omit to speak here, as I have engaged to do, of the character bestowed by Johnson on the principal performance of the poet; the greatest part of that character is, perhaps, the moft fplendid tribute that was ever paid by one powerful mind to another. Ariftotle, Longinus, and Quintilian, have not spoken of their favourite Homer with more magnificence of praife; yet the character, taken altogether, is a golden image, that has lower parts of iron and of clay. The critic feems to prepare a diadem of the richest jewels; he places them, moft liberally, on the head of the poet; but in the moment of adjusting his radiant

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gift, he breathes upon it such a vapour of spleen, as almost annihilates its luftre.

After difplaying, in the noblest manner, many of the peculiar excellencies in the poem, he fays, " its perufal is a duty rather than a pleafure; we read Milton for instruction, retire harraffed and overbur thened, and look elsewhere for recreation; we defert our mafter, and feek for companions."

Injurious as these remarks are to the poet, let us ascribe them, not to the virulence of intended detraction, but to the want of poetical fenfibility in the critic; a want that may be fufficiently proved, by comparing this account of the effect produced by Paradise Loft on his own feelings with its effect on a fpirit truly poetical. That enchanting poem, The Tafk, very happily furnishes fuch an illuftration; it is thus that a mind attuned by nature to poetry defcribes the effect in queftion, as produced even in childhood.

"Then Milton had indeed a poet's charms
New to my taste; his Paradife furpaffed
The struggling efforts of my boyish tongue
To speak its excellence: I danc'd for joy.”

But the little delight that Johnfon confeffes himfelf to have taken in the poetry of Milton was rather his misfortune than his fault; it merits pity more than reproach, as it partly arofe from conftitutional infelicity, and the very wide difference between the native turn of his mind and that of the poet: never were two fpirits lefs congenial, or two chriftian fcholars, who differed more completely in their sentiments of poetry, politics, and religion. In tem

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