perament, as well as in opinions, they were the réverse of each other; the one was fanguine to excefs, the other melancholy in the extreme. Milton << Might fit in the centre and enjoy bright day;" but Johnfon, "Benighted walk'd under the mid-day fun; Such was the great contraft between these two extraordinary men, that although they were both equally fincere in their attachment to christianity, and both distinguished by noble intellectual exertions in the service of mankind, the critic was naturally difqualified from being a fair and a perfect judge of the poet. My regard for a departed and meritorious writer (of great powers, but constitutionally unhappy) is fuch, that I would rather af ' cribe to any cause, than to mere envious malignity, his outrages against the poetical glory of Milton, which, from the force and celebrity of the very admirable but too auftere work that contains them, it becomes the duty of a more recent biographer to expose. For example, when Johnson fays that Milton wrote no language, but formed a Babylonifh dialect, harsh and barbarous," though it would be difficult to pronounce a critical cenfure more bitter or more injurious, we may impute it, not to a malevolent defire of depreciating the poet, but to a natural want of ear for that harmony, which the eritic condemns as difcord. On this article, the moft harmonious of our bards has been very happily vindicated by men of fcience and tafte. Dr. Fofter and Lord Monboddo have fhewn Milton to be one of the most confummate artificers of language, that ever gave either energy or grace to words; and Mr. Loft, in the preface to his recent edition of Paradise Loft, describes the majestic flow of his numbers with fuch truth and eloquence, as render ample justice to the infulted dignity of the poet. The infult, grofs as it may be thought, lofes much of its force when we recollect the inconfif tency of the critic, who, though in his latter work he condemns the language of Milton as harsh and barbarous, had before obferved, with more truth, in the Rambler, that the poet "excelled as much in the lower as in the higher parts of his art, and that his skill in harmony was not lefs than his invention or his learning;" but the praife as well as the cenfure of Johnfon, on this article, could not be the result of perfect perception, for the monotony of his own blank verfe, and fome of his remarks in the Rambler on particular lines of Milton, are ftriking proofs, that although he was a melodious writer himfelf in the common measures of rhyme, and in dignified profe, yet he never entered with perfect intelligence and feeling into the mufical graces of Miltonic compofition; he was, indeed, as far from enjoying the poet's ear for the varied modulations and extenfive compafs of metrical harmony, as he was from poffeffing the mild Q 2 elegance elegance of his manners, or the cheerful elevation of his mind. There is a striking refemblance between the poetical and the moral character of Milton; they were both the refult of the fineft difpofitions for the attainment of excellence that nature could bestow, and of all the advantages that ardour and perfeverance in study and difcipline could add, in a long courfe of years, to the beneficent prodigality of nature: even in infancy he discovered a paffion for glory; in youth he was attached to temperance; and, arriving at manhood, he formed the magnanimous defign of building a lofty name upon the most folid and fecure foundation. "He all his ftudy bent To worship God aright, and know his works. In a noble consciousness of his powers and intentions, he was not afraid to give, in his early life, a moft fingular promise to his country of producing fuch future works as might redound to her glory; and though fuch perfonal calamities fell upon him, as might fairly have abfolved him from that engagement, yet never was any promise more magnificently fulfilled. Seneca has confidered a man of refolution ftruggling with adverfity as a spectacle worthy of God; our refolute countryman not only ftruggled with adverfity, but, under a peculiar load of complicated calamities, he accomplished those works, that are juftly reckoned among the nobleft offspring offspring of human genius. In this point of view, with what pathetic grandeur is the poet invefted. In contemplating the variety of his fufferings, and his various mental atchievements, we may declare, without any extravagance of praife, that although fublimity is the predominant characteristic of Milton's poem, his own perfonal character is still more fublime. His majestic pre-eminence is nobly described in the following verfes of Akenfide, a poet who bore fome affinity to Milton in the ardour of his mind, whose sentiments are always noble, though not always accompanied by a graceful felicity of expreffion. Mark how the dread Pantheon ftands Amid the toys of idle state How fimply, how feverely great! Then turn, and while each western clime, Prefents her tuneful fons to time, So mark thou MILTON's name, And add, thus differs from the throng The spirit which inform'd thy aweful fong, Which bade thy potent voice protect thy country's fame. The powers of Milton, indeed, are fo irresistible, that even those, whom the blindness of prejudice has rendered his enemies, are constrained to regard him as an object of admiration. In this article pofterity, to whom he made a very interefting appeal, has done him ample juftice; ftill he is more admired than beloved; yet in granting him only admiration, miration, we ungenerously withhold the richest half of that pofthumous reward for which he laboured fo fervently we may be confident that he rather wifhed to excite the affection than the applaufe of mankind; and affuredly he has the nobleft title to both, the title of having exerted fuperlative genius and literary ambition, under the conftant influence of religious philanthropy. In proportion as our country has advanced in purity of taste, she has applauded the poet; and in proportion as fhe advances in liberality of fentiment, fhe will love the man ; but love in this afpect is more volatile than admiration, and a beneficent genius may be easily deprived of it by the detraction of an enemy, or the mistake of a friend; Milton has fuffered not a little from both; and indeed, if one fingular mistake of his friends fhould prevail, he could hardly become an object of general affection. What votary of the Mufes could love a poet, however excellent in that capacity, who represented it as a crime in a captive monarch to have made the poetry of Shakespeare the companion of his folitude? Credulity has imagined that Milton was fuch a barbarous Goth. Nor is this the fuggeftion of his enemies; even Warton, the liberal defender of his poetical reputation, and feveral living writers of eminence, have lavished their cenfures on Milton, from a too hafty belief, that puritanical prejudices had hurried him into this rancorous abfurdity. Their cenfures are all founded on a mistake; but the merit of correcting it belongs not to me; Mr. Waldron, the fenfible and modest editor of a miscellany, |