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text, I have thought it proper to introduce them to the reader's acquaintance by fome general remarks, from which an estimate of their character might be preparatively formed, and at one view.

Our author is faid to be the firft Englishman, who after the restoration of letters wrote Latin verfes with claffic elegance. But we must at least except fome of the hendecafyllables and epigrams of Leland, one of our first literary reformers, from this hafty determination.

In the Elegies, Ovid was profeffedly Milton's model for language and verfification. They are not, however, a perpetual and uniform tiffue of Ovidian phrafeology. With Ovid in view, he has an original manner and character of his own, which exhibit a remarkable perfpicuity of contexture, a native facility and fluency. Nor does his obfervation of Roman models oppress or destroy our great poet's inherent powers of invention and fentiment. I value these pieces as much for their fancy and genius, as for their style and expreffion.

That Ovid among the Latin poets was Milton's favourite, appears not only from his elegiac but his hexametric poetry. The verfification of our author's hexameters has yet a different structure from that of the Metamorphofes : Milton's is more clear, intelligible, and flowing; lefs defultory, lefs familiar, and lefs embarraffed with a frequent recurrence of periods.

periods. Ovid is at once rapid and abrupt. He wants dignity: he has too much converfation in his manner of telling a story. Prolixity of paragraph, and length of fentence, are peculiar to Milton. This is seen, not only in fome of his exordial invocations in the PARADISE LOST, and in many of the religious addresses of a like caft in the profeworks, but in his long verfe. It is to be wished that in his Latin compofitions of all forts, he had been more attentive to the fimplicity of Lucretius, Virgil, and Tibullus.

Dr. Johnson prefers the Latin poetry of May and Cowley to that of Milton, and thinks May to be the first of the three. May is certainly a fonorous dactylift, and was fufficiently accomplished in poetical declamation for the continuation of Lucan's PHARSALIA. But May is fcarcely an author in point. His skill is in parody; and he was confined to the peculiarities of an archetype, which, it may be prefumed, he thought excellent. As to Cowley when compared with Milton, the fame critic observes, "Milton is generally content to exprefs the thoughts of the antients in their language: Cowley, without much loss of purity or elegance, accommodates the diction of Rome to "his own conceptions.-The advantage feems to lie. "on the fide of Cowley." But what are these conceptions? Metaphyfical conceits, all the unnatural extravagancies of his English poetry; fuch as will not bear to be cloathed in the Latin language, much lefs are capable of admitting any degree of

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pure

pure Latinity. I will give a few inftances, out of a great multitude, from the DAVIDEIS.

Hic fociatorum facra conftellatio vatum,
Quos felix virtus evexit ad æthera, nubes
Luxuriæ fupra, tempeftatefque laborum".

Again,

Temporis ingreditur penetralia celfa futuri, Implumesque videt nidis cæleftibus annos ". And, to be short, we have the Plufquam vifus aquilinus of lovers, Natio verborum, Exuit vitam aeriam, Menti auditur fymphonia dulcis, Naturæ archiva, Omnes fymmetria fenfus congerit, Condit aromatica prohibetque putrefcere laude. Again, where Aliquid is perfonified, Monogramma exordia mundi.

It may be faid, that Cowley is here tranflating from his own English DAVIDEIS. But I will bring examples from his original Latin poems. In praise of the spring.

Et refonet toto mufica verna libro ;

Undique laudis odor dulciffimus halet, &c.

And in the fame poem, in a party worthy of the pastoral pencil of Watteau.

Hauferunt avide Chocolatam Flora Venufque.

Of the Fraxinella.

Tu tres metropoles humani corporis, armis
Propugnas, uterum, cor, cerebrumque, tuis

See Cowley's POEMATA LATINA, Lond. 1668. 8vo. p. 398. ↳ Ibid p. 399. Ibid. p. 386. 397. 399. 400. d PLANTAR?

Lib. iii. p. 137.

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• L.iv. p. 254.

f L. iv. p. 207.

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He calls the Lychnis, Candelabrum ingens. Cupid is Arbiter formæ criticus. Ovid is Antiquarius ingens. An ill fmell is fhunned Olfactus tetricitate fui. And in the fame page, is nugatoria pestis".

But all his faults are confpicuously and collectively exemplified in these stanzas, among others, of his Hymn on Light".

Pulchra de nigro foboles parente,
Quam Chaos fertur peperiffe primam,
Cujus ob formam bene rifit olim
Maffa fevera!

Rifus O terræ facer et polorum,
Aureus vere pluvius Tonantis,
Quæque de cælo fluis inquieto
Gloria rivo!

Te bibens arcus Jovis ebriofus
Mille formofos revomit colores,
Pavo cœleftis, variamque pafcit

Lumine caudam.

And afterwards, of the waves of the fea, perpetually in motion.

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Lucidum trudis properanter agmen :
Sed refiftentum fuper ora rerum
Leniter ftagnas, liquidoque inundas
Cuncta colore:

At mare immenfum oceanufque Lucis
Jugiter cælo fluit empyræo ;

Hinc inexhaufto per utrumque mundum
Funditur ore.

■ See L. iv. p. 210. L. iii. p. 186. 170. L.ii. p. 126. P. 407, feq. Standing Still,

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• See

Milton's

Milton's Latin poems may be juftly confidered as legitimate claffical compofitions, and are never difgraced with fuch language and fuch imagery. Cowley's Latinity, dictated by an irregular and unreftrained imagination, prefents a mode of diction half Latin and half English. It is not fo much that Cowley wanted a knowledge of the Latin ftyle, but that he suffered that knowledge to be perverted and corrupted by falfe and extravagant thoughts. Milton was a more perfect scholar than Cowley, and his mind was more deeply tinctured with the excellencies of antient literature. He was a more just thinker, and therefore a more juft writer. In a word, he had more taste, and more true poetry, and confequently more propriety. If a fondness for the Italian writers has fometimes infected his English poetry with falfe ornaments, his Latin verfes, both in diction and fentiment, at least are free from those depravations.

Some of Milton's Latin poems were written in his first year at Cambridge, when he was only feventeen: they must be allowed to be very correct and manly performances for a youth of that age. And confidered in that view, they discover an extraordinary copioufnefs and command of ancient fable and hiftory. I cannot but add, that Gray resembles Milton in many inftances. Among others, in their youth they were both strongly attached to the cultivation of Latin poetry.

But

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