Milton,

him to all the Roman historians. did not form himself as a writer on any Roman model being very early most anxious to excel in literature, he wisely attached himself to those prime examples of exordio belli Catilinarii perdifficile esse dixerit historiam scribere, propter a quod facta dictis exæquanda sunt, qua potissimum ratione id assequi historiarum scriptorem posse existimem. Ego vero sic existimo; qui gestas res dignas digne scripserit, eum animo non minus magno rerumque usu præditum scribere oportere, quam is qui eas gesserit ut vel maximas pari animo comprehendere atque metiri possit et comprehensas sermone puro atque casto distincte gravitérque narrare : nam ut ornate non admodum laboro; historicum enim, non oratorem requiro.r Cebras etiam sententias, et judicia de rebus gestis interjecta prolixe nollem, ne, interrupta verum serie quod politici scriptoris munus est historicus invadat; qui si in consiliis explicandis, factis que enarrandis, non suum ingenium aut conjecturam, sed veritatem potissimum sequitur, suarum profecto partium satagit. Addiderim et illud Sallustianum, qua in re ipse Catonem maxime laudavit, posse multa paucis absolvere; id quod sine acerrimo judicio, atque etiam temperantia quadam nem inem posse arbitror. Sunt multi in quibus vel sermonis elegantiam vel conjestarum rerum copiam non desideres, qui brevitatem cum copia conjunxerit, id est, qui multa paucis absolverit, princeps meo judicio est Sallutius.-Prose Works, vol. 2. p. 582.

literary perfection, the Greeks; among the poets he particularly delighted in Euripides and Homer; his favorites in prose seem to have been Plato and Demosthenes; the first peculiarly fit to give richness, purity, and lustre to the fancy; the second, to invigorate the understanding, and inspire the fervid energy of public virtue. It is a very just remark of Lord Monboddo, that even the poetical speeches in Paradise Lost derive their consummate propriety and eloquence from the fond and enlightened attention with which the poet had studied the most perfect orator of Athens; the studies of Milton, however, were very extensive; he appears to have been familiar not only with all the best authors of antiquity, but with those of every refined language in Europe; Italian, French, Spanish, and Portugueze. Great erudition has been often supposed to operate as an incumbrance on the finer faculties of the mind; but let us observe to its credit, the sublimest of poets was the most learned: of Italian literature he was particularly fond, as we may collect from one of his letters to

a professor of that language, and from the ease and spirit of his Italian verses. To the honor of modern Italy, it may be said, that she had a considerable share in forming the genius of Milton. In Tasso, her brightest ornament, he found a character highly worthy of his affectionate emulation, both as a poet, and as a man; this accomplished personage had, indeed, ended, his illustrious and troubled life several years before Milton visited his country; but he was yet living in the memory of his ardent friend Manso, and through the medium of Manso's conversation his various excellencies made, I am persuaded, a forcible and permanent impression on the heart and fancy of our youthful countryman. It was hardly the example of Trissino, as Johnson supposes, that tempted Milton to his bold experiment of blank verse; for Trissino's epic poem is a very heavy performance, and had sunk into such oblivion in Italy, that the literary friend and biographer of Tasso considers that greater poet as the first person who enriched the Italian language, with valuable blank

verse: "our early works of that kind," Manso, "are translations from the and those not successful." The po blank verse, for which this amiable b pher applauds his friend, is an ext work, in seven books, on the Seven of the Creation, a subject that has en the poets of many countries. The formance of Tasso was begun at the of his friend Manso, and at the sugg of a lady, the accomplished mother Marquis. As this poem is formed fro Bible, and full of religious enthusia probably influenced the English visi Manso in his choice of blank verse. was a voluminous author, and we hav son to believe that Milton was familia all his compositions, as the exquisite e on connubial affection, in the Paradise is founded on a prose composition in of marriage, addressed by the Italian to one of his relations; but Milton

Tasso begins this interesting discourse, by in his kinsman Ercole, that he first heard the new

was perhaps of all authors the least addicted to imitation, rarely imitates even Tasso in composition in life indeed he copied him more closely, and to his great poetical compeer of Italy he discovers a very striking resemblance in application to study, in temperance of diet, in purity of morals and in fervency of devotion. The Marquis of Villa in closing his life of Tasso, has enumerated all the particular virtues by which he was distinguished; these were all equally conspicuous in Milton; and we may truly say of him, what Manso says of the great Italian poet, that the preference of virtue to every other consideration was the predominant passion of his life.

Enthusiasm was the characteristic of

having taken a wife, and then was surprised by reading a composition of his, in which he inveighs not only against the ladies, but against matrimony. The poet,

with great politeness and spirit, assumes the defence of both, and in the close of a learned and eloquent panegyric, indulges his heart and fancy in a very animated and beauiful address to wedded love, which Milton has copied with his usual dignity and sweetness of expression.