offsprings of imagination, in this point of view, have a striking analogy to the productions of nature. The noble poem just mentioned resembles a rare and valuable tree, not planted with care and forecast, but arising vigorously from a kernel dropt by a rambling bird on a spot of peculiar fertility. We are perfectly assured that Milton owed one of his great poems to the ingenuous question of a young quaker; and Voltaire, as we have seen, has asserted that he was indebted for the other to the fantastic drama of an Italian stroller. It does not appear that Voltaire had any higher authority for his assertion than his own conjecture from a slight inspection of the drama, which he hastily describes; yet it is mere justice to this rapid entertaining writer to declare, that in his conjecture there is great probability, which the English reader, I believe, will be inclined to admit, in proportion as he becomes acquainted with Andreini and his Adamo; but before we examine their merit, and the degree of influence that we may suppose them to have

had on the fancy of Milton, let us template, in one view, all the scatte hints which the great poet has given concerning the grand project of his life, design of writing an epic poem.

His first mention of this design oc in the following verses of his poetical c pliment to Manso:

O mihi sic mea sors talem concedat amicum,
Phœbæos decorasse viros qui tam bene norit,
Si quando indigenas revocabo in carmina reg
Arturumque etiam sub terris bella moventem
Aut dicam invictæ sociali fœdere mensæ
Magnanimos heroas; et O modo spiritus ads
Frangam Saxonicas Britonum sub marte phala

O might so true a friend to me belong,
So skill'd to grace the votaries of song,
Should I recall hereafter into rhyme
The kings nnd heroes of my native clime,
Arthur the chief, who even now prepares
In subterraneous being future wars,

With all their martial knights to be restor
Each to his seat around the fed'ral board;
And, O! if spirit fail me not, disperse
Our Saxon plund'rers in triumphant verse
Cow

Mr. Warton says, in his comment on this passage, "It is possible that the advice of Manso, the friend of Tasso, might determine our poet to a design of this kind." The conjecture of this respectable critic may appear confirmed by the following circumstance: In the discourses on Epic Poetry, which are included in the prose works of Tasso, Arthur is repeatedly recommended as a proper hero for a poem. Thus we find that Italy most probably suggested to Milton his first epic idea, which he relinquished; nor is it less probable that his second and more arduous enterprise, which he accomplished, was suggested to him by his perusal of Italian authors. If he saw the Adamo of Andreini represented at Milan, we have reason to believe that performance did not immediately inspire him with the project of writing an epic poem on our First Parents; because we find that Arthur kept possession of his fancy after his return to England.

In the following verses of his Epitaphium Damonis, composed at that period,

he still shews himself attached to romantic heroes, and to British story:

Dicam et Pandrasidos regnum vetus Inogeniæ Brennumque Arviragumque duces priscumque Be

linum,

Et tandem Armoricos Britonum sub lege colonos, Tum gravidam Arturo fatali fraude Iogernen, Mendaces vultus assumptaque Gorlois ama Merlini dolus.

}

Of Brutus, Dardan chief, my song shall be,
How with his barks he plough'd the British sea;
First from Rutupia's tow'ring headland seen,
And of his consort's reign, fair Inogen;
Of Brennus and Belinus, brothers bold,
And of Arviragus; and how of old
Our hardy sires th' Armorican controll'd;
And of the wife of Gorlois who, surpriz'd
By Uther in her husband's form disguis'd,
(Such was the force of Merlin's art) became
Pregnant with Arthur of heroic fame :
These themes I now revolve.

COWPER.

In one of his controversial works, published in 1641, Milton informs us what poetical ideas were then fluctuating in his

what king or knight

mind; particularly before the Conquest might be chosen, in whom to lay the pattern of a Christian hero." This project, of delineating in a hero a model of Christian perfection, was suggested to the English poet, not only by the example, but by the precepts of Tasso, as they are delivered in his critical discourses. The epic designs of Milton were suspended, we know, for many years, by very different pursuits; and when he escaped from "the troubled sea of noise and hoarse dispute to the quiet and still air of delightful studies," Arthur had so far ceased to be his favorite, that he probably exclaimed, in the words of Tasso ;

Taccia Artu quei suoi

Erranti, che di sogni empion le carte.

Arthur no more thy errant knights rehearse,
Who fill, with idle dreams, delusive verse.

For Adam now reigned in his fancy, not immediately as the subject of an epic poem, but as a capital personage in the plan of a