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what I thought of it? which I modeftly and freely told him; and, after some farther discourse about it, I pleasantly faid to him, Thou haft faid much here of Paradife loft, but what haft thou to fay of Paradife found.' He made me no answer, but fat fome time in a mufe, then brake off that discourse, and fell upon another subject.

"After the fick nefs was over, and the city well cleansed, and become fafely habitable again, he returned thither; and when afterwards I went to wait on him there (which I feldom failed of doing, whenever my occafions led me to London) he fhewed me his fecond poem, called Paradife Regain'd, and in a pleasant tone said to me, This is owing to you, for you put it into my head by the question you put to me at Chalfont, which before I had not thought of?.”

The perfonal regard of this ingenuous quaker for Milton, and his giving birth to a compofition of fuch magnitude and merit as Paradise Regain'd, entitle him to distinction in a life of his great poetical friend, and I have therefore rather transcribed than abridged his relation. My reader, I doubt not, will join with me in wishing that we had more sketches of the venerable bard, thus minutely delineated from the life, in the colours of fidelity and affection.

The laft of Milton's familiar letters in Latin relates to this period; it speaks with devotional gratitude of the fafe afylum from the plague, which he had found in the country; it speaks also with so much feeling of his past political adventures, and of the present inconvenience which he fuffered from the lofs of fight, that I apprehend an entire translation of it

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can hardly fail of being acceptable to the English reader. It is dated from London, August 15, 1666, and addressed to Heimbach, an accomplished German, who is ftiled counfellor to the elector of Brandenburgh. An expression in a former letter to the fame correfpondent feems to intimate, that this learned foreigner, who vifited England in his youth, had refided with Milton, perhaps in the character of a difciple-But here is the interesting letter':

*"If among fo many funerals of my countrymen, in a year so full of peftilence and forrow, you were induced, as you say, by rumour to believe that I also was fnatched away, it is not surprising; and if fuch a rumour prevailed among those of your nation, as it seems to have done, because they were folicitous for my health, it is not unpleafing, for I must esteem it as a proof of their benevolence towards me.

*Ornatiffimo Viro Petro Heimbachio,

Electoris Brandenburgici Confiliario.

Si inter tot funera popularium meorum, anno tam gravi ac peftilenti, abreptum me quoque, ut fcribis, ex rumore præfertim aliquo credidifti, mirum non eft; atque ille rumor apud veftros, ut videtur, homines, fi ex eo quod de falute mea foliciti effent, increbuit, non difplicet; indicium enim fuæ erga me benevolentiæ fuiffe exiftimo. Sed Dei benignitate, qui tutum mihi receptum in agris para-, verat, et vivo adhuc et valeo; utinam re inutilis, quicquid muneris in hac vita reftat mihi peragendum. Tibi vero tam longo intervallo veniffe in mentem mei, pergratum eft; quamquam prout rem verbis exornas, præbere aliquem fufpicionem videris, oblitum mei te potius effe, qui tot virtutum diverfarum conjugium in me, ut fcribis, admirere. Ego certe ex tot conjugiis numerofam nimis prolem ex

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pavefcerem, nifi conftaret in re arata, rebufque duris, virtutes ali maxime et vigere: tametfi carum una non ita belle charitatem hofpitii mihi reddidit: quam enim politicam tu vocas, ego pietatem in patriam dictam abs te mallem, ea me pulchro nomine delinitum prope, ut ita dicam, expatriavit. Reliquarum tamen chorus clare concinit. Patria eft, ubicunque eft bene. Finem faciam, fi hoc prius abs te impetravero, ut, fi quid mendofe defcriptum aut non interpunctum repereris, id puero, qui hæc excepit, Latine prorfus nefcienti velis imputare; cui fingulas plane literulas annumerare non fine miferia dictans cogebar. Tua interim viri merita, quem ego adolef centem fpei eximiæ cognovi, ad tam honeftum in principis gratia provexille te locum, gaudeo, ceteraque faufta omnia et cupio tibi, et spero vale.

Londini, Aug. 15, 1666. by

by the gracioufnefs of God, who had prepared for me a fafe retreat in the country, I am still alive and well; and I trust not utterly an unprofitable servant, whatever duty in life there yet remains for me to fulfil. That you remember me, after so long an interval in our correspondence, gratifies me exceedingly, though, by the politeness of your expreffion, you seem to afford me room to fufpect, that you have rather forgotten me, fince, as you fay, you admire in me so many different virtues wedded together. From fo many weddings I should affuredly dread a family too numerous, were it not certain that, in narrow circumstances and under severity of . fortune, virtues are most excellently reared, and are most flourishing. Yet one of these faid virtues has not very handsomely rewarded me for entertaining her; for that which you call my political virtue, and which I fhould rather wish you to call my devotion to my country (enchanting me with her captivating name) almoft, if I may say so, expatriated me. Other virtues, however, join their voices to afsure me, that wherever we profper in rectitude there is our country. In ending my letter, let me obtain from you this favour, that if you find any parts of it incorrectly written, and without stops, you will impute it to the boy who writes for me, who is utterly ignorant of Latin, and to whom I am forced (wretchedly enough) to repeat every single fyllable that I dictate. I ftill rejoice that your merit as an accomplished man, whom I knew as a youth of the highest expectation, has advanced you so far in the honourable favour of your prince. your prince. For your prosperity in every other point you have both my wishes and my hopes. Farewell. "London, August 15, 1666.”

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How interefting is this complaint, when we recollec that the great writer, reduced to fuch irksome difficulties in regard to his secretary, was probably engaged at this period in polishing the fublimeft of poems.

From Ellwood's account it appears, that Paradife Loft was complete in 1665. Philips and Toland affert, that it was actually published the following year; but I believe no copy has been found of a date fo early. The firft edition on the lift of the very accurate Mr. Loft was printed by Peter Parker in 1667, and, probably, at the expence of the author, who fold the work to Samuel Simmons, by a contract dated the 27th of April, in the fame year.

The terms of this contract are fuch as a lover of genius. can hardly hear without a figh of pity and indignation. The author of the Paradife Loft received only an immediate payment of five pounds for a work, which is the very. mafter-piece of fublime and refined imagination; a faculty not only naturally rare, but requiring an extraordinary coincidence of circumstances to cherish and strengthen it for the long and regular exercise effential to the production of fuch a poem. The bookfeller's agreement, however, enti→ tled the author to a conditional payment of fifteen pounds more; five to be paid after the fale of thirteen hundred copies of the first edition, and five, in the fame manner, both on a fecond and a third. The number of each edition was limited to fifteen hundred copies.

The original fize of the publication was a fmall quarto, and the poem was at firft divided into ten books; but in the fecond edition the author very judiciously increased the

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number to twelve, by introducing a paufe in the long narration of the feventh and of the tenth, fo that each of thefe books became two.

Simmons was a printer, and his brief advertisement to the work he had purchased is curious enough to merit infertion:

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"Courteous Reader, there was no argument at firft intended to the book; but for the fatisfaction of many that have defired it, I have procured it, and withal a reafon of that, which ftumbled many others, why the poem rhymes not. Here we may plainly fee that the novelty of blank verse was confidered as an unpalatable innovation. The book, however, advanced fo far in its fale, that thirteen hundred were difperfed in two years. In April, 1669, the author received his fecond payment of five pounds. The second edition came forth in the year of his death, and the third in four years after that event: his widow, who inherited a right to the copy, fold all her claims to Simmons for eight pounds, in December, 1680; fo that twenty-eight pounds, paid at different times in the courfe of thirteen years, is the whole pecuniary reward which this great performance produced to the poet and his widów.

But although the emolument, which the author derived from his nobleft production, was moft deplorably inadequate to its merit, he was abundantly gratified with immediate and fervent applaufe from feveral accomplished judges of poetical genius. It has been generally fuppofed, that Paradife Loft was neglected to a mortifying degree on its first appearance; and that the exalted poet confoled his fpirit

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