most exemplary and engaging characters that ever existed, fince we find she was the darling fifter of this illuftrious philofopher, and the favourite friend of a poet still more illustriFour of Milton's Latin letters are addreffed to her fon, and they blend with moral precepts to the young student respectful and affectionate praise of his mother *.

In the Latin correspondence of Milton we have fome veftiges of his fentiments concerning the authors of antiquity; and it is remarkable, that in a deliberate opinion on the merits of Sallust‍†, he prefers him to all the Roman historians. Milton, however, did not form himself as a writer on any Roman model: being very early most anxious to excel

in literature, he wifely attached himself to thofe prime examples of literary perfection, the Greeks; among the poets he particularly delighted in Euripides and Homer; his favourites in profe seem to have been Plato and Demofthenes; the firft peculiarly fit to give richness, purity, and luftre to the fancy; the second, to invigorate the understanding, and infpire the fervid energy of public virtue. It is a very just remark of Lord Monboddo, that even the poetical speeches. in Paradise Loft derive their confummate propriety and eloquence from the fond and enlightened attention with which the poet had studied the most perfect orator of Athens: the ftudies of Milton, however, were very extenfive; he appears to have been familiar not only with all the best authors of antiquity, but with thofe 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 fublimeft of poets was also the most learned: of Italian literature he was particularly fond, as we may collect from one of his letters to a profeffor of that language, and from the ease and spirit of his Italian verfes. To the honour of modern Italy it may be faid, that she had a confiderable share in forming the genius of Milton. In Taffo, her brightest ornament, he found a character highly worthy of his affectionate emulation, both as a poet and as a man; this accomplished perfonage had, indeed, ended his illuftrious and troubled life feveral years before Milton vifited his country; but he was yet living in the memory of his ardent friend Manfo, and through the medium of Manfo's,

con

converfation his various excellencies made, I am perfuaded, a forcible and permanent impreffion on the heart and fancy of our youthful countryman. It was hardly the example of Triffino, as Johnson fuppofes, that tempted Milton to his bold experiment of blank verfe; for Triffino's epic poem is a very heavy performance, and had funk into fuch oblivion in Italy, that the literary friend and biographer of Tafso confiders that greater poet as the first person who enriched the Italian language with valuable blank verfe: " our early works of that kind,” says Manso, “are translations from the Latin, and those not fuccefsful." The poem in blank verse, for which this amiable biographer applauds his friend, is an extensive work, in feven books, on the Seven Days of the Creation, a fubject that has engaged the poets of many countries. The performance of Taffo was begun at the house of his friend Manso, and at the fuggeftion of a lady, the accomplished mother of the Marquis. As this poem is formed from the Bible, and full of religious enthusiasm, it probably influenced the English vifiter of Manfo in his choice of blank verfe. Taffo was a voluminous author, and we have reafon to believe that Milton was familiar with all his compofitions, as the exquifite eulogy on connubial affection, in the Paradise Lost, is founded on a prose composition in favour of marriage, addressed by the Italian poet to one of his relations*; but Milton, who was perhaps of all authors the

*Taffo begins this interefting discourse,

by informing his kinfman Ercole, that he first heard the news of his having taken a wife, and then was surprised by reading a compofition of his, in which he inveighs not only against the ladies, but against matrimony. The poet, with great politeness and fpirit,

affumes the defence of both, and in the close of a learned and eloquent panegyric, indulges his heart and fancy in a very animated and beautiful addrefs to wedded love, which Milton has copied with his ufual dignity and fweetness of expreffion.

leaft

leaft addicted to imitation, rarely imitates even Taffo in compofition 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 Taffo, has enumerated all the particular virtues by which he was distinguished; these were all equally confpicuous 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 confideration was the predominant passion of his life.

Enthusiasm was the characteristic of his mind; in politics, it made him fometimes too generously credulous, and fometimes too rigorously decifive; but in poetry it exalted him to fuch a degree of excellence as no man has hitherto furpaffed; nor is it probable that in this province he will ever be excelled; for although in all the arts there are undoubtedly points of perfection much higher than any mortal has yet attained, ftill it requires fuch a coincidence of fo many advantages depending on the influence both of nature and of destiny to raise a great artist of any kind, that the world has but little reafon to expect productions of poetical genius fuperior to the Paradife Loft. There was a bold yet refined originality of conception, which characterised the mental powers of Milton, and give him the highest claim to distinction: we are not only indebted to him for having extended and ennobled the province of epic poetry, but he has another title to our regard, as the founder of that recent and enchanting English art, which has em

bellished

bellished our country, and, to speak the glowing language of a living bard very eloquent in its praise,

The elegant hiftorian of modern gardening, Lord Orford, and the two accomplished poets, who have celebrated its charms both in France and England, De Lille and Mafon, have, with great juftice and felicity of expreffion, paid their homage to Milton, as the beneficent genius, who beftowed upon the world this youngest and most lovely of the arts. As a contraft to the Miltonic garden, I may point out to the notice of the reader, what has escaped, I think, all the learned writers on this engaging subject, the garden of the imperious Duke of Alva, described in a poem of the celebrated Lope de Vega. The fublime vifion of Eden, as Lord Orford truly calls it, proves indeed, as the fame writer observes, how little the poet fuffered from the lofs of fight. The native difpofition of Milton, and his perfonal infirmity, conspired to make contemplation his chief business and chief enjoyment: few poets have devoted fo large a portion of their time to intense and regular ftudy; yet he often made a pause of some months in the progress of his great work, if we may confide in the circumftantial narrative of his nephew. “I had the perusal of it from the very beginning," fays Philips," for fome years, as I went from time to time to visit him, in parcels of ten, twenty, or thirty verses at a time (which, being written by whatever hand came next,