might poffibly want correction as to the orthography and pointing). Having, as the fummer came on, not been fhewed any for a confiderable while, and defiring the reason thereof, was answered that his vein never happily flowed but from the autumual equinox to the vernal.” Johnson takes occasion, from this anecdote, to treat the fenfations of Milton with farcaftic feverity, and to deride him for fubmitting to the influence of the feafons; he lavifhes ridicule, not lefs acrimonious, on the great poet, for having yielded to a fashionable dread of evils ftill more fantaftic."There prevailed in his time (fays the critic) an opinion that the world was in its decay, and that we have had the misfortune to be born in the decrepitude of nature. Johnson exposes, with great felicity of expreffion, this abfurd idea, of which his own frame of body and mind was a complete refutation; but instead of deriding the great poet for harbouring fo weak a conceit, he might have recollected that Milton himself has spurned this chimera of timid imagination in very spirited Latin verse, written in his twentieth year, and expressly against the folly of supposing nature impaired. Ergone marcefcet, fulcantibus obfita rugis, Omniparum contracta uterum, fterilefcet ab ævo How! How! fhall the face of nature then be plough'd Into deep wrinkles, and shall years at last On the great parent fix a fteril curfe; Shall even the confefs old age, and halt And pally-fmitten shake her starry brows! COWPER. The spirit of the poet was, in truth, little formed for yielding to any weaknesses of fancy that could impede mental exertion; and we may confider it as one of the striking peculiarities of his character, that with an imagination fo excurfive he poffeffed a mind fo industrious. His ftudious habits are thus defcribed by his acquaintance Aubrey and others, who collected their account from his widow :-He rose at four in the fummer, at five in the winter, and regularly began the day by hearing a chapter in the Hebrew Bible; it was read to him by a man, who, after this duty, left him to meditation of fome hours, and, returning at seven, either read or wrote for him till twelve he then allowed himself an hour for exercise, which was ufually walking, and when he grew blind, the occafional refource of a swing: after an early and temperate dinner he commonly allotted fome time to mufic, his favourite amufement; and his own mufical talents happily furnished him with a pleasing relaxation from his severer pursuits ; he was able to vary his inftrument, as he played both on the bass viol and the organ, with the advantage of an agreeable voice, which his father had probably taught him to cultivate in his youth. This regular cuftom of the great poet, to indulge himself in mufical relaxation after food, has been recently praised as favourable to mental exertion, in producing all the good effects of fleep, with none of its disadvantages, by an illuftrious fcholar, who, like Milton, unites the passion and the talent of poetry to habits of intense and diversified application. Sir William Jones, in the third volume of Afiatic Researches, has recommended, from his own experience, this practice of Milton, who from mufic returned to study; at eight he took a light fupper, and at nine retired to bed. If such extreme regularity could be preserved at any period, it must have been in the clofing years of his life. While he was in office his time was undoubtedly much engaged, not only by official attendance, but by his intercourfe with learned foreigners, as the parliament allowed him a weekly table for their reception. The Latin compofitions of Milton had rendered him, on the continent, an object of idolatry; "and strangers (fays Wood, who was far from being partial to his illuftrious contemporary) vifited the houfe where he was born." Even in his latter days, when he is fuppofed to have been neglected by his countrymen, intelligent foreigners were folicitous to converfe with him as an object of their curiofity and veneration; they regarded him, and very justly, as the prime wonder of England; for he was, in truth, a person so extraordinary, that it may be questioned if any age or nation has produced his parallel. Is there, in the records of literature, an author to be found, who, after gaining such extenfive celebrity as a political difputant, caft off the mortal vefture vesture of a polemic, and arofe in the pureft fplendor of poetical immortality? Biographers are frequently accused of being influenced by affection for their subject; to a certain degree it is right that they should be fo; for what is biography in its fairest point of view? a tribute paid by justice and esteem to genius and to virtue; and never is this tribute more pleafing or more profitable to mankind, than when it is liberally paid, with all the fervor and all the fidelity of friendship: the chief delight and the chief utility that arifes from this attractive branch of literature confifts in the affectionate intereft, which it difplays and communicates in favour of the talents and probity that it afpires to celebrate; hence the most engaging pieces of biography are those that have been written by relations of the deceased. This remark is exemplified in the life of Agricola by Tacitus, and in that of Racine, the dramatic poet, written by his fon, who was also a poet, and addreffed to his grandson. It has been the lot of Milton to have his life frequently described, and recently, by a very powerful author, who, had he loved the character he engaged to delineate, might, perhaps, have fatisfied the admirers of the poet, and closed the lift of his numerous biographers. But the very wonderful mind of Johnfon was fo embittered by prejudice, that in delineating a character confeffedly pre-eminent in eminent accomplishments, in genius, and in piety, he petually endeavours to represent him as unamiable, and inftead of attributing any mistaken opinions that he might entertain to fuch fources as charity and reafon confpire to per fuggeft, fuggeft, imputes them to fuppofed vices in his mind, most foreign to his nature, and the very worst that an enemy could imagine. In the course of this narrative I have confidered it as a duty incumbent upon me to notice and counteract, as they occurred, many important strokes of the hoftility which I am now lamenting; these become ftill more remarkable in that portion of the biographer's labour to which I am at length arrived; it is in diffecting the mind of Milton, if I may use fuch an expreffion, that Johnson indulges the injurious intemperance of his hatred. "It is to be fufpected (he fays) "that his predominant defire was to destroy rather than "eftablish; and that he felt not fo much the love of li"berty as repugnance to authority." Such a fufpicion may indeed be harboured by political rancour, but it must be in direct opposition to justice and truth; for of all men who have written or acted in the fervice of liberty, there is no individual, who has proved more completely, both by his language and his life, that he made a perfect distinction between liberty and licentiousness. No human spirit could be more fincerely a lover of just and beneficent authority; for no man delighted more in peace and order; no man has written more eloquently in their praise, or given sublimer proofs of his own personal attachment to them by the regulation of his own orderly and peaceful studies. If he hated power (as Johnson afferts) in every established form, he hated not its falutary influence, but its pernicious exertions. Vehement as he occafionally was against kings and prelates, he spoke of the fectaries with equal indignation and |