poem peculiarly distinguished by richness and fublimity of defcription; in framing a second, he would naturally wish to vary its effect; to make it rich in moral fentiment, and sublime in its mode of unfolding the highest wisdom that man can learn; for this purpose it was neceffary to keep all the ornamental parts of the in due fubordination to the preceptive. This delicate and difficult point is accomplished with fuch felicity, they are blended together with fuch exquifite harmony and mutual aid, that instead of arraigning the plan, we might rather doubt if any poffible change could improve it; affuredly, there is no poem of epic form, where the fublimeft moral inftruction is fo forcibly and abundantly united to poetical delight: the splendour of the poet does not blaze, indeed, fo intenfely as in his larger production; here he resembles the Apollo of Ovid, foftening his glory in fpeaking to his fon, and avoiding to dazzle the fancy, that he may descend into the heart. His dignity is not impaired by his tenderness. The Paradise Regained is a poem, that deserves to be particularly recommended to ardent and ingenuous youth, as it is admirably calculated to infpire that spirit of self-command, which is, as Milton esteemed it, the trueft heroifm, and the triumph of chriftianity. It is not my intention to enter into a critical analysis of the beauties and the blemishes that are vifible in the poetry of Milton, not only because Addifon and Johnson have both written admirably on his greatest work, but because my most excellent friend, the poet (whose spirit I esteem moft congenial to that of Milton) is engaged in such illuftration of his honoured predeceffor; I fhall therefore con fine myself to a fingle effay, detached from this narrative, under the title of "Conjectures on the Origin of the Paradife Loft." I must not, however, omit to speak here, as I have engaged to do, of the character bestowed by Johnson on the principal performance of the poet; the greatest part of that character is, perhaps, the moft fplendid tribute that was ever paid by one powerful mind to another. Aristotle, Longinus, and Quintilian, have not fpoken of their favourite Homer with more magnificence of praife; yet the character, taken altogether, is a golden image, that has lower parts of iron and of clay. The critic seems to prepare a diadem of the richest jewels; he places them, moft liberally, on the head of the. poet; but in the moment of adjusting his radiant gift, he breathes upon it such a vapour of fpleen, as almost annihilates its luffre. After displaying, in the nobleft manner, many of the peculiar excellencies in the poem, he says, "its perufal is a duty rather than a pleasure; we read Milton for inftruction, retire haraffed and overburthened, and look elsewhere for recreation; we defert our mafter, and feek for companions." Injurious as these remarks are to the poet, let us afcribe them, not to the virulence of intended detraction, but to the want of poetical fenfibility in the critic; a want that may be fufficiently proved, by comparing this account of the effect produced by Paradife Loft on his own feelings with its effect on a fpirit truly poetical. That enchanting poem, The Task, very happily furnishes fuch an illustration; it is thus thus that a mind attuned by nature to poetry describes the effect in queftion, as produced even in childhood. Then Milton had indeed a poet's charms To fpeak its excellence: I danc'd for joy." But the little delight that Johnson confeffes himself to have taken in the poetry of Milton was rather his misfortune than his fault; it merits pity more than reproach, as it partly arose from conftitutional infelicity, and the very wide difference between the native turn of his mind and that of the poet: never were two fpirits lefs congenial, or two christian scholars, who differed more completely in their fentiments of poetry, politics, and religion." In temperament, as well as in opinions, they were the reverfe of each other; the one was fanguine to excefs, the other melancholy in the extreme. Milton Might fit in the centre and enjoy bright day;' Such was the great contraft between thefe two extraordinary men, that although they were both equally fincere in their attachment to christianity, and both distinguished by noble noble intellectual exertions in the fervice of mankind, the critic was naturally disqualified from being a fair and a perfect judge of the poet. My regard for a departed and meritorious writer (of great powers, but constitutionally unhappy) is fuch, that I would rather afcribe to any cause, than to mere envious malignity, his outrages against the poetical glory of Milton, which, from the force and celebrity of the very admirable but too auftere work that contains them, it becomes the duty of a more recent biographer to expose. For example, when Johnson fays that Milton " wrote no language, but formed a Babylonifh dialect, harsh and barbarous," though it would be difficult to pronounce a critical cenfure more bitter or more injurious, we may impute it, not to a malevolent defire of depreciating the poet, but to a natural want of ear for that harmony, which the critic condemns as difcord. On this article, the most harmonious of our bards has been very happily vindicated by men of fcience and taste. Dr. Fofter and Lord Monboddo have fhewn Milton to be one of the most confummate artificers of language, that ever gave either energy or grace to words; and Mr. Loft, in the preface to his recent edition of Paradise Lost, describes the majestic flow of his numbers with fuch truth and eloquence, as render ample juftice to the insulted dignity of the poet. The infult, grofs as it may be thought, lofes much of its force when we recollect the inconfiftency of the critic, who, though in his latter work he condemns the language of Milton as harsh and barbarous, had before obferved, with more more truth, in the Rambler, that the poet "excelled as much in the lower as in the higher parts of his art, and that his skill in harmony was not lefs than his invention or his learning," but the praise as well as the cenfure of Johnson, on this article, could not be the refult of perfect perception, for the monotony of his own blank verfe, and fome of his remarks in the Rambler on particular lines of Milton, are striking proofs, that although he was a melodious writer himself in the common measures of rhyme, and in dignified prose, yet he never entered with perfect intelligence and feeling into the musical graces of Miltonic compofition; he was, indeed, as far from enjoying the poet's ear for the varied modulations and extenfive compass of metrical harmony, as he was from possessing the mild elegance of his manners, or the cheerful elevation of his mind. There is a striking resemblance between the poetical and the moral character of Milton; they were both the refult of the finest difpofitions for the attainment of excellence that nature could bestow, and of all the advantages that ardour and perfeverance in ftudy and difcipline could add, in a long course of years, to the beneficent prodigality of nature: even in infancy he discovered a passion for glory; in youth he was attached to temperance; and, arriving at manhood, he formed the magnanimous defign of building a lofty name upon the most folid and fecure foundation. "He |