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Voltaire, to vindicate both Taffo and Milton from certain ftrictures of farcaftic raillery, which the volatile Frenchman had lavished upon both. Voltaire, indeed, has fallen himself into the very inconfiftency, which he mentions as unaccountable in Dryden; I mean the inconsistency of fometimes praifing Milton with fuch admiration as approaches to idolatry, and sometimes reproving him with fuch keenness of ridicule as borders on contempt. In the course of this difcuffion we may find, perhaps, a mode of accounting for the inconfiftency both of Dryden and Voltaire; let us attend at prefent to what the latter has faid of Andreini!-If the Adamo of this author really gave birth to the divine poem of Milton, the Italian dramatist, whatever rank he might hold in his own country, has a fingular claim to our attention and regard. Johnfon indeed calls the report of Voltaire a wild and unauthorized story; and Rolli afferts, in reply to it, that if Milton faw the Italian drama, it must have been at Milan, as the Adamo, in his opinion, was a performance too contemptible to be endured at Florence. "Andreini (fays the critic of Italy) was a ftroller (un iftrione) of the worst age of the Italian letters." Notwithstanding these terms of contempt, which one of his countrymen has bestowed upon Andreini, he appears to me highly worthy of our notice; for (although in uniting, like Shakespeare and Moliere, the two different arts of writing and of acting plays, he discovered not fuch extraordinary powers as have justly immortalized thofe idols of the theatre) he was yet endowed

with

with one quality, not only uncommon, but fuch as might render him, if I may hazard the expreffion, the poetical parent of Milton. The quality I mean is, enthusiasm in the highest degree, not only poetical but religious. Even the preface that Andreini prefixed to his Adamo may be thought sufficient to have acted like lightning on the inflammable ideas of the English poet, and to have kindled in his mind the blaze of celeftial imagination.

I am aware, that in researches like the prefent, every conjecture may abound in illufion; the petty circumstances, by which great minds are led to the first conception of great defigns, are so various and volatile, that nothing can be more difficult to discover: fancy in particular is of a nature so airy, that the traces of her step are hardly to be difcerned; ideas are fo fugitive, that if poets, in their life-time, were queftioned concerning the manner in which the feeds of confiderable productions firft arofe in their mind, they might not always be able, to answer the enquiry; can it then be poffible to succeed in fuch an enquiry concerning a mighty genius, who has been configned more than a century to the tomb, especially when, in the records of his life, we can find no pofitive evidence on the point in queftion? However trifling the chances it may afford of fuccefs, the investigation is affuredly worthy our purfuit; for, as an accomplished critic has said, in fpeaking of another poet, with his usual felicity of difcernment and expreffion, "the enquiry. "cannot be void of entertainment whilft

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Milton is our

"conftant

"constant theme: whatever may be the fortune of the "chace, we are sure it will lead us through pleasant profpects and a fine country."

It has been frequently remarked, that accident and genius generally confpire in the origin of great performances; and the accidents that give an impulse to fancy are often fuch as are hardly within the reach of conjecture. Had Ellwood himself not recorded the occurrence, who would have fuppofed that a few words, which fell from a fimple youth in conversation, were the real fource of Paradife Regained? Yet the offsprings of imagination, in this point of view, have a ftriking analogy to the productions of nature. The noble poem just mentioned resembles a rare and valuable tree, not planted with care and forecast, but arifing vigorously from a kernel dropt by a rambling bird on a spot of peculiar fertility. We are perfectly affured that Milton owed one of his great poems to the ingenuous queftion of a young quaker; and Voltaire, as we have seen, has afferted, that he was indebted for the other to the fantastic drama.

of an Italian ftroller. It does not appear that Voltaire had any higher authority for his affertion than his own conjecture from a flight inspection of the drama, which he haftily defcribes; 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 fuppofe them to have had on the fancy of Milton, let us contemplate, in one view, all the scattered hints which the great poet has given us concerning the grand project of his life, his defign of writing an epic poem.

His first mention of this design occurs in the following verses of his poetical compliment to Manfo :

O mihi fic mea fors talem concedat amicum,
Phœbæos decoraffe viros qui tam bene norit,
Si quando indigenas revocabo in carmina reges,
Arturumque etiam fub terris bella moventem,
Aut dicam invictæ fociali fœdere menfæ

Magnanimos heroas; et O modo fpiritus adfit,
Frangam Saxonicas Britonum fub marte phalanges!

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 and heroes of ny native clime,
Arthur the chief, who even now prepares
In fubterraneous being future wars,
With all his martial knights to be reftor'd,
Each to his feat around the fed'ral board;
And, O! if spirit fail me not, difperfe
Our Saxon plund'rers in triumphant verse.

COWPER.

Mr.

Mr. Warton says, in his comment on this passage, "It "is poffible that the advice of Manso, the friend of Tasso,

might determine our poet to a defign of this kind.”. The conjecture of this refpectable critic may appear confirmed by the following circumftance:-In the difcourfes on Epic Poetry, which are included in the profe works of Tafso, Arthur is repeatedly recommended as a proper hero for a poem. Thus we find that Italy moft probably fuggefted to Milton his firft epic idea, which he relinquished; nor is it less probable that his second and more arduous enterprize, which he accomplished, was suggested to him by his perufal of Italian authors. If he faw 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 poffeffion of his fancy after his return to England.

In the following verfes of his Epitaphium Damonis, compofed at that period, he ftill fhews himself attached to romantic heroes, and to British story :

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Dicam et Pandrafidos regnum vetus Inogeniæ,

Brennumque Arviragumque duces prifcumque Belinum,
Et tandem Armoricos Britonum fub lege colonos,

Tum gravidam Arturo fatali fraude Iogernen,
Mendaces vultus affumptaque Gorlois arma
Merlini dolus.

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