a painter must find it most difficult to equal the felicity of the poet is, the delineation of his apoftate angels. Here, perhaps, poetry has fome important advantage over her fifter art; and even poetry herself is confidered by aufterer critics as unequal to the task. Johnfon regarded -the book of Paradife Loft, which defcribes the war of Heaven, as fit to be "the favourite of children."-Imagination itself may be depreciated, by the aufterity of logic, as a childish faculty, but those who love even its exceffes may be allowed to exult in its delights. No reader truly poetical ever perused the fixth book of Milton without enjoying a kind of tranfport, which a stern logician might indeed condemn, but which he might also think it more defirable to fhare. I doubt not but while Milton was revolving his fubject in his mind, he often heard from critical acquaintance such remarks as might have induced him, had his imagination been lefs energetic, to relinquifh the angels as intractable beings, ill fuited to the sphere of poetry. But if his glowing fpirit was ever damped for a moment by fuggeftions of this nature, he was probably re-animated and encouraged by recollecting his respectable old acquaintance, the poets of Italy. He had not only seen the infernal powers occafionally delineated with great majefty and effect in the Jerufalem of Taffo, and Marini's "Slaughter of the Innocents," but he was probably acquainted with an Italian poem, little known in England, and formed exprefsly on the conflict of the apoftate fpirits. The work I allude to is, the Angeleida of Erafmo Valvafone, printed at Venice, in 1590. This poet was of a noble family in the Venetian republic; as his health was delicate, he devoted himself to retired study, and cultivated the Muses in his caftle of Valvafone. His works are various, and one of his early compofitions was honoured by the applaufe of Taffo. His Angeleida confifts of three cantos on the War of Heaven, and is fingularly terminated by a fonnet, addreffed to the triumphant Archangel Michael. Several paffages in Valvasone induce me to think that Milton was familiar with his work.—I will only transcribe the verses, in which the Italian poet affigns to the infernal powers the invention of artillery: Di falnitro, e di zolfo ofcura polve Chiude altro in ferro cavo; e poi la tocca Dietro col foco, e in foco la rifolve: Onde fragofo tuon fubito scocca : Scocca e lampeggia, e una palla volve, Al cui fcontro ogni duro arde e trabocca: Crud' è 'l faetta, ch' imitar s'attenta L'arme che 'l fommo Dio dal Cielo aventa. L'Angelo rio, quando a concorrer forfe Con l'eterno fattor, perche s'accorse Quell' arme non aver, ch' ogni arme avanza, L'empio Valvafone acknowledges, in his preface, that he had been cenfured for having fpoken fo materially (ragionato cofi materialmente) of angels, who are only fpirit.. But he defends himself very ably on this point, and mentions with gratitude two excellent critical discourses, written in his vindication by Giovanni Ralli and Ottavio Menini ;--there is a third alfo, according to Quadrio, by Scipione di Manzano, under the name of Olimpo Marcucci, printed at Venice, in 4to, 1594. They all beftow great praife on the author whom they vindicate, who appears to have been a very amiable man, and a poet of confiderable powers, though he poffeffed not the fublimity and the refinement of Milton or Taffo. In his general ideas of poetry he refembled them both; and in his mode of expreffing himfelf, in the preface to his Angeleida, he reminds me very ftrongly of thofe paffages in the profe works of Milton, where he speaks on the hallowed magnificence of the art. They both confidered facred fubjects as peculiarly proper for verfe; an idea condemned by Johníon, who fympathifed as little with Milton in his poetic as in his political principles. It was by entertaining ideas of poetry, directly contrary to thofe of his critic, that Milton rendered him felf, ८ felf, in true dignity, the firft poet of the world. Nor can we think that dignity in any degree impaired, by dif covering that many hints might be fuggefted to him by various poets, in different languages, who had feized either a part or the whole of his fubject before him. On the contrary, the more of these we can difcover, and the more we compare them with the English bard, the more reason we shall find to exult in the pre-eminence of his poetical powers. Taffo, in his critical discourses, inculcates a very just maxim concerning the originality of epic poets, which is very applicable to Milton." Nuovo farà il poema, in "cui nuova fara la teftura de' nodi, nuove le folutioni, "nuovi gli epifodi, che per entro vi fono trapofti, quantunque la materia foffe notiffima, e dagli altri prima trat"tata: perche la novita del poema fi confidera piuttosto "alla forma, che alla materia." This great writer illuftrates his pofition, that the novelty of a poem is to be estimated more from its form than its fubject, by the example of Alamanni, an epic poet of Italy, who loft the praise he might otherwise have acquired, by copying too fondly, under modern names, the incidents of Homer. Milton is of all authors undoubtedly one of the most original, both in thought and expreffion the language of his greater works is evidently borrowed from no model, but it feems to have great conformity with the precepts which Taffo has delivered in the difcourfes I have juft cited, for the formation of an epic ftyle. Yet in criticism, as in politics, Milton was undoubtedly "Nullius addictus jurare in verba magiftri." He thought on every topic for himself; juftly remarking, that "to neglect rules and follow nature, in them "that know art and ufe judgment, is no tranfgreffion, but an enriching of art." This excellent maxim infured to him the exercise and the independence of his own elevated mind. There is frequent allufion to the works of antiquity in Milton, yet no poet, perhaps, who revered the ancients with fuch affectionate enthufiafm, has copied them fo little. This was partly owing to the creative opulence of his own genius, and partly to his having fixed on a subject so different from those of Homer and Virgil, that he may be faid to have accomplished a revolution in poetry, and to have purified and extended the empire of the epic muse. One of the chief motives that induced his imagination to defert its early favourite Arthur, and attach itself to our firft parents, is partly explained in those admirable verfes of the ninth book, where the poet mentions the choice of his own fubject, contrafted with thofe of his illuftrious predeceffors: Argument Not lefs, but more heroic, than the wrath Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued Thrice |