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I tranfcribe with pleasure this honeft and fimple eulogy ; it does credit to the intelligence and affection of the poet's difciple, and it in fome meafure vindicates the good sense of our country, by fhewing that, in the very year of Milton's decease, when fome writers have fuppofed that his poetical merit was almoft utterly unknown, there were perfons in the nation, who understood his full value.

Let us return to the author in his little academy, and the fecond farcaftic infult, which his biographer has beftowed upon him as the mafter of a school. The lodging in which he fettled, on his arrival from the continent, was foon exchanged for a more fpacious house and garden, in Alderfgate-ftreet, that fupplied him with conveniencies for the reception of scholars: on this occasion Johnson exclaims, "let not our veneration for Milton forbid us to look with "fome degree of merriment on great promifes and small "performance; on the man who haftens home, because his

countrymen are contending for their liberty, and, when "he reaches the scene of action, vapours away his patriotism "in a private boarding-fchool."

To excite merriment by rendering Milton ridiculous for having preferred the pen to the fword was an enterprise that furpaffed the powers of Johnfon; the attempt affords a melancholy proof how far prejudice may mislead a very vigorous understanding. What but the blind hatred of bigotry could have tempted one great author to deride another, merely for having thought that he might ferve his country more effentially by the rare and highly cultivated faculties of his mind, than by the ordinary fervice of a

foldier.

foldier. But let us hear Milton on this fubject. We have this obligation to the malice of his contemporaries, that it led him to speak publicly of himself, and to relate, in the most manly and explicit manner, the real motives of his conduct.

Speaking of the English people, in the commencement of his Second Defence, he says *, "it was the just vindication of "their laws and their religion, that neceffarily led them "into civil war; they have driven fervitude from them by "the moft honourable arms; in which praife, though I can "claim no personal share, yet I can easily defend myself "from a charge of timidity or indolence, fhould any "fuch be alledged against me; for I have avoided the "toil and danger of military life only to render my country affistance more useful, and not lefs to my own peril, "exerting a mind never dejected in adverfity, never influ"enced by unworthy terrors of detraction or of death; fince "from my infancy I had been addicted to literary pursuits, "and was ftronger in mind than in body, declining the

Quos non legum contemptus aut violatio in effrænatam licentiam effudit; non virtutis & gloriæ falfa fpecies, aut ftulta veterum æmulatio inani nomine libertatis incendit, fed innocentia vitæ, morumque fanctitas rectum atque folum iter ad libertatem veram docuit, legum et religionis juftiffima defenfio neceffariò armavit. Atque illi quidem Deo perinde confifi, fervitutem honeftiffimis armis pepulere cujus laudis etfi nullam partem mihi vendico, a reprehenfione tamen vel timiditatis vel ignaviæ, fi qua infertur, facile me tucor. Neque enim militiæ labores & pericula fic defugi, ut non alia ratione, & operam,

multo utiliorem, nec minore cum periculo meis civibus navarim, & animum dubiis in robus neque demiffum unquam, neque ullius invidiæ, vel etiam mortis plus æquo metuentem præftiterim. Nam cum ab adolefcentulo humanioribus effem ftudiis, ut qui maxime deditus, & ingenio femper quam corpore validior, pofthabitâ caftrenfi operâ, quâ me gregarius quilibet robuftior facile fuperaflet, ad ea me contuli, quibus plus potui; ut parte mei meliore ac potiore, fi faperem, non dete,riore, ad rationes patriæ, caufamque hanc præftantiffimam, quantum maxime poffem momentum accederem.

"duties

duties of a camp, in which every muscular common `man

must have surpassed me, I devoted myself to that kind of ❝service for which I had the greatest ability, that, with the

better portion of myself, I might add all the weight I "could to the pleas of my country and to this most excel"lent caufe."

He thus juftifies, on the nobleft ground, the line of life he pursued. In the fame compofition he frankly states the motives which prompted him to execute each particular work that raised him to notice in his new field of controverfy; but before we attend to the order in which he treated various public questions that he considered of high moment to his country, it is just to observe his fidelity and tendernefs -in first discharging, as a poet, the duties of private friendship. :

Before he quitted Florence, Milton received intelligence of the lofs he had to fuftain, by the untimely death of Charles Diodati, the favourite affociate of his early studies. On his arrival in England, the bitterness of such a lofs was felt with redoubled fenfibility by his affectionate heart, which relieved and gratified itfelf by commemorating the engaging character of the deceased, in a poem of confiderable length, entitled, Epitaphium Damonis, a poem mentioned by Johnfon with fupercilious contempt, yet possessing such beauties as render it pre-eminent in that species of composition.

Many poets have lamented a friend of their youth, and a companion of their studies, but no one has furpassed the affecting tenderness with which Milton fpeaks of his loft Diodati.

Quis mihi fidus.

Hærebit lateri comes, ut tu fæpe folebas,
Frigoribus duris, et per loca fœta pruinis,
Aut rapido fub fole, fiti morientibus herbis?

Pectora cui credam? Quis me lenire docebit
Mordaces curas, quis longam fallere noctem
Dulcibus alloquiis, grato cum fibilat igni

Molle pyrum, et nucibus ftrepitat focus, et malus Auster
Mifcet cuncta foris, et defuper intonat ulmo?

Aut æftate, dies medio dum vertitur axe,
Cum Pan æfculea fomnum capit abditus umbra,
Quis mihi blanditiafque tuas, quis tum mihi rifus,
Cecropiofque fales referet, cultofque lepores?

Who now my pains and perils fhall divide
As thou was won't, for ever at my fide,

Both when the rugged froft annoy'd our feet,
And when the herbage all was parch'd with heat?

In whom fhall I confide, whofe counsel find

A balmy medicine to my troubled mind?

Or whose discourse with innocent delight
Shall fill me now, and cheat the wintry night?
While hiffes on my hearth the pulpy pear,
And black'ning chefnuts start and crackle there;
While storms abroad, the dreary scene o'erwhelm,
And the wind thunders thro' the riven elm?

Or who, when fummer funs their fummit reach,
And Pan fleeps hidden by the fhelt'ring beech,
Who then shall render me thy Attic vein

Of wit, too polish'd to inflict a pain ?

With the spirit of a man most able to feel, and most worthy to enjoy, the delights of true friendship, he describes the rarity of that ineftimable bleffing, and the anguish we fuffer from the untimely loss of it.

Vix fibi quifque parem de millibus invenit unum;
Aut fi fors dederit tandem non afpera votis,
Illum inopina dies, qua non fperaveris hora,
Surripit, æternum linquens in fæcula damnum.

Scarce one in thousands meets a kindred mind;
And if the long-fought good at last he find,
When leaft he fears it, death his treasure fteals,
And gives his heart à wound that nothing heals.

There is, indeed, but one effectual lenitive for wounds of this nature, which Milton happily poffeffed in the fincerity and fervour of his religion. He clofes his lamentation for his favourite friend, as he had clofed his Lycidas, with just and foothing reflections on the purity of life, by which the object of his regret was distinguished, and with a fublime conception of that celeftial beatitude, which he confidently regarded as the infallible and immediate recompence of departed virtue.

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