This is the first of many remarks, replete with detraction, in which an illuftrious author has indulged his fpleen against Milton, in a life of the poet, where an ill-fubdued propensity to cenfure is ever combating with a neceffity to commend. The partifans of the powerful critic, from a natural partiality to their departed mafter, affect to confider his malignity as exifting only in the prejudices of those who endeavour to counteract his injustice. A biographer of Milton ought therefore to regard it as his indifpenfible duty to fhow how far this malignity is diffused through a long feries of obfervations, which affect the reputation both of the poet and the man; a duty that must be painful in proportion to the fincerity of our esteem for literary genius; fince, different as they were in their principles, their manners, and their writings, both the poet and his critical biographer are affuredly entitled to the praife of exalted genius. Perhaps in the republic of letters there never exifted two writers more deservedly distinguished, not only for the energy of the mental faculties, but for a generous and devout defire to benefit mankind by their exertion. Yet it must be lamented, and by the lovers of Milton in particular, that a moralist, who has given us, in the Rambler, fuch fublime leffons for the difcipline of the heart and mind, fhould be unable to preferve his own from that acrimonious spirit of detraction which led him to depreciate, to the utmoft of his power, the rare abilities, and perhaps the ftill rarer integrity, of Milton. It may be faid, that that the truly eloquent and fplendid encomium, which he has bestowed on the great work of the poet, ought to exempt him from fuch a charge, The fingular beauties and effect of this eulogy fhall be mentioned in the proper place, and with all the applause they merit; but here it is just to recollect, that the praise of the encomiaft is nearly confined to the fentence he paffes as a critic; his more diffufive detraction may be traced in almost every page of the biographer: not to encounter it on its first appearance, and wherever it is vifible and important, would be to fail in that justice and regard towards the character of Milton, which, he, perhaps, of all men, has most eminently deserved. In the preceding citation it is evidently the purpofe of Dr. Johnfon to degrade Milton below Cowley, and many other poets, diftinguished by juvenile compofitions; but Mr. Warton has, with great tafte and judgment, expofed the error of Dr. Johnson, in preferring the Latin poetry of Cowley to that of Milton. An eminent foreign critic has bestowed that high praife on the juvenile productions of our author, which his prejudiced countryman is inclined to deny. Morhoff has affirmed, with equal truth and liberality, that the verfes, which Milton produced in his childhood, discovered both the fire and judgment of maturer life: a commendation that no impartial reader will be inclined to extenuate, who perufes the fpirited epiftle to his exiled preceptor, compofed in his eighteenth year. Some of his Englifh verfes bear an earlier date. The firft of his juvenile productions, in the language which he was deftined to ennoble, is a paraphrafe of the hundred and fourteenth pfalm; it was executed at the age of fifteen, and difcovers a power that Dryden, and other more prefumptuous critics, have unjustly denied to Milton, the power of moving with facility in the fetters of rhyme this power is ftill more confpicuous in the poem he wrote at the age of feventeen, on the death of his fifter's child; a compofition peculiarly entitled to the notice of those, who love to contemplate the early dawn of poetical genius. In this performance, puerile as it is in every sense of the word, the intelligent reader may yet difcern, as in the bud, all the striking characteristics of Milton; his affectionate fenfibility, his fuperior imagination, and all that native tendency to devotional enthusiasm, Which fets the heart on fire, To fpurn the fordid world, and unto Heav'n afpire, Admirably trained as the youth of the poet was to acquire academical honour by the union of industry and talents, he seems to have experienced at Cambridge a chequered fortune, very fimilar to his deftiny in the world. It appears from fome remarkable paffages in the Latin exercifes, which he recited in his College, that he was at first an object of partial feverity, and afterwards of general admiration. He had differed in opinion concerning a plan. of academical studies with fome perfons of authority in his college, and thus excited their displeasure. He speaks of them as highly incensed against him; but but expreffes, with the most liberal sensibility, his furprise, delight, and gratitude, in finding that his enemies forgot their animofity to honour him with unexpected applause. An idle story has been circulated concerning his treatment in College. "I am ashamed," fays Dr. Johnson, "to relate what I fear is true, that Milton was the last student in either Univerfity that fuffered the public indignity of corporal punishment." In confirmation of this incident, which appears improbable, though fupported by Mr. Warton, the biographical critic alledges the following paffage from the first Elegy: Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum, Nor zeal nor duty now my steps impel And fly from wrongs my foul will ne'er fuftain. Dr. Johnson confiders thefe expreffions as an abfolute proof, that Milton was obliged to undergo this indignity; but they may fuggeft a very dif ferent idea. From all the light we can obtain concerning this anecdote, it seems most probable, that Milton was threatened, indeed, with what he confidered as a punishment, not only difhonourable but unmerited; that his manly spirit difdained to fubmit to it; and that he was therefore obliged to acquiefce in a fhort exile from Cambridge. In fpeaking of his academical life, it is neceffary to obviate another remark of a fimilar tendency. "There is reafon," fays Johnfon, " to fufpect that he was regarded in his college with no great fondness." To counteract this invidious infinuation we are furnished with a reply, made by Milton himself, to this very calumny, originally fabricated by one of his contemporaries; a calumny, which he had fo fully refuted, that it ought to have revived no more! he begins with thanking his reviler for the afperfion: "It has given me," he fays," an apt occafion to acknowledge publicly "with all grateful mind, that more than ordinary "favour and respect, which I found, above any of 66 my equals, at the hand of those courteous and "learned men, the Fellows of that College, where"in I spent fome years; who, at my parting, after "I had taken two degrees, as the manner is, figni"fied many ways how much better it would con❝tent them that I would ftay, as by many letters, "full of kindness and loving refpect, both before "that time and long after, I was affured of their ' fingular good affection towards me."-Profe Works, vol. 1, p. 15. The Latin poems of Milton are yet entitled to more of our attention because they exhibit lively proofs, that he poffeffed both tenderness and enthufiafm, thofe primary conftituents of a poet, at an early period of life, and in the highest degree: they have additional value, from making us acquainted with feveral interefting particulars of his youth, and many |