LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS: WALLER, MILTON, COWLEY

Contents: Introduction Waller Milton Cowley

INTRODUCTION. 

Samuel Johnson, born at Lichfield in the year 1709, on the 7th ofSeptember Old Style, 18th New Style, was sixty-eight years old whenhe agreed with the booksellers to write his "Lives of the EnglishPoets. " "I am engaged, " he said, "to write little Lives, and littlePrefaces, to a little edition of the English Poets. " His consciencewas also a little hurt by the fact that the bargain was made onEaster Eve. In 1777 his memorandum, set down among prayers andmeditations, was "29 March, Easter Eve, I treated with booksellerson a bargain, but the time was not long. "

The history of the book as told to Boswell by Edward Dilly, one ofthe contracting booksellers, was this. An edition of Poets printedby the Martins in Edinburgh, and sold by Bell in London, wasregarded by the London publishers as an interference with thehonorary copyright which booksellers then respected amongthemselves. They said also that it was inaccurately printed and itstype was small. A few booksellers agreed, therefore, amongthemselves to call a meeting of proprietors of honorary or actualcopyright in the various Poets. In Poets who had died before 1660they had no trade interest at all. About forty of the mostrespectable booksellers in London accepted the invitation to thismeeting. They determined to proceed immediately with an elegant anduniform edition of Poets in whose works they were interested, andthey deputed three of their number, William Strahan, Thomas Davies, and Cadell, to wait on Johnson, asking him to write the series ofprefatory Lives, and name his own terms. Johnson agreed at once, and suggested as his price two hundred guineas, when, as Malonesays, the booksellers would readily have given him a thousand. Hethen contemplated only "little Lives. " His energetic pleasure inthe work expanded his Preface beyond the limits of the first design;but when it was observed to Johnson that he was underpaid by thebooksellers, his reply was, "No, sir; it was not that they gave metoo little, but that I gave them too much. " He gave them, in fact, his masterpiece. His keen interest in Literature as the soul oflife, his sympathetic insight into human nature, enabled him to putall that was best in himself into these studies of the lives of menfor whom he cared, and of the books that he was glad to speak hismind about in his own shrewd independent way. Boswell was somewhatdisappointed at finding that the selection of the Poets in thisseries would not be Johnson's, but that he was to furnish a Prefaceand Life to any Poet the booksellers pleased. "I asked him, " writesBoswell, "if he would do this to any dunce's works, if they shouldask him. JOHNSON. "Yes, sir; and SAY he was a dunce. "

The meeting of booksellers, happy in the support of Johnson'sintellectual power, appointed also a committee to engage the bestengravers, and another committee to give directions about paper andprinting. They made out at once a list of the Poets they meant togive, "many of which, " said Dilly, "are within the time of the Actof Queen Anne, which Martin and Bell cannot give, as they have noproperty in them. The proprietors are almost all the booksellers inLondon, of consequence. "

In 1780 the booksellers published, in separate form, four volumes ofJohnson's "Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the most Eminentof the English Poets. " The completion followed in 1781. "Sometimein March, " Johnson writes in that year, "I finished the Lives of thePoets. " The series of books to which they actually served asprefaces extended to sixty volumes. When his work was done, Johnsonthen being in his seventy-second year, the booksellers added 100pounds to the price first asked. Johnson's own life was then nearits close. He died on the 13th of December, 1784, aged seventy-five. 

Of the Lives in this collection, Johnson himself liked best his Lifeof Cowley, for the thoroughness with which he had examined in it thestyle of what he called the metaphysical Poets. In his Life ofMilton, the sense of Milton's genius is not less evident than thedifference in point of view which made it difficult for Johnson toknow Milton thoroughly. They know each other now. For Johnsonsought as steadily as Milton to do all as "in his great Taskmaster'seye. "

H. M. 

WALLER. 

Edmund Waller was born on the third of March, 1605, at Coleshill, inHertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, Esquire, ofAgmondesham, in Buckinghamshire, whose family was originally abranch of the Kentish Wallers; and his mother was the daughter ofJohn Hampden, of Hampden, in the same county, and sister to Hampden, the zealot of rebellion. 

His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him a yearlyincome of three thousand five hundred pounds; which, rating togetherthe value of money and the customs of life, we may reckon more thanequivalent to ten thousand at the present time. 

He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eton; and removedafterwards to King's College, in Cambridge. He was sent toParliament in his eighteenth, if not in his sixteenth year, andfrequented the court of James the First, where he heard a veryremarkable conversation, which the writer of the Life prefixed tohis Works, who seems to have been well informed of facts, though hemay sometimes err in chronology, has delivered as indubitablycertain:

"He found Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Neale, Bishopof Durham, standing behind his Majesty's chair; and there happenedsomething extraordinary, " continues this writer, "in theconversation those prelates had with the king, on which Mr. Wallerdid often reflect. His Majesty asked the bishops, 'My Lords, cannotI take my subject's money, when I want it, without all thisformality of Parliament?' The Bishop of Durham readily answered, 'God forbid, Sir, but you should: you are the breath of ournostrils. ' Whereupon the king turned and said to the Bishop ofWinchester, 'Well, my Lord, what say you?' 'Sir, ' replied thebishop, 'I have no skill to judge of Parliamentary cases. The kinganswered, 'No put-offs, my Lord; answer me presently. ' 'Then, Sir, 'said he, 'I think it is lawful for you to take my brother Neale'smoney; for he offers it. ' Mr. Waller said the company was pleasedwith this answer, and the wit of it seemed to affect the king; for acertain lord coming in soon after, his Majesty cried out, 'Oh, mylord, they say you lig with my Lady. ' 'No, Sir, ' says his lordshipin confusion; 'but I like her company, because she has so much wit. ''Why, then, ' says the king, 'do you not lig with my Lord ofWinchester there?'"

Waller's political and poetical life began nearly together. In hiseighteenth year he wrote the poem that appears first in his works, on "The Prince's Escape at St. Andero:" a piece which justifies theobservation made by one of his editors, that he attained, by afelicity like instinct, a style which perhaps will never beobsolete; and that "were we to judge only by the wording, we couldnot know what was wrote at twenty, and what at' fourscore. " Hisversification was, in his first essay, such as it appears in hislast performance. By the perusal of Fairfax's translation of Tasso, to which, as Dryden relates, he confessed himself indebted for thesmoothness of his numbers, and by his own nicety of observation, hehad already formed such a system of metrical harmony as he neverafterwards much needed, or much endeavoured, to improve. Denhamcorrected his numbers by experience, and gained ground graduallyupon the ruggedness of his age; but what was acquired by Denham wasinherited by Waller. 

The next poem, of which the subject seems to fix the time, issupposed by Mr. Fenton to be the "Address to the Queen, " which heconsiders as congratulating her arrival, in Waller's twentieth year. He is apparently mistaken; for the mention of the nation'sobligations to her frequent pregnancy proves that it was writtenwhen she had brought many children. We have therefore no date ofany other poetical production before that which the murder of theDuke of Buckingham occasioned; the steadiness with which the kingreceived the news in the chapel deserved indeed to be rescued fromoblivion. 

Neither of these pieces that seem to carry their own dates couldhave been the sudden effusion of fancy. In the verses on theprince's escape, the prediction of his marriage with the Princess ofFrance must have been written after the event; in the other, thepromises of the king's kindness to the descendants of Buckingham, which could not be properly praised till it had appeared by itseffects, show that time was taken for revision and improvement. Itis not known that they were published till they appeared longafterwards with other poems. 

Waller was not one of those idolaters of praise who cultivate theirminds at the expense of their fortunes. Rich as he was byinheritance, he took care early to grow richer, by marrying Mrs. Banks, a great heiress in the city, whom the interest of the courtwas employed to obtain for Mr. Crofts. Having brought him a son, who died young, and a daughter, who was afterwards married to Mr. Dormer, of Oxfordshire, she died in childbed, and left him a widowerof about five-and-twenty, gay and wealthy, to please himself withanother marriage. 

Being too young to resist beauty, and probably too vain to thinkhimself resistible, he fixed his heart, perhaps half-fondly andhalf-ambitiously, upon the Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter ofthe Earl of Leicester, whom he courted by all the poetry in whichSacharissa is celebrated; the name is derived from the Latinappellation of "sugar, " and implies, if it means anything, aspiritless mildness, and dull good-nature, such as excites rathertenderness and esteem, and such as, though always treated withkindness, is never honoured or admired. 

Yet he describes Sacharissa as a sublime predominating beauty, oflofty charms, and imperious influence, on whom he looks withamazement rather than fondness, whose chains he wishes, though invain, to break, and whose presence is "wine" that "inflames tomadness. "

His acquaintance with this high-born dame gave wit no opportunity ofboasting its influence; she was not to be subdued by the powers ofverse, but rejected his addresses, it is said, with disdain, anddrove him away to solace his disappointment with Amoret or Phillis. She married in 1639 the Earl of Sunderland, who died at Newbury inthe king's cause; and, in her old age, meeting somewhere withWaller, asked him, when he would again write such verses upon her;"When you are as young, Madam, " said he, "and as handsome as youwere then. "

In this part of his life it was that he was known to Clarendon, among the rest of the men who were eminent in that age for geniusand literature; but known so little to his advantage, that they whoread his character will not much condemn Sacharissa, that she didnot descend from her rank to his embraces, nor think everyexcellence comprised in wit. 

The lady was, indeed, inexorable; but his uncommon comprised in wit, qualifications, though they had no power upon her, recommended himto the scholars and statesmen; and undoubtedly many beauties of thattime, however they might receive his love, were proud of hispraises. Who they were, whom he dignifies with poetical names, cannot now be known. Amoret, according to Mr. Fenton, was the LadySophia Murray. Perhaps by traditions preserved in families more maybe discovered. 

From the verses written at Penshurst, it has been collected that hediverted his disappointment by a voyage; and his biographers, fromhis poem on the Whales, think it not improbable that he visited theBermudas; but it seems much more likely that he should amuse himselfwith forming an imaginary scene, than that so important an incident, as a visit to America, should have been left floating in conjecturalprobability. 

From his twenty-eighth to his thirty-fifth year, he wrote his pieceson the Reduction of Sallee; on the Reparation of St. Paul's; to theKing on his Navy; the Panegyric on the Queen Mother; the two poemsto the Earl of Northumberland; and perhaps others, of which the timecannot be discovered. 

When he had lost all hopes of Sacharissa, he looked round him for aneasier conquest, and gained a lady of the family of Bresse, orBreaux. The time of his marriage is not exactly known. It has notbeen discovered that his wife was won by his poetry; nor is anythingtold of her, but that she brought him many children. He doubtlesspraised some whom he would have been afraid to marry, and perhapsmarried one whom he would have been ashamed to praise. Manyqualities contribute to domestic happiness, upon which poetry has nocolours to bestow; and many airs and sallies may delightimagination, which he who flatters them never can approve. Thereare charms made only for distant admiration. No spectacle is noblerthan a blaze. 

Of this wife, his biographers have recorded that she gave him fivesons and eight daughters. 

During the long interval of Parliament, he is represented as livingamong those with whom it was most honourable to converse, andenjoying an exuberant fortune with that independence and liberty ofspeech and conduct which wealth ought always to produce. He was, however, considered as the kinsman of Hampden, and was thereforesupposed by the courtiers not to favour them. 

When the Parliament was called in 1640, it appeared that Waller'spolitical character had not been mistaken. The king's demand of asupply produced one of those noisy speeches which disaffection anddiscontent regularly dictate; a speech filled with hyperbolicalcomplaints of imaginary grievances: "They, " says he, "who thinkthemselves already undone, can never apprehend themselves in danger;and they who have nothing left can never give freely. " Politicaltruth is equally in danger from the praises of courtiers, and theexclamations of patriots. 

He then proceeds to rail at the clergy, being sure at that time of afavourable audience. His topic is such as will always serve itspurpose; an accusation of acting and preaching only for preferment:and he exhorts the Commons "carefully" to "provide" for their"protection against Pulpit Law. "

It always gratifies curiosity to trace a sentiment. Waller has inhis speech quoted Hooker in one passage; and in another has copiedhim, without quoting. "Religion, " says Waller, "ought to be thefirst thing in our purpose and desires; but that which is first indignity is not always to precede in order of time; for well-beingsupposes a being; and the first impediment which men naturallyendeavour to remove, is the want of those things without which theycannot subsist. God first assigned unto Adam maintenance of life, and gave him a title to the rest of the creatures before heappointed a law to observe. "

"God first assigned Adam, " says Hooker, "maintenance of life, andthen appointed him a law to observe. True it is, that the kingdomof God must be the first thing in our purpose and desires; butinasmuch as a righteous life presupposeth life, inasmuch as to livevirtuously it is impossible, except we live; therefore the firstimpediment which naturally we endeavour to remove is penury, andwant of things without which we cannot live. "

The speech is vehement; but the great position, that grievancesought to be redressed before supplies are granted, is agreeableenough to law and reason: nor was Waller, if his biographer may becredited, such an enemy to the king, as not to wish his distresseslightened; for he relates, "that the king sent particularly toWaller, to second his demand of some subsidies to pay off the army, and Sir Henry Vane objecting against first voting a supply, becausethe king would not accept unless it came up to his proportion, Mr. Waller spoke earnestly to Sir Thomas Jermyn, comptroller of thehousehold, to save his master from the effects of so bold a falsity;'for, ' he said, 'I am but a country gentleman, and cannot pretend toknow the king's mind:' but Sir Thomas durst not contradict thesecretary; and his son, the Earl of St. Albans, afterwards told Mr. Waller, that his father's cowardice ruined the king. "

In the Long Parliament, which, unhappily for the nation, met Nov. 3, 1640, Waller represented Agmondesham the third time; and wasconsidered by the discontented party as a man sufficiently trustyand acrimonious to be employed in managing the prosecution of JudgeCrawley, for his opinion in favour of ship-money; and his speechshows that he did not disappoint their expectations. He wasprobably the more ardent, as his uncle Hampden had been particularlyengaged in the dispute, and, by a sentence which seems generally tobe thought unconstitutional, particularly injured. 

He was not, however, a bigot to his party, nor adopted all theiropinions. When the great question, whether Episcopacy ought to beabolished, was debated, he spoke against the innovation so coolly, so reasonably, and so firmly, that it is not without great injury tohis name that his speech, which was as follows, has been hithertoomitted in his works:

"There is no doubt but the sense of what this nation had sufferedfrom the present bishops hath produced these complaints; and theapprehensions men have of suffering the like, in time to come, makeso many desire the taking away of Episcopacy: but I conceive it ispossible that we may not, now, take a right measure of the minds ofthe people by their petitions; for, when they subscribed them, thebishops were armed with a dangerous commission of making new canons, imposing new oaths, and the like; but now we have disarmed them ofthat power. These petitioners lately did look upon Episcopacy as abeast armed with horns and claws; but now that we have cut and paredthem (and may, if we see cause, yet reduce it into narrower bounds), it may, perhaps, be more agreeable. Howsoever, if they be still inpassion, it becomes us soberly to consider the right use andantiquity thereof; and not to comply further with a general desire, than may stand with a general good. 

"We have already showed that Episcopacy and the evils thereof aremingled like water and oil; we have also, in part, severed them; butI believe you will find, that our laws and the present government ofthe Church are mingled like wine and water; so inseparable, that theabrogation of, at least, a hundred of our laws is desired in thesepetitions. I have often heard a noble answer of the Lords, commended in this House, to a proposition of like nature, but ofless consequence; they gave no other reason of their refusal butthis, 'Nolumus mutare Leges Angliae:' it was the bishops who soanswered them; and it would become the dignity and wisdom of thisHouse to answer the people, now, with a 'Nolumus mutare. '

"I see some are moved with a number of hands against the bishops;which, I confess, rather inclines me to their defence; for I lookupon Episcopacy as a counterscarp, or outwork; which, if it be takenby this assault of the people, and, withal, this mystery oncerevealed, 'that we must deny them nothing when they ask it thus introops, ' we may, in the next place, have as hard a task to defendour property, as we have lately had to recover it from thePrerogative. If, by multiplying hands and petitions, they prevailfor an equality in things ecclesiastical, the next demand perhapsmay be Lex Agraria, the like equality in things temporal. 

"The Roman story tells us, that when the people began to flock aboutthe Senate, and were more curious to direct and know what was done, than to obey, that Commonwealth soon came to ruin; their Legemregare grew quickly to be a Legem ferre: and after, when theirlegions had found that they could make a Dictator, they neversuffered the Senate to have a voice any more in such election. 

"If these great innovations proceed, I shall expect a flat and levelin learning too, as well as in Church preferments: Hones alitArtes. And though it be true, that grave and pious men do study forlearning-sake, and embrace virtue for itself; yet it is true, thatyouth, which is the season when learning is gotten, is not withoutambition; nor will ever take pains to excel in anything, when thereis not some hope of excelling others in reward and dignity. 

"There are two reasons chiefly alleged against our Churchgovernment. 

"First, Scripture, which, as some men think, points out anotherform. 

"Second, the abuses of the present superiors. 

"For Scripture, I will not dispute it in this place; but I amconfident that, whenever an equal division of lands and goods shallbe desired, there will be as many places in Scripture found out, which seem to favour that, as there are now alleged against theprelacy or preferment of the Church. And, as for abuses, when youare now in the remonstrance told what this and that poor man hathsuffered by the bishops, you may be presented with a thousandinstances of poor men that have received hard measure from theirlandlords; and of worldly goods abused, to the injury of others, anddisadvantage of the owners. 

"And therefore, Mr. Speaker, my humble motion is that we may settlemen's minds herein; and by a question, declare our resolution, 'toreform, ' that is, 'not to abolish, Episcopacy. '"

It cannot but be wished that he, who could speak in this manner, hadbeen able to act with spirit and uniformity. 

When the Commons begun to set the royal authority at open defiance, Waller is said to have withdrawn from the House, and to havereturned with the king's permission; and, when the king set up hisstandard, he sent him a thousand broad-pieces. He continued, however, to sit in the rebellious conventicle; but "spoke, " saysClarendon, "with great sharpness and freedom, which, now there wasno danger of being out-voted, was not restrained; and therefore usedas an argument against those who were gone upon pretence that theywere not suffered to deliver their opinion freely in the House, which could not be believed, when all men knew what liberty Mr. Waller took, and spoke every day with impunity against the sense andproceedings of the House. "

Waller, as he continued to sit, was one of the commissionersnominated by the Parliament to treat with the king at Oxford; andwhen they were presented, the king said to him, "Though you are thelast, you are not the lowest nor the least in my favour. "Whitelock, who, being another of the commissioners, was witness ofthis kindness, imputes it to the king's knowledge of the plot, inwhich Waller appeared afterwards to have been engaged against theParliament. Fenton, with equal probability, believes that hisattempt to promote the royal cause arose from his sensibility of theking's tenderness. Whitelock says nothing of his behaviour atOxford: he was sent with several others to add pomp to thecommission, but was not one of those to whom the trust of treatingwas imparted. 

The engagement, known by the name of Waller's plot, was soonafterwards discovered. Waller had a brother-in-law, Tomkyns, whowas clerk of the queen's council, and at the same time had a verynumerous acquaintance, and great influence, in the city. Waller andhe, conversing with great confidence, told both their own secretsand those of their friends; and, surveying the wide extent of theirconversation, imagined that they found in the majority of all ranksgreat disapprobation of the violence of the Commons, andunwillingness to continue the war. They knew that many favoured theking, whose fear concealed their loyalty; and many desired peace, though they durst not oppose the clamour for war; and they imaginedthat, if those who had these good intentions should be informed oftheir own strength, and enabled by intelligence to act together, they might overpower the fury of sedition, by refusing to complywith the ordinance for the twentieth part, and the other taxeslevied for the support of the rebel army, and by uniting greatnumbers in a petition for peace. They proceeded with great caution. Three only met in one place, and no man was allowed to impart theplot to more than two others; so that, if any should be suspected orseized, more than three could not be endangered. 

Lord Conway joined in the design, and, Clarendon imagines, incidentally mingled, as he was a soldier, some martial hopes orprojects, which however were only mentioned, the main design beingto bring the loyal inhabitants to the knowledge of each other; forwhich purpose there was to be appointed one in every district, todistinguish the friends of the king, the adherents to theParliament, and the neutrals. How far they proceeded does notappear; the result of their inquiry, as Pym declared, was, thatwithin the walls, for one that was for the Royalists, there werethree against them; but that without the walls, for one that wasagainst them, there were five for them. Whether this was said fromknowledge or guess, was perhaps never inquired. 

It is the opinion of Clarendon, that in Waller's plan no violence orsanguinary resistance was comprised; that he intended only to abatethe confidence of the rebels by public declarations, and to weakentheir powers by an opposition to new supplies. This, in calmertimes, and more than this, is done without fear; but such was theacrimony of the Commons, that no method of obstructing them wassafe. 

About this time another design was formed by Sir Nicholas Crispe, aman of loyalty, that deserves perpetual remembrance; when he was amerchant in the city, he gave and procured the king, in hisexigencies, a hundred thousand pounds; and, when he was driven fromthe Exchange, raised a regiment, and commanded it. 

Sir Nicholas flattered himself with an opinion, that someprovocation would so much exasperate, or some opportunity so muchencourage, the king's friends in the city, that they would break outin open resistance, and would then want only a lawful standard, andan authorised commander; and extorted from the king, whose judgmenttoo frequently yielded to importunity, a commission of array, directed to such as he thought proper to nominate, which was sent toLondon by the Lady Aubigny. She knew not what she carried, but wasto deliver it on the communication of a certain token which SirNicholas imparted. 

This commission could be only intended to lie ready till the timeshould require it. To have attempted to raise any forces would havebeen certain destruction; it could be of use only when the forcesshould appear. This was, however, an act preparatory to martialhostility. 

Crispe would undoubtedly have put an end to the session ofParliament, had his strength been equal to his zeal; and out of thedesign of Crispe, which involved very little danger, and that ofWaller, which was an act purely civil, they compounded a horrid anddreadful plot. 

The discovery of Waller's design is variously related. 

In "Clarendon's History" it is told, that a servant of Tomkyns, lurking behind the hangings when his master was in conference withWaller, heard enough to qualify him for an informer, and carried hisintelligence to Pym. 

A manuscript, quoted in the "Life of Waller, " relates, that "he wasbetrayed by his sister Price, and her Presbyterian chaplain Mr. Goode, who stole some of his papers; and if he had not strangelydreamed the night before, that his sister had betrayed him, andthereupon burnt the rest of his papers by the fire that was in hischimney, he had certainly lost his life by it. " The question cannotbe decided. It is not unreasonable to believe that the men inpower, receiving intelligence from the sister, would employ theservant of Tomkyns to listen at the conference, that they mightavoid an act so offensive as that of destroying the brother by thesister's testimony. 

The plot was published in the most terrific manner. 

On the 31st of May (1643), at a solemn fast, when they werelistening to the sermon, a messenger entered the church, andcommunicated his errand to Pym, who whispered it to others that wereplaced near him, and then went with them out of the church, leavingthe rest in solicitude and amazement. They immediately sent guardsto proper places, and that night apprehended Tomkyns and Waller;having yet traced nothing but that letters had been intercepted, from which it appears that the Parliament and the city were soon tobe delivered into the hands of the cavaliers. 

They perhaps yet knew little themselves, beyond some general andindistinct notices. "But Waller, " says Clarendon, "was soconfounded with fear, that he confessed whatever he had heard, said, thought, or seen; all that he knew of himself, and all that hesuspected of others, without concealing any person of what degree orquality soever, or any discourse which he had ever upon any occasionentertained with them; what such and such ladies of great honour, towhom, upon the credit of his wit and great reputation, he had beenadmitted, had spoken to him in their chambers upon the proceedingsin the Houses, and how they had encouraged him to oppose them; whatcorrespondence and intercourse they had with some Ministers of Stateat Oxford, and how they had conveyed all intelligence thither. " Heaccused the Earl of Portland and Lord Conway as co-operating in thetransaction; and testified that the Earl of Northumberland haddeclared himself disposed in favour of any attempt that might checkthe violence of the Parliament, and reconcile them to the king. 

He undoubtedly confessed much which they could never havediscovered, and perhaps somewhat which they would wish to have beensuppressed; for it is inconvenient in the conflict of factions, tohave that disaffection known which cannot safely be punished. 

Tomkyns was seized on the same night with Waller, and appearslikewise to have partaken of his cowardice; for he gave notice ofCrispe's commission of array, of which Clarendon never knew how itwas discovered. Tomkyns had been sent with the token appointed, todemand it from Lady Aubigny, and had buried it in his garden, where, by his direction, it was dug up; and thus the rebels obtained, whatClarendon confesses them to have had, the original copy. 

It can raise no wonder that they formed one plot out of these twodesigns, however remote from each other, when they saw the sameagent employed in both, and found the commission of array in thehands of him who was employed in collecting the opinions andaffections of the people. 

Of the plot, thus combined, they took care to make the most. Theysent Pym among the citizens, to tell them of their imminent dangerand happy escape; and inform them, that the design was, "to seizethe Lord Mayor and all the Committee of Militia, and would not spareone of them. " They drew up a vow and covenant, to be taken by everymember of either House, by which he declared his detestation of allconspiracies against the Parliament, and his resolution to detectand oppose them. They then appointed a day of thanksgiving for thiswonderful delivery; which shut out, says Clarendon, all doubtswhether there had been such a deliverance, and whether the plot wasreal or fictitious. 

On June 11, the Earl of Portland and Lord Conway were committed, oneto the custody of the mayor, and the other of the sheriff; but theirlands and goods were not seized. 

Waller was still to immerse himself deeper in ignominy. The Earl ofPortland and Lord Conway denied the charge; and there was noevidence against them but the confession of Waller, of whichundoubtedly many would be inclined to question the veracity. Withthese doubts he was so much terrified, that he endeavoured topersuade Portland to a declaration like his own, by a letter extantin Fenton's edition. "But for me, " says he, "you had never knownanything of this business, which was prepared for another; andtherefore I cannot imagine why you should hide it so far as tocontract your own ruin by concealing it, and persisting unreasonablyto hide that truth, which, without you, already is, and will everyday be made more manifest. Can you imagine yourself bound in honourto keep that secret, which is already revealed by another? orpossible it should still be a secret, which is known to one of theother sex?--If you persist to be cruel to yourself for their sakeswho deserve it not, it will nevertheless be made appear, ere long, Ifear, to your ruin. Surely, if I had the happiness to wait on you, I could move you to compassionate both yourself and me, who, desperate as my case is, am desirous to die with the honour of beingknown to have declared the truth. You have no reason to contend tohide what is already revealed--inconsiderately to throw awayyourself, for the interest of others, to whom you are less obligedthan you are aware of. "

This persuasion seems to have had little effect. Portland sent(June 29) a letter to the Lords, to tell them that he "is incustody, as he conceives, without any charge; and that, by what Mr. Waller hath threatened him with since he was imprisoned, he dothapprehend a very cruel, long, and ruinous restraint:- He thereforeprays, that he may not find the effects of Mr. Waller's threats, along and close imprisonment; but may be speedily brought to a legaltrial, and then he is confident the vanity and falsehood of thoseinformations which have been given against him will appear. "

In consequence of this letter, the Lords ordered Portland and Wallerto be confronted; when the one repeated his charge, and the otherhis denial. The examination of the plot being continued (July 1), Thinn, usher of the House of Lords, deposed, that Mr. Waller havinghad a conference with the Lord Portland in an upper room, LordPortland said, when he came down, "Do me the favour to tell my LordNorthumberland, that Mr. Waller has extremely pressed me to save myown life and his, by throwing the blame upon the Lord Conway and theEarl of Northumberland. "

Waller, in his letter to Portland, tells him of the reasons which hecould urge with resistless efficacy in a personal conference; but heoverrated his own oratory; his vehemence, whether of persuasion orentreaty, was returned with contempt. 

One of his arguments with Portland is, that the plot is alreadyknown to a woman. This woman was doubtless Lady Aubigny, who, uponthis occasion, was committed to custody; but who, in reality, whenshe delivered the commission, knew not what it was. 

The Parliament then proceeded against the conspirators, andcommitted their trial to a council of war. Tomkyns and Chalonerwere hanged near their own doors. Tomkyns, when he came to die, said it was a "foolish business;" and indeed there seems to havebeen no hope that it should escape discovery; for, though never morethan three met at a time, yet a design so extensive must bynecessity be communicated to many who could not be expected to beall faithful and all prudent. Chaloner was attended at hisexecution by Hugh Peters. His crime was, that he had commission toraise money for the king; but it appears not that the money was tobe expended upon the advancement of either Crispe's or Waller'splot. 

The Earl of Northumberland, being too great for prosecution, wasonly once examined before the Lords. The Earl of Portland and LordConway persisting to deny the charge, and no testimony but Waller'syet appearing against them, were, after a long imprisonment, admitted to bail. Hassel, the king's messenger, who carried theletters to Oxford, died the night before his trial. Hampden[Alexander] escaped death, perhaps by the interest of his family;but was kept in prison to the end of his life. They whose nameswere inserted in the commission of array were not capitallypunished, as it could not be proved that they had consented to theirown nomination; but they were considered as malignants, and theirestates were seized. 

"Waller, though confessedly, " says Clarendon, "the most guilty, withincredible dissimulation affected such a remorse of conscience, thathis trial was put off, out of Christian compassion, till he mightrecover his understanding. " What use he made of this interval, withwhat liberality and success he distributed flattery and money, andhow, when he was brought (July 4) before the House, he confessed andlamented, and submitted and implored, may be read in the "History ofthe Rebellion" (B. Vii. ). The speech, to which Clarendon ascribesthe preservation of his "dear-bought life, " is inserted in hisworks. The great historian, however, seems to have been mistaken inrelating that "he prevailed" in the principal part of hissupplication, "not to be tried by a council of war;" for, accordingto Whitelock, he was by expulsion from the House abandoned to thetribunal which he so much dreaded, and, being tried and condemned, was reprieved by Essex; but after a year's imprisonment, in whichtime resentment grew less acrimonious, paying a fine of ten thousandpounds, he was permitted to "recollect himself in another country. "

Of his behaviour in this part of life, it is not necessary to directthe reader's opinion. "Let us not, " says his last ingeniousbiographer, "condemn him with untempered severity, because he wasnot a prodigy which the world hath seldom seen, because hischaracter included not the poet, the orator, and the hero. "

For the place of his exile he chose France, and stayed some time atRoan, where his daughter Margaret was born, who was afterwards hisfavourite, and his amanuensis. He then removed to Paris, where helived with great splendour and hospitality; and from time to timeamused himself with poetry, in which he sometimes speaks of therebels, and their usurpation, in the natural language of an honestman. 

At last it became necessary, for his support, to sell his wife'sjewels; and being reduced, as he said, at last "to the rump-jewel, "he solicited from Cromwell permission to return, and obtained it bythe interest of Colonel Scroop, to whom his sister was married. Upon the remains of a fortune, which the danger of his life had verymuch diminished, he lived at Hallbarn, a house built by himself verynear to Beaconsfield, where his mother resided. His mother, thoughrelated to Cromwell and Hampden, was zealous for the royal cause, and, when Cromwell visited her, used to reproach him; he, in return, would throw a napkin at her, and say he would not dispute with hisaunt; but finding in time that she acted for the king, as well astalked, he made her a prisoner to her own daughter, in her ownhouse. If he would do anything, he could not do less. 

Cromwell, now Protector, received Waller, as his kinsman, tofamiliar conversation. Waller, as he used to relate, found himsufficiently versed in ancient history; and, when any of hisenthusiastic friends came to advise or consult him, could sometimesoverhear him discoursing in the cant of the times: but, when hereturned, he would say, "Cousin Waller, I must talk to these men intheir own way;" and resumed the common style of conversation. 

He repaid the Protector for his favours (1654) by the famousPanegyric, which has been always considered as the first of hispoetical productions. His choice of encomiastic topics is veryjudicious; for he considers Cromwell in his exaltation, withoutinquiring how he attained it; there is consequently no mention ofthe rebel or the regicide. All the former part of his hero's lifeis veiled with shades; and nothing is brought to view but the chief, the governor, the defender of England's honour, and the enlarger ofher dominion. The act of violence by which he obtained the supremepower is lightly treated, and decently justified. It was certainlyto be desired that the detestable band should be dissolved, whichhad destroyed the Church, murdered the king, and filled the nationwith tumult and oppression; yet Cromwell had not the right ofdissolving them, for all that he had before done could be justifiedonly by supposing them invested with lawful authority. Butcombinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world by theadvantage which licentious principles afford, did not those, whohave long practised perfidy, grow faithless to each other. 

In the poem on the War with Spain are some passages at least equalto the best parts of the Panegyric; and, in the conclusion, the poetventures yet a higher flight of flattery, by recommending royalty toCromwell and the nation. Cromwell was very desirous, as appearsfrom his conversation, related by Whitelock, of adding the title tothe power of monarchy, and is supposed to have been withheld from itpartly by fear of the army, and partly by fear of the laws, which, when he should govern by the name of king, would have restrained hisauthority. When, therefore, a deputation was solemnly sent toinvite him to the crown, he, after a long conference, refused it, but is said to have fainted in his coach when he parted from them. 

The poem on the death of the Protector seems to have been dictatedby real veneration for his memory. Dryden and Sprat wrote on thesame occasion; but they were young men, struggling into notice, andhoping for some favour from the ruling party. Waller had little toexpect; he had received nothing but his pardon from Cromwell, andwas not likely to ask anything from those who should succeed him. 

Soon afterwards, the Restoration supplied him with another subject;and he exerted his imagination, his elegance, and his melody, withequal alacrity, for Charles the Second. It is not possible to read, without some contempt and indignation, poems of the same author, ascribing the highest degree of "power and piety" to Charles theFirst, then transferring the same "power and piety" to OliverCromwell; now inviting Oliver to take the Crown, and thencongratulating Charles the Second on his recovered right. NeitherCromwell nor Charles could value his testimony as the effect ofconviction, or receive his praises as effusions of reverence; theycould consider them but as the labour of invention, and the tributeof dependence. 

Poets, indeed, profess fiction; but the legitimate end of fiction isthe conveyance of truth, and he that has flattery ready for all whomthe vicissitudes of the world happen to exalt must be scorned as aprostituted mind, that may retain the glitter of wit, but has lostthe dignity of virtue. 

The Congratulation was considered as inferior in poetical merit tothe Panegyric; and it is reported that, when the king told Waller ofthe disparity, he answered, "Poets, Sir, succeed better in fictionthan in truth. "

The Congratulation is indeed not inferior to the Panegyric, eitherby decay of genius, or for want of diligence, but because Cromwellhad done much and Charles had done little. Cromwell wanted nothingto raise him to heroic excellence but virtue, and virtue his poetthought himself at liberty to supply. Charles had yet only themerit of struggling without success, and suffering without despair. A life of escapes and indigence could supply poetry with no splendidimages. 

In the first Parliament summoned by Charles the Second (March 8, 1661), Waller sat for Hastings, in Sussex, and served for differentplaces in all the Parliaments of that reign. In a time when fancyand gaiety were the most powerful recommendations to regard, it isnot likely that Waller was forgotten. He passed his time in thecompany that was highest, both in rank and wit, from which even hisobstinate sobriety did not exclude him. Though he drank water, hewas enabled by his fertility of mind to heighten the mirth ofBacchanalian assemblies; and Mr. Saville said, that "no man inEngland should keep him company without drinking but Ned Waller. "

The praise given him by St. Evremond is a proof of his reputation;for it was only by his reputation that he could be known, as awriter, to a man who, though he lived a great part of a long lifeupon an English pension, never consented to understand the languageof the nation that maintained him. 

In Parliament, "he was, " says Burnet, "the delight of the House, andthough old, said the liveliest things of any among them. " This, however, is said in his account of the year seventy-five, whenWaller was only seventy. His name as a speaker occurs often inGrey's Collections, but I have found no extracts that can be morequoted as exhibiting sallies of gaiety than cogency of argument. 

He was of such consideration, that his remarks were circulated andrecorded. When the Duke of York's influence was high, both inScotland and England, it drew, says Burnet, a lively reflection fromWaller, the celebrated wit. He said, "The House of Commons hadresolved that the duke should not reign after the king's death: butthe king, in opposition to them, had resolved that he should reigneven in his life. " If there appear no extraordinary "liveliness" inthis "remark, " yet its reception proves its speaker to have been a"celebrated wit, " to have had a name which men of wit were proud ofmentioning. 

He did not suffer his reputation to die gradually away, which mayeasily happen in a long life, but renewed his claim to poeticaldistinction from time to time, as occasions were offered, either bypublic events or private incidents; and, contenting himself with theinfluence of his Muse, or loving quiet better than influence, henever accepted any office of magistracy. 

He was not, however, without some attention to his fortune, for heasked from the king (in 1665) the provostship of Eton College, andobtained it; but Clarendon refused to put the seal to the grant, alleging that it could be held only by a clergyman. It is knownthat Sir Henry Wotton qualified himself for it by deacon's orders. 

To this opposition, the Biographia imputes the violence and acrimonywith which Waller joined Buckingham's faction in the prosecution ofClarendon. The motive was illiberal and dishonest, and showed thatmore than sixty years had not been able to teach him morality. Hisaccusation is such as conscience can hardly be supposed to dictatewithout the help of malice. "We were to be governed by Janizariesinstead of Parliaments, and are in danger from a worse plot thanthat of the fifth of November; then, if the Lords and Commons hadbeen destroyed, there had been a succession; but here both had beendestroyed for ever. " This is the language of a man who is glad ofan opportunity to rail, and ready to sacrifice truth to interest atone time, and to anger at another. 

A year after the chancellor's banishment, another vacancy gave himencouragement for another petition, which the king referred to theCouncil, who, after hearing the question argued by lawyers for threedays, determined that the office could be held only by a clergyman, according to the Act of Uniformity, since the provosts had alwaysreceived institution as for a parsonage from the Bishops of Lincoln. The king then said he could not break the law which he had made; andDr. Zachary Cradock, famous for a single sermon, at most for twosermons, was chosen by the Fellows. 

That he asked anything else is not known; it is certain that heobtained nothing, though he continued obsequious to the courtthrough the rest of Charles's reign. 

At the accession of King James (in 1685) he was chosen forParliament, being then fourscore, at Saltash, in Cornwall; and wrotea Presage of the Downfall of the Turkish Empire, which he presentedto the king on his birthday. It is remarked, by his commentatorFenton, that in reading Tasso he had early imbibed a veneration forthe heroes of the Holy War, and a zealous enmity to the Turks, whichnever left him. James, however, having soon after begun what hethought a holy war at home, made haste to put all molestation of theTurks out of his power. 

James treated him with kindness and familiarity, of which instancesare given by the writer of his life. One day, taking him into thecloset, the king asked him how he liked one of the pictures: "Myeyes, " said Waller, "are dim, and I do not know it. " The king saidit was the Princess of Orange. "She is, " said Waller, "like thegreatest woman in the world. " The king asked who was that; and wasanswered, Queen Elizabeth. "I wonder, " said the king, "you shouldthink so; but I must confess she had a wise council. " "And, Sir, "said Waller, "did you ever know a fool choose a wise one?" Such isthe story, which I once heard of some other man. Pointed axioms, and acute replies, fly loose about the world, and are assignedsuccessively to those whom it may be the fashion to celebrate. 

When the king knew that he was about to marry his daughter to Dr. Birch, a clergyman, he ordered a French gentleman to tell him that"the king wondered he could think of marrying his daughter to afalling church. " "The king, " said Waller, "does me great honour intaking notice of my domestic affairs; but I have lived long enoughto observe that this falling church has got a trick of risingagain. "

He took notice to his friends of the king's conduct; and said that"he would be left like a whale upon the strand. " Whether he wasprivy to any of the transactions that ended in the revolution is notknown. His heir joined the Prince of Orange. 

Having now attained an age beyond which the laws of nature seldomsuffer life to be extended, otherwise than by a future state, heseems to have turned his mind upon preparation for the decisivehour, and therefore consecrated his poetry to devotion. It ispleasing to discover that his piety was without weakness; that hisintellectual powers continued vigorous; and that the lines which hecomposed when "he, for age, could neither read nor write, " are notinferior to the effusions of his youth. 

Towards the decline of life he bought a small house, with a littleland, at Coleshill; and said "he should be glad to die, like thestag, where he was roused. " This, however, did not happen. When hewas at Beaconsfield, he found his legs grow tumid: he went toWindsor, where Sir Charles Scarborough then attended the king, andrequested him, as both a friend and physician, to tell him "whatthat swelling meant. " "Sir, " answered Scarborough, "your blood willrun no longer. " Waller repeated some lines of Virgil, and went hometo die. 

As the disease increased upon him, he composed himself for hisdeparture; and calling upon Dr. Birch to give him the holysacrament, he desired his children to take it with him, and made anearnest declaration of his faith in Christianity. It now appearedwhat part of his conversation with the great could be rememberedwith delight. He related, that being present when the Duke ofBuckingham talked profanely before King Charles, he said to him, "Mylord, I am a great deal older than your grace and have, I believe, heard more arguments for atheism than ever your grace did; but Ihave lived long enough to see there is nothing in them; and so, Ihope, your grace will. "

He died October 21, 1687, and was buried at Beaconsfield, with amonument erected by his son's executors, for which Rymer wrote theinscription, and which I hope is now rescued from dilapidation. 

He left several children by his second wife, of whom his daughterwas married to Dr. Birch. Benjamin, the eldest son, wasdisinherited, and sent to New Jersey as wanting commonunderstanding. Edmund, the second son, inherited the estate, andrepresented Agmondesham in parliament, but at last turned quaker. William, the third son, was a merchant in London. Stephen, thefourth, was an eminent doctor of laws, and one of the commissionersfor the union. There is said to have been a fifth, of whom noaccount has descended. 

The character of Waller, both moral and intellectual, has been drawnby Clarendon, to whom he was familiarly known, with nicety, whichcertainly none to whom he was not known can presume to emulate. Itis therefore inserted here, with such remarks as others havesupplied; after which, nothing remains but a critical examination ofhis poetry. 

"Edmund Waller, " says Clarendon, "was born to a very fair estate, bythe parsimony, or frugality, of a wise father and mother; and hethought it so commendable an advantage, that he resolved to improveit with his utmost care, upon which in his nature he was too muchintent; and in order to that, he was so much reserved and retired, that he was scarcely ever heard of, till by his address anddexterity he had gotten a very rich wife in the city, against allthe recommendation and countenance and authority of the court, whichwas thoroughly engaged on the behalf of Mr. Crofts, and which usedto be successful, in that age, against any opposition. He had thegood fortune to have an alliance and friendship with Dr. Morley, whohad assisted and instructed him in the reading many good books, towhich his natural parts and promptitude inclined him, especially thepoets; and at the age when other men used to give over writingverses (for he was near thirty years when he first engaged himselfin that exercise, at least that he was known to do so), he surprisedthe town with two or three pieces of that kind; as if a tenth Musehad been newly born to cherish drooping poetry. The doctor at thattime brought him into that company which was most celebrated forgood conversation, where he was received and esteemed with greatapplause and respect. He was a very pleasant discourser in earnestand in jest, and therefore very grateful to all kind of company, where he was not the less esteemed for being very rich. 

He had been even nursed in parliaments, where he sat when he wasvery young; and so, when they were resumed again (after a longintermission) he appeared in those assemblies with great advantage;having a graceful way of speaking, and by thinking much on severalarguments (which his temper and complexion, that had much ofmelancholic, inclined him to), he seemed often to speak upon thesudden, when the occasion had only administered the opportunity ofsaying what he had thoroughly considered, which gave a great lustreto all he said; which yet was rather of delight than weight. Thereneeds no more be said to extol the excellence and power of his wit, and pleasantness of his conversation, than that it was of magnitudeenough to cover a world of very great faults; that is, so to coverthem, that they were not taken notice of to his reproach, viz. , anarrowness in his nature to the lowest degree; an abjectness andwant of courage to support him in any virtuous undertaking; aninsinuation and servile flattery to the height, the vainest and mostimperious nature could be contented with; that it preserved and wonhis life from those who most resolved to take it, and in an occasionin which he ought to have been ambitious to have lost it; and thenpreserved him again from the reproach and the contempt that was dueto him for so preserving it, and for vindicating it at such a pricethat it had power to reconcile him to those whom he had mostoffended and provoked; and continued to his age with that rarefelicity, that his company was acceptable where his spirit wasodious; and he was at least pitied where he was most detested. "

Such is the account of Clarendon; on which it may not be improper tomake some remarks. 

"He was very little known till he had obtained a rich wife in thecity. "

He obtained a rich wife about the age of three-and-twenty; an age, before which few men are conspicuous much to their advantage. Hewas now, however, in parliament and at court; and, if he spent partof his time in privacy, it is not unreasonable to suppose that heendeavoured the improvement of his mind as well as his fortune. 

That Clarendon might misjudge the motive of his retirement is themore probable, because he has evidently mistaken the commencement ofhis poetry, which he supposes him not to have attempted beforethirty. As his first pieces were perhaps not printed, thesuccession of his compositions was not known; and Clarendon, whocannot be imagined to have been very studious of poetry, did notrectify his first opinion by consulting Waller's book. 

Clarendon observes, that he was introduced to the wits of the age byDr. Morley; but the writer of his life relates that he was alreadyamong them, when, hearing a noise in the street, and inquiring thecause, they found a son of Ben Jonson under an arrest. This wasMorley, whom Waller set free at the expense of one hundred pounds, took him into the country as director of his studies, and thenprocured him admission into the company of the friends ofliterature. Of this fact Clarendon had a nearer knowledge than thebiographer, and is therefore more to be credited. 

The account of Waller's parliamentary eloquence is seconded byBurnet, who, though he calls him "the delight of the House, " adds, that "he was only concerned to say that which should make him beapplauded, he never laid the business of the House to heart, being avain and empty, though a witty man. "

Of his insinuation and flattery it is not unreasonable to believethat the truth is told. Ascham, in his elegant description of thosewhom in modern language we term wits, says, that they are "openflatterers, and private mockers. " Waller showed a little of both, when, upon sight of the Duchess of Newcastle's verses on the Deathof a Stag, he declared that he would give all his own compositionsto have written them, and being charged with the exorbitance of hisadulation, answered, that "nothing was too much to be given, that alady might be saved from the disgrace of such a vile performance. "This, however, was no very mischievous or very unusual deviationfrom truth; had his hypocrisy been confined to such transactions, hemight have been forgiven, though not praised: for who forbears toflatter an author or a lady?

Of the laxity of his political principles, and the weakness of hisresolution, he experienced the natural effect, by losing the esteemof every party. From Cromwell he had only his recall; and fromCharles the Second, who delighted in his company, he obtained onlythe pardon of his relation Hampden, and the safety of Hampden's son. 

As far as conjecture can be made from the whole of his writing, andhis conduct, he was habitually and deliberately a friend tomonarchy. His deviation towards democracy proceeded from hisconnexion with Hampden, for whose sake he prosecuted Crawley withgreat bitterness; and the invective which he pronounced on thatoccasion was so popular, that twenty thousand copies are said by hisbiographer to have been sold in one day. 

It is confessed that his faults still left him many friends, atleast many companions. His convivial power of pleasing isuniversally acknowledged; but those who conversed with himintimately, found him not only passionate, especially in his oldage, but resentful; so that the interposition of friends wassometimes necessary. 

His wit and his poetry naturally connected him with the politewriters of his time: he was joined with Lord Buckhurst in thetranslation of Corneille's Pompey; and is said to have added hishelp to that of Cowley in the original draft of the Rehearsal. 

The care of his fortune, which Clarendon imputes to him in a degreelittle less than criminal, was either not constant or notsuccessful; for having inherited a patrimony of three thousand fivehundred pounds a year in the time of James the First, and augmentedat least by one wealthy marriage, he left, about the time of theRevolution, an income of not more than twelve or thirteen hundred;which, when the different value of money is reckoned, will be foundperhaps not more than a fourth part of what he once possessed. 

Of this diminution, part was the consequence of the gifts which hewas forced to scatter, and the fine which he was condemned to pay atthe detection of his plot; and if his estate, as is related in hislife, was sequestered, he had probably contracted debts when helived in exile; for we are told, that at Paris he lived insplendour, and was the only Englishman, except the Lord St. Albans, that kept a table. 

His unlucky plot compelled him to sell a thousand a year; of thewaste of the rest there is no account, except that he is confessedby his biographer to have been a bad economist. He seems to havedeviated from the common practice; to have been a hoarder in hisfirst years, and a squanderer in his last. 

Of his course of studies, or choice of books, nothing is known morethan that he professed himself unable to read Chapman's translationof Homer without rapture. His opinion concerning the duty of a poetis contained in his declaration, that "he would blot from his worksany line that did not contain some motive to virtue. "

The characters by which Waller intended to distinguish his writingare sprightliness and dignity; in his smallest pieces, he endeavoursto be gay; in the larger to be great. Of his airy and lightproductions, the chief source is gallantry, that attentive reverenceof female excellence which has descended to us from the Gothic ages. As his poems are commonly occasional, and his addresses personal, hewas not so liberally supplied with grand as with soft images; forbeauty is more easily found than magnanimity. 

The delicacy, which he cultivated, restrains him to a certain nicetyand caution, even when he writes upon the slightest matter. He has, therefore, in his whole volume, nothing burlesque, and seldomanything ludicrous or familiar. He seems always to do his best;though his subjects are often unworthy of his care. 

It is not easy to think without some contempt on an author, who isgrowing illustrious in his own opinion by verses, at one time, "To aLady, who can do anything but sleep, when she pleases;" at another, "To a Lady who can sleep when she pleases;" now, "To a Lady, on herpassing through a crowd of people;" then, "On a braid of diverscolours woven by four Ladies;" "On a tree cut in paper;" or, "To aLady, from whom he received the copy of verses on the paper-tree, which, for many years, had been missing. "

Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Doveof Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus: and a writer naturallypleases himself with a performance, which owes nothing to thesubject. But compositions merely pretty have the fate of otherpretty things, and are quitted in time for something useful; theyare flowers fragrant and fair, but of short duration; or they areblossoms to be valued only as they foretell fruits. 

Among Waller's little poems are some, which their excellency oughtto secure from oblivion; as, To Amoret, comparing the differentmodes of regard with which he looks on her and Sacharissa; and theverses on Love, that begin, "Anger in hasty words or blows. "

In others he is not equally successful; sometimes his thoughts aredeficient, and sometimes his expression. 

The numbers are not always musical; as, Fair Venus, in thy soft arms The god of rage confine:For thy whispers are the charms Which only can divert his fierce design. What though he frown, and to tumult do incline; Thou the flameKindled in his breast canst tameWith that snow which unmelted lies on thine. 

He seldom indeed fetches an amorous sentiment from the depths ofscience; his thoughts are for the most part easily understood, andhis images such as the superfices of nature readily supplies; he hasa just claim to popularity, because he writes to common degrees ofknowledge; and is free at least from philosophical pedantry, unlessperhaps the end of a song to the Sun may be excepted, in which he istoo much a Copernican. To which may be added the simile of the"palm" in the verses "on her passing through a crowd;" and a line ina more serious poem on the Restoration, about vipers and treacle, which can only be understood by those who happen to know thecomposition of the Theriaca. 

His thoughts are sometimes hyperbolical and his images unnatural

 The plants admire, No less than those of old did Orpheus' lyre;If she sit down, with tops all tow'rds her bow'd, They round about her into arbours crowd;Or if she walks, in even ranks they stand, Like some well-marshall'd and obsequious band. 

In another place:

While in the park I sing, the listening deerAttend my passion, and forget to fear:When to the beeches I report my flame, They bow their heads, as if they felt the same. To gods appealing, when I reach their bowersWith loud complaints they answer me in showers. To thee a wild and cruel soul is given, More deaf than trees, and prouder than the Heaven!

On the head of a stag:

O fertile head! which every yearCould such a crop of wonder bear!The teeming earth did never bring, So soon, so hard, so large a thing:Which might it never have been cast, Each year's growth added to the last, These lofty branches had suppliedThe earth's bold sons' prodigious pride:Heaven with these engines had been scaled, When mountains heap'd on mountains fail'd. 

Sometimes having succeeded in the first part, he makes a feebleconclusion. In the song of "Sacharissa's and Amoret's Friendship, "the two last stanzas ought to have been omitted. 

His images of gallantry are not always in the highest degreedelicate. 

Then shall my love this doubt displace And gain such trust that I may comeAnd banquet sometimes on thy face, But make my constant meals at home. 

Some applications may be thought too remote and unconsequential; asin the verses on the Lady Dancing:

 The sun in figures such as theseJoys with the moon to play: To the sweet strains they advance, Which do result from their own spheres; As this nymph's danceMoves with the numbers which she hears. 

Sometimes a thought, which might perhaps fill a distich, is expandedand attenuated till it grows weak and almost evanescent. 

Chloris! since first our calm of peace Was frighted hence, this good we find, Your favours with your fears increase, And growing mischiefs make you kind. So the fair tree, which still preserves Her fruit, and state, while no wind blows, In storms from that uprightness swerves; And the glad earth about her strows With treasure from her yielding boughs. 

His images are not always distinct; as in the following passage, heconfounds LOVE as a person with LOVE as a passion:

Some other nymphs, with colours faint, And pencil slow, may Cupid paint, And a weak heart in time destroy;She has a stamp, and prints the boy;Can, with a single look, inflameThe coldest breast, the rudest tame. 

His sallies of casual flattery are sometimes elegant and happy, asthat in return for the Silver Pen; and sometimes empty and trifling, as that upon the Card torn by the Queen. There are a few lineswritten in the Duchess's Tasso, which he is said by Fenton to havekept a summer under correction. It happened to Waller, as toothers, that his success was not always in proportion to his labour. 

Of these pretty compositions, neither the beauties nor the faultsdeserve much attention. The amorous verses have this to recommendthem, that they are less hyperbolical than those of some otherpoets. Waller is not always at the last gasp; he does not die of afrown, nor live upon a smile. There is, however, too much love, andtoo many trifles. Little things are made too important: and theEmpire of Beauty is represented as exerting its influence furtherthan can be allowed by the multiplicity of human passions, and thevariety of human wants. Such books, therefore, may be considered asshowing the world under a false appearance, and, so far as theyobtain credit from the young and unexperienced, as misleadingexpectation, and misguiding practice. 

Of his nobler and more weighty performances, the greater part ispanegyrical: for of praise he was very lavish, as is observed byhis imitator, Lord Lansdowne:

No satyr stalks within the hallow'd ground, But queens and heroines, kings and gods abound;Glory and arms and love are all the sound. 

In the first poem, on the danger of the prince on the coast ofSpain, there is a puerile and ridiculous mention of Arion at thebeginning; and the last paragraph, on the cable, is in partridiculously mean, and in part ridiculously tumid. The poem, however, is such as may be justly praised, without much allowancefor the state of our poetry and language at that time. 

The two next poems are upon the king's behaviour at the death ofBuckingham, and upon his Navy. 

He has, in the first, used the pagan deities with great propriety:

'Twas want of such a precedent as thisMade the old heathens frame their gods amiss. 

In the poem on the Navy, those lines are very noble which supposethe king's power secure against a second deluge; so noble, that itwere almost criminal to remark the mistake of "centre" for"surface, " or to say that the empire of the sea would be worthlittle if it were not that the waters terminate in land. 

The poem upon Sallee has forcible sentiments; but the conclusion isfeeble. That on the Repairs of St. Paul's has something vulgar andobvious; such as the mention of Amphion; and something violent andharsh: as, So all our minds with his conspire to graceThe Gentiles' great apostle and defaceThose state obscuring sheds, that like a chainSeem'd to confine, and fetter him again:Which the glad saint shakes off at his command, As once the viper from his sacred hand. So joys the aged oak, when we divideThe creeping ivy from his injured side. 

Of the two last couplets, the first is extravagant, and the secondmean. 

His praise of the Queen is too much exaggerated; and the thought, that he "saves lovers, by cutting off hope, as gangrenes are curedby lopping the limb, " presents nothing to the mind but disgust andhorror. 

Of the Battle of the Summer Islands, it seems not easy to saywhether it is intended to raise terror or merriment. The beginningis too splendid for jest, and the conclusion too light forseriousness. The versification is studied, the scenes arediligently displayed, and the images artfully amplified; but as itends neither in joy nor sorrow, it will scarcely be read a secondtime. 

The panegyric upon Cromwell has obtained from the public a veryliberal dividend of praise, which, however, cannot be said to havebeen unjustly lavished; for such a series of verses had rarelyappeared before in the English language. Of the lines some aregrand, some are graceful, and all are musical. There is now andthen a feeble verse; or a trifling thought; but its great fault isthe choice of its hero. 

The poem of the War with Spain begins with lines more vigorous andstriking than Waller is accustomed to produce. The succeeding partsare variegated with better passages and worse. There is somethingtoo farfetched in the comparison of the Spaniards drawing theEnglish on by saluting St. Lucar with cannon, "to lambs awakeningthe lion by bleating. " The fate of the Marquis and his Lady, whowere burnt in their ship, would have moved more, had the poet notmade him die like the Phoenix, because he had spices about him, norexpressed their affection and their end by a conceit at once falseand vulgar:

Alive, in equal flames of love they burn'd, And now together are to ashes turn'd. 

The verses to Charles, on his return, were doubtless intended tocounterbalance the panegyric on Cromwell. If it has been thoughtinferior to that with which it is naturally compared, the cause ofits deficience has been already remarked. 

The remaining pieces it is not necessary to examine singly. Theymust be supposed to have faults and beauties of the same kind withthe rest. The Sacred Poems, however, deserve particular regard;they were the work of Waller's declining life, of those hours inwhich he looked upon the fame and the folly of the time past withthe sentiments which his great predecessor Petrarch bequeathed toposterity, upon his review of that love and poetry which have givenhim immortality. 

That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow muchexcellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe thatthe mind grows old with the body; and that he, whom we are nowforced to confess superior, is hastening daily to a level withourselves. By delighting to think this of the living, we learn tothink it of the dead; and Fenton, with all his kindness for Waller, has the luck to mark the exact time when his genius passed thezenith, which he places at his fifty-fifth year. This is to allotthe mind but a small portion. Intellectual decay is doubtless notuncommon; but it seems not to be universal. Newton was in hiseighty-fifth year improving his chronology, a few days before hisdeath; and Waller appears not, in my opinion, to have lost ateighty-two any part of his poetical power. 

His Sacred Poems do not please like some of his other works; butbefore the fatal fifty-five, had he written on the same subjects, his success would hardly have been better. 

It has been the frequent lamentation of good men that verse has beentoo little applied to the purposes of worship, and many attemptshave been made to animate devotion by pious poetry. That they havevery seldom attained their end is sufficiently known, and it may notbe improper to inquire why they have miscarried. 

Let no pious ear be offended if I advance, in opposition to manyauthorities, that poetical devotion cannot often please. Thedoctrines of religion may indeed be defended in a didactic poem; andhe, who has the happy power of arguing in verse, will not lose itbecause his subject is sacred. A poet may describe the beauty andthe grandeur of nature, the flowers of the spring, and the harvestsof autumn, the vicissitudes of the tide, and the revolutions of thesky, and praise the Maker for his works, in lines which no readershall lay aside. The subject of the disputation is not piety, butthe motives to piety; that of the description is not God, but theworks of God. 

Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the humansoul, cannot be poetical. Man, admitted to implore the mercy of hisCreator, and plead the merits of his Redeemer, is already in ahigher state than poetry can confer. 

The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as by producingsomething unexpected, surprises and delights. The topics ofdevotion are few, and being few are universally known; but, few asthey are, they can be made no more; they can receive no grace fromnovelty of sentiment, and very little from novelty of expression. 

Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind thanthings themselves afford. This effect proceeds from the display ofthose parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of thosewhich repel, the imagination: but religion must be shown as it is;suppression and addition equally corrupt it; and such as it is, itis known already. 

From poetry the reader justly expects, and from good poetry alwaysobtains, the enlargement of his comprehension and elevation of hisfancy: but this is rarely to be hoped by Christians from metricaldevotion. Whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous, is comprisedin the name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted;Infinity cannot be amplified; Perfection cannot be improved. 

The employments of pious meditation are Faith, Thanksgiving, Repentance, and Supplication. Faith, invariably uniform, cannot beinvested by fancy with decorations. Thanksgiving, the most joyfulof all holy effusions, yet addressed to a Being without passions, isconfined to a few modes, and is to be felt rather then expressed. Repentance, trembling in the presence of the judge, is not atleisure for cadences and epithets. Supplication of man to man maydiffuse itself through many topics of persuasion; but supplicationto God can only cry for mercy. 

Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the mostsimple expression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its lustre andits power, because it is applied to the decoration of something moreexcellent than itself. All that pious verse can do is to help thememory and delight the ear, and for these purposes it may be veryuseful; but it supplies nothing to the mind. The ideas of ChristianTheology are too simple for eloquence, too sacred for fiction, andtoo majestic for ornament; to recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify by a concave mirror the sidereal hemisphere. 

As much of Waller's reputation was owing to the softness andsmoothness of his numbers, it is proper to consider those minuteparticulars to which a versifier must attend. 

He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writerswho were living when his poetry commenced. The poets of Elizabethhad attained an art of modulation, which was afterwards neglected orforgotten. Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his model; and hemight have studied with advantage the poem of Davies, which, thoughmerely philosophical, yet seldom leaves the ear ungratified. 

But he was rather smooth than strong; of "the full resounding line, "which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples. The critical decision has given the praise of strength to Denham, and of sweetness to Waller. 

His excellence of versification has some abatements. He uses theexpletive "do" very frequently; and, though he lived to see italmost universally ejected, was not more careful to avoid it in hislast compositions than in his first. Praise had given himconfidence; and finding the world satisfied, he satisfied himself. 

His rhymes are sometimes weak words: "so" is found to make therhyme twice in ten lines, and occurs often as a rhyme through hisbook. 

His double rhymes, in heroic verse, have been censured by Mrs. Phillips, who was his rival in the translation of Corneille's"Pompey;" and more faults might be found were not the inquiry belowattention. 

He sometimes uses the obsolete termination of verbs, as "waxeth, ""affecteth;" and sometimes retains the final syllable of thepreterite, as "amazed, " "supposed, " of which I know not whether itis not to the detriment of our language that we have totallyrejected them. 

Of triplets he is sparing; but he did not wholly forbear them: ofan Alexandrine he has given no example. 

The general character of his poetry is elegance and gaiety. He isnever pathetic, and very rarely sublime. He seems neither to havehad a mind much elevated by nature nor amplified by learning. Histhoughts are such as a liberal conversation and large acquaintancewith life would easily supply. They had however then, perhaps, thatgrace of novelty which they are now often supposed to want by thosewho, having already found them in later books, do not know orinquire who produced them first. This treatment is unjust. Let notthe original author lose by his imitators. 

Praise, however, should be due before it is given. The author ofWaller's Life ascribes to him the first practice of what Erythraeusand some late critics call "Alliteration, " of using in the sameverse many words beginning with the same letter. But this knack, whatever be its value, was so frequent among early writers, thatGascoigne, a writer of the sixteenth century, warns the young poetagainst affecting it; Shakespeare, in the "Midsummer Night's Dream, "is supposed to ridicule it; and in another play the sonnet ofHolofernes fully displays it. 

He borrows too many of his sentiments and illustrations from the oldmythology, for which it is vain to plead the example of ancientpoets; the deities, which they introduced so frequently, wereconsidered as realities, so far as to be received by theimagination, whatever sober reason might even then determine. Butof these images time has tarnished the splendour. A fiction, notonly detected but despised, can never afford a solid basis to anyposition, though sometimes it may furnish a transient allusion, orslight illustration. No modern monarch can be much exalted byhearing that, as Hercules had his "club" he has his "navy. "

But of the praise of Waller, though much may be taken away, muchwill remain; for it cannot be denied that he added something to ourelegance of diction, and something to our propriety of thought; andto him may be applied what Tasso said, with equal spirit andjustice, of himself and Guarini, when, having perused the PastorFido, he cried out, "If he had not read Aminta, he had not excelledit. "

As Waller professed himself to have learned the art of versificationfrom Fairfax, it has been thought proper to subjoin a specimen ofhis work, which, after Mr. Hoole's translation, will perhaps not besoon reprinted. By knowing the state in which Waller found ourpoetry, the reader may judge how much he improved it. 

1. 

 Erminia's steed (this while) his mistresse boreThrough forrests thicke among the shadie treene, Her feeble hand the bridle raines forelore, Halfe in a swoune she was for fear I weene;But her flit courser spared nere the more, To beare her through the desart woods unseene Of her strong foes, that chas'd her through the plaine And still pursu'd, but still pursu'd in vaine. 

2. 

Like as the wearie hounds at last retire, Windlesse, displeased, from the fruitlesse chace, When the slie beast Tapisht in bush and brire, No art nor paines can rowse out of his place:The Christian knights so full of shame and ireReturned backe, with faint and wearie pace!Yet still the fearfull Dame fled, swift as windeNor euer staid, nor euer lookt behinde. 

3. 

Through thicke and thinne, all night, all day, she driued, Withouten comfort, companie, or guide, Her plaints and teares with euery thought reuiued, She heard and saw her greefes, but nought beside. But when the sunne his burning chariot diuedIn Thetis wane, and wearie teame vntide, On Iordans sandie banks her course she staid, At last, there downe she light, and downe she laid

4

Her teares, her drinke; her food, her sorrowings, This was her diet that vnhappie night;But sleepe (that sweet repose and quiet brings)To ease the greefes of discontented wight, Spred forth his tender, soft, and nimble wings, In his dull armes foulding the virgin bright; And loue, his mother, and the graces kept Strong watch and warde, while this faire Ladie slept

5. 

The birds awakte her with their morning song, Their warbling musicke pearst her tender eare, The murmuring brookes and whistling windes amongThe rattling boughes, and leaues, their parts did beare;Her eies vnclos'd beheld the groues alongOf swaines and shepherd groomes, that dwellings weare; And that sweet noise, birds, winds, and waters sent, Prouokt again the virgin to lament. 

6. 

Her plaints were interrupted with a sound, That seem'd from thickest bushes to proceed, Some iolly shepherd sung a lustie round, And to his voice had tun'd his oaten reed;Thither she went, an old man there she found, (At whose right hand his little flock did feed) Sat making baskets, his three sonnes among That learn'd their father's art, and learn'd his song. 

7. 

Beholding one in shining armes appeareThe seelie man and his were sore dismaid;But sweet Erminia comforted their feare, Her ventall vp, her visage open laidYou happie folke, of heau'n beloued deare, Work on (quoth she) upon your harmless traid, These dreadfull armes I beare no warfare bring To your sweet toile, nor those sweet tunes yon sing. 

8. 

But father, since this land, these townes and towres, Destroied are with sword, with fire and spoile, How may it be unhurt, that you and yoursIn safetie thus, applie your harmlesse toile?My sonne (quoth he) this pore estate of oursIs euer safe from storm of warlike broile; This wilderneese doth vs in safetie keepe, No thundering drum, no trumpet breakes our sleepe. 

9. 

Haply iust heau'ns defence and shield of right, Doth loue the innocence of simple swains, The thunderbolts on highest mountains light, And seld or neuer strike the lower plaines;So kings have cause to feare Bellonaes might, Not they whose sweat and toile their dinner gaines, Nor ever greedie soldier was entised By pouertie, neglected and despised. 

10. 

O Pouertie, chefe of the heau'nly brood, Dearer to me than wealth or kingly crowne!No wish for honour, thirst of others good, Can moue my hart, contented with mine owne:We quench our thirst with water of this flood, Nor fear we poison should therein be throwne; These little flocks of sheepe and tender goates Giue milke for food, and wool to make us coates. 

11. 

We little wish, we need but little wealth, From cold and hunger vs to cloath and feed;These are my sonnes, their care preserues from stealthTheir fathers flocks, nor servants moe I need:Amid these groues I walks oft for my health, And to the fishes, birds, and beastes give heed, How they are fed, in forrest, spring and lake, And their contentment for ensample take. 

12. 

Time was (for each one hath his doting time, These siluer locks were golden tresses than)That countrie life I hated as a crime, And from the forrests sweet contentment ran, To Memphis' stately pallace would I clime, And there became the mightie Caliphes man And though I but a simple gardner weare, Yet could I marke abuses, see and heare. 

13. 

Entised on with hope of future gaine, I suffred long what did my soule displease;But when my youth was spent, my hope was vaine, I felt my native strength at last decrease;I gan my losse of lustie yeeres complaine, And wisht I had enjoy'd the countries peace; I bod the court farewell, and with content My later age here have I quiet spent. 

14. 

While thus he spake, Erminia husht and stillHis wise discourses heard, with great attention, His speeches graue those idle fancies kill, Which in her troubled soule bred such dissention;After much thought reformed was her will, Within those woods to dwell was her intention, Till fortune should occasion new afford, To turne her home to her desired Lord. 

15. 

She said therefore, O shepherd fortunate!That troubles some didst whilom feele and proue. Yet liuest now in this contented state, Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue, To entertaine me as a willing mateIn shepherds life, which I admire and loue; Within these plessant groues perchance my hart, Of her discomforts, may vnload some part. 

16. 

If gold or wealth of most esteemed deare, If iewels rich, thou diddest hold in prise, Such store thereof, such plentie haue I seen, As to a greedie minde might well suffice:With that downe trickled many a siluer teare, Two christall streames fell from her watrie eies; Part of her sad misfortunes then she told, And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old. 

17. 

With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deareTowards his cottage gently home to guide;His aged wife there made her homely cheare, Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her side. The Princesse dond a poor pastoraes geare, A kerchiefe course vpon her head she tide; But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse) Were such, as ill beseem'd a shepherdesse. 

18. 

Not those rude garments could obscure, and hideThe heau'nly beautie of her angels face, Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide, Or ought disparag'de, by those labours bace;Her little flocks to pasture would she guide, And milke her goates, and in their folds them place, Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame. 

MILTON. 

The life of Milton has been already written in so many forms, andwith such minute inquiry, that I might perhaps more properly havecontented myself with the addition of a few notes on Mr. Fenton'selegant abridgment, but that a new narrative was thought necessaryto the uniformity of this edition. 

John Milton was by birth a gentleman, descended from the proprietorsof Milton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited hisestate in the times of York and Lancaster. Which side he took Iknow not; his descendant inherited no veneration for the White Rose. 

His grandfather, John, was keeper of the forest of Shotover, azealous Papist, who disinherited his son because he had forsaken thereligion of his ancestors. 

His father, John, who was the son disinherited, had recourse for hissupport to the profession of a scrivener. He was a man eminent forhis skill in music, many of his compositions being still to befound; and his reputation in his profession was such, that he grewrich, and retired to an estate. He had probably more than commonliterature, as his son addresses him in one of his most elaborateLatin poems. He married a gentlewoman of the name of Caston, aWelsh family, by whom he had two sons, John, the poet, andChristopher, who studied the law and adhered, as the law taught him, to the king's party, for which he was a while persecuted; but havingby his brother's interest obtained permission to live in quiet, hesupported himself so honourably by chamber-practice, that, soonafter the accession of King James, he was knighted and made a judge;but, his constitution being too weak for business, he retired beforeany disreputable compliances became necessary. 

He had likewise a daughter Anne, whom he married with a considerablefortune to Edward Philips, who came from Shrewsbury, and rose in theCrown-office to be secondary: by him she had two sons, John andEdward, who were educated by the poet, and from whom is derived theonly authentic account of his domestic manners. 

John the poet, was born in his father's house, at the Spread Eagle, in Bread Street, Dec. 9, 1608, between six and seven in the morning. His father appears to have been very solicitous about his education;for he was instructed at first by private tuition under the care ofThomas Young, who was afterwards chaplain to the English merchantsat Hamburgh, and of whom we have reason to think well, since hisscholar considered him as worthy of an epistolary elegy. 

He was then sent to St. Paul's school, under the care of Mr. Gill;and removed, in the beginning of his sixteenth year, to Christ'sCollege, in Cambridge, where he entered a sizar, Feb. 12, 1624. 

He was at this time eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and hehimself, by annexing the dates to his first compositions, a boast ofwhich the learned Politian has given him an example, seems tocommend the earliness of his own proficiency to the notice ofposterity. 

But the products of his vernal fertility have been surpassed bymany, and particularly by his contemporary Cowley. Of the powers ofthe mind it is difficult to form an estimate: many have excelledMilton in their first essays, who never rose to works like "ParadiseLost. "

At fifteen, a date which he uses till he is sixteen, he translatedor versified two Psalms, 114 and 136, which he thought worthy of thepublic eye; but they raise no great expectations: they would in anynumerous school have obtained praise, but not excited wonder. 

Many of his elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenthyear, by which it appears that he had then read the Roman authorswith very nice discernment. I once heard Mr. Hampton, thetranslator of Polybius, remark, what I think is true, that Miltonwas the first Englishman who, after the revival of letters, wroteLatin verses with classic elegance. If any exceptions can be made, they are very few: Haddon and Ascham, the pride of Elizabeth'sreign, however they may have succeeded in prose, no sooner attemptverse than they provoke derision. If we produced anything worthy ofnotice before the elegies of Milton, it was perhaps Alabaster's"Roxana. "

Of these exercises, which the rules of the University required, somewere published by him in his maturer years. They had beenundoubtedly applauded; for they were such as few can form: yetthere is reason to suspect that he was regarded in his college withno great fondness. That he obtained no fellowship is certain; butthe unkindness with which he was treated was not merely negative. Iam ashamed to relate what I fear is true, that Milton was one of thelast students in either University that suffered the publicindignity of corporal correction. 

It was, in the violence of controversial hostility, objected to him, that he was expelled: this he steadily denies, and it wasapparently not true; but it seems plain, from his own verses to"Diodati", that he had incurred "rustication, " a temporarydismission into the country, with perhaps the loss of a term. 

Me tenet urbs reflua quam Thamesis alluit unda, Meque nec invitum patria dulcis habet. Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum Nec dudum vetiti me laris angit amor. -Nec duri libet usque minas preferre magistri, Caeteraque ingenio non subeunda meo. Si sit hoc exilium patrias adiisse penates, Et vacuum curis otia greta sequi, Non ego vel profugi nomen sortemve recuso, Laetus et exilii conditione fruor. 

I cannot find any meaning but this, which even kindness andreverence can give to the term, "vetiti laris, " "a habitation fromwhich he is excluded;" or how "exile" can be otherwise interpreted. He declares yet more, that he is weary of enduring "the threats of arigorous master, and something else which a temper like his cannotundergo. " What was more than threat was probably punishment. Thispoem, which mentions his "exile, " proves likewise that it was notperpetual; for it concludes with a resolution of returning some timeto Cambridge. And it may be conjectured, from the willingness withwhich he has perpetuated the memory of his exile, that its cause wassuch as gave him no shame. 

He took both the usual degrees: that of bachelor in 1628, and thatof master in 1632; but he left the University with no kindness forits institution, alienated either by the injudicious severity of hisgovernors, or his own captious perverseness. The cause cannot nowbe known, but the effect appears in his writings. His scheme ofeducation, inscribed to Hartlib, supersedes all academicalinstruction, being intended to comprise the whole time which menusually spend in literature, from their entrance upon grammar, tillthey proceed, as it is called Masters of Art. And in his discourse"on the likeliest Way to remove Hirelings out of the Church, " heingeniously proposes that the profits of the lands forfeited by theact for superstitious uses should be applied to such academies allover the land where languages and arts may be taught together thatyouth may be at once brought up to a competency of learning and anhonest trade, by which means such of them as had the gift, beingenabled to support themselves (without tithes) by the latter, may, by the help of the former, become worthy preachers. 

One of his objections to academical education, as it was thenconducted, is, that men designed for orders in the church werepermitted to act plays, writhing and unboning their clergy limbs toall the antic and dishonest gestures of Trincalos, buffoons, andbawds, prostituting the shame of that ministry which they had, orwere near having, to the eyes of courtiers and court-ladies, theirgrooms and mademoiselles. 

This is sufficiently peevish in a man, who, when he mentions hisexile from the college, relates, with great luxuriance, thecompensation which the pleasures of the theatre afford him. Playswere therefore only criminal when they were acted by academics. 

He went to the university with a design of entering into the church, but in time altered his mind; for he declared, that whoever became aclergyman, must "subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, unless he took with a conscience that could retch, he must straightperjure himself. He thought it better to prefer a blameless silencebefore the office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude andforswearing. "

These expressions are, I find, applied to the subscription of theArticles; but it seems more probable that they relate to canonicalobedience. I know not any of the Articles which seem to thwart hisopinions: but the thoughts of obedience, whether canonical orcivil, raise his indignation. 

His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yetadvanced to a settled resolution of declining it, appears in aletter to one of his friends, who had reproved his suspended anddilatory life, which he seems to have imputed to an insatiablecuriosity, and fantastic luxury of various knowledge. To this hewrites a cool and plausible answer, in which he endeavours topersuade him, that the delay proceeds not from the delights ofdesultory study, but from the desire of obtaining more fitness forhis task; and that he goes on, "not taking thought of being late, soit gives advantage to be more fit. "

When he left the University, he returned to his father, thenresiding at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, with whom he lived fiveyears, in which time he is said to have read all the Greek and Latinwriters. With what limitations this universality is to beunderstood, who shall inform us?

It might be supposed, that he who read so much should have donenothing else; but Milton found time to write the "Masque of Comus, "which was presented at Ludlow, then the residence of the LordPresident of Wales, in 1634; and had the honour of being acted bythe Earl of Bridgewater's sons and daughter. The fiction is derivedfrom Homer's "Circe;" but we never can refuse to any modern theliberty of borrowing from Homer:

 --a quo ceu fonte perenniVatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis. 

His next production was Lycidas, an elegy, written in 1637, on thedeath of Mr. King, the son of Sir John King, Secretary for Irelandin the time of Elizabeth, James, and Charles. King was much afavourite at Cambridge, and many of the wits joined to do honour tohis memory. Milton's acquaintance with the Italian writers may bediscovered by a mixture of longer and shorter verses, according tothe rules of Tuscan poetry, and his malignity to the church by somelines which are interpreted as threatening its extermination. 

He is supposed about this time to have written his Arcades; forwhile he lived at Horton he used sometimes to steal from his studiesa few days, which he spent at Harefield, the house of the CountessDowager of Derby, where the Arcades made part of a dramaticentertainment. 

He began now to grow weary of the country, and had some purpose oftaking chambers in the Inns of Court, when the death of his motherset him at liberty to travel, for which he obtained his father'sconsent, and Sir Henry Wotton's directions; with the celebratedprecept of prudence, i pensieri stretti, ed il viso sciolto;"thoughts close, and looks loose. "

In 1638 he left England, and went first to Paris; where, by thefavour of Lord Scudamore, he had the opportunity of visitingGrotius, then residing at the French court as ambassador fromChristina of Sweden. From Paris he hasted into Italy, of which hehad with particular diligence studied the language and literature;and, though he seems to have intended a very quick perambulation ofthe country, stayed two months at Florence; where he found his wayinto the academies, and produced his compositions with such applauseas appears to have exalted him in his own opinion, and confirmed himin the hope, that, "by labour and intense study, which, " says he, "Itake to be my portion in this life, joined with a strong propensityof nature, " he might "leave something so written to after-times, asthey should not willingly let it die. "

It appears, in all his writings, that he had the usual concomitantof great abilities, a lofty and steady confidence in himself, perhaps not without some contempt of others, for scarcely any manever wrote so much, and praised so few. Of his praise he was veryfrugal; as he set its value high, and considered his mention of aname as a security against the waste of time, and a certainpreservative from oblivion. 

At Florence he could not indeed complain that his merit wanteddistinction. Carlo Dati presented him with an encomiasticinscription, in the tumid lapidary style; and Francini wrote him anode, of which the first stanza is only empty noise; the rest areperhaps too diffuse on common topics: but the last is natural andbeautiful. 

From Florence he went to Sienna, and from Sienna to Rome, where hewas again received with kindness by the learned and the great. Holstenius, the keeper of the Vatican library, who had resided threeyears at Oxford, introduced him to Cardinal Barberini: and he, at amusical entertainment, waited for him at the door, and led him bythe hand into the assembly. Here Selvaggi praised him in a distich, and Salsilli in a tetrastich: neither of them of much value. TheItalians were gainers by this literary commerce; for the encomiumswith which Milton repaid Salsilli, though not secure against a sterngrammarian, turn the balance indisputably in Milton's favour. 

Of these Italian testimonies, poor as they are, he was proud enoughto publish them before his poems; though he says, he cannot besuspected but to have known that they were said non tam de se, quamsupra se. 

At Rome, as at Florence, he stayed only two months: a time indeedsufficient, if he desired only to ramble with an explainer of itsantiquities, or to view palaces and count pictures; but certainlytoo short for the contemplation of learning, policy, or manners. 

From Rome he passed on to Naples, in company of a hermit, acompanion from whom little could be expected; yet to him Milton owedhis introduction to Manso, Marquis of Villa, who had been before thepatron of Tasso. Manso was enough delighted with hisaccomplishments to honour him with a sorry distich, in which hecommends him for everything but his religion: and Milton, inreturn, addressed him in a Latin poem, which must have raised a highopinion of English elegance and literature. 

His purpose was now to have visited Sicily and Greece; but hearingof the differences between the king and parliament, he thought itproper to hasten home, rather than pass his life in foreignamusements while his countrymen were contending for their rights. He therefore came back to Rome, though the merchants informed him ofplots laid against him by the Jesuits, for the liberty of hisconversations on religion. He had sense enough to judge that therewas no danger, and therefore kept on his way, and acted as before, neither obtruding nor shunning controversy. He had perhaps givensome offence by visiting Galileo, then a prisoner in the Inquisitionfor philosophical heresy; and at Naples he was told by Manse, that, by his declarations on religious questions, he had excluded himselffrom some distinctions which he should otherwise have paid him. Butsuch conduct, though it did not please, was yet sufficiently safe;and Milton stayed two months more at Rome, and went on to Florencewithout molestation. 

From Florence he visited Lucca. He afterwards went to Venice; and, having sent away a collection of music and other books, travelled toGeneva, which he probably considered as the metropolis of orthodoxy. 

Here he reposed as in a congenial element, and became acquaintedwith John Diodati and Frederick Spanheim, two learned professors ofdivinity. From Geneva he passed through France; and came home, after an absence of a year and three months. 

At his return he heard of the death of his friend, Charles Diodati;a man whom it is reasonable to suppose of great merit, since he wasthought by Milton worthy of a poem, entitled "Epitaphium Damonis, "written with the common but childish imitation of pastoral life. 

 He now hired a lodging at the house of one Russel a tailor in St. Bride's Churchyard, and undertook the education of John and EdwardPhilips, his sister's sons. Finding his rooms too little, he took ahouse and garden in Aldersgate Street, which was not then so muchout of the world as it is now; and chose his dwelling at the upperend of a passage, that he might avoid the noise of the street. Herehe received more boys, to be boarded and instructed. 

Let not our veneration for Milton forbid us to look with some degreeof merriment on great promises and small performance, on the man whohastens home, because his countrymen are contending for theirliberty, and, when he reaches the scene of action, vapours away hispatriotism in a private boarding-school. This is the period of hislife from which all his biographers seem inclined to shrink. Theyare unwilling that Milton should be degraded to a schoolmaster; butsince it cannot be denied that he taught boys, one finds out that hetaught for nothing, and another that his motive was only zeal forthe propagation of learning and virtue; and all tell what they donot know to be true, only to excuse an act which no wise man willconsider as in itself disgraceful. His father was alive; hisallowance was not ample; and he supplied its deficiencies by anhonest and useful employment

It is told, that in the art of education he performed wonders; and aformidable list is given of the authors, Greek and Latin, that wereread in Aldersgate Street by youth between ten and fifteen orsixteen years of age. Those who tell or receive these storiesshould consider, that nobody can be taught faster than he can learn. The speed of the horseman must be limited by the power of his horse. Every man that has ever undertaken to instruct others can tell whatslow advances he has been able to make, and how much patience itrequires to recall vagrant inattention, to stimulate sluggishindifference, and to rectify absurd misapprehension. 

The purpose of Milton, as it seems, was to teach something moresolid than the common literature of schools, by reading thoseauthors that treat of physical subjects, such as the Georgic, andastronomical treatises of the ancients. This was a scheme ofimprovement which seems to have busied many literary projectors ofthat age. Cowley, who had more means than Milton of knowing whatwas wanting to the embellishments of life, formed the same plan ofeducation in his imaginary college. 

But the truth is, that the knowledge of external nature, and thesciences which that knowledge requires or includes, are not thegreat or the frequent business of the human mind. Whether weprovide for action or conversation, whether we wish to be useful orpleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledgeof right and wrong; the next is an acquaintance with the history ofmankind, and with those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions. Prudence andjustice are virtues and excellences of all times and of all places;we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only bychance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; ourspeculations upon matter are voluntary, and at leisure. Physiological learning is of such rare emergence, that one may knowanother half his life without being able to estimate his skill inhydrostatics or astronomy; but his moral and prudential characterimmediately appears. 

Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that supply mostaxioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and mostmaterials for conversation; and these purposes are best served bypoets, orators, and historians. 

Let me not be censured for this digression as pedantic orparadoxical; for, if I have Milton against me, I have Socrates on myside. It was his labour to turn philosophy from the study of Natureto speculations upon life; but the innovators whom I oppose areturning off attention from life to nature. They seem to think thatwe are placed here to watch the growth of plants, or the motions ofthe stars. Socrates was rather of opinion that what we had to learnwas how to do good and avoid evil. 

[Greek text]

Of institutions we may judge by their effects. From this wonder-working academy I do not know that there ever proceeded any man veryeminent for knowledge: its only genuine product, I believe, is asmall History of Poetry, written in Latin by his nephew Philips, ofwhich perhaps none of my readers has ever heard. 

That in his school, as in everything else which he undertook, helaboured with great diligence, there is no reason for doubting. Onepart of his method deserves general imitation. He was careful toinstruct his scholars in religion. Every Sunday was spent upontheology, of which he dictated a short system, gathered from thewriters that were then fashionable in the Dutch universities. 

He set his pupils an example of hard study and spare diet; only nowand then he allowed himself to pass a day of festivity andindulgence with some gay gentlemen of Gray's Inn. 

He now began to engage in the controversies of the times, and lenthis breath to blow the flames of contention. In 1641 he published atreatise of Reformation in two books, against the EstablishedChurch, being willing to help the Puritans, who were, he says, "inferior to the Prelates in learning. "

Hall, Bishop of Norwich, had published an Humble Remonstrance, indefence of Episcopacy; to which, in 1641, five ministers, of whosenames the first letters made the celebrated word Smectymnuus, gavetheir answer. Of this answer a confutation was attempted by thelearned Usher; and to the confutation Milton published a reply, entitled, "Of Prelatical Episcopacy, and whether it may be deducedfrom the Apostolical Times, by virtue of those Testimonies which arealleged to that purpose in some late Treatises, one whereof goesunder the Name of James, Lord Bishop of Armagh. "

I have transcribed this title to show, by his contemptuous mentionof Usher, that he had now adopted the Puritanical savageness ofmanners. His next work was, "The Reason of Church Government urgedagainst Prelacy, " by Mr. John Milton, 1642. In this book hediscovers, not with ostentatious exultation, but with calmconfidence, his high opinion of his own powers, and promises toundertake something, he yet knows not what, that may be of use andhonour to his country. "This, " says he, "is not to be obtained butby devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit that can enrich with allutterance and knowledge, and sends out His seraphim, with thehallowed fire of His altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom Hepleases. To this must be added, industrious and select reading, steady observation, and insight into all seemly and generous artsand affairs till which in some measure be compassed, I refuse not tosustain this expectation. " From a promise like this, at oncefervid, pious, and rational, might be expected the "Paradise Lost. "

He published the same year two more pamphlets, upon the samequestion. To one of his antagonists, who affirms that he was"vomited out of the university, " he answers in general terms: "Thefellows of the college wherein I spent some years, at my parting, after I had taken two degrees, as the manner is, signified manytimes how much better it would content them that I should stay. --Asfor the common approbation or dislike of that place, as now it is, that I should esteem or disesteem myself the more for that, toosimple is the answerer, if he think to obtain with me. Of smallpractice were the physician who could not judge by what she and hersister have of long time vomited, that the worser stuff she stronglykeeps in her stomach, but the better she is ever kecking at, and isqueasy; she vomits now out of sickness; but before it will be wellwith her, she must vomit with strong physic. The university, in thetime of her better health, and my younger judgment, I never greatlyadmired, but now much less. "

This is surely the language of a man who thinks that he has beeninjured. He proceeds to describe the course of his conduct, and thetrain of his thoughts; and, because he has been suspected ofincontinence, gives an account of his own purity: "That if I bejustly charged, " says he, "with this crime, it may come upon me withtenfold shame. "

The style of his piece is rough, and such perhaps was that of hisantagonist. This roughness he justifies by great examples, in along digression. Sometimes he tries to be humorous: "Lest I shouldtake him for some chaplain in hand, some squire of the body to hisprelate, one who serves not at the altar only, but at the court-cupboard, he will bestow on us a pretty model of himself; and setsme out half-a-dozen phthisical mottoes, wherever he had them, hopping short in the measure of convulsion fits; in which labour theagony of his wit having escaped narrowly, instead of well-sizedperiods, he greets us with a quantity of thumb-ring posies. --Andthus ends this section, or rather dissection, of himself. " Such isthe controversial merriment of Milton; his gloomy seriousness is yetmore offensive. Such is his malignity, "that hell grows darker athis frown. "

His father, after Reading was taken by Essex, came to reside in hishouse, and his school increased. At Whitsuntide, in his thirty-fifth year, he married Mary, the daughter of Mr. Powel, a justice ofthe peace in Oxfordshire. He brought her to town with him, andexpected all the advantages of a conjugal life. The lady, however, seems not much to have delighted in the pleasures of spare diet andhard study; for, as Philips relates, "having for a month led aphilosophic life, after having been used at home to a great house, and much company and joviality, her friends, possibly by her owndesire, made earnest suit to have her company the remaining part ofthe summer, which was granted, upon a promise of her return atMichaelmas. "

Milton was too busy to much miss his wife; he pursued his studies, and now and then visited the Lady Margaret Leigh, whom he hasmentioned in one of his sonnets. At last Michaelmas arrived; butthe lady had no inclination to return to the sullen gloom of herhusband's habitation, and therefore very willingly forgot herpromise. He sent her a letter, but had no answer; he sent more withthe same success. It could be alleged that letters miscarry; hetherefore despatched a messenger, being by this time too angry to gohimself. His messenger was sent back with some contempt. Thefamily of the lady were Cavaliers. 

In a man whose opinion of his own merit was like Milton's, lessprovocation than this might have raised violent resentment. Miltonsoon determined to repudiate her for disobedience; and, being one ofthose who could easily find arguments to justify inclination, published (in 1644) "The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, " whichwas followed by the "Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce, "and the next year his "Tetrachordon, Expositions upon the four chiefPlaces of Scripture which treat of Marriage. "

This innovation was opposed, as might be expected, by the clergy, who, then holding their famous assembly at Westminster, procuredthat the author should be called before the Lords; "but that house, "says Wood, "whether approving the doctrine, or not favouring hisaccusers, did soon dismiss him. "

There seems not to have been much written against him, nor anythingby any writer of eminence. The antagonist that appeared is styledby him, "A Serving Man turned Solicitor. " Howel, in his Letters, mentions the new doctrine with contempt; and it was, I suppose, thought more worthy of derision than of confutation. He complainsof this neglect in two sonnets, of which the first is contemptible, and the second not excellent. 

From this time it is observed that he became an enemy to thePresbyterians, whom he had favoured before. He that changes hisparty by his humour is not more virtuous than he that changes it byhis interest; he loves himself rather than truth. 

His wife and her relations now found that Milton was not anunresisting sufferer of injuries; and perceiving that he had begunto put his doctrine in practice, by courting a young woman of greataccomplishments, the daughter of one Doctor Davis, who was, however, not ready to comply, they resolved to endeavour a reunion. He wentsometimes to the house of one Blackborough, his relation, in thelane of St. Martin's-le-Grand, and at one of his usual visits wassurprised to see his wife come from another room, and imploreforgiveness on her knees. He resisted her entreaties for a while;"but partly, " says Philips, "his own generous nature, moreinclinable to reconciliation than to perseverance in anger orrevenge, and partly the strong intercession of friends on bothsides, soon brought him to an act of oblivion and a fair league ofpeace. " It were injurious to omit that Milton afterwards receivedher father and her brothers in his own house, when they weredistressed, with other Royalists. 

He published about the same time his "Areopagitica, a speech of Mr. John Milton for the liberty of unlicensed Printing. " The danger ofsuch unbounded liberty, and the danger of bounding it, have produceda problem in the science of government, which human understandingseems hitherto unable to solve. If nothing may be published butwhat civil authority shall have previously approved, power mustalways be the standard of truth; if every dreamer of innovations maypropagate his prospects, there can be no settlement; if everymurmurer at government may diffuse discontent, there can be nopeace; and if every sceptic in theology may teach his follies, therecan be no religion. The remedy against these evils is to punish theauthors; for it is yet allowed that every society may punish, thoughnot prevent, the publication of opinions which that society shallthink pernicious; but this punishment, though it may crush theauthor, promotes the book; and it seems not more reasonable to leavethe right of printing unrestrained because writers may be afterwardscensured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because byour laws we can hang a thief. 

But whatever were his engagements, civil or domestic poetry wasnever long out of his thoughts. 

About this time (1645) a collection of his Latin and English poemsappeared, in which the "Allegro, " and "Penseroso, " with some others, were first published. 

He had taken a larger house in Barbican for the reception ofscholars; but the numerous relations of his wife, to whom hegenerously granted refuge for a while, occupied his rooms. In time, however, they went away; "and the house again, " says Philips, "nowlooked like a house of the Muses only, though the accession ofscholars was not great. Possibly his having proceeded so far in theeducation of youth may have been the occasion of his adversariescalling him pedagogue and schoolmaster; whereas it is well known henever set up for a public school, to teach all the young fry of aparish, but only was willing to impart his learning and knowledge tohis relations, and the sons of gentlemen who were his intimatefriends, and that neither his writings nor his way of teachingsavoured in the least of pedantry. "

Thus laboriously does his nephew extenuate what cannot be denied, and what might be confessed without disgrace. Milton was not a manwho could become mean by a mean employment. This, however, hiswarmest friends seem not to have found; they therefore shift andpalliate. He did not sell literature to all comers at an open shop;he was a chamber-milliner, and measured his commodities only to hisfriends. 

Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him in this state ofdegradation, tells us that it was not long continued; and, to raisehis character again, has a mind to invest him with militarysplendour: "He is much mistaken, " he says, "if there was not aboutthis time a design of making him an adjutant-general in Sir WilliamWaller's army. But the new-modelling of the army proved anobstruction to the design. " An event cannot be set at a muchgreater distance than by having been only "designed, about sometime, " if a man "be not much mistaken. " Milton shall be a pedagogueno longer; for, if Philips be not much mistaken, somebody at sometime designed him for a soldier. 

About the time that the army was new-modelled (1645), he removed toa smaller house in Holborn, which opened backward into Lincoln's InnFields. He is not known to have published anything afterwards tillthe king's death, when, finding his murderers condemned by thePresbyterians, he wrote a treatise to justify it, "and to composethe minds of the people. "

He made some remarks on the Articles of Peace between Ormond and theIrish rebels. While he contented himself to write, he perhaps didonly what his conscience dictated; and if he did not very vigilantlywatch the influence of his own passions, and the gradual prevalenceof opinions, first willingly admitted, and then habitually indulged;if objections, by being overlooked, were forgotten, and desiresuperinduced conviction, he yet shared--only the common weakness ofmankind, and might be no less sincere than his opponents. But, asfaction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him, Milton is suspected of having interpolated the book called "IconBasilike, " which the council of state, to whom he was now made LatinSecretary, employed him to censure, by inserting a prayer taken fromSidney's "Arcadia, " and imputing it to the king, whom he charges, inhis "Iconoclastes, " with the use of this prayer, as with a heavycome, in the indecent language with which prosperity had emboldenedthe advocates for rebellion to insult all that is venerable orgreat: "Who would have imagined so little fear in him of the trueall-seeing deity--as, immediately before his death, to pop into thehands of the grave bishop that attended him, as a special relic ofhis saintly exercises, a prayer stolen word for word from the mouthof a heathen woman praying to a heathen god?"

The papers which the king gave to Dr. Juxon on the scaffold theregicides took away; so that they were at least the publishers ofthis prayer; and Dr. Birch, who had examined the question with greatcare, was inclined to think them the forgers. The use of it byadaptation was innocent, and they who could so noisily censure it, with a little extension of their malice could contrive what theywanted to accuse. 

King Charles the Second, being now sheltered in Holland, employedSalmasius, professor of polite learning at Leyden, to write adefence of his father and of monarchy; and, to excite his industry, gave him, as was reported, a hundred Jacobuses. Salmasius was a manof skill in languages, knowledge of antiquity, and sagacity ofemendatory criticism, almost exceeding all hope of human attainment;and having, by excessive praises, been confirmed in great confidenceof himself, though he probably had not much considered theprinciples of society or the right of government, undertook theemployment without distrust of his own qualifications; and, as hisexpedition in writing was wonderful, in 1649 published "DefensioRegis. "

To this Milton was required to write a sufficient answer; which heperformed (1651) in such a manner, that Hobbes declared himselfunable to decide whose language was best, or whose arguments wereworst. In my opinion, Milton's periods are smoother, neater, andmore pointed; but he delights himself with teasing his adversary asmuch as with confuting him. He makes a foolish allusion ofSalmasius, whose doctrine he considers as servile and unmanly, tothe stream of Salmasius, which, whoever entered, left half hisvirility behind him. Salmasius was a Frenchman, and was unhappilymarried to a scold. Tu es Gallus, says Milton, et, ut aiunt, nimiumgallinaceus. But his supreme pleasure is to tax his adversary, sorenowned for criticism, with vicious Latin. He opens his book withtelling that he has used Persona, which, according to Milton, signifies only a MASK, in a sense not known to the Romans, byapplying it as we apply PERSON. But as Nemesis is always on thewatch, it is memorable that he has enforced the charge of a solecismby an expression in itself grossly solecistical, when for one ofthose supposed blunders, he says, as Ker, and I think some onebefore him, has remarked, propino te grammatistis tuis vapulandum. "From vapulo, which has a passive sense, vapulandus can never bederived. No man forgets his original trade: the rights of nations, and of kings, sink into questions of grammar, if grammarians discussthem. 

Milton, when he undertook this answer, was weak of body and dim ofsight; but his will was forward, and what was wanting of health wassupplied by zeal. He was rewarded with a thousand pounds, and hisbook was much read; for paradox, recommended by spirit and elegance, easily gains attention; and he, who told every man that he was equalto his king, could hardly want an audience. 

That the performance of Salmasius was not dispersed with equalrapidity, or read with equal eagerness, is very credible. He taughtonly the stale doctrine of authority, and the unpleasing duty ofsubmission; and he had been so long not only the monarch, but thetyrant of literature, that almost all mankind were delighted to findhim defied and insulted by a new name, not yet considered as anyone's rival. If Christina, as is said, commended the defence of thepeople, her purpose must be to torment Salmasius, who was then atcourt; for neither her civil station, nor her natural character, could dispose her to favour the doctrine, who was by birth a queen, and by temper despotic. 

That Salmasius was, from the appearance of Milton's book, treatedwith neglect, there is not much proof; but to a man, so longaccustomed to admiration, a little praise of his antagonist would besufficiently offensive, and might incline him to leave Sweden, fromwhich however he was dismissed, not with any mark of contempt, butwith a train of attendants scarce less than regal. 

He prepared a reply, which, left as it was imperfect, was publishedby his son in the year of the Restoration. In the beginning, beingprobably most in pain for his Latinity, he endeavours to defend hisuse of the word persona; but, if I remember right, he misses abetter authority than any that he has found, that of Juvenal in hisfourth satire:

- Quid agis cum dira et foedior omniCrimine persona est?

As Salmasius reproached Milton with losing his eyes in the quarrel, Milton delighted himself with the belief that he had shortenedSalmasius's life, and both perhaps with more malignity than reason. Salmasius died at the Spa, Sept. 3, 1653; and, as controvertists arecommonly said to be killed by their last dispute, Milton wasflattered with the credit of destroying him. 

Cromwell had now dismissed the parliament by the authority of whichhe had destroyed monarchy, and commenced monarch himself, under thetitle of Protector, but with kingly and more than kingly power. That his authority was lawful, never was pretended; he himselffounded his right only in necessity; but Milton, having now tastedthe honey of public employment, would not return to hunger andphilosophy, but, continuing to exercise his office under a manifestusurpation, betrayed to his power that liberty which he haddefended. Nothing can be more just than that rebellion should endin slavery; that he, who had justified the murder of his king, forsome acts which seemed to him unlawful, should now sell hisservices, and his flatteries, to a tyrant, of whom it was evidentthat he could do nothing lawful. 

He had now been blind for some years; but his vigour of intellectwas such, that he was not disabled to discharge his office of Latinsecretary, or continue his controversies. His mind was too eager tobe diverted, and too strong to be subdued. 

About this time his first wife died in childbed, having left himthree daughters. As he probably did not much love her, he did notlong continue the appearance of lamenting her; but after a shorttime married Catharine, the daughter of one Captain Woodcock, ofHackney, a woman doubtless educated in opinions like his own. Shedied, within a year, of childbirth, or some distemper that followedit; and her husband honoured her memory with a poor sonnet. 

The first reply to Milton's "Defensio Populi" was published in 1651, called "Apologia pro Rege et Populo Anglicano, contra JohannisPolypragmatici (alias Miltoni) defensionem destructivam Regis etPopuli. " Of this the author was not known; but Milton and hisnephew Philips, under whose name he published an answer so muchcorrected by him, that it might be called his own, imputed it toBramhal; and, knowing him no friend to regicides, thought themselvesat liberty to treat him as if they had known what they onlysuspected. 

Next year appeared "Regii Sanguinis clamor ad Coelum. " Of this theauthor was Peter du Moulin, who was afterwards prebendary ofCanterbury; but Morus, or More, a French minister, having the careof its publication, was treated as the writer by Milton, in his"Defensio Secunda, " and overwhelmed by such violence of invective, that he began to shrink under the tempest, and gave his persecutorsthe means of knowing the true author. Du Moulin was now in greatdanger; but Milton's pride operated against his malignity; and bothhe and his friends were more willing that Du Moulin should escapethan that he should be convicted of mistake. 

In this second Defence he shows that his eloquence is not merelysatirical; the rudeness of his invective is equalled by thegrossness of his flattery, Deserimur, Cromuelle tu solus superes, adte summa nostrarum rerum, rediit, in te solo consistit, insuperabilituae virtuti cedimus cuncti, nemine vel obloquente, nisi quiaequales inaequalis ipse honores sibi quaerit, aut dignioriconcessos invidet, aut non intelligit nihil esse in societatehominum magis vel Deo gratum, vel rationi consentaneum, esse incivitate nihil aequius, nihil utilius, quam potiri rerumdignissimum. Eum te agnoscunt omnes, Cromuelle, ea tu civismaximus, et gloriosissimus, dux publici consilii, exercituumfortissimorum imperator, pater patriae gessisti. Sic tu spontaneabonorum omnium et animitus missa voce salutaris. 

Caesar, when he assumed the perpetual dictatorship, had not moreservile or more elegant flattery. A translation may show itsservility; but its elegance is less attainable. Having exposed theunskilfulness or selfishness of the former government, "We wereleft, " says Milton, "to ourselves: the whole national interest fellinto our hands, and subsists only in your abilities. To yourvirtue, overpowering and resistless, every man gives way, exceptsome who, without equal qualifications, aspire to equal honours, whoenvy the distinctions of merit greater than their own, or who haveyet to learn, that in the coalition of human society nothing is morepleasing to God, or more agreeable to reason, than that the highestmind should have the sovereign power. Such, sir, are you by generalconfession; such are the things achieved by you, the greatest andmost glorious of our countrymen, the director of our publiccouncils, the leader of unconquered armies, the father of yourcountry; for by that title doss every good man hail you with sincereand voluntary praise. "

Next year, having defended all that wanted defence, he found leisureto defend himself. He undertook his own vindication against More, whom he declares in his title to be justly called the author of the"Regii Sanguinis Clamor. " In this there is no want of vehemence noreloquence, nor does he forget his wonted wit. Morus es? an Momus?an uterque idem est? He then remembers that Morus is Latin for amulberry-tree, and hints at the known transformation:

- Poma alba ferebatQuae post nigra tulit Morus. 

With this piece ended his controversies; and he from this time gavehimself up to his private studies and his civil employment. 

As secretary to the Protector he is supposed to have written theDeclaration of the reasons for a war with Spain. His agency wasconsidered as of great importance; for, when a treaty with Swedenwas artfully suspended, the delay was publicly imputed to Mr. Milton's indisposition; and the Swedish agent was provoked toexpress his wonder that only one man in England could write Latin, and that man blind. 

Being now forty-seven years old, and seeing himself disencumberedfrom external interruptions, he seems to have recollected his formerpurposes, and to have resumed three great works which he had plannedfor his future employment--an epic poem, the history of his country, and a dictionary of the Latin tongue. 

To collect a dictionary seems a work of all others least practicablein a state of blindness, because it depends upon perpetual andminute inspection and collation. Nor would Milton probably havebegun it, after he had lost his eyes; but, having had it alwaysbefore him, he continued it, says Philips, "almost to his dying day;but the papers were so discomposed and deficient, that they couldnot be fitted for the press. " The compilers of the Latindictionary, printed at Cambridge, had the use of those collectionsin three folios; but what was their fate afterwards is not known. 

To compile a history from various authors, when they can only beconsulted by other eyes, is not easy, nor possible, but with moreskilful and attentive help than can be commonly obtained; and it wasprobably the difficulty of consulting and comparing that stoppedMilton's narrative at the Conquest--a period at which affairs werenot very intricate, nor authors very numerous. 

For the subject of his epic poem, after much deliberation, longchoosing, and beginning late, he fixed upon "Paradise Lost, " adesign so comprehensive, that it could be justified only by success. He had once designed to celebrate King Arthur, as he hints in hisverses to Mansus; but "Arthur was reserved, " says Fenton, "toanother destiny. "

It appears, by some sketches of poetical projects left inmanuscript, and to be seen in a library at Cambridge, that he haddigested his thoughts on this subject into one of those wild dramaswhich were anciently called Mysteries; and Philips had seen what heterms part of a tragedy, beginning with the first ten lines ofSatan's address to the Sun. These mysteries consist of allegoricalpersons, such as Justice, Mercy, Faith. Of the tragedy or mysteryof "Paradise Lost" there are two plans

The Persons. The Persons. Michael. Moses. Chorus of Angels. Divine Justice, WisdomHeavenly Love. Heavenly Love. Lucifer. The Evening Star, Hesperus. Adam, } with the Serpent Chorus of Angels. Eve, } Lucifer. Conscience. Adam. Death. Eve. Labour, } Conscience. Sickness, } Labour, }Discontent, } Mutes. Sickness, }Ignorance, } Discontent, } Muteswith others;} Ignorance, }Faith. Fear, }Hope. Death, }Charity. Faith. Hope. Charity. 

PARADISE LOST. 

The Persons. 

Moses, [Greek text], recounting how he assumed his true body; thatit corrupts not, because it is with God in the mount; declares thelike of Enoch and Elijah; besides the purity of the place, thatcertain pure winds, dews, and clouds, preserve it from corruption;whence exhorts to the sight of God; tells they cannot see Adam inthe state of innocence, by reason of their sin. 

Justice, }Mercy, } debating what should become of man, if he fall. Wisdom, }Chorus of Angels singing a hymn of the Creation. 

ACT II. 

Heavenly Love. Evening Star. Chorus sing the marriage-song, and describe Paradise. 

ACT III. 

Lucifer contriving Adam's ruin. Chorus fears for Adam, and relates Lucifer's rebellion and fall. 

ACT IV. 

Adam, }Eve, } fallen. Conscience cites them to God's examination. Chorus bewails, and tells the good Adam has lost. 

ACT V. 

Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise. -- -- presented by an angel with Labour, Grief, Hatred, }Envy, War, Famine, Pestilence, Sickness, Discontent, }Ignorance, Fear, Death } Mutes. To whom he gives their names. Likewise Winter, Heat, Tempest, etc. Faith, }Hope, } comfort him and instruct him. Charity, }Chorus briefly concludes. 

Such was his first design, which could have produced only anallegory or mystery. The following sketch seems to have attainedmore maturity. 

ADAM UNPARADISED. 

The angel Gabriel, either descending or entering; showing, sincethis globe was created, his frequency as much on earth as in heaven;describes Paradise. Next the Chorus, showing the reason of hiscoming to keep his watch in Paradise, after Lucifer's rebellion, bycommand from God; and withal expressing his desire to see and knowmore concerning this excellent new creature, man. The angelGabriel, as by his name signifying a prince of power, tracingParadise with a more free office, passes by the station of theChorus, and, desired by them, relates what he knew of man; as thecreation of Eve, with their love and marriage. After this, Luciferappears; after his overthrow, bemoans himself, seeks revenge on man. The Chorus prepare resistance on his first approach. At last, afterdiscourse of enmity on either side, he departs: whereat the Chorussings of the battle and victory in Heaven, against him and hisaccomplices: as before, after the first act, was sung a hymn of thecreation. Here again may appear Lucifer, relating and exulting inwhat he had done to the destruction of man. Man next, and Eve, having by this time been seduced by the serpent, appears confusedlycovered with leaves. Conscience in a shape accuses him; Justicecites him to the place whither Jehovah called for him. In themeanwhile, the Chorus entertains the stage, and is informed by someangel the manner of the fall. Here the Chorus bewails Adam's fall;Adam then and Eve return; accuse one another; but especially Adamlays the blame to his wife; is stubborn in his offence. Justiceappears, reasons with him, convinces him. The Chorus admonishesAdam, and bids him beware of Lucifer's example of impenitence. Theangel is sent to banish them out of Paradise; but before causes topass before his eyes, in shapes, a mask of all the evils of thislife and world. He is humbled, relents, despairs; at last appearsMercy, comforts him, promises the Messiah; then calls in Faith, Hope, and Charity;--instructs him; he repents, gives God the glory, submits to his penalty. The Chorus briefly concludes. Compare thiswith the former draft. 

These are very imperfect rudiments of "Paradise Lost;" but it ispleasant to see great works in their seminal state, pregnant withlatent possibilities of excellence; nor could there be any moredelightful entertainment than to trace their gradual growth andexpansion, and to observe how they are sometimes suddenly advancedby accidental hints, and sometimes slowly improved by steadymeditation. 

Invention is almost the only literary labour which blindness cannotobstruct, and therefore he naturally solaced his solitude by theindulgence of his fancy, and the melody of his numbers. He had donewhat he knew to be necessarily previous to poetical excellence; hehad made himself acquainted with "seemly arts and affairs;" hiscomprehension was extended by various knowledge, and his memorystored with intellectual treasures. He was skilful in manylanguages, and had, by reading and composition, attained the fullmastery of his own. He would have wanted little help from books, had he retained the power of perusing them. 

But while his greater designs were advancing, having now, like manyother authors, caught the love of publication, he amused himself, ashe could, with little productions. He sent to the press (1658) amanuscript of Raleigh, called "The Cabinet Council;" and next yeargratified his malevolence to the clergy, by a "Treatise of CivilPower in Ecclesiastical Cases, and the Means of removing Hirelingsout of the Church. "

Oliver was now dead; Richard constrained to resign; the system ofextemporary government, which had been held together only by force, naturally fell into fragments when that force was taken away; andMilton saw himself and his cause in equal danger. But he had stillhope of doing something. He wrote letters, which Toland haspublished, to such men as he thought friends to the newcommonwealth; and even in the year of the Restoration he "bated nojot of heart or hope, " but was fantastical enough to think that thenation, agitated as it was, might be settled by a pamphlet, called"A Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth;" which was, however, enough considered to be both seriously and ludicrouslyanswered. 

The obstinate enthusiasm of the commonwealth-men was veryremarkable. When the king was apparently returning, Harrington, with a few associates as fantastical as himself, used to meet, withall the gravity of political importance, to settle an equalgovernment by rotation; and Milton, kicking when he could strike nolonger, was foolish enough to publish, a few weeks before theRestoration, Notes upon a Sermon preached by one Griffiths, entitled, "The Fear of God and the King. " To these notes an answerwas written by L'Estrange, in a pamphlet petulantly called "No BlindGuides. "

But whatever Milton could write, or men of greater activity coulddo, the king was now about to be restored with the irresistibleapprobation of the people, he was therefore no longer secretary, andwas consequently obliged to quit the house which he held by hisoffice; the importance of his writings, thought it convenient toseek some shelter, and hid himself for a time in Bartholomew Close, by West Smithfield. 

I cannot but remark a kind of respect, perhaps unconsciously paid tothis great man by his biographers: every house in which he residedis historically mentioned, as if it were an injury to neglect namingany place that he honoured by his presence. 

The king, with lenity of which the world has had perhaps no otherexample, declined to be the judge or avenger of his own or hisfather's wrongs; and promised to admit into the Act of Oblivion allexcept those whom the Parliament should except; and the Parliamentdoomed none to capital punishment but the wretches who hadimmediately co-operated in the murder of the king. Milton wascertainly not one of them; he had only justified what they had done. 

This justification was indeed sufficiently offensive; and (June 16)an order was issued to seize Milton's "Defence, " and Goodwin's"Obstructors of Justice, " another book of the same tendency, andburn them by the common hangman. The attorney-general was orderedto prosecute the authors; but Milton was not seized, nor perhapsvery diligently pursued. 

Not long after (August 19) the flutter of innumerable bosoms wasstilled by an Act, which the king, that his mercy might want norecommendation of elegance, rather called an Act of Oblivion than ofGrace. Goodwin was named, with nineteen more, as incapacitated forany public trust; but of Milton there was no exception. 

Of this tenderness shown to Milton the curiosity of mankind has notforborne to inquire the reason. Burnet thinks he was forgotten; butthis is another instance which may confirm Dalrymple's observation, who says, "that whenever Burnet's narrations are examined, heappears to be mistaken. "

Forgotten he was not; for his prosecution was ordered; it must betherefore by design that he was included in the general oblivion. He is said to have had friends in the House, such as Marvel, Morrice, and Sir Thomas Clarges: and undoubtedly a man like himmust have had influence. A very particular story of his escape istold by Richardson in his Memoirs, which he received from Pope, asdelivered by Betterton, who might have heard it from Davenant. Inthe war between the King and Parliament, Davenant was made prisonerand condemned to die; but was spared at the request of Milton. Whenthe turn of success brought Milton into the like danger, Davenantrepaid the benefit by appearing in his favour. Here is areciprocation of generosity and gratitude so pleasing, that the talemakes its own way to credit. But if help were wanted, I know notwhere to find it. The danger of Davenant is certain from his ownrelation; but of his escape there is no account. Betterton'snarration can be traced no higher; it is not known that he hid itfrom Davenant. We are told that the benefit exchanged was life forlife; but it seems not certain that Milton's life ever was indanger. Goodwin, who had committed the same kind of crime, escapedwith incapacitation; and, as exclusion from public trust is apunishment which the power of Government can commonly inflictwithout the help of a particular law, it required no great interestto exempt Milton from a censure little more than verbal. Somethingmay be reasonably ascribed to veneration and compassion; toveneration of his abilities, and compassion for his distresses, which made it fit to forgive his malice for his learning. He wasnow poor and blind; and who would pursue with violence anillustrious enemy, depressed by fortune and disarmed by nature?

The publication of the "Act of Oblivion" put him in the samecondition with his fellow-subjects. He was, however, upon somepretence now not known, in the custody of the serjeant in December;and when he was released, upon his refusal of the fees demanded, heand the serjeant were called before the House. He was now safewithin the shade of oblivion, and knew himself to be as much out ofthe power of a griping officer as any other man. How the questionwas determined is not known. Milton would hardly have contended butthat he knew himself to have right on his side. 

He then removed to Jewin Street, near Aldersgate Street, and, beingblind and by no means wealthy, wanted a domestic companion andattendant; and therefore, by the recommendation of Dr. Paget, married Elizabeth Minshul, of a gentleman's family in Cheshire, probably without a fortune. All his wives were virgins; for he hasdeclared that he thought it gross and indelicate to be a secondhusband: upon what other principles his choice was made cannot nowbe known; but marriage afforded not much of his happiness. Thefirst wife left him in disgust, and was brought back only by terror;the second, indeed, seems to have been more a favourite, but herlife was short. The third, as Philips relates, oppressed hischildren in his lifetime, and cheated them at his death. 

Soon after his marriage, according to an obscure story, he wasoffered the continuance of his employment, and, being pressed by hiswife to accept it, answered, "You, like other women, want to ride inyour coach; my wish is to live and die an honest man. " If heconsidered the Latin secretary as exercising any of the powers ofgovernment, he that had shared authority, either with the Parliamentor Cromwell, might have forborne to talk very loudly of his honesty;and if he thought the office purely ministerial, he certainly mighthave honestly retained it under the King. But this tale has toolittle evidence to deserve a disquisition; large offers and sturdyrejections are among the most common topics of falsehood. 

He had so much either of prudence or gratitude, that he forbore todisturb the new settlement with any of his political orecclesiastical opinions, and from this time devoted himself topoetry and literature. Of his zeal for learning in all its parts, he gave a proof by publishing, the next year (1661), "Accidencecommenced Grammar;" a little book which has nothing remarkable, butthat its author, who had been lately defending the supreme powers ofhis country, and was then writing "Paradise Lost, " could descendfrom his elevation to rescue children from the perplexity ofgrammatical confusion, and the trouble of lessons unnecessarilyrepeated. 

About this time, Elwood the Quaker, being recommended to him as onewho would read Latin to him for the advantage of his conversation, attended him every afternoon except on Sundays. Milton, who, in hisletter to Hartlib, had declared, that "to read Latin with an Englishmouth is as ill a hearing as Law French, " required that Elwoodshould learn and practise the Italian pronunciation, which, he said, was necessary, if he would talk with foreigners. This seems to havebeen a task troublesome without use. There is little reason forpreferring the Italian pronunciation to our own, except that it ismore general; and to teach it to an Englishman is only to make him aforeigner at home. He who travels, if he speaks Latin, may so soonlearn the sounds which every native gives it, that he need make noprovision before his journey; and if strangers visit us, it is theirbusiness to practise such conformity to our modes as they expectfrom us in their own countries. Elwood complied with thedirections, and improved himself by his attendance; for he relates, that Milton, having a curious ear, knew by his voice when he readwhat he did not understand, and would stop him, and "open the mostdifficult passages. "

In a short time he took a house in the Artillery Walk, leading toBunhill Fields; the mention of which concludes the register ofMilton's removals and habitations. He lived longer in this placethan any other. 

He was now busied by "Paradise Lost. " Whence he drew the originaldesign has been variously conjectured by men who cannot bear tothink themselves ignorant of that which, at last, neither diligencenor sagacity can discover. Some find the hint in an Italiantragedy. Voltaire tells a wild and unauthorised story of a farceseen by Milton in Italy which opened thus: "Let the Rainbow be theFiddlestick of the Fiddle of Heaven. " It has been already shown, that the first conception was a tragedy or mystery, not of anarrative, but a dramatic work which he is supposed to have began toreduce to its present form about the time (1655) when he finishedhis dispute with the defenders of the king. 

He long had promised to adorn his native country by some greatperformance, while he had yet perhaps no settled design, and wasstimulated only by such expectations as naturally arose from thesurvey of his attainments, and the consciousness of his powers. What he should undertake it was difficult to determine. He was"long choosing, and began late. "

While he was obliged to divide his time between his private studiesand affairs of state, his poetical labour must have been ofteninterrupted; and perhaps he did little more in that busy time thanconstruct the narrative, adjust the episodes, proportion the parts, accumulate images and sentiments, and treasure in his memory, orpreserve in writing, such hints as books or meditation would supply. Nothing particular is known of his intellectual operations while hewas a statesman; for, having every help and accommodation at hand, he had no need of uncommon expedients. 

Being driven from all public stations, he is yet too great not to betraced by curiosity to his retirement; where he has been found byMr. Richardson, the fondest of his admirers, sitting before his doorin a grey coat of coarse cloth, in warm sultry weather, to enjoy thefresh air; and so, as in his own room, receiving the visits ofpeople of distinguished parts as well as quality. His visitors ofhigh quality must now be imagined to be few; but men of parts mightreasonably court the conversation of a man so generally illustrious, that foreigners are reported, by Wood, to have visited the house inBread Street where he was born. 

According to another account, he was seen in a small house, neatlyenough dressed in black clothes, sitting in a room hung with rustygreen; pale but not cadaverous, with chalkstones in his hands. Hesaid that, if it were not for the gout, his blindness would betolerable. 

In the intervals of his pain, being made unable to use the commonexercises, he used to swing in a chair, and sometimes played upon anorgan. 

He was now confessedly and visibly employed upon his poem, of whichthe progress might be noted by those with whom he was familiar; forhe was obliged, when he had composed as many lines as his memorywould conveniently retain, to employ some friend in writing them, having, at least for part of the time, no regular attendant. Thisgave opportunity to observations and reports. 

Mr. Philips observes, that there was a very remarkable circumstancein the composure of "Paradise Lost, " "which I have a particularreason, " says he, "to remember; for whereas I had the perusal of itfrom the very beginning, for some years, as I went from time to timeto visit him, in parcels of ten, twenty, or thirty verses at a time(which, being written by whatever hand came next, might possiblywant correction as to the orthography and pointing), having, as theSummer came on, not been showed any for a considerable while, anddesiring the reason thereof, was answered, that his vein neverhappily flowed but from the autumnal equinox to the vernal; and thatwhatever he attempted at other times was never to his satisfaction, though he courted his fancy never so much; so that, in all the yearshe was about this poem, he may be said to have spent half his timetherein. "

Upon this relation Toland remarks, that in his opinion Philips hasmistaken the time of the year; for Milton, in his Elegies, declares, that with the advance of the spring he feels the increase of hispoetical force, redeunt in carmina vires. To this it is answered, that Philips could hardly mistake time so well marked; and it may beadded, that Milton might find different times of the year favourableto different parts of life. Mr. Richardson conceives it impossiblethat "such a work should be suspended for six months, or for one. It may go on faster or slower, but it must go on. " By whatnecessity it must continually go on, or why it might not be laidaside and resumed, it is not easy to discover. 

This dependence of the soul upon the seasons, those temporary andperiodical ebbs and flows of intellect, may, I suppose, justly bederided as the fumes of vain imagination. Sapiens dominabiturastris. The author that thinks himself weather-bound will find, with a little help from hellebore, that he is only idle orexhausted. But while this notion has possession of the head, itproduces the inability which it supposes. Our powers owe much oftheir energy to our hopes; possunt quia posse videntur. Whensuccess seems attainable, diligence is enforced; but when it isadmitted that the faculties are suppressed by a cross wind, or acloudy sky, the day is given up without resistance; for who cancontend with the course of nature?

From such prepossessions Milton seems not to have been free. Thereprevailed in his time an opinion, that the world was in its decay, and that we have had the misfortune to be produced in thedecrepitude of nature. It was suspected that the whole creationlanguished, that neither trees nor animals had the height or bulk oftheir predecessors, and that everything was daily sinking by gradualdiminution. Milton appears to suspect that souls partake of thegeneral degeneracy, and is not without some fear that his book is tobe written in "an age too late" for heroic poesy. 

Another opinion wanders about the world, and sometimes findsreception among wise men; an opinion that restrains the operationsof the mind to particular regions, and supposes that a lucklessmortal may be born in a degree of latitude too high or too low forwisdom or for wit. From this fancy, wild as it is, he had notwholly cleared his head, when he feared lest the CLIMATE of hiscountry might be TOO COLD for flights of imagination. 

Into a mind already occupied by such fancies, another, not morereasonable, might easily find its way. He that could fear lest hisgenius had fallen upon too old a world, or too chill a climate, might consistently magnify to himself the influence of the seasons, and believe his faculties to be vigorous only half the year. 

His submission to the seasons was at least more reasonable than hisdread of decaying nature, or a frigid zone; for general causes mustoperate uniformly in a general abatement of mental power; if lesscould be performed by the writer, less likewise would content thejudges of his work. Among this lagging race of frosty grovellers hemight still have risen into eminence by producing something which"they should not willingly let die. " However inferior to the heroeswho were born in better ages, he might still be great among hiscontemporaries, with the hope of growing every day greater in thedwindle of posterity. He might still be the giant of the pigmies, the one-eyed monarch of the blind. 

Of his artifices of study, or particular hours of composition, wehave little account, and there was perhaps little to be told. Richardson, who seems to have been very diligent in his inquiries, but discovers always a wish to find Milton discriminated from othermen, relates that "he would sometimes lie awake whole nights, butnot a verse could he make; and on a sudden his poetical facultywould rush upon him with an impetus or aestrum, and his daughter wasimmediately called to secure what came. At other times he woulddictate perhaps forty lines in a breath, and then reduce them tohalf the number. "

These bursts of light, and involutions of darkness, these transientand involuntary excursions and retrocessions of invention, havingsome appearance of deviation from the common train of nature, areeagerly caught by the lovers of a wonder. Yet something of thisinequality happens to every man in every mode of exertion, manual ormental. The mechanic cannot handle his hammer and his file at alltimes with equal dexterity; there are hours, he knows not why, whenHIS HAND IS OUT. By Mr. Richardson's relation, casually conveyed, much regard cannot be claimed. That, in his intellectual hour, Milton called for his daughter "to secure what came, " may bequestioned; for unluckily it happens to be known that his daughterswere never taught to write; nor would he have been obliged, as it isuniversally confessed, to have employed any casual visitor indisburdening his memory, if his daughter could have performed theoffice. 

The story of reducing his exuberance has been told of other authors;and, though doubtless true of every fertile and copious mind, seemsto have been gratuitously transferred to Milton. 

What he has told us, and we cannot now know more, is, that hecomposed much of this poem in the night and morning, I supposebefore his mind was disturbed with common business; and that hepoured out with great fluency his "unpremeditated verse. "Versification, free, like this, from the distresses of rhyme, must, by a work so long, be made prompt and habitual; and, when histhoughts were once adjusted, the words would come at his command. 

At what particular times of his life the parts of his work werewritten, cannot often be known. The beginning of the third bookshows that he had lost his sight, and the introduction to theseventh, that the return of the king had clouded him withdiscountenance; and that he was offended by the licentious festivityof the Restoration. There are no other internal notes of time. Milton, being now cleared from all effects of his disloyalty, hadnothing required from him but the common duty of living in quiet, tobe rewarded with the common right of protection; but this, which, when he skulked from the approach of his king, was perhaps more thanhe hoped, seems not to have satisfied him; for no sooner is he safe, than he finds himself in danger, "fallen on evil days and eviltongues, and with darkness and with danger compassed round. " Thisdarkness, had his eyes been better employed, had undoubtedlydeserved compassion; but to add the mention of danger was ungratefuland unjust. He was fallen indeed on "evil days;" the time was comein which regicides could no longer boast their wickedness. But of"evil tongues" for Milton to complain, required impudence at leastequal to his other powers; Milton, whose warmest advocates mustallow that he never spared any asperity of reproach or brutality ofinsolence. 

But the charge itself seems to be false; for it would be hard torecollect any reproach cast upon him, either serious or ludicrous, through the whole remaining part of his life. He pursued hisstudies or his amusements, without persecution, molestation, orinsult. Such is the reverence paid to great abilities, howevermisused; they, who contemplated in Milton the scholar and the wit, were contented to forget the reviler of his king. 

When the plague (1665) raged in London, Milton took refuge atChalfont, in Bucks; where Elwood, who had taken the house for him, first saw a complete copy of "Paradise Lost, " and, having perusedit, said to him, "Thou hast said a great deal upon Paradise Lost;what hast thou to say upon Paradise Found?"

Next year, when the danger of infection had ceased, he returned toBunhill Fields, and designed the publication of his poem. A licencewas necessary, and he could expect no great kindness from a chaplainof the Archbishop of Canterbury. He seems, however, to have beentreated with tenderness; for, though objections were made toparticular passages, and among them to the simile of the suneclipsed in the first book, yet the licence was granted; and he soldhis copy, April 27, 1667, to Samuel Simmons, for an immediatepayment of five pounds, with a stipulation to receive five poundsmore when thirteen hundred should be sold of the first edition; andagain, five pounds after the sale of the same number of the secondedition; and another five pounds after the same sale of the third. None of the three editions were to be extended beyond fifteenhundred copies. 

The first edition was ten books, in a small quarto. The titles werevaried from year to year; and an advertisement and the arguments ofthe books were omitted in some copies, and inserted in others. 

The sale gave him in two years a right to his second payment, forwhich the receipt was signed April 26, 1669. The second edition wasnot given till 1674; it was printed in small octave; and the numberof books was increased to twelve, by a division of the seventh andtwelfth; and some other small improvements were made. The thirdedition was published in 1678; and the widow, to whom the copy wasthen to devolve, sold all her claims to Simmons for eight pounds, according to her receipt given December 21, 1680. Simmons hadalready agreed to transfer the whole right to Brabazon Aylmer for 25pounds; and Aylmer sold to Jacob Tonson half, August 17, 1683, andhalf, March 24, 1690, at a price considerably enlarged. In thehistory of "Paradise Lost" a deduction thus minute will rathergratify than fatigue. 

The slow sale and tardy reputation of this poem have been alwaysmentioned as evidences of neglected merit, and of the uncertainty ofliterary fame; and inquiries have been made, and conjecturesoffered, about the causes of its long obscurity and late reception. But has the case been truly stated? Have not lamentation and wonderbeen lavished on an evil that was never felt?

That in the reigns of Charles and James the "Paradise Lost "received no public acclamations is readily confessed. Wit andliterature were on the side of the court: and who that solicitedfavour or fashion would venture to praise the defender of theregicides? All that he himself could think his due, from "eviltongues" in "evil days, " was that reverential silence which wasgenerously preserved. But it cannot be inferred that his poem wasnot read, or not, however unwillingly, admired. 

The sale, if it be considered, will justify the public. Those whohave no power to judge of past times but by their own, should alwaysdoubt their conclusions. The call for books was not, in Milton'sage, what it is at present. To read was not then a generalamusement; neither traders, nor often gentlemen, thought themselvesdisgraced by ignorance. The women had not then aspired toliterature, nor was every house supplied with a closet of knowledge. Those, indeed, who professed learning, were not less learned than atany other time; but of that middle race of students who read forpleasure or accomplishment, and who buy the numerous products ofmodern typography, the number was then comparatively small. Toprove the paucity of readers, it may be sufficient to remark, thatthe nation had been satisfied from 1623 to 1664--that is, forty-oneyears--with only two editions of the works of Shakespeare, whichprobably did not together make one thousand copies. 

The sale of thirteen hundred copies in two years, in opposition toso much recent enmity, and to a style of versification new to alland disgusting to many, was an uncommon example of the prevalence ofgenius. The demand did not immediately increase; for many morereaders than were supplied at first the nation did not afford. Onlythree thousand were sold in eleven years; for it forced its waywithout assistance; its admirers did not dare to publish theiropinion; and the opportunities now given of attracting notice byadvertisements were then very few; the means of proclaiming thepublication of new books have been produced by that generalliterature which now pervades the nation through all its ranks. Butthe reputation and price of the copy still advanced, till theRevolution put an end to the secrecy of love, and "Paradise Lost"broke into open view with sufficient security of kind reception. 

Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Miltonsurveyed the silent progress of his work, and marked its reputationstealing its way in a kind of subterraneous current through fear andsilence. I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, littledisappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit withsteady consciousness, and waiting without impatience thevicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a futuregeneration. 

In the meantime he continued his studies, and supplied the want ofsight by a very odd expedient, of which Phillips gives the followingaccount:-

Mr. Philips tells us, "that though our author had daily about himone or other to read, some persons of man's estate, who, of theirown accord, greedily catched at the opportunity of being hisreaders, that they might as well reap the benefit of what they readto him, as oblige him by the benefit of their reading; and others ofyounger years were sent by their parents to the same end; yetexcusing only the eldest daughter by reason of her bodily infirmityand difficult utterance of speech (which, to say truth, I doubt wasthe principal cause of excusing her), the other two were condemnedto the performance of reading and exactly pronouncing of all thelanguages of whatever book he should, at one time or other, thinkfit to peruse, viz. , the Hebrew (and I think the Syriac), the Greek, the Latin, the Italian, Spanish, and French. All which sorts ofbooks to be confined to read, without understanding one word, mustneeds be a trial of patience almost beyond endurance. Yet it wasendured by both for a long time, though the irksomeness of thisemployment could not be always concealed, but broke out more andmore into expressions of uneasiness; so that at length they wereall, even the eldest also, sent out to learn some curious andingenious sorts of manufacture, that are proper for women to learn, particularly embroideries in gold or silver. "

In the scene of misery which this mode of intellectual labour setsbefore our eyes, it is hard to determine whether the daughters orthe father are most to be lamented. A language not understood cannever be so read as to give pleasure, and very seldom so as toconvey meaning. If few men would have had resolution, to writebooks with such embarrassments, few likewise would have wantedability to find some better expedient. 

Three years after his "Paradise Lost" (1667) he published his"History of England, " comprising the whole fable of Geoffrey ofMonmouth, and continued to the Norman Invasion. Why he should havegiven the first part, which he seems not to believe, and which isuniversally rejected, it is difficult to conjecture. The style isharsh; but it has something of rough vigour, which perhaps may oftenstrike, though it cannot please. 

On this history the licenser again fixed his claws, and before hecould transmit it to the press tore out several parts. Somecensures of the Saxon monks were taken away, lest they should beapplied to the modern clergy; and a character of the LongParliament, and Assembly of Divines, was excluded; of which theauthor gave a copy to the Earl of Anglesea, and which, beingafterwards published, has been since inserted in its proper place. 

The same year were printed "Paradise Regained;" and "SamsonAgonistes, " a tragedy written in imitation of the ancients, andnever designed by the author for the stage. As these poems werepublished by another bookseller, it has been asked whether Simmonswas discouraged from receiving them by the slow sale of the former. Why a writer changed his bookseller a hundred years ago, I am farfrom hoping to discover. Certainly, he who in two years sellsthirteen hundred copies of a volume in quarto, bought for twopayments of five pounds each, has no reason to repent his purchase. 

When Milton showed "Paradise Regained" to Elwood, "This, " said he, "is owing to you; for you put it in my head by the question you putto me at Chalfont, which otherwise I had not thought of. "

His last poetical offspring was his favourite. He could not, asElwood relates, endure to hear "Paradise Lost" preferred to"Paradise Regained. " Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgment ofhis own works. On that which has cost him much labour he sets ahigh value, because he is unwilling to think that he has beendiligent in vain; what has been produced without toilsome efforts isconsidered with delight, as a proof of vigorous faculties andfertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, hasnecessarily most of the grace of novelty. Milton, however ithappened, had this prejudice, and had it to himself. 

To that multiplicity of attainments, and extent of comprehension, that entitled this great author to our veneration, may be added akind of humble dignity, which did not disdain the meanest servicesto literature. The epic poet, the controvertist, the politician, having already descended to accommodate children with a book ofrudiments, now, in the last years of his life, composed a book oflogic for the initiation of students in philosophy; and published(1672) "Artis Logicae plenior Institutio ad Petri Rami Methodumconcinnata;" that is, "A new Scheme of Logic, according to themethod of Ramus. " I know not whether, even in this book, he did notintend an act of hostility against the universities; for Ramus wasone of the first oppugners of the old philosophy, who disturbed withinnovations the quiet of the schools. 

His polemical disposition again revived. He had now been safe solong that he forgot his fears, and published a "Treatise of TrueReligion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and the Best Means to Preventthe Growth of Popery. "

But this little tract is modestly written, with respectful mentionof the Church of England and an appeal to the Thirty-nine Articles. His principle of toleration is, agreement in the sufficiency of theScriptures; and he extends it to all who, whatever their opinionsare, profess to derive them from the sacred books. The Papistsappeal to other testimonies, and are therefore, in his opinion, notto be permitted the liberty of either public or private worship; forthough they plead conscience, "we have no warrant, " he says, "toregard conscience which is not grounded in Scripture. "

Those who are not convinced by his reasons, may perhaps be delightedwith his wit. The term "Roman Catholic is, " he says, "one of thePope's Bulls; it is particular universal, or Catholic schismatic. "

He has, however, something better. As the best preservative againstPopery, he recommends the diligent perusal of the Scriptures, a dutyfrom which he warns the busy part of mankind not to think themselvesexcused. 

He now reprinted his juvenile poems, with some additions. 

In the last year of his life he sent to the press, seeming to takedelight in publication, a collection of "Familiar Epistles inLatin;" to which, being too few to make a volume, he added someacademical exercises, which perhaps he perused with pleasure, asthey recalled to his memory the days of youth; but for which nothingbut veneration for his name could now procure a reader. 

When he had attained his sixty-sixth year, the gout, with which hehad been long tormented, prevailed over the enfeebled powers ofnature. He died by a quiet and silent expiration, about the 10th ofNovember, 1674, at his house in Bunhill Fields; and was buried nexthis father in the chancel of St. Giles at Cripplegate. His funeralwas very splendidly and numerously attended. 

Upon his grave there is supposed to have been no memorial; but inour time a monument has been erected in Westminster Abbey "To theAuthor of 'Paradise Lost, '" by Mr. Benson, who has in theinscription bestowed more words upon himself than upon Milton. 

When the inscription for the monument of Philips, in which he wassaid to be soli Miltono secundus, was exhibited to Dr. Sprat, thenDean of Westminster, he refused to admit it; the name of Milton was, in his opinion, too detestable to be read on the wall of a buildingdedicated to devotion. Atterbury, who succeeded him, being authorof the inscription, permitted its reception. "And such has been thechange of public opinion, " said Dr. Gregory, from whom I heard thisaccount, "that I have seen erected in the church a statue of thatman, whose name I once knew considered as a pollution of its walls. "

Milton has the reputation of having been in his youth eminentlybeautiful, so as to have been called the lady of his college. Hishair, which was of a light brown, parted at the fore-top, and hungdown upon his shoulders, according to the picture which he has givenof Adam. He was, however, not of the heroic stature, but ratherbelow the middle size, according to Mr. Richardson, who mentions himas having narrowly escaped from being "short and thick. " He wasvigorous and active, and delighted in the exercise of the sword, inwhich he is related to have been eminently skilful. His weapon was, I believe, not the rapier, but the back-sword, of which herecommends the use in his book on education. 

His eyes are said never to have been bright; but, if he was adexterous fencer, they must have been once quick. 

His domestic habits, so far as they are known, were those of asevere student. He drank little strong drink of any kind, and fedwithout excess in quantity, and in his earlier years withoutdelicacy of choice. In his youth he studied late at night; butafterwards changed his hours, and rested in bed from nine to four inthe summer and five in the winter. The course of his day was bestknown after he was blind. When he first rose, he heard a chapter inthe Hebrew Bible, and then studied till twelve; then took someexercise for an hour; then dined, then played on the organ, andsang, or heard another sing, then studied till six; then entertainedhis visitors till eight; then supped, and, after a pipe of tobaccoand a glass of water, went to bed. 

So is his life described; but this even tenour appears attainableonly in colleges. He that lives in the world will sometimes havethe succession of his practice broken and confused. Visitors, ofwhom Milton is represented to have had great numbers, will come andstay unseasonably; business, of which every man has some, must bedone when others will do it. 

When he did not care to rise early, he had something read to him byhis bedside; perhaps at this time his daughters were employed. Hecomposed much in the morning, and dictated in the day, sittingobliquely in an elbow-chair, with his leg thrown over the arm. Fortune appears not to have had much of his care. In the civilwars, he lent his personal estate to the Parliament; but when, afterthe contest was decided, he solicited repayment, he met not onlywith neglect, but "sharp rebuke;" and, having tired both himself andhis friends, was given up to poverty and hopeless indignation, tillhe showed how able he was to do greater service. He was then madeLatin Secretary, with two hundred pounds a year; and had a thousandpounds for his "Defence of the People. " His widow, who, after hisdeath, retired to Nantwich, in Cheshire, and died about 1729, issaid to have reported that he lost two thousand pounds by entrustingit to a scrivener; and that, in the general depredation upon theChurch, he had grasped an estate of about sixty pounds a yearbelonging to Westminster Abbey, which, like other sharers of theplunder of rebellion, he was afterwards obliged to return. Twothousand pounds which he had placed in the Excise Office were alsolost. There is yet no reason to believe that he was ever reduced toindigence. His wants, being few, were competently supplied. Hesold his library before his death, and left his family fifteenhundred pounds, on which his widow laid hold, and only gave onehundred to each of his daughters. 

His literature was unquestionably great. He read all the languageswhich are considered either as learned or polite: Hebrew, with itstwo dialects, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish. In Latinhis skill was such as places him in the first rank of writers andcritics; and he appears to have cultivated Italian with uncommondiligence. The books in which his daughter, who used to read tohim, represented him as most delighting, after Homer, which he couldalmost repeat, were Ovid's "Metamorphoses" and Euripides. HisEuripides is, by Mr. Cradock's kindness, now in my hands: themargin is sometimes noted; but I have found nothing remarkable. 

Of the English poets he set most value upon Spenser, Shakespeare, and Cowley. Spenser was apparently his favourite; Shakespeare hemay easily be supposed to like, with every other skilful reader; butI should not have expected that Cowley, whose ideas of excellencewere different from his own, would have had much of his approbation. His character of Dryden, who sometimes visited him, was, that he wasa good rhymist, but no poet. 

His theological opinions are said to have been first Calvinistical;and afterwards, perhaps when he began to hate the Presbyterians, tohave tended towards Arminianism. In the mixed questions of theologyand government, he never thinks that he can recede far enough fromPopery, or Prelacy; but what Baudius says of Erasmus seemsapplicable to him, "Magis habuit quod fugeret, quam quodsequeretur. " He had determined rather what to condemn, than what toapprove. He has not associated himself with any denomination ofProtestants: we know rather what he was not than what he was. Hewas not of the Church of Rome; he was not of the Church of England. 

To be of no Church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards aredistant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide bydegrees out of the mind, unless it be invigorated and reimpressed byexternal ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutaryinfluence of example. Milton, who appears to have had a fullconviction of the truth of Christianity, and to have regarded theHoly Scriptures with the profoundest veneration, to have beenuntainted by any heretical peculiarity of opinion, and to have livedin a confirmed belief of the immediate and occasional agency ofProvidence, yet grew old without any visible worship. In thedistribution of his hours, there was no hour of prayer, eithersolitary or with his household; omitting public prayers, he omittedall. 

Of this omission the reason has been sought upon a supposition whichought never to be made, that men live with their own approbation, and justify their conduct to themselves. Prayer certainly was notthought superfluous by him, who represents our first parents aspraying acceptably in the state of innocence, and efficaciouslyafter their fall. That he lived without prayer can hardly beaffirmed; his studies and meditations were an habitual prayer. Theneglect of it in his family was probably a fault for which hecondemned himself, and which he intended to correct; but that death, as too often happens, intercepted his reformation. 

His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surlyRepublican; for which it is not known that he gave any better reasonthan that "a popular government was the most frugal; for thetrappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth. " Itis surely very shallow policy that supposes money to be the chiefgood; and even this, without considering that the support andexpense of a court is, for the most part, only a particular kind oftraffic, for which money is circulated, without any nationalimpoverishment. 

Milton's Republicanism was, I am afraid, founded in an envioushatred of greatness, and a sullen desire of independence; inpetulance impatient of control, and pride disdainful of superiority. He hated monarchs in the State, and prelates in the Church; for hehated all whom he was required to obey. It is to be suspected thathis predominant desire was to destroy rather than establish, andthat he felt not so much the love of liberty as repugnance toauthority. 

It has been observed that they who most loudly clamour for libertydo not most liberally grant it. What we know of Milton's character, in domestic relations, is, that he was severe and arbitrary. Hisfamily consisted of women; and there appears in his books somethinglike a Turkish contempt of females, as subordinate and inferiorbeings. That his own daughters might not break the ranks, hesuffered them to be depressed by a mean and penurious education. Hethought woman made only for obedience, and man only for rebellion. 

Of his family some account may be expected. His sister, firstmarried to Mr. Philips, afterwards married Mr. Agar, a friend of herfirst husband, who succeeded him in the Crown office. She had, byher first husband, Edward and John, the two nephews whom Miltoneducated; and by her second, two daughters. 

His brother, Sir Christopher, had two daughters, Mary and Catharine, and a son, Thomas, who succeeded Agar in the Crown office, and lefta daughter living in 1749 in Grosvenor Street. 

Milton had children only by his first wife: Anne, Mary, andDeborah. Anne, though deformed, married a master-builder, and diedof her first child. Mary died single. Deborah married AbrahamClark, a weaver in Spitalfields, and lived seventy-six years, toAugust, 1727. This is the daughter of whom public mention has beenmade. She could repeat the first lines of Homer, the"Metamorphoses, " and some of Euripides, by having often read them. Yet here incredulity is ready to make a stand. Many repetitions arenecessary to fix in memory lines not understood; and why shouldMilton wish or want to hear them so often? These lines were at thebeginning of the poems. Of a book written in a language notunderstood, the beginning raises no more attention than the end; andas those that understand it know commonly the beginning best, itsrehearsal will seldom be necessary. It is not likely that Miltonrequired any passage to be so much repeated as that his daughtercould learn it; nor likely that he desired the initial lines to beread at all; nor that the daughter, weary of the drudgery ofpronouncing unideal sounds, would voluntarily commit them to memory. 

To this gentlewoman Addison made a present, and promised someestablishment, but died soon after. Queen Caroline sent her fiftyguineas. She had seven sons and three daughters; but none of themhad any children, except her son Caleb and her daughter Elizabeth. Caleb went to Fort St. George, in the East Indies, and had two sons, of whom nothing now is known. Elizabeth married Thomas Foster, aweaver in Spitalfields, and had seven children, who all died. Shekept a petty grocer's or chandler's shop, first at Holloway, andafterwards in Cock Lane, near Shoreditch Church. She knew little ofher grandfather, and that little was not good. She told of hisharshness to his daughters, and his refusal to have them taught towrite; and, in opposition to other accounts, represented him asdelicate, though temperate, in his diet. 

In 1750, April 5th, Comus was played for her benefit. She had solittle acquaintance with diversion or gaiety, that she did not knowwhat was intended when a benefit was offered her. The profits ofthe night were only one hundred and thirty pounds, though Dr. Newtonbrought a large contribution; and twenty pounds were given byTonson, a man who is to be praised as often as he is named. Of thissum one hundred pounds were placed in the stocks, after some debatebetween her and her husband in whose name it should be entered; andthe rest augmented their little stock, with which they removed toIslington. This was the greatest benefaction that "Paradise Lost"ever procured the author's descendants; and to this he who has nowattempted to relate his Life, had the honour of contributing aPrologue. 

In the examination of Milton's poetical works, I shall pay so muchregard to time as to begin with his juvenile productions. For hisearly pieces he seems to have had a degree of fondness not verylaudable; what he has once written he resolves to preserve, andgives to the public an unfinished poem which he broke off because hewas "nothing satisfied with what he had done, " supposing his readersless nice than himself. These preludes to his future labours are inItalian, Latin, and English. Of the Italian I cannot pretend tospeak as a critic; but I have heard them commended by a man wellqualified to decide their merit. The Latin pieces are lusciouslyelegant: but the delight which they afford is rather by theexquisite imitation of the ancient writers, by the purity of thediction, and the harmony of the numbers, than by any power ofinvention or vigour of sentiment. They are not all of equal value;the elegies excel the odes; and some of the exercises on GunpowderTreason might have been spared. 

The English poems, though they make no promises of "Paradise Lost, "have this evidence of genius--that they have a cast original andunborrowed. But their peculiarity is not excellence; if they differfrom the verses of others, they differ for the worse; for they aretoo often distinguished by repulsive harshness; the combinations ofwords are new, but they are not pleasing; the rhymes and epithetsseem to be laboriously sought, and violently applied. 

That in the early parts of his life he wrote with much care appearsfrom his manuscripts, happily preserved at Cambridge, in which manyof his smaller works are found as they were first written, with thesubsequent corrections. Such relics show how excellence isacquired; what we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first todo with diligence. 

Those who admire the beauties of this great poet sometimes forcetheir own judgment into false approbation of his little pieces, andprevail upon themselves to think that admirable which is onlysingular. All that short compositions can commonly attain isneatness and elegance. Milton never learned the art of doing littlethings with grace; he overlooked the milder excellence of suavityand softness; he was a "Lion" that had no skill in "dandling theKid. "

One of the poems on which much praise has been bestowed is"Lycidas;" of which the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, andthe numbers unpleasing. What beauty there is we must therefore seekin the sentiments and images. It is not to be considered as theeffusion of real passion; for passion runs not after remoteallusions and obscure opinions. Passion plucks no berries from themyrtle and ivy, nor calls upon Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells ofrough "satyrs" and "fauns with cloven heel. " Where there is leisurefor fiction, there is little grief. 

In this poem there is no nature, for there is no truth; there is noart, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a pastoral;easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting; whatever images it cansupply are long ago exhausted; and its inherent improbability alwaysforces dissatisfaction on the mind. When Cowley tells of Hervey, that they studied together, it is easy to suppose how much he mustmiss the companion of his labours, and the partner of hisdiscoveries; but what image of tenderness can be excited by theselines? -

We drove afield, and both together heardWhat time the grey fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night. 

We know that they never drove afield, and that they had no flocks tobatten; and though it be allowed that the representation may beallegorical, the true meaning is so uncertain and remote, that it isnever sought, because it cannot be known when it is found. 

Among the flocks, and copses, and flowers, appear the heathendeities; Jove and Phoebus, Neptune and AEolus, with a long train ofmythological imagery, such as a college easily supplies. Nothingcan less display knowledge, or less exercise invention, than to tellhow a shepherd has lost his companion, and must now feed his flocksalone, without any judge of his skill in piping; and how one godasks another god what is become of Lycidas, and how neither god cantell. He who thus grieves will excite no sympathy; he who thuspraises will confer no honour. 

This poem has yet a grosser fault. With these trifling fictions aremingled the most awful and sacred truths, such as ought never to bepolluted with such irreverent combinations. The shepherd likewiseis now a feeder of sheep, and afterwards an ecclesiastical pastor, asuperintendent of a Christian flock. Such equivocations are alwaysunskilful; but here they are indecent, and at least approach toimpiety, of which, however, I believe the writer not to have beenconscious. 

Such is the power of reputation justly acquired, that its blazedrives away the eye from nice examination. Surely no man could havefancied that he read Lycidas with pleasure, had he not known theauthor. 

Of the two pieces, "L'Allegro" and "il Penseroso, " I believe, opinion is uniform; every man that reads them, reads them withpleasure. The author's design is not, what Theobald has remarked, merely to show how objects derive their colours from the mind, byrepresenting the operation of the same things upon the gay and themelancholy temper, or upon the same man as he is differentlydisposed; but rather how, among the successive variety ofappearances, every disposition of mind takes hold on those by whichit may be gratified. 

The CHEERFUL man hears the lark in the morning; the PENSIVE manhears the nightingale in the evening. The CHEERFUL man sees thecock strut, and hears the horn and hounds echo in the wood; thenwalks, NOT UNSEEN, to observe the glory of the rising sun, or listento the singing milkmaid, and view the labours of the ploughman andthe mower; then casts his eyes about him over scenes of smilingplenty, and looks up to the distant tower, the residence of somefair inhabitant; thus he pursues real gaiety through a day of labouror of play, and delights himself at night with the fancifulnarratives of superstitious ignorance. 

The PENSIVE man at one time walks UNSEEN to muse at midnight, and atanother hears the sullen curfew. If the weather drives him home, hesits in a room lighted only by "glowing embers;" or by a lonely lampoutwatches the North Star, to discover the habitation of separatesouls, and varies the Shades of meditation by contemplating themagnificent or pathetic scenes of tragic and epic poetry. When themorning comes--a morning gloomy with rain and wind--he walks intothe dark, trackless woods, falls asleep by some murmuring water, andwith melancholy enthusiasm expects some dream of prognostication, orsome music played by aerial performers. 

Both mirth and melancholy are solitary, silent inhabitants of thebreast, that neither receive nor transmit communication; no mentionis therefore made of a philosophical friend, or a pleasantcompanion. The seriousness does not arise from any participation ofcalamity, nor the gaiety from the pleasures of the bottle. 

The man of CHEERFULNESS, having exhausted the country, tries what"towered cities" will afford, and mingles with scenes of splendour, gay assemblies, and nuptial festivities; but he mingles a merespectator, as, when the learned comedies of Jonson, or the wilddramas of Shakespeare, are exhibited, he attends the theatre. 

The PENSIVE man never loses himself in crowds, but walks thecloister, or frequents the cathedral. Milton probably had not yetforsaken the Church. 

Both his characters delight in music; but he seems to think thatcheerful notes would have obtained from Pluto a complete dismissionof Eurydice, of whom solemn sounds procured only a conditionalrelease. 

For the old age of Cheerfulness he makes no provision: butMelancholy he conducts with great dignity to the close of life. HisCheerfulness is without levity, and his Pensiveness withoutasperity. 

Through these two poems the images are properly selected and nicelydistinguished; but the colours of the diction seem not sufficientlydiscriminated. I know not whether the characters are keptsufficiently apart. No mirth can, indeed, be found in hismelancholy; but I am afraid that I always meet some melancholy inhis mirth. They are two noble efforts of imagination. 

The greatest of his juvenile performances is the "Mask of Comus, " inwhich may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of"Paradise Lost. " Milton appears to have formed very early thatsystem of diction, and mode of verse, which his maturer judgmentapproved, and from which he never endeavoured nor desired todeviate. 

Nor does Comus afford only a specimen of his language; it exhibitslikewise his power of description and his vigour of sentiment, employed in the praise and defence of virtue. A work more trulypoetical is rarely found; allusions, images, and descriptiveepithets, embellish almost every period with lavish decoration. Asa series of lines, therefore, it may be considered as worthy of allthe admiration with which the votaries have received it. 

As a drama it is deficient. The action is not probable. A mask, inthose parts where supernatural intervention is admitted, must indeedbe given up to all the freaks of imagination, but so far as theaction is merely human, it ought to be reasonable, which can hardlybe said of the conduct of the two brothers; who, when their sistersinks with fatigue in a pathless wilderness, wander both awaytogether in search of berries too far to find their way back, andleave a helpless lady to all the sadness and danger of solitude. This, however, is a defect over-balanced by its convenience. 

What deserves more reprehension is, that the prologue spoken in thewild wood by the attendant Spirit is addressed to the audience; amode of communication so contrary to the nature of dramaticrepresentation, that no precedents can support it. 

The discourse of the Spirit is too long; an objection that may bemade to almost all the following speeches; they have not thesprightliness of a dialogue animated by reciprocal contention, butseem rather declamations deliberately composed, and formallyrepeated, on a moral question. The auditor therefore listens as toa lecture, without passion, without anxiety. 

The song of Comus has airiness and jollity; but, what may recommendMilton's morals as well as his poetry, the invitations to pleasureare so general, that they excite no distinct images of corruptenjoyment, and take no dangerous hold on the fancy. 

The following soliloquies of Comus and the Lady are elegant buttedious. The song must owe much to the voice if it ever candelight. At last the Brothers enter with too much tranquillity;and, when they have feared lest their Sister should be in danger, and hoped that she is not in danger, the elder makes a speech inpraise of chastity, and the younger finds how fine it is to be aphilosopher. 

Then descends the Spirit in form of a shepherd; and the Brother, instead of being in haste to ask his help, praises his singing, andinquires his business in that place. It is remarkable, that at thisinterview the Brother is taken with a short fit of rhyming, TheSpirit relates that the Lady is in the power of Comus; the Brothermoralises again; and the Spirit makes a long narration, of no usebecause it is false, and therefore unsuitable to a good being. 

In all these parts the language is poetical, and the sentiments aregenerous; but there is something wanting to allure attention. 

The dispute between the Lady and Comus is the most animated andaffecting scene of the drama, and wants nothing but a briskerreciprocation of objections and replies to invite attention, anddetain it. 

The songs are vigorous and full of imagery; but they are harsh intheir diction, and not very musical in their numbers. 

Throughout the whole the figures are too bold, and the language tooluxuriant for dialogue. It is a drama in the epic style, inelegantly splendid, and tediously instructive. 

The sonnets were written in different parts of Milton's life, upondifferent occasions. They deserve not any particular criticism; forof the best it can only be said, that they are not bad; and perhapsonly the eighth and twenty-first are truly entitled to this slendercommendation. The fabric of a sonnet, however adapted to theItalian language, has never succeeded in ours, which, having greatervariety of termination, requires the rhymes to be often changed. 

Those little pieces may be despatched without much anxiety; agreater work calls for greater care. I am now to examine "ParadiseLost;" a poem which, considered with respect to design, may claimthe first place, and with respect to performance, the second, amongthe productions of the human mind. 

By the general consent of critics the first praise of genius is dueto the writer of an epic poem, as it requires an assemblage of allthe powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions. Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by callingimagination to the help of reason. Epic poetry undertakes to teachthe most important truths by the most pleasing precepts, andtherefore relates some great event in the most affecting manner. History must supply the writer with the rudiments of narration, which he must improve and exalt by a nobler art, must animate bydramatic energy, and diversify by retrospection and anticipation;morality must teach him the exact bounds, and different shades, ofvice and virtue; from policy, and the practice of life, he has tolearn the discriminations of character, and the tendency of thepassions, either single or combined; and physiology must supply himwith illustrations and images. To put those materials to poeticaluse, is required an imagination capable of painting nature andrealising fiction. Nor is he yet a poet till he has attained thewhole extension of his language, distinguished all the delicacies ofphrase, and all the colours of words, and learned to adjust theirdifferent sounds to all the varieties of metrical modulation. 

Bossu is of opinion, that the poet's first work is to find a MORAL, which his fable is afterwards to illustrate and establish. Thisseems to have been the process only of Milton; the moral of otherpoems is incidental and consequent; in Milton's only it is essentialand intrinsic. His purpose was the most useful and the mostarduous: "to vindicate the ways of God to man;" to show thereasonableness of religion, and the necessity of obedience to theDivine Law. 

To convey this moral there must be a FABLE, a narration artfullyconstructed, so as to excite curiosity and surprise expectation. Inthis part of his work Milton must be confessed to have equalledevery other poet. He has involved in his account of the Fall of Manthe events which preceded and those that were to follow it: he hasinterwoven the whole system of theology with such propriety, thatevery part appears to be necessary; and scarcely any recital iswished shorter for the sake of quickening the progress of the mainaction. 

The subject of an epic poem is naturally an event of greatimportance. That of Milton is not the destruction of a city, theconduct of a colony, or the foundation of an empire. His subject isthe fate of worlds, the revolutions of heaven and of earth;rebellion against the Supreme King, raised by the highest order ofcreated beings; the overthrow of their host, and the punishment oftheir crime; the creation of a new race of reasonable creatures;their original happiness and innocence, their forfeiture ofimmortality, and their restoration to hope and peace. 

Great events can be hastened or retarded only by persons of elevateddignity. Before the greatness displayed in Milton's poem, all othergreatness shrinks away. The weakest of his agents are the highestand noblest of human beings, the original parents of mankind; withwhose actions the elements consented; on whose rectitude ordeviation of will, depended the state of terrestrial nature, and thecondition of all the future inhabitants of the globe. 

Of the other agents in the poem, the chief are such as it isirreverence to name on slight occasions. The rest were lower powers-

 Of which the least could wieldThose elements, and arm him with the forceOf all their regions;

powers, which only the control of Omnipotence restrains from layingcreation waste, and filling the vast expanse of space with ruin andconfusion. To display the motives and actions of beings thussuperior, so far as human reason can examine them, or humanimagination represent them, is the task which this mighty poet hasundertaken and performed. 

In the examination of epic poems much speculation is commonlyemployed upon the CHARACTERS. The characters in the "ParadiseLost, " which admit of examination, are those of angels and of man;of angels good and evil; of man in his innocent and sinful state. 

Among the angels, the virtue of Raphael is mild and placid, of easycondescension and free communication; that of Michael is regal andlofty, and, as may seem, attentive to the dignity of his own nature. Abdiel and Gabriel appear occasionally, and act as every incidentrequires; the solitary fidelity of Abdiel is very amiably painted. 

Of the evil angels the characters are more diversified. To Satan, as Addison observes, such sentiments are given as suit "the mostexalted and most depraved being. " Milton has been censured byClarke, for the impiety which sometimes breaks from Satan's mouth;for there are thoughts, as he justly remarks, which no observationof character can justify, because no good man would willingly permitthem to pass, however transiently, through his own mind. To makeSatan speak as a rebel, without any such expression as might taintthe reader's imagination, was indeed one of the great difficultiesin Milton's undertaking; and I cannot but think that he hasextricated himself with great happiness. There is in Satan'sspeeches little that can give pain to a pious ear. The language ofrebellion cannot be the same with that of obedience. The malignityof Satan foams in haughtiness and obstinacy; but his expressions arecommonly general, and no otherwise offensive than as they arewicked. 

The other chiefs of the celestial rebellion are very judiciouslydiscriminated in the first and second books; and the ferociouscharacter of Moloch appears, both in the battle and the council, with exact consistency. 

To Adam and to Eve are given, during their innocence, suchsentiments as innocence can generate and utter. Their love is purebenevolence and mutual veneration; their repasts are without luxury, and their diligence without toil. Their addresses to their Makerhave little more than the voice of admiration and gratitude. Fruition left them nothing to ask; and innocence left them nothingto fear. 

But with guilt enter distrust and discord, mutual accusation, andstubborn self-defence; they regard each other with alienated minds, and dread their Creator as the avenger of their transgression. Atlast they seek shelter in His mercy, soften to repentance, and meltin supplication. Both before and after the fall, the superiority ofAdam is diligently sustained. 

Of the PROBABLE and the MARVELLOUS, two parts of a vulgar epic poemwhich immerge the critic in deep consideration, the "Paradise Lost"requires little to be said. It contains the history of a miracle, of creation and redemption; it displays the power and the mercy ofthe Supreme Being; the probable therefore is marvellous, and themarvellous is probable. The substance of the narrative is truth;and, as truth allows no choice, it is, like necessity, superior torule. To the accidental or adventitious parts, as to everythinghuman, some slight exceptions may be made; but the main fabric isimmovably supported. 

It is justly remarked by Addison, that this poem has, by the natureof its subject, the advantage above all others, that it isuniversally and perpetually interesting. All mankind will, throughall ages, bear the same relation to Adam and to Eve, and mustpartake of that good and evil which extend to themselves. 

Of the MACHINERY, so called from [Greek text], by which is meant theoccasional interposition of supernatural power, another fertiletopic of critical remarks, here is no room to speak, becauseeverything is done under the immediate and visible direction ofHeaven; but the rule is so far observed, that no part of the actioncould have been accomplished by any other means. 

Of EPISODES, I think there are only two--contained in Raphael'srelation of the war in Heaven, and Michael's prophetic account ofthe changes to happen in this world. Both are closely connectedwith the great action; one was necessary to Adam as a warning, theother as a consolation. 

To the completeness or INTEGRITY of the design nothing can beobjected; it has distinctly and clearly what Aristotle requires--abeginning, a middle, and an end. There is perhaps no poem, of thesame length, from which so little can be taken without apparentmutilation. Here are no funeral games, nor is there any longdescription of a shield. The short digressions at the beginning ofthe third, seventh, and ninth books, might doubtless be spared, butsuperfluities so beautiful who would take away? or who does not wishthat the author of the "Iliad" had gratified succeeding ages with alittle knowledge of himself? Perhaps no passages are moreattentively read than those extrinsic paragraphs; and, since the endof poetry is pleasure, that cannot be unpoetical with which all arepleased. 

The questions, whether the action of the poem be strictly ONE, whether the poem can be properly termed HEROIC, and who is the hero, are raised by such readers as draw their principles of judgmentrather from books than from reason. Milton, though he entitled"Paradise Lost" only a "poem, " yet calls it himself "heroic song. "Dryden petulantly and indecently denies the heroism of Adam, becausehe was overcome; but there is no reason why the hero should not beunfortunate, except established practice, since success and virtuedo not go necessarily together. Cato is the hero of Lucan; butLucan's authority will not be suffered by Quintilian to decide. However, if success be necessary, Adam's deceiver was at lastcrushed; Adam was restored to his Maker's favour, and therefore maysecurely resume his human rank. 

After the scheme and fabric of the poem, must be considered itscomponent parts, the sentiments and the diction. 

The SENTIMENTS, as expressive of manners, or appropriated tocharacters, are, for the greater part, unexceptionably just. 

Splendid passages, containing lessons of morality, or precepts ofprudence, occur seldom. Such is the original formation of thispoem, that, as it admits no human manners till the Fall, it can givelittle assistance to human conduct. Its end is to raise thethoughts above sublunary cares or pleasures. Yet the praise of thatfortitude, with which Abdiel maintained his singularity of virtueagainst the scorn of multitudes, may be accommodated to all times;and Raphael's reproof of Adam's curiosity after the planetarymotions, with the answer returned by Adam, may be confidentlyopposed to any rule of life which any poet has delivered. 

The thoughts which are occasionally called forth in the progress aresuch as could only be produced by an imagination in the highestdegree fervid and active, to which materials were supplied byincessant study and unlimited curiosity. The heat of Milton's mindmay be said to sublimate his learning, to throw off into his workthe spirit of science, unmingled with its grosser parts. 

He had considered creation in its whole extent, and his descriptionsare therefore learned. He had accustomed his imagination tounrestrained indulgence, and his conceptions therefore wereextensive. The characteristic quality of his poem is sublimity. Hesometimes descends to the elegant, but his element is the great. Hecan occasionally invest himself with grace; but his natural port isgigantic loftiness. He can please when pleasure is required; but itis his peculiar power to astonish. 

He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and toknow what it was that Nature had bestowed upon him more bountifullythan upon others--the power of displaying the vast, illuminating thesplendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravatingthe dreadful; he therefore chose a subject on which too much couldnot be said, on which he might tire his fancy without the censure ofextravagance. 

The appearances of nature, and the occurrences of life, did notsatiate his appetite of greatness. To paint things as they arerequires a minute attention, and employs the memory rather than thefancy. Milton's delight was to sport in the wide regions ofpossibility; reality was a scene too narrow for his mind. He senthis faculties out upon discovery, into worlds where only imaginationcan travel, and delighted to form new modes of existence, andfurnish sentiment and action to superior beings; to trace thecounsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven. 

But he could not be always in other worlds; he must sometimesrevisit earth, and tell of things visible and known. When he cannotraise wonder by the sublimity of his mind, he gives delight by itsfertility. 

Whatever be his subject, he never fails to fill the imagination. But his images and descriptions of the scenes or operations ofnature do not seem to be always copied from original form, nor tohave the freshness, raciness, and energy of immediate observation. He saw nature, as Dryden expresses it, "through the spectacles ofbooks;" and on most occasions calls learning to his assistance. Thegarden of Eden brings to his mind the vale of Enna, where Proserpinewas gathering flowers. Satan makes his way through fightingelements, like Argo between the Cyanean rocks, or Ulysses betweenthe two Sicilian whirlpools, when he shunned Charybdis on thelarboard. The mythological allusions have been justly censured, asnot being always used with notice of their vanity; but theycontribute variety to the narration, and produce an alternateexercise of the memory and the fancy. 

His similes are less numerous, and more various, than those of hispredecessors. But he does not confine himself within the limits ofrigorous comparison: his great excellence is amplitude; and heexpands the adventitious image beyond the dimensions which theoccasion required. Thus, comparing the shield of Satan to the orbof the moon, he crowds the imagination with the discovery of thetelescope, and all the wonders which the telescope discovers. 

Of his moral sentiments it is hardly praise to affirm that theyexcel those of all other poets; for this superiority he was indebtedto his acquaintance with the sacred writings. The ancient epicpoets, wanting the light of Revelation, were very unskilful teachersof virtue; their principal characters may be great, but they are notamiable. The reader may rise from their works with a greater degreeof active or passive fortitude, and sometimes of prudence; but hewill be able to carry away few precepts of justice, and none ofmercy. 

From the Italian writers it appears that the advantages of evenChristian knowledge may be possessed in vain. Ariosto's pravity isgenerally known; and, though the "Deliverance of Jerusalem" may beconsidered as a sacred subject, the poet has been very sparing ofmoral instruction. 

In Milton every line breathes sanctity of thought, and purity ofmanners, except when the train of the narration requires theintroduction of the rebellious spirits; and even they are compelledto acknowledge their subjection to God, in such a manner as excitesreverence and confirms piety. 

Of human beings there are but two; but those two are the parents ofmankind, venerable before their fall for dignity and innocence, andamiable after it for repentance and submission. In the first statetheir affection is tender without weakness, and their piety sublimewithout presumption. When they have sinned, they show how discordbegins in mutual frailty, and how it ought to cease in mutualforbearance; how confidence of the Divine favour is forfeited bysin, and how hope of pardon may be obtained by penitence and prayer. A state of innocence we can only conceive, if indeed, in our presentmisery, it be possible to conceive it; but the sentiments andworship proper to a fallen and offending being, we have all tolearn, as we have all to practise. 

The poet, whatever be done, is always great. Our progenitors intheir first state conversed with angels; even when folly and sin haddegraded them, they had not in their humiliation "the port of meansuitors;" and they rise again to reverential regard, when we findthat their prayers were heard. 

As human passions did not enter the world before the Fall, there isin the "Paradise Lost" little opportunity for the pathetic; but whatlittle there is has not been lost. That passion, which is peculiarto rational nature, the anguish arising from the consciousness oftransgression, and the horrors attending the sense of the Divinedispleasure, are very justly described and forcibly impressed. Butthe passions are moved only on one occasion; sublimity is thegeneral and prevailing quality in this poem; sublimity variouslymodified--sometimes descriptive, sometimes argumentative. 

The defects and faults of "Paradise Lost"--for faults and defectsevery work of man must have--it is the business of impartialcriticism to discover. As, in displaying the excellence of Milton, I have not made long quotations, because of selecting beauties therehad been no end, I shall in the same general manner mention thatwhich seems to deserve censure; for what Englishman can take delightin transcribing passages, which, if they lessen the reputation ofMilton, diminish in some degree the honour of our country?

The generality of my scheme does not admit the frequent notice ofverbal inaccuracies; which Bentley, perhaps better skilled ingrammar and poetry, has often found, though he sometimes made them, and which he imputed to the obtrusions of a reviser, whom theauthor's blindness obliged him to employ; a supposition rash andgroundless, if he thought it true; and vile and pernicious, if, asis said, he in private allowed it to be false. 

The plan of "Paradise Lost" has this inconvenience, that itcomprises neither human actions nor human manners. The man andwoman who act and suffer are in a state which no other man or womancan ever know. The reader finds no transaction in which he can beengaged--beholds no condition in which he can by any effort ofimagination place himself; he has, therefore, little naturalcuriosity or sympathy. 

We all, indeed, feel the effects of Adam's disobedience; we all sinlike Adam, and like him must all bewail our offences; we haverestless and insidious enemies in the fallen angels, and in theblessed spirits we have guardians and friends; in the redemption ofmankind we hope to be included; in the description of heaven andhell we are surely interested, as we are all to reside hereaftereither in the regions of horror or bliss. 

But these truths are too important to be new; they have been taughtto our infancy; they have mingled with our solitary thoughts andfamiliar conversations, and are habitually interwoven with the wholetexture of life. Being therefore not new, they raise nounaccustomed emotion in the mind; what we knew before, we cannotlearn; what is not unexpected, cannot surprise. 

Of the ideas suggested by these awful scenes, from some we recedewith reverence, except when stated hours require their association;and from others we shrink with horror, or admit them only assalutary inflictions, as counterpoises to our interests andpassions. Such images rather obstruct the career of fancy thanincite it. 

Pleasure and terror are indeed the genuine sources of poetry; butpoetical pleasure must be such as human imagination can at leastconceive, and poetical terrors such as human strength and fortitudemay combat. The good and evil of eternity are too ponderous for thewings of wit; the mind sinks under them in passive helplessness, content with calm belief and humble adoration. 

Known truths, however, may take a different appearance, and beconveyed to the mind by a new train of intermediate images. ThisMilton has undertaken and performed with pregnancy and vigour ofmind peculiar to himself. Whoever considers the few radicalpositions which the Scriptures afforded him, will wonder by whatenergetic operation he expanded them to such extent, and ramifiedthem to so much variety, restrained as he was by religious reverencefrom licentiousness of fiction. 

Here is a full display of the united force of study and genius--of agreat accumulation of materials, with judgment to digest and fancyto combine them: Milton was able to select from nature or fromstory, from an ancient fable or from modern science, whatever couldillustrate or adorn his thoughts. An accumulation of knowledgeimpregnated his mind, fermented by study and exalted by imagination. 

It has been therefore said, without an indecent hyperbole, by one ofhis encomiasts, that in reading "Paradise Lost" we read a book ofuniversal knowledge. 

But original deficiency cannot be supplied. The want of humaninterest is always felt. "Paradise Lost" is one of the books whichthe reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty ratherthan a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, retire harassedand overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation; we desert ourmaster, and seek for companions. 

Another inconvenience of Milton's design is, that it requires thedescription of what cannot be described, the agency of spirits. Hesaw that immateriality supplied no images, and that he could notshow angels acting but by instruments of action; he thereforeinvested them with form and matter. This, being necessary, wastherefore defensible; and he should have secured the consistency ofhis system, by keeping immateriality out of sight, and enticing hisreader to drop it from his thoughts. But he has unhappily perplexedhis poetry with his philosophy. His infernal and celestial powersare sometimes pure spirit, and sometimes animated body. When Satanwalks with his lance upon the "burning marl, " he has a body; when, in his passage between hell and the new world, he is in danger ofsinking in the vacuity, and is supported by a gust of risingvapours, he has a body; when he animates the toad, he seems to bemore spirit, that can penetrate matter at pleasure; when he "startsup in his own shape, " he has at least a determined form; and when heis brought before Gabriel, he has "a spear and a shield, " which hehad the power of hiding in the toad, though the arms of thecontending angels are evidently material. 

The vulgar inhabitants of Pandaemonium, being "incorporeal spirits, "are "at large, though without number, " in a limited space: yet inthe battle, when they were overwhelmed by mountains, their armourhurt them, "crushed in upon their substance, now grown gross bysinning. " This likewise happened to the uncorrupted angels, whowere overthrown the "sooner for their arms, for unarmed they mighteasily as spirits have evaded by contraction or remove. " Even asspirits they are hardly spiritual: for "contraction" and "remove"are images of matter; but if they could have escaped without theirarmour, they might have escaped from it, and left only the emptycover to be battered. Uriel, when he rides on a sunbeam, ismaterial; Satan is material when he is afraid of the prowess ofAdam. 

The confusion of spirit and matter, which pervades the wholenarration of the war of heaven, fills it with incongruity; and thebook in which it is related is, I believe, the favourite ofchildren, and gradually neglected as knowledge is increased. 

After the operation of immaterial agents, which cannot be explained, may be considered that of allegorical persons which have no realexistence. To exalt causes into agents, to invest abstract ideaswith form, and animate them with activity, has always been the rightof poetry. But such airy beings are, for the most part, sufferedonly to do their natural office, and retire. Thus Fame tells atale, and Victory hovers over a general, or perches on a standard;but Fame and Victory can do no more. To give them any realemployment, or ascribe to them any material agency, is to make themallegorical no longer, but to shock the mind by ascribing effects tononentity. In the "Prometheus" of AEschylus, we see Violence andStrength, and in the "Alcestis" of Euripides we see Death, broughtupon the stage, all as active persons of the drama; but noprecedents can justify absurdity. 

Milton's allegory of Sin and Death is undoubtedly faulty. Sin isindeed the mother of Death, and may be allowed to be the portress ofhell; but when they stop the journey of Satan, a journey describedas real, and when Death offers him battle, the allegory is broken. That Sin and Death should have shown the way to hell, might havebeen allowed; but they cannot facilitate the passage by building abridge, because the difficulty of Satan's passage is described asreal and sensible, and the bridge ought to be only figurative. Thehell assigned to the rebellious spirits is described as not lesslocal than the residence of man. It is placed in some distant partof space, separated from the regions of harmony and order by achaotic waste and an unoccupied vacuity; but Sin and Death worked upa "mole of aggravated soil" cemented with asphaltus, a work toobulky for ideal architects. 

This unskilful allegory appears to me one of the greatest faults ofthe poem; and to this there was no temptation but the author'sopinion of its beauty. 

To the conduct of the narrative some objections may be made. Satanis with great expectation brought before Gabriel in Paradise, and issuffered to go away unmolested. The creation of man is representedas the consequence of the vacuity left in heaven by the expulsion ofthe rebels; yet Satan mentions it as a report "rife in Heaven"before his departure. 

To find sentiments for the state of innocence was very difficult;and something of anticipation perhaps is now and then discovered. Adam's discourse of dreams seems not to be the speculation of a new-created being. I know not whether his answer to the angel's reprooffor curiosity does not want something of propriety; it is the speechof a man acquainted with many other men. Some philosophicalnotions, especially when the philosophy is false, might have beenbetter omitted. The angel, in a comparison, speaks of "timorousdeer, " before deer were yet timorous, and before Adam couldunderstand the comparison. 

Dryden remarks, that Milton has some flats among his elevations. This is only to say, that all the parts are not equal. In everywork, one part must be for the sake of others; a palace must havepassages; a poem must have transitions. It is no more to berequired that wit should always be blazing, than that the sun shouldalways stand at noon. In a great work there is a vicissitude ofluminous and opaque parts, as there is in the world a succession ofday and night. Milton, when he has expatiated in the sky, may beallowed sometimes to revisit earth; for what other author eversoared so high, or sustained his flight so long?

Milton, being well versed in the Italian poets, appears to haveborrowed often from them; and, as every man catches something fromhis companions, his desire of imitating Ariosto's levity hasdisgraced his work with the Paradise of Fools; a fiction not initself ill-imagined, but too ludicrous for its place. 

His play on words, in which he delights too often; hisequivocations, which Bentley endeavours to defend by the example ofthe ancients; his unnecessary and ungraceful use of terms of art; itis not necessary to mention, because they are easily remarked, andgenerally censured; and at last bear so little proportion to thewhole, that they scarcely deserve the attention of a critic. 

Such are the faults of that wonderful performance "Paradise Lost;"which he who can put in balance with its beauties must be considerednot as nice but as dull, as less to be censured for want of candourthan pitied for want of sensibility. 

Of "Paradise Regained, " the general judgment seems now to be right, that it is in many parts elegant, and everywhere instructive. Itwas not to be supposed that the writer of "Paradise Lost" could everwrite without great effusions of fancy, and exalted precepts ofwisdom. The basis of "Paradise Regained" is narrow; a dialoguewithout action can never please like a union of the narrative anddramatic powers. Had this poem been written not by Milton, but bysome imitator, it would have claimed and received universal praise. 

If "Paradise Regained" has been too much depreciated, "SamsonAgonistes" has, in requital, been too much admired. It could onlybe by long prejudice, and the bigotry of learning, that Milton couldprefer the ancient tragedies, with their encumbrance of a chorus, tothe exhibitions of the French and English stages; and it is only bya blind confidence in the reputation of Milton that a drama can bepraised in which the intermediate parts have neither cause norconsequence, neither hasten nor retard the catastrophe. 

In this tragedy are, however, many particular beauties, many justsentiments and striking lines; but it wants that power of attractingthe attention which a well connected plan produces. 

Milton would not have excelled in dramatic writing; he knew humannature only in the gross, and had never studied the shades ofcharacter, nor the combinations of concurring, or the perplexity ofcontending passions. He had read much, and knew what books couldteach; but had mingled little in the world, and was deficient in theknowledge which experience must confer. 

Through all his greater works there prevails a uniform peculiarityof DICTION, a mode and cast of expression which bears littleresemblance to that of any former writer; and which is so farremoved from common use, that an unlearned reader, when he firstopens his book, finds himself surprised by a new language. 

This novelty has been, by those who can find nothing wrong inMilton, imputed to his laborious endeavours after words suitable tothe grandeur of his ideas. "Our language, " says Addison, "sankunder him. " But the truth is, that, both in prose and verse, he hadformed his style by a perverse and pedantic principle. He wasdesirous to use English words with a foreign idiom. This, in allhis prose, is discovered and condemned; for there judgment operatesfreely, neither softened by the beauty, nor awed by the dignity ofhis thoughts; but such is the power of his poetry, that his call isobeyed without resistance, the reader feels himself in captivity toa higher and a nobler mind, and criticism sinks in admiration. 

Milton's style was not modified by his subject; what is shown withgreater extent in "Paradise Lost" may be found in "Comus. " Onesource of his peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tuscan poets;the disposition of his words is, I think, frequently Italian;perhaps sometimes combined with other tongues. Of him, at last, maybe said what Jonson says of Spenser, that "he wrote no language, "but has formed what Butler calls a "Babylonish dialect, " in itselfharsh and barbarous, but made by exalted genius and extensivelearning the vehicle of so much instruction and so much pleasure, that, like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity. 

Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praise ofcopiousness and variety. He was master of his language in its fullextent; and has selected the melodious words with such diligence, that from his book alone the Art of English Poetry might be learned. 

After his diction something must be said of his VERSIFICATION. TheMEASURE, he says, "is the English heroic verse without rhyme. " Ofthis mode he had many examples among the Italians, and some in hisown country. The Earl of Surrey is said to have translated one ofVirgil's books without rhyme; and, beside our tragedies, a few shortpoems had appeared in blank verse, particularly one tending toreconcile the nation to Raleigh's wild attempt upon Guiana, andprobably written by Raleigh himself. These petty performancescannot be supposed to have much influenced Milton, who more probablytook his hint from Trissino's "Italia Liberata;" and, finding blankverse easier than rhyme, was desirous of persuading himself that itis better. 

"Rhyme, " he says, and says truly, "is no necessary adjunct of truepoetry. " But, perhaps, of poetry, as a mental operation, metre ormusic is no necessary adjunct: it is, however, by the music ofmetre that poetry has been discriminated in all languages; and, inlanguages melodiously constructed with a due proportion of long andshort syllables, metre is sufficient. But one language cannotcommunicate its rules to another; where metre is scanty andimperfect, some help is necessary. The music of the English heroiclines strikes the ear so faintly, that it is easily lost, unless allthe syllables of every line co-operate together; this co-operationcan only be obtained by the preservation of every verse unmingledwith another as a distinct system of sounds; and this distinctnessis obtained and preserved by the artifice of rhyme. The variety ofpauses, so much boasted by the lovers of blank verse, changes themeasures of an English poet to the periods of a declaimer; and thereare only a few skilful and happy readers of Milton, who enable theiraudience to perceive where the lines end or begin. "Blank verse, "said an ingenious critic, "seems to be verse only to the eye. "

Poetry may subsist without rhyme, but English poetry will not oftenplease; nor can rhyme ever be safely spared but where the subject isable to support itself. Blank verse makes some approach to thatwhich is called the "lapidary style;" has neither the easiness ofprose, nor the melody of numbers, and therefore tires by longcontinuance. Of the Italian writers without rhyme, whom Miltonalleges as precedents, not one is popular; what reason could urge inits defence has been confuted by the ear. 

But, whatever be the advantages of rhyme, I cannot prevail on myselfto wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot wish his work tobe other than it is; yet like other heroes, he is to be admiredrather than imitated. He that thinks himself capable of astonishingmay write blank verse; but those that hope only to please mustcondescend to rhyme. 

The highest praise of genius is original invention. Milton cannotbe said to have contrived the structure of an epic poem, andtherefore owes reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind towhich all generations must be indebted for the art of poeticalnarration, for the texture of the fable, the variation of incidents, the interposition of dialogue, and all the stratagems that surpriseand enchain attention. But, of all the borrowers from Homer, Miltonis perhaps the least indebted. He was naturally a thinker forhimself, confident of his own abilities, and disdainful of help orhindrance: he did not refuse admission to the thoughts or images ofhis predecessors, but he did not seek them. From his contemporarieshe neither courted nor received support; there is in his writingsnothing by which the pride of other authors might be gratified, orfavour gained; no exchange of praise, nor solicitation of support. His great works were performed under discountenance and inblindness; but difficulties vanished at his touch; he was born forwhatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of heroicpoems, only because it is not the first. 

COWLEY. 

The Life of Cowley, notwithstanding the penury of English biography, has been written by Dr. Sprat, an author whose pregnancy ofimagination and elegance of language have deservedly set him high inthe ranks of literature; but his zeal of friendship, or ambition ofeloquence, has produced a funeral oration rather than a history: hehas given the character, not the life, of Cowley; for he writes withso little detail, that scarcely anything is distinctly known, butall is shown confused and enlarged through the mist of panegyric. 

Abraham Cowley was born in the year one thousand sir hundred andeighteen. His father was a grocer, whose condition Dr. Spratconceals under the general appellation of a citizen; and, what wouldprobably not have been less carefully suppressed, the omission ofhis name in the register of St. Dunstan's parish gives reason tosuspect that his father was a sectary. Whoever he was, he diedbefore the birth of his son, and consequently left him to the careof his mother: whom Wood represents as struggling earnestly toprocure him a literary education, and who, as she lived to the ageof eighty, had her solicitude rewarded by seeing her son eminent, and, I hope, by seeing him fortunate, and partaking his prosperity. We know at least, from Sprat's account, that he always acknowledgedher care, and justly paid the dues of filial gratitude. 

In the window of his mother's apartment lay Spenser's "Fairy Queen, "in which he very early took delight to read, till by feeling thecharms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and perhapssometimes forgotten, produce that particular designation of mind, and propensity for some certain science or employment, which iscommonly called Genius. The true Genius is a mind of large generalpowers, accidentally determined to some particular direction. SirJoshua Reynolds, the great painter of the present age, had the firstfondness for his art excited by the perusal of Richardson'streatise. 

By his mother's solicitation he was admitted into Westminsterschool, where he was soon distinguished. He was wont, says Sprat, to relate, "that he had this defect in his memory at that time, thathis teachers never could bring it to retain the ordinary rules ofgrammar. "

This is an instance of the natural desire of man to propagate awonder. It is surely very difficult to tell anything as it washeard, when Sprat could not refrain from amplifying a commodiousincident, though the book to which he prefixed his narrativecontained its confutation. A memory admitting some things, andrejecting others, an intellectual digestion that concocted the pulpof learning, but refused the husks, had the appearance of aninstinctive elegance, of a particular provision made by nature forliterary politeness. But in the author's own honest relation, themarvel vanishes: he was, he says, such "an enemy to all constraint, that his master never could prevail on him to learn the ruleswithout book. " He does not tell that he could not learn the rules;but that, being able to perform his exercises without them, andbeing an "enemy to constraint, " he spared himself the labour. 

Among the English poets, Cowley, Milton, and Pope might be said "tolisp in numbers;" and have given such early proofs, not only ofpowers of language, but of comprehension of things, as to more tardyminds seems scarcely credible. But of the learned puerilities ofCowley there is no doubt, since a volume of his poems was not onlywritten, but printed in his thirteenth year; containing, with otherpoetical compositions, "The tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe, "written when he was ten years old; and "Constantia and Philetus, "written two years after. 

While he was yet at school he produced a comedy called "Love'sRiddle, " though it was not published till he had been some time atCambridge. This comedy is of the pastoral kind, which requires noacquaintance with the living world, and therefore the time at whichit was composed adds little to the wonders of Cowley's minority. 

In 1636 he was removed to Cambridge, where he continued his studieswith great intenseness; for he is said to have written, while he wasyet a young student, the greater part of his "Davideis;" a work ofwhich the materials could not have been collected without the studyof many years, but by a mind of the greatest vigour and activity. 

Two years after his settlement at Cambridge, he published "Love'sRiddle, " with a poetical dedication to Sir Kenelm Digby, of whoseacquaintance all his contemporaries seem to have been ambitious; and"Naufragium Joculare, " a comedy written in Latin, but without dueattention to the ancient models; for it is not loose verse, but mereprose. It was printed, with a dedication in verse to Dr. Comber, master of the college; but having neither the facility of a popular, nor the accuracy of a learned work, it seems to be now universallyneglected. 

At the beginning of the civil war, as the prince passed throughCambridge in his way to York, he was entertained with therepresentation of "The Guardian, " a comedy which Cowley says wasneither written nor acted, but rough-drawn by him, and repeated bythe scholars. That this comedy was printed during his absence fromhis country he appears to have considered as injurious to hisreputation; though, during the suppression of the theatres, it wassometimes privately acted with sufficient approbation. 

In 1643, being now master of arts, he was, by the prevalence of theParliament, ejected from Cambridge, and sheltered himself at St. John's College in Oxford; where, as is said by Wood, he published asatire, called "The Puritan and Papist, " which was only inserted inthe last collection of his works; and so distinguished himself bythe warmth of his loyalty, and the elegance of his conversation, that he gained the kindness and confidence of those who attended theking, and amongst others of Lord Falkland, whose notice cast alustre on all to whom it was extended. 

About the time when Oxford was surrendered to the Parliament, hefollowed the Queen to Paris, where he became secretary to the LordJermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Albans, and was employed in suchcorrespondence as the royal cause required, and particularly inciphering and deciphering the letters that passed between the kingand queen; an employment of the highest confidence and honour. Sowide was his province of intelligence, that for several years itfilled all his days and two or three nights in the week. 

In the year 1647, his "Mistress" was published; for he imagined, ashe declared in his preface to a subsequent edition, that "poets arescarcely thought freemen of their company, without paying someduties, or obliging themselves to be true to love. "

This obligation to amorous ditties owes, I believe, its original tothe fame of Petrarch, who, in an age rude and uncultivated, by histuneful homage to his Laura refined the manners of the letteredworld, and filled Europe with love and poetry. But the basis of allexcellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel itspower. Petrarch was a real lover, and Laura doubtless deserved histenderness. Of Cowley, we are told by Barnes, who had means enoughof information, that, whatever he may talk of his owninflammability, and the variety of characters by which his heart wasdivided, he in reality was in love but once, and then never hadresolution to tell his passion. 

This consideration cannot but abate in some measure the reader'sesteem for the works and the author. To love excellence is natural;it is natural likewise for the lover to solicit reciprocal regard byan elaborate display of his own qualifications. The desire ofpleasing has in different men produced actions of heroism, andeffusions of wit; but it seems as reasonable to appear the championas the poet of an airy "nothing, " and to quarrel as to write forwhat Cowley might have learned from his master Pindar to call "thedream of a shadow. "

It is surely not difficult, in the solitude of a college, or in thebustle of the world, to find useful studies and serious employment. No man needs to be so burdened with life as to squander it involuntary dreams of fictitious occurrences. The man that sits downto suppose himself charged with treason or peculation, and heats hismind to an elaborate purgation of his character from crimes which hewas never within the possibility of committing, differs only by theinfrequency of his folly from him who praises beauty which he neversaw; complains of jealousy which he never felt; supposes himselfsometimes invited, and sometimes forsaken; fatigues his fancy, andransacks his memory for images which may exhibit the gaiety of hopeor the gloominess of despair; and dresses his imaginary Chloris orPhyllis sometimes in flowers fading as her beauty, and sometimes ingems lasting as her virtues. 

At Paris, as secretary to Lord Jermyn, he was engaged in transactingthings of real importance with real men and real women, and at thattime did not much employ his thoughts upon phantoms of gallantry. Some of his letters to Mr. Bennet, afterwards Earl of Arlington, from April to December, in 1650, are preserved in "MiscellaneaAulica, " a collection of papers published by Brown. These letters, being written like those of other men whose minds are more on thingsthan words, contribute no otherwise to his reputation, than as theyshow him to have been above the affectation of unseasonableelegance, and to have known that the business of a statesman can belittle forwarded by flowers of rhetoric. 

One passage, however, seems not unworthy of some notice. Speakingof the Scotch treaty then in agitation:

"The Scotch treaty, " says he, "is the only thing now in which we arevitally concerned; I am one of the last hopers, and yet cannot nowabstain from believing that an agreement will be made; all peopleupon the place incline to that opinion. The Scotch will moderatesomething of the rigour of their demands; the mutual necessity of anaccord is visible; the king is persuaded of it. And to tell you thetruth (which I take to be an argument above all the rest), Virgilhas told me something to that purpose. "

This expression, from a secretary of the present time, would beconsidered as merely ludicrous, or at most as an ostentatiousdisplay of scholarship; but the manners of that time were so tingedwith superstition, that I cannot but suspect Cowley of havingconsulted on this great occasion the Virgilian lots, and to havegiven some credit to the answer of his oracle. 

Some years afterwards, "business, " says Sprat, "passed of courseinto other hands;" and Cowley, being no longer useful at Paris, wasin 1656 sent back into England, that, "under pretence of privacy andretirement, he might take occasion of giving notice of the postureof things in this nation. "

Soon after his return to London, he was seized by some messengers ofthe usurping powers, who were sent out in quest of another man; andbeing examined, was put into confinement, from which he was notdismissed without the security of a thousand pounds given by Dr. Scarborough. 

This year he published his poems, with a preface, in which he seemsto have inserted something suppressed in subsequent editions, whichwas interpreted to denote some relaxation of his loyalty. In thispreface he declares, that "his desire had been for some days past, and did still very vehemently continue, to retire himself to some ofthe American plantations, and to forsake this world for ever. "

From the obloquy which the appearance of submission to the usurpersbrought upon him, his biographer has been very diligent to clearhim, and indeed it does not seem to have lessened his reputation. His wish for retirement we can easily believe to be undissembled; aman harassed in one kingdom, and persecuted in another, who, after acourse of business that employed all his days and half his nights, in ciphering and deciphering, comes to his own country and stepsinto a prison, will be willing enough to retire to some place ofquiet and of safety. Yet let neither our reverence for a genius, nor our pity for a sufferer, dispose us to forget, that, if hisactivity was virtue, his retreat was cowardice. 

He then took upon him the character of physician, still, accordingto Sprat, with intention "to dissemble the main design of his comingover;" and, as Mr. Wood relates, "complying with the men then inpower (which was much taken notice of by the royal party), heobtained an order to be created doctor of physic; which being doneto his mind (whereby he gained the ill-will of some of his friends), he went into France again, having made a copy of verses on Oliver'sdeath. "

This is no favourable representation; yet even in this not muchwrong can be discovered. How far he complied with the men in poweris to be inquired before he can be blamed. It is not said that hetold them any secrets, or assisted them by intelligence or any otheract. If he only promised to be quiet, that they in whose hands hewas might free him from confinement, he did what no law of societyprohibits. 

The man whose miscarriage in a just cause has put him in the powerof his enemy, may, without any breach of his integrity, regain hisliberty, or preserve his life, by a promise of neutrality: for thestipulation gives the enemy nothing which he had not before. Theneutrality of a captive may be always secured by his imprisonment ordeath. He that is at the disposal of another may not promise to aidhim in any injurious act, because no power can compel activeobedience. He may engage to do nothing, but not to do ill. 

There is reason to think that Cowley promised little. It does notappear that his compliance gained him confidence enough to betrusted without security, for the bond of his bail was nevercancelled; nor that it made him think himself secure, for, at thatdissolution of government which followed the death of Oliver, hereturned into France, where he resumed his former station, andstayed till the restoration. 

"He continued, " says his biographer, "under these bonds till thegeneral deliverance;" it is therefore to be supposed that he did notgo to France, and act again for the king, without the consent of hisbondsman: that he did not show his loyalty at the hazard of hisfriend, but by his friend's permission. 

Of the verses on Oliver's death, in which Wood's narrative seems toimply something encomiastic, there has been no appearance. There isa discourse concerning his government, indeed, with versesintermixed, but such as certainly gained its author no friends amongthe abettors of usurpation. 

A doctor of physic, however, he was made at Oxford in December, 1657; and in the commencement of the Royal Society, of which anaccount has been published by Dr. Birch, he appears busy among theexperimental philosophers with the title of Doctor Cowley. 

There is no reason for supposing that he ever attempted practice:but his preparatory studies have contributed something to the honourof his country. Considering botany as necessary to a physician, heretired into Kent to gather plants; and as the predominance of afavourite study affects all subordinate operations of the intellect, botany in the mind of Cowley turned into poetry. He composed, inLatin, several books on plants, of which the first and seconddisplay the qualities of herbs, in elegiac verse; the third andfourth, the beauties of flowers, in various measures; and the fifthand sixth, the use of trees, in heroic numbers. 

At the same time were produced, from the same university, the twogreat poets, Cowley and Milton, of dissimilar genius, of oppositeprinciples, but concurring in the cultivation of Latin poetry; inwhich the English, till their works and May's poem appeared, seemedunable to contest the palm with any other of the lettered nations. 

If the Latin performances of Cowley and Milton be compared (for MayI hold to be superior to both), the advantage seems to lie on theside of Cowley. Milton is generally content to express the thoughtsof the ancients in their language; Cowley, without much loss ofpurity or elegance, accommodates the diction of Rome to his ownconceptions. 

At the Restoration, after all the diligence of his long service, andwith consciousness, not only of the merit of fidelity, but of thedignity of great abilities, he naturally expected ample preferments;and, that he might not be forgotten by his own fault, wrote a songof triumph. But this was a time of such general hope, that greatnumbers were inevitably disappointed; and Cowley found his rewardvery tediously delayed. He had been promised, by both Charles theFirst and Second, the mastership of the Savoy; "but he lost it, "says Wood, "by certain persons, enemies to the Muses. "

The neglect of the court was not his only mortification; having bysuch alteration as he thought proper, fitted his old comedy of "TheGuardian" for the stage, he produced it under the title of "TheCutter of Coleman Street. " It was treated on the stage with greatseverity, and was afterwards censured as a satire on the king'sparty. 

Mr. Dryden, who went with Mr. Sprat to the first exhibition, relatedto Mr. Dennis, "that, when they told Cowley how little favour hadbeen shown him, he received the news of his ill success, not with somuch firmness as might have been expected from so great a man. "

What firmness they expected, or what weakness Cowley discovered, cannot be known. He that misses his end will never be as muchpleased as he that attains it, even when he can impute no part ofhis failure to himself; and when the end is to please the multitude, no man perhaps has a right, in things admitting of gradation andcomparison, to throw the whole blame upon his judges, and totally toexclude diffidence and shame, by a haughty consciousness of his ownexcellence. 

For the rejection of this play it is difficult now to find thereason: it certainly has, in a very great degree, the power offixing attention and exciting merriment. From the charge ofdisaffection he exculpates himself in his preface, by observing howunlikely it is, that, having followed the royal family through alltheir distresses, "he should choose the time of their restoration tobegin a quarrel with them. " It appears, however, from thetheatrical register of Downes the prompter, to have been popularlyconsidered as a satire on the royalists. 

That he might shorten this tedious suspense, he published hispretensions and his discontent in an ode called "The Complaint;" inwhich he styles himself the MELANCHOLY Cowley. This met with theusual fortune of complaints, and seems to have excited more contemptthan pity. 

These unlucky incidents are brought, maliciously enough, together insome stanzas, written about that time on the choice of a laureate; amode of satire, by which, since it was first introduced by Suckling, perhaps every generation of poets has been teased. 

Savoy-missing Cowley came into the court, Making apologies for his bad play;Every one gave him so good a report, That Apollo gave heed to all he could say:

Nor would he have had, 'tis thought, a rebuke, Unless he had done some notable folly;Writ verses unjustly in praise of Sam Tuke, Or printed his pitiful Melancholy. 

His vehement desire of retirement now came again upon him. "Notfinding, " says the morose Wood, "that preferment conferred upon himwhich he expected, while others for their money carried away mostplaces, he retired discontented into Surrey. "

"He was now, " says the courtly Sprat, "weary of the vexations andformalities of an active condition. He had been perplexed with along compliance to foreign manners. He was satiated with the artsof a court; which sort of life, though his virtue made it innocentto him, yet nothing could make it quiet. Those were the reasonsthat moved him to follow the violent inclination of his own mind, which, in the greatest throng of his former business, had stillcalled upon him, and represented to him the true delights ofsolitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and a moderate revenuebelow the malice and flatteries of fortune. "

So differently are things seen! and so differently are they shown!But actions are visible, though motives are secret. Cowleycertainly retired; first to Barn Elms, and afterwards to Chertsey, in Surrey. He seems, however, to have lost part of his dread of theHUM OF MEN. He thought himself now safe enough from intrusion, without the defence of mountains and oceans; and, instead of seekingshelter in America, wisely went only so far from the bustle of lifeas that he might easily find his way back when solitude should growtedious. His retreat was at first but slenderly accommodated; yethe soon obtained, by the interest of the Earl of St. Alban's, andthe Duke of Buckingham, such lease of the queen's lands as affordedhim an ample income. 

By the lovers of virtue and of wit it will be solicitously asked, ifhe now was happy. Let them peruse one of his letters accidentallypreserved by Peck, which I recommend to the consideration of allthat may hereafter pant for solitude. 

"TO DR. THOMAS SPRAT, "Chertsey, May 21, 1665. 

"The first night that I came hither I caught so great a cold, with adefluxion of rheum, as made me keep my chamber ten days. And, twoafter, had such a bruise on my ribs with a fall, that I am yetunable to move or turn myself in my bed. This is my personalfortune here to begin with. And, besides, I can get no money frommy tenants, and have my meadows eaten up every night by cattle putin by my neighbours. What this signifies, or may come to in time, God knows; if it be ominous, it can end in nothing less thanhanging. Another misfortune has been, and stranger than all therest, that you have broke your word with me and failed to come, eventhough you told Mr. Bois that you would. This is what they callmonstri simile. I do hope to recover my late hurt so far withinfive or six days (though it be uncertain yet whether I shall everrecover it) as to walk about again. And then, methinks, you and Iand the dean might be very merry upon St. Ann's Hill. You mightvery conveniently come hither the way of Hampton Town, lying thereone night. I write this in pain, and can say no more: verbumsapienti. "

He did not long enjoy the pleasure or suffer the uneasiness ofsolitude; for he died at the Porch-house in Chertsey, in 1667 [28thJuly], in the forty-ninth year of his age. 

He was buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser; and KingCharles pronounced, "That Mr. Cowley had not left behind him abetter man in England. " He is represented by Dr. Sprat as the mostamiable of mankind; and this posthumous praise may safely becredited, as it has never been contradicted by envy or by faction. 

Such are the remarks and memorials which I have been able to add tothe narrative of Dr. Sprat; who, writing when the feuds of civil warwere yet recent, and the minds of either party were easilyirritated, was obliged to pass over many transactions in generalexpressions, and to leave curiosity often unsatisfied. What he didnot tell cannot, however, now be known; I must therefore recommendthe perusal of his work, to which my narration can be consideredonly as a slender supplement. 

Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, instead of tracing intellectual pleasure to its natural sources inthe minds of men, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has beenat one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another. 

Wit, like all other things subject by their nature to the choice ofman, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takesdifferent forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth centuryappeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysicalpoets; of whom, in a criticism on the works of Cowley, it is notimproper to give some account. 

The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show theirlearning was their whole endeavour; but, unluckily resolving to showit in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote verses, andvery often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better thanof the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect, that they were onlyfound to be verses by counting the syllables. 

If the father of criticism had rightly denominated poetry [Greektext], AN IMITATIVE ART, these writers will, without great wrong, lose their right to the name of poets; for they cannot be said tohave imitated anything; they neither copied nature nor life; neitherpainted the forms of matter, nor represented the operations ofintellect. 

Those, however, who deny them to be poets, allow them to be wits. Dryden confesses of himself and his contemporaries, that they fallbelow Donne in wit; but maintains that they surpass him in poetry. 

If wit be well described by Pope, as being "that which has beenoften thought, but was never before so well expressed, " theycertainly never attained, nor ever sought it; for they endeavouredto be singular in their thoughts, and were careless of theirdiction. But Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous; hedepresses it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from strengthof thought to happiness of language. 

If by a more noble and more adequate conception, that be consideredas wit which is at once natural and new, that which, though notobvious, is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be just; ifit be that which he that never found it, wonders how he missed; towit of this kind the metaphysical poets have seldom risen. Theirthoughts are often new, but seldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the reader, far from wondering thathe missed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness ofindustry they were ever found. 

But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be morerigorously and philosophically considered as a kind of discordiaconcors; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occultresemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yokedby violence together; nature and art are ransacked forillustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks hisimprovement dearly bought, and though he sometimes admires, isseldom pleased. 

From this account of their compositions it will be readily inferredthat they were not successful in representing or moving theaffections. As they were wholly employed on something unexpectedand surprising, they had no regard to that uniformity of sentimentwhich enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and thepleasure of other minds: they never inquired what, on any occasion, they should have said or done; but wrote rather as beholders thanpartakers of human nature; as beings looking upon good and evil, impassive and at leisure; as epicurean deities, making remarks onthe actions of men, and the vicissitudes of life, without interestand without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, andtheir lamentation of sorrow. Their wish was only to say what theyhoped had been never said before. 

Nor was the sublime more within their reach than the pathetic; forthey never attempted that comprehension and expanse of thought whichat once fills the whole mind, and of which the first effect issudden astonishment, and the second rational admiration. Sublimityis produced by aggregation, and littleness by dispersion. Greatthoughts are always general, and consist in positions not limited byexceptions, and in descriptions not descending to minuteness. It iswith great propriety that subtlety, which in its original importmeans exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning fornicety of distinction. Those writers who lay on the watch fornovelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great thingscannot have escaped former observation. Their attempts were alwaysanalytic; they broke every image into fragments; and could no morerepresent, by their slender conceits and laboured particularities, the prospects of nature, or the scenes of life, than he who dissectsa sunbeam with a prism can exhibit the wide effulgence of a summernoon. 

What they wanted, however, of the sublime they endeavoured to supplyby hyperbole; their amplifications had no limits; they left not onlyreason but fancy behind them; and produced combinations of confusedmagnificence, that not only could not be credited, but could not beimagined. 

Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly lost;if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, theylikewise sometimes struck out unexpected truth; if their conceitswere far fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write ontheir plan, it was at least necessary to read and think. No mancould be born a metaphysical poet, nor assume the dignity of awriter, by descriptions copied from descriptions, by imitationsborrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, and hereditarysimiles, by readiness of rhyme, and volubility of syllables. 

In perusing the works of this race of authors, the mind is exercisedeither by recollection or inquiry; something already learned is tobe retrieved, or something new is to be examined. If theirgreatness seldom elevates, their acuteness often surprises; if theimagination is not always gratified, at least the powers ofreflection and comparison are employed; and in the mass of materialswhich ingenious absurdity has thrown together, genuine wit anduseful knowledge may be sometimes found buried perhaps in grossnessof expression, but useful to those who know their value; and suchas, when they are expanded to perspicuity and polished to elegance, may give lustre to works which have more propriety though lesscopiousness of sentiment. 

This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from Marino andhis followers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a manof very extensive and various knowledge, and by Jonson, whose mannerresembled that of Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines than inthe cast of his sentiments. 

When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more imitatorsthan time has left behind. Their immediate successors, of whom anyremembrance can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Clieveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller sought anotherway to fame, by improving the harmony of our members. Milton triedthe metaphysic style only in his lines upon Hobson the carrier. Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, having as muchsentiment and more music. Suckling neither improved versificationnor abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained chieflywith Cowley; Suckling could not reach it, and Milton disdained it. 

Critical remarks are not easily understood without examples; and Ihave therefore collected instances of the modes of writing by whichthis species of poets (for poets they were called by themselves andtheir admirers) was eminently distinguished. 

As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of beingadmired than understood, they sometimes drew their conceits fromrecesses of learning not very much frequented by common readers ofpoetry. Thus, Cowley on Knowledge:

The sacred tree 'midst the fair orchard grew; The phoenix truth did on it rest, And built his perfumed nest, That right Porphyrian tree which did true logic show. Each leaf did learned notions give, And the apples were demonstrative;So clear their colour and divine, The very shads they cast did other lights outshine. 

On Anacreon continuing a lover in his old age:

Love was with thy life entwined, Close as heat with fire is join'd;A powerful brand prescribed the dateOf thine, like Meleager's fate. Th' antiperistasis of ageMore enflam'd thy amorous rage. 

In the following verses we have an allusion to a rabbinical opinionconcerning manna:

Variety I ask not: give me oneTo live perpetually upon. The person Love does to us fit, Like manna, has the taste of all in it. 

Thus Donne shows his medicinal knowledge in some encomiastic verses:

 In everything there naturally growsA balsamum to keep it fresh and new, If 'twere not injured by extrinsic blows:Your youth and beauty are this balm in you. But you, of learning and religion, And virtue and such ingredients, have made A mithridate, whose operationKeeps off, or cures what can be done or said. 

Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the year, have something in them too scholastic, they are not inelegant:

This twilight of two years, not past nor next, Some emblem is of me, or I of this, Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext, Whose what and where in disputation is, If I should call me anything, should miss. I sum the years and me, and find me not Debtor to th' old, nor creditor to th' new. That cannot say, my thanks I have forget, Nor trust I this with hopes; and yet scarce true This bravery is, since these times show'd me you--DONNE. 

Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne's reflection upon man as amicrocosm:

If men be worlds, there is in every oneSomething to answer in some proportion;All the world's riches; and in good men, thisVirtue, our form's form, and our soul's soul, is

Of thoughts so far-fetched, as to be not only unexpected, butunnatural, all their books are full. 

To a lady, who wrote posies for rings:

They, who above do various circles find, Say, like a ring, th' equator Heaven does bindWhen Heaven shall be adorned by thee, (Which then more Heaven than 'tis will be)'Tis thou must write the poesy there, For it wanteth one as yet, Then the sun pass through't twice a year, The sun, which is esteem'd the god of wit. --COWLEY. 

The difficulties which have been raised about identity in philosophyare by Cowley, with still more perplexity applied to love:

Five years ago (says story) I loved you, For which you call me most inconstant now;Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man;For I am not the same that I was then:No flesh is now the same 'twas then in me, And that my mind is changed yourself may see. The same thoughts to retain still, and intentsWere more inconstant far; for accidentsMust of all things most strangely inconstant prove, If from one subject they t' another move;My members then the father members were, From whence these take their birth, which now are hereIf then this body love what th' other did, 'Twere incest, which by nature is forbid. 

The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared totravels through different countries:

Hast thou not found each woman's breast (The land where thou hast travelled)Either by savages possest, Or wild, and uninhabited?What joy could'st take, or what repose, In countries so uncivilis'd as those?Lust, the scorching dog-star, here Rages with immoderate heat;Whilst Pride, the ragged northern bear, In others makes the cold too great. And where these are temperate known, The soil's all barren sand, or rocky stone. --COWLEY. 

A lover, burnt up by his affection, is compared to Egypt:

The fate of Egypt I sustain, And never feel the dew of rain, From clouds which in the head appear;But all my too-much moisture eweTo overflowings of the heart below. --COWLEY. 

The lover supposes his lady acquainted with the ancient laws ofaugury and rites of sacrifice:

And yet this death of mine, I fear, Will ominous to her appear: When, sound in every other part, Her sacrifice is found without an heart. For the last tempest of my deathShall sigh out that too, with my breath. 

That the chaos was harmonised, has been recited of old; but whencethe different sounds arose remained for a modern to discover:

Th' ungovern'd parts no correspondence knew;An artless war from thwarting motions grew;Till they to number and fixed rules were brought. Water and air he for the tenor chose, Earth made the base; the treble flame arose. --COWLEY. 

The tears of lovers are always of great poetical account; but Donnehas extended them into worlds. If the lines are not easilyunderstood, they may be read again:

 On a round ball A workman, that bath copies by, can lay An Europe, Afric, and an Asia, And quickly make that which was nothing, all. So doth each tear, Which thee doth wear, A globe, yea world, by that impression grow, Till thy tears mixed with mine do overflowThis world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so. 

On reading the following lines, the reader may perhaps cry out"Confusion worse confounded. "

Hers lies a she sun, and a he moon here, She gives the best light to his sphere, Or each is both, and all, and so, They unto one another nothing owe. --DONNE. 

Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope?

Though God be our true glass through which we seeAll, since the being of all things is He, Yet are the trunks, which do to us deriveThings in proportion fit, by perspectiveDeeds of good men; for by their living here, Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near. 

Who would imagine it possible that in a very few lines so manyremote ideas could be brought together?

Since 'tis my doom, love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve?Why doth my she advowson fly Incumbency?To sell thyself dust thou intend By candles end, And hold the contract thus in doubt, Life's taper out?Think but how soon the market fails, Your sex lives faster than the males;And if to measure age's span, The sober Julian were th' account of man, Whilst you live by the fleet Gregorian. --CLEVELAND. 

Of enormous and disgusting hyperboles, these may be examples:

By every wind that comes this way, Send me at least a sigh or two, Such and so many I'll repay As shall themselves make winds to get to you. --COWLEY. 

In tears I'll waste these eyes, By love so vainly fed:So lust of old the deluge punished. --COWLEY. 

All arm'd in brass, the richest dress of war, (A dismal glorious sight!) he shone afar. The sun himself started with sudden fright, To see his beams return so dismal bright. --COWLEY. 

A universal consternation:

His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp pawsTear up the ground; then runs he wild about, Lashing his angry tail and roaring out. Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there;Trees, though no wind is stirring, shake with fear;Silence and horror fill the place around;Echo itself dares scarce repeat the sound. --COWLEY. 

Their fictions were often violent and unnatural. 

Of his mistress bathing:

The fish around her crowded, as they doTo the false light that treacherous fishers show, And all with as much ease might taken be, As she at first took me; For ne'er did light so clear Among the waves appear, Though every night the sun himself set there. --COWLEY. 

The poetical effect of a lover's name upon glass:

 My name engraved hereinBoth contribute my firmness to this glass: Which, ever since that charm, hath beenAs hard as that which graved it was. --DONNE. 

Their conceits were sometimes slight and trifling. On an inconstantwoman:

He enjoys the calmy sunshine now, And no breath stirring hears, In the clear heaven of thy brow No smallest cloud appears. He sees thee gentle, fair and gay, And trusts the faithless April of thy May. --COWLEY. 

Upon a paper written with the juice of lemon, and read by the fire:

 Nothing yet in thee is seen, But when a genial heat warms thee within, A new-born wood of various lines there grows; Hers buds an L, and there a B, Here sprouts a V, and there a T, And all the flourishing letters stand in rows. --COWLEY. 

As they sought only for novelty, they did not much inquire whethertheir allusions were to things high or low, elegant or gross;whether they compared the little to the great, or the great to thelittle. 

Physic and chirurgery for a lover:

 Gently, ah gently, madam, touchThe wound, which you yourself have made; That pain must needs be very muchWhich makes me of your hand afraid. Cordials of pity give me now, For I too weak of purgings grow. --COWLEY. 

The world and a clock

Mahol th' inferior world's fantastic faceThrough all the turns of matter's maze did trace;Great Nature's well-set clock in pieces took;On all the springs and smallest wheels did lookOf life and motion, and with equal artMade up the whole again of every part. --COWLEY. 

A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but, that it may not wantits due honour, Cleveland has paralleled it with the sun:

The moderate value of our guiltless oreMakes no man atheist, and no woman whore;Yet why should hallow'd vestal's sacred shrineDeserve more honour than a flaming mine?These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be, Than a few embers, for a deity. Had he our pits, the Persian would admireNo sun, but warm's devotion at our fire:He'd leave the trotting whipster, and preferOur profound Vulcan 'bove that waggoner. For wants he heat, or light? or would have storeOf both? 'tis here: and what can suns give more?Nay, what's the sun but, in a different name, A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame?Then let this truth reciprocally run, The sun's heaven's coalery, and coals our sun. 

Death, a voyage:

 No familyE'er rigg'd a soul for Heaven's discovery, With whom more venturers might boldly dareVenture their stakes with him in joy to share. --DONNE. 

Their thoughts and expressions were sometimes grossly absurd, andsuch as no figures or licence can reconcile to the understanding. 

A lover neither dead nor alive:

Then down I laid my headDown on cold earth; and for a while was dead, And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled. 

 Ah, sottish soul, said I, When back to its cage again I saw it fly; Fool to resume her broken chain, And row her galley here again! Fool, to that body to returnWhere it condemned and destined is to burn!Once dead, how can it be, Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee, That thou should'st come to live it o'er again in me?--COWLEY. 

A lover's heart, a hand grenado:

Woe to her stubborn heart, if once mine come Into the self same room; 'Twill tear and blow up all within, Like a grenade shot into a magazine. Then shall Love keep the ashes and torn parts, Of both our broken hearts; Shalt out of both one new one make;From hers th' allay, from mine the metal take. --COWLEY

The poetical propagation of light:

The prince's favour is diffused o'er all, From which all fortunes names, and natures fall:Then from those wombs of stars, the Bride's bright eyes, At every glance a constellation flies, And sows the court with stars, and doth prevent In light and power, the all-ey'd firmament:First her eye kindles other ladies' eyes, Then from their beams their jewels' lustres rise;And from their jewels torches do take fire, And all is warmth, and light, and good desire. --DONNE. 

They were in very little care to clothe their notions with eleganceof dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which areoften gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to adorntheir thoughts. 

That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality is byCowley thus expressed:

Thou in my fancy dost much higher standThan woman can be placed by Nature's hand;And I must needs, I'm sure, a loser be, To change thee as thou'rt there, for very thee. 

That prayer and labour should co-operate are thus taught by Donne:

In none but us are such mix'd engines found, As hands of double office; for the groundWe till with them; and them to heaven we raiseWho prayerless labours, or, without this, prays, Doth but one half, that's none. 

By the same author, a common topic, the danger of procrastination, is thus illustrated:

 That which I should have begunIn my youth's morning, now late must be done;And I, as giddy travellers must do, Which stray or sleep all day, and having lostLight and strength, dark and tired, must then ride post. 

All that man has to do is to live and die; the sum of humanity iscomprehended by Donne in the following lines:

Think in how poor a prison thou didst lieAfter enabled but to suck and cry. Think, when 'twas grown to most, 'twas a poor inn, A province pack'd up in two yards of skin, And that usurp'd, or threaten'd with a rageOf sicknesses or their true mother, age. But think that death hath now enfranchised thee;Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty;Think, that a rusty piece discharged is flownIn pieces, and the bullet is his own, And freely flies: this to thy soul allow, Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch'd but now. 

They were sometimes indelicate and disgusting. Cowley thusapostrophises beauty:

 Thou tyrant which leav'st no man free!Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be!Thou murtherer, which has kill'd, and devil, which would'st damn me!

Thus he addresses his mistress:

Thou who, in many a propriety, So truly art the sun to me, Add one more likeness, which I'm sure you can, And let me and my sun beget a man. 

Thus he represents the meditations of a lover:

Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracts have beenSo much as of original sin, Such charms thy beauty wears, as mightDesires in dying confest saints excite. Thou with strange adulteryDost in each breast a brothel keep; Awake all men do lust for thee, And some enjoy thee when they sleep. 

The true taste of tears:

Hither with crystal vials, lovers, come, And take my tears, which are love's wine, And try your mistress' tears at home; For all are false, that taste not just like mine. --DONNE. 

This is yet more indelicate:

As the sweet sweat of roses in a still, As that which from chas'd musk-cat's pores doth trill, As th' almighty balm of th' early east;Such are the sweet drops of my mistress' breast. And on her neck her skin such lustre sets, They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets:Rank, sweaty froth thy mistress' brow defiles. --DONNE. 

Their expressions sometimes raise horror, when they intend perhapsto be pathetic:

As men in hell are from diseases free, So from all other ills am I, Free from their known formality:But all pains eminently lie in thee. --COWLEY. 

They were not always strictly curious, whether the opinions fromwhich they drew their illustrations were true; it was enough thatthey were popular. Bacon remarks, that some falsehoods arecontinued by tradition, because they supply commodious allusions. 

It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke:In vain it something would have spoke;The love within too strong for't was, Like poison put into a Venice-glass. --COWLEY. 

In forming descriptions, they looked out not for images, but forconceits. Night has been a common subject, which poets havecontended to adorn. Dryden's Night is well known; Donne's is asfollows:

Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest:Time's dead low-water; when all minds divestTo-morrow's business; when the labourers haveSuch rest in bed, that their last church-yard grave, Subject to change, will scarce be a type of this;Now when the client, whose last hearing isTo-morrow, sleeps; when the condemned man, Who, when he opes his eyes, must shut them theAgain by death, although sad watch he keep;Doth practise dying by a little sleep:Thou at this midnight seest me. 

It must be, however, confessed of these writers, that if they areupon common subjects often unnecessarily and unpoetically subtle;yet, where scholastic speculation can be properly admitted, theircopiousness and acuteness may justly be admired. What Cowley haswritten upon Hope shows an unequalled fertility of invention:

 Hops, whose weak being mind is, Alike if it succeed and if it miss;Whom good or ill does equally confound, And both the horns of fate's dilemma wound; Vain shadow! which dust vanish quite, Both at full noon and perfect night! The stars have not a possibility Of blessing thee;If things then from their end we happy call'Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all. Hope, thou bold tester of delight, Who, whilst thou shouldst but taste, devour'st it quite! Thou bring'st us an estate, yet leav'st us poor By clogging it with legacies before! The joys, which we entire should wed, Come deflowr'd virgins to our bed;Good fortunes without gain imported be, Such mighty custom's paid to thee:For joy, like wine kept close, does better tasteIf it take air before its spirits waste. 

To the following comparison of a man that travels, and his wife thatstays at home, with a pair of compasses, it may be doubted whetherabsurdity or ingenuity has the better claim:

Our two souls, therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yetA breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two;Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show To move, but doth if th' other do. And, though it in the centre sit, Yet, when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect as that comes home. Such wilt thou be to me, who must Like th' other foot obliquely run. Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun. --DONNE. 

In all these examples it is apparent, that whatever is improper orvicious, is produced by a voluntary deviation from nature in pursuitof something new and strange; and that the writers fail to givedelight, by their desire of exciting admiration. 

Having thus endeavoured to exhibit a general representation of thestyle and sentiments of the metaphysical poets, it is now proper toexamine particularly the works of Cowley, who was almost the last ofthat race, and undoubtedly the best. 

His Miscellanies contain a collection of short compositions, writtensome as they were dictated by a mind at leisure, and some as theywere called forth by different occasions; with great variety ofstyle and sentiment, from burlesque levity to awful grandeur. Suchan assemblage of diversified excellence no other poet has hithertoafforded. To choose the best, among many good, is one of the mosthazardous attempts of criticism. I know not whether Scaligerhimself has persuaded many readers to join with him in hispreference of the two favourite odes, which he estimates in hisraptures at the value of a kingdom. I will, however, venture torecommend Cowley's first piece, which ought to be inscribed "To myMuse, " for want of which the second couplet is without reference. When the title is added, there wills till remain a defect; for everypiece ought to contain in itself whatever is necessary to make itintelligible. Pope has some epitaphs without names; which aretherefore epitaphs to be let, occupied indeed for the present, buthardly appropriated. 

The "Ode on Wit" is almost without a rival. It was about the timeof Cowley that WIT, which had been till then used for INTELLECTION, in contradistinction to WILL, took the meaning, whatever it be, which it now bears. 

Of all the passages in which poets have exemplified their ownprecepts, none will easily be found of greater excellence than thatin which Cowley condemns exuberance of wit:-

Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part, That shows more cost than art. Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear; Rather than all things wit, let none be there. Several lights will not be seen, If there be nothing else between. Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' th' sky, If those be stars which paint the galaxy. 

In his verses to Lord Falkland, whom every man of his time was proudto praise, there are, as there must be in all Cowley's compositions, some striking thoughts, but they are not well wrought. His "Elegyon Sir Henry Wotton" is vigorous and happy; the series of thoughtsis easy and natural; and the conclusion, though a little weakened bythe intrusion of Alexander, is elegant and forcible. 

It may be remarked, that in this elegy, and in most of hisencomiastic poems, he has forgotten or neglected to name his heroes. 

In his poem on the death of Hervey, there is much praise, but littlepassion; a very just and ample delineation of such virtues as astudious privacy admits, and such intellectual excellence as a mindnot yet called forth to action can display. He knew how todistinguish, and how to commend, the qualities of his companion;but, when he wishes to make us weep, he forgets to weep himself, anddiverts his sorrow by imagining how his crown of bays, if he had it, would crackle in the fire. It is the odd fate of this thought to bethe worse for being true. The bay-leaf crackles remarkably as itburns; as therefore this property was not assigned it by chance, themind must be thought sufficiently at ease that could attend to suchminuteness of physiology. But the power of Cowley is not so much tomove the affections, as to exercise the understanding. 

The "Chronicle" is a composition unrivalled and alone: such gaietyof fancy, such facility of expression, such varied similitude, sucha succession of images, and such a dance of words, it is in vain toexpect except from Cowley. His strength always appears in hisagility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the boundof an elastic mind. His levity never leaves his learning behind it;the moralist, the politician, and the critic, mingle their influenceeven in this airy frolic of genius. To such a performance Sucklingcould have brought the gaiety, but not the knowledge; Dryden couldhave supplied the knowledge, but not the gaiety. 

The verses to Davenant, which are vigorously begun, and happilyconcluded, contain some hints of criticism very justly conceived andhappily expressed. Cowley's critical abilities have not beensufficiently observed: the few decisions and remarks, which hisprefaces and his notes on the "Davideis" supply, were at that timeaccessions to English literature, and show such skill as raises ourwish for more examples. 

The lines from Jersey are a very curious and pleasing specimen ofthe familiar descending to the burlesque. 

His two metrical disquisitions FOR and AGAINST Reason are no meanspecimens of metaphysical poetry. The stanzas against knowledgeproduce little conviction. In those which are intended to exalt thehuman faculties, Reason has its proper task assigned it; that ofjudging, not of things revealed, but of the reality of revelation. In the verses FOR Reason is a passage which Bentley, in the onlyEnglish verses which he is known to have written, seems to havecopied, though with the inferiority of an imitator. 

The Holy Book like the eighth sphere doth shine With thousand lights of truth divine, So numberless the stars, that to our eye It makes all but one galaxy. Yet Reason must assist too; for, in seas So vast and dangerous as these, Our course by stars above we cannot know Without the compass too below. 

After this says Bentley:

Who travels in religious jars, Truth mix'd with error, shade with raysLike Whiston wanting pyx or stars, In ocean wide or sinks or strays. 

Cowley seems to have had what Milton is believed to have wanted, theskill to rate his own performances by their just value, and hastherefore closed his Miscellanies with the verses upon Crashaw, which apparently excel all that have gone before them, and in whichthere are beauties which common authors may justly think not onlyabove their attainment, but above their ambition. 

To the Miscellanies succeed the Anacreontics, or paraphrasticaltranslations of some little poems, which pass, however justly, underthe name of Anacreon. Of those songs dedicated to festivity andgaiety, in which even the morality is voluptuous, and which teachnothing but the enjoyment of the present day, he has given rather apleasing than a faithful representation, having retained theirsprightliness, but lost their simplicity. The Anacreon of Cowley, like the Homer of Pope, has admitted the decoration of some moderngraces, by which he is undoubtedly made more amiable to commonreaders, and perhaps, if they would honestly declare their ownperceptions, to far the greater part of those whom courtesy andignorance are content to style the learned. 

These little pieces will be found more finished in their kind thanany other of Cowley's works. The diction shows nothing of the mouldof time, and the sentiments are at no great distance from ourpresent habitudes of thought. Real mirth must always be natural, and nature is uniform. Men have been wise in very different modes;but they have always laughed the same way. 

Levity of thought naturally produces familiarity of language, andthe familiar part of language continues long the same; the dialogueof comedy when it is transcribed from popular manners and real life, is read from age to age with equal pleasure. The artifices ofinversion by which the established order of words is changed, or ofinnovation, by which new words, or new meanings of words, areintroduced, is practised, not by those who talk to be understood, but by those who write to be admired. 

The Anacreontics, therefore, of Cowley, give now all the pleasurewhich they ever gave. If he was formed by nature for one kind ofwriting more than for another, his power seems to have been greatestin the familiar and the festive. 

The next class of his poems is called "The Mistress, " of which it isnot necessary to select any particular pieces for praise or censure. They have all the same beauties and faults, and nearly in the sameproportion. They are written with exuberance of wit, and withcopiousness of learning; and it is truly asserted by Sprat, that theplenitude of the writer's knowledge flows in upon his page, so thatthe reader is commonly surprised into some improvement. But, considered as the verses of a lover, no man that has ever loved willmuch commend them. They are neither courtly nor pathetic, haveneither gallantry nor fondness. His praises are too far sought, andtoo hyperbolical, either to express love, or to excite it; everystanza is crowded with darts and flames, with wounds and death, withmingled souls and with broken hearts. 

The principal artifice by which "The Mistress" is filled withconceits is very copiously displayed by Addison. Love is by Cowley, as by other poets, expressed metaphorically by flame and fire; andthat which is true of real fire is said of love, or figurative fire, the same word in the same sentence retaining both significations. Thus "observing the cold regard of his mistress's eyes, and at thesame time their power of producing love in him, he considers them asburning-glasses made of ice. Finding himself able to live in thegreatest extremities of love, he concludes the torrid zone to behabitable. Upon the dying of a tree, on which he had cut his loves, he observes that his flames had burnt up and withered the tree. "

These conceits Addison calls mixed wit; that is, wit which consistsof thoughts true in one sense of the expression, and false in theother. Addison's representation is sufficiently indulgent: thatconfusion of images may entertain for a moment; but being unnaturalit soon grows wearisome. Cowley delighted in it, as much as if hehad invented it; but, not to mention the ancients, he might havefound it full-blown in modern Italy. Thus Sannazaro:

Aspice quam variis distringar Lesbia curis! Uror, et heu! nostro manat ab igne liquor:Sum Nilus, sumque AEtna simul; restringite flammas O lacrimae, aut lacrimas ebibe flamma meas. 

One of the severe theologians of that time censured him as havingpublished a book of profane and lascivious verses. From the chargeof profaneness, the constant tenor of his life, which seems to havebeen eminently virtuous, and the general tendency of his opinions, which discover no irreverence of religion, must defend him; but thatthe accusation of lasciviousness is unjust, the perusal of his workswill sufficiently evince. 

Cowley's "Mistress" has no power of seduction: she "plays round thehead, but comes not at the heart. " Her beauty and absence, herkindness and cruelty, her disdain and inconstancy, produce nocorrespondence of emotion. His poetical accounts of the virtues ofplants, and colours of flowers, is not perused with more sluggishfrigidity. The compositions are such as might have been written forpenance by a hermit, or for hire by a philosophical rhymer who hadonly heard of another sex; for they turn the mind only on thewriter, whom, without thinking on a woman but as the subject for histask, we sometimes esteem as learned, and sometimes despise astrifling, always admire as ingenious, and always condemn asunnatural. 

The Pindaric Odes are now to be considered; a species ofcomposition, which Cowley thinks Pancirolus might have counted inhis list of the lost inventions of antiquity, and which he has madea bold and vigorous attempt to recover. 

The purpose with which he has paraphrased an Olympic and Nemaean Odeis by himself sufficiently explained. His endeavour was, not toshow precisely what Pindar spoke, but his manner of speaking. Hewas therefore not at all restrained to his expressions, nor much tohis sentiments; nothing was required of him, but not to write asPindar would not have written. 

Of the Olympic Ode the beginning is, I think, above the original inelegance, and the conclusion below it in strength. The connectionis supplied with great perspicuity; and the thoughts, which to areader of less skill seem thrown together by chance, areconcatenated without any abruption. Though the English ode cannotbe called a translation, it may be very properly consulted as acommentary. 

The spirit of Pindar is indeed not everywhere equally preserved. The following pretty lines are not such as his "deep mouth" was usedto pour:

 Great Rhea's son, If in Olympus' top, where thouSitt'st to behold thy sacred show, If in Alpheus' silver flight, If in my verse thou take delight, My verse, great Rhea's son, which isLofty as that and smooth as this. 

In the Nemaean Ode, the reader must, in mere justice to Pindar, observe, whatever is said of the original new moon, her tenderforehead and her horns, is superadded by his paraphrast, who hasmany other plays of words and fancy unsuitable to the original, as, The table, free for ev'ry guest, No doubt will thee admit, And feast more upon thee, than thou on it

He sometimes extends his author's thoughts without improving them. In the Olympionic an oath is mentioned in a single word, and Cowleyspends three lines in swearing by the Castalian Stream. We are toldof Theron's bounty, with a hint that he had enemies, which Cowleythus enlarges in rhyming prose:

But in this thankless world the giverIs envied even by the receiver;'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashionRather to hide than own the obligation:Nay, 'tis much worse than so;It now an artifice does growWrongs and injuries to do, Lest men should think we owe. 

It is hard to conceive that a man of the first rank in learning andwit, when he was dealing out such minute morality in such feeblediction, could imagine, either waking or dreaming, that he imitatedPindar. 

In the following odes, where Cowley chooses his own subjects, hesometimes rises to dignity truly Pindaric; and, if some deficienciesof language be forgiven, his strains are such as those of the Thebanbard were to his contemporaries:

 Begin the song, and strike the living lyre:Lo how the years to come, a numerous and well-fitted quire, All hand in hand do decently advance, And to my song with smooth and equal measure dance;While the dance lasts, how long soe'er it be, My music's voice shall bear it company; Till all gentle notes be drown'dIn the last trumpet's dreadful sound. 

After such enthusiasm, who will not lament to find the poet concludewith lines like these:

 But stop, my Muse -Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in, Which does to rage begin -- 'Tis an unruly and hard-mouth'd horse -'Twill no unskilful touch endure, But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure. 

The fault of Cowley, and perhaps of all the writers of themetaphysical race, is that of pursuing his thoughts to their lastramifications, by which he loses the grandeur of generality; for ofthe greatest things the parts are little; what is little can be butpretty, and by claiming dignity becomes ridiculous. Thus all thepower of description is destroyed by a scrupulous enumeration, andthe force of metaphors is lost, when the mind by the mention ofparticulars is turned more upon the original than the secondarysense, more upon that from which the illustration is drawn than thatto which it is applied. 

Of this we have a very eminent example in the ode entitled the"Muse, " who goes to "take the air" in an intellectual chariot, towhich he harnesses Fancy and Judgment, Wit and Eloquence, Memory andInvention; how he distinguished Wit from Fancy, or how Memory couldproperly contribute to Motion, he has not explained: we are howevercontent to suppose that he could have justified his own fiction, andwish to see the Muse begin her career; but there is yet more to bedone. 

Let the POSTILLION Nature mount, and letThe COACHMAN Art be set;And let the airy FOOTMEN, running all beside, Make a long row of goodly pride;Figures, conceits, raptures, and sentences, In a well-worded dress, And innocent loves, and pleasant truths, and useful lies, In all their gaudy LIVERIES. 

Every mind is now disgusted with this cumber of magnificence; yet Icannot refuse myself the four next lines:

Mount, glorious queen, thy travelling throne, And bid it to put on; For long though cheerful is the way, And life, alas! allows but one ill winter's day. 

In the same ode, celebrating the power of the Muse, he gives herprescience, or, in poetical language, the foresight of eventshatching in futurity; but, once having an egg in his mind, he cannotforbear to show us that he knows what an egg contains:

Thou into the close nests of Time dost peep, And there with piercing eyeThrough the firm shell and the thick white float spy Years to come a-forming lie, Close in their sacred fecundine asleep. 

The same thought is more generally, and therefore more poeticallyexpressed by Casimir, a writer who has many of the beauties andfaults of Cowley:

Omnibus mundi Dominator horisAptat urgendas psr inane pennas, Pars adhuc nido latet, et futuros Crescit in annos. 

Cowley, whatever was his subject, seems to have been carried, by akind of destiny, to the light and the familiar, or to conceits whichrequire still more ignoble epithets. A slaughter in the Red Sea"new dyes the water's name;" and England, during the Civil War, was"Albion no more, nor to be named from white. " It is surely by somefascination not easily surmounted, that a writer, professing torevive "the noblest and highest writing in verse, " makes thisaddress to the new year:

Nay, if thou lov'st me, gentle year, Let not so much as love be there, Vain, fruitless love I mean; for, gentle year, Although I fearThere's of this caution little need, Yet, gentle year, take heed How thou dost make Such a mistake;Such love I mean aloneAs by thy cruel predecessors has been shown:For, though I have too much cause to doubt it, I fain would try, for once, if life can live without it. 

The reader of this will be inclined to cry out with Prior -

 Ye critics, say, How poor to this was Pindar's style!

Even those who cannot perhaps find in the Isthmian or Nemaean songswhat Antiquity what disposed them to expect, will at least see thatthey are ill represented by such puny poetry; and all will determinethat, if this be the old Theban strain, it is not worthy of revival. 

To the disproportion and incongruity of Cowley's sentiments must beadded the uncertainty and looseness of his measures. He takes theliberty of using in any place a verse of any length, from twosyllables to twelve. The verses of Pindar have, as he observes, very little harmony to a modern ear; yet by examining the syllableswe perceive them to be regular, and have reason enough for supposingthat the ancient audiences were delighted with the sound. Theimitator ought therefore to have adopted what he found, and to haveadded what was wanting; to have preserved a constant return of thesame numbers, and to have supplied smoothness of transition andcontinuity of thought. 

It is urged by Dr. Sprat, that the "irregularity of numbers is thevery thing" which makes "that kind of poesy fit for all manner ofsubjects. " But he should have remembered, that what is fit foreverything can fit nothing well. The great pleasure of verse arisesfrom the known measure of the lines, and uniform structure of thestanzas, by which the voice is regulated, and the memory relieved. 

If the Pindaric style be, what Cowley thinks it, "the highest andnoblest kind of writing in verse, " it can be adapted only to highand noble subjects; and it will not be easy to reconcile the poetwith the critic, or to conceive how that can be the highest kind ofwriting in verse which, according to Sprat, "is chiefly to bepreferred for its near affinity to prose. "

This lax and lawless versification so much concealed thedeficiencies of the barren, and flattered the laziness of the idle, that it immediately overspread our books of poetry; all the boys andgirls caught the pleasing fashion, and they that could do nothingelse could write like Pindar. The rights of antiquity were invaded, and disorder tried to break into the Latin: a poem on theSheldonian Theatre, in which all kinds of verse are shaken together, is unhappily inserted in the "Musae Anglicanae. " Pindarismprevailed about half a century; but at last died gradually away, andother imitations supply its place. 

The Pindaric Odes have so long enjoyed the highest degree ofpoetical reputation, that I am not willing to dismiss them withunabated censure; and surely though the mode of their composition beerroneous, yet many parts deserve at least that admiration which isdue to great comprehension of knowledge, and great fertility offancy. The thoughts are often new, and often striking; but thegreatness of one part is disgraced by the littleness of another; andtotal negligence of language gives the noblest conceptions theappearance of a fabric august in the plan, but mean in thematerials. Yet surely those verses are not without a just claim topraise; of which it may be said with truth, that no man but Cowleycould have written them. 

The "Davideis" now remains to be considered; a poem which the authordesigned to have extended to twelve books, merely, as he makes noscruple of declaring, because the "AEneid" had that number; but hehad leisure or perseverance only to write the third part. Epicpoems have been left unfinished by Virgil, Statius, Spenser, andCowley. That we have not the whole "Davideis" is, however, not muchto be regretted; for in this undertaking Cowley is, tacitly atleast, confessed to have miscarried. There are not many examples ofso great a work produced by an author generally read, and generallypraised, that has crept through a century with so little regard. Whatever is said of Cowley, is meant of his other works. Of the"Davideis" no mention is made; it never appears in books, noremerges in conversation. By the "Spectator" it has been oncequoted; by Rymer it has once been praised; and by Dryden, in "MacFlecknoe, " it has once been imitated; nor do I recollect much othernotice from its publication till now in the whole succession ofEnglish literature. 

Of this silence and neglect, if the reason be inquired, it will befound partly in the choice of the subject, and partly in theperformance of the work. 

Sacred history has been always read with submissive reverence, andan imagination overawed and controlled. We have been accustomed toacquiesce in the nakedness and simplicity of the authenticnarrative, and to repose on its veracity with such humble confidenceas suppresses curiosity. We go with the historian as he goes, andstop with him when he stops. All amplification is frivolous andvain; all addition to that which is already sufficient for thepurposes of religion seems not only useless, but in some degreeprofane. 

Such events as were produced by the visible interposition of DivinePower are above the power of human genius to dignify. The miracleof creation, however it may teem with images, is best described withlittle diffusion of language: "He spake the word, and they weremade. "

We are told that Saul "was troubled with an evil spirit;" from thisCowley takes an opportunity of describing hell, and telling thehistory of Lucifer, who was, he says, Once general of a gilded host of sprites, Like Hesper leading forth the spangled nights;But down like lightning, which him struck, he cameAnd roar'd at his first plunge into the flame. 

Lucifer makes a speech to the inferior agents of mischief, in whichthere is something of heathenism, and therefore of impropriety; and, to give efficacy to his words, concludes by lashing his breast withhis long tail: Envy, after a pause, steps out, and among otherdeclarations of her zeal utters these lines:

Do thou but threat, loud storms shall make reply, And thunder echo to the trembling sky;Whilst raging seas swell to so bold an height, As shall the fire's proud element affright, Th' old drudging sun, from his long-beaten way, Shall at thy voice start, and misguide the day. The jocund orbs shall break their measured pace, And stubborn poles change their allotted place. Heaven's gilded troops shall flutter here and there, Leaving their boasting songs tuned to a sphere. 

Every reader feels himself weary with this useless talk of anallegorical being. 

It is not only when the events are confessedly miraculous, thatfancy and fiction lose their effect; the whole system of life, whilethe theocracy was yet visible, has an appearance so different fromall other scenes of human action, that the reader of the sacredvolume habitually considers it as the peculiar mode of existence ofa distinct species of mankind, that lived and acted with mannersuncommunicable; so that it is difficult even for imagination toplace us in the state of them whose story is related, and byconsequence their joys and griefs are not easily adopted, nor canthe attention be often interested in anything that befalls them. 

To the subject thus originally indisposed to the reception ofpoetical embellishments, the writer brought little that couldreconcile impatience, or attract curiosity. Nothing can be moredisgusting than a narrative spangled with conceits; and conceits areall that the "Davideis" supplies. 

One of the great sources of poetical delight is description, or thepower of presenting pictures to the mind. Cowley gives inferencesinstead of images, and shows not what may be supposed to have beenseen, but what thoughts the sight might have suggested. When Virgildescribes the stone which Turnus lifted against AEneas, he fixes theattention on its bulk and weight:

Saxum circumspicit ingens, Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebatLimes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis. 

Cowley says of the stone with which Cain slew his brother, I saw him fling the stone, as if he meantAt once his murther and his monument. 

Of the sword taken from Goliath, he says, A sword so great, that it was only fitTo cut off his great head that came with it. 

Other poets describe Death by some of its common appearances. Cowley says, with a learned allusion to sepulchral lamps real orfabulous, 'Twixt his right ribs deep pierced the furious blade, And open'd wide those secret vessels whereLife's light goes out, when first they let in air. 

But he has allusions vulgar as well as learned in a visionarysuccession of kings:

Joas at first does bright and glorious show, In life's fresh morn his fame does early crow. 

Describing an undisciplined army, after having said with elegance, His forces seem'd no army, but a crowdHeartless, unarm'd, disorderly, and loud, he gives them a fit of the ague. 

The allusions, however, are not always to vulgar things; he offendsby exaggeration as much as by diminution:

The king was placed alone, and o'er his headA well-wrought heaven of silk and gold was spread. 

Whatever he writes is always polluted with some conceit:

Where the sun's fruitful beams give metals birth, Where he the growth of fatal gold does see, Gold, which alone more influence has than he. 

In one passage he starts a sudden question to the confusion ofphilosophy:

Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands grace, Why does that twining plant the oak embrace;The oak for courtship most of all unfit, And rough as are the winds that fight with it?

His expressions have sometimes a degree of meanness that surpassesexpectation;

Nay, gentle guests, he cries, since now you're in, The story of your gallant friend begin. 

In a simile descriptive of the morning:

As glimmering stars just at th' approach of day, Cashier'd by troops, at last all drop away. 

The dress of Gabriel deserves attention:

He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright, That e'er the mid-day sun pierced through with light;Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread, Wash'd from the morning beauties' deepest red:An harmless flatt'ring meteor shone for hair, And fell adown his shoulders with loose care;He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies, Where the most sprightly azure pleased the eyes;This he with starry vapours sprinkles all, Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall;Of a new rainbow ere it fret or fade, The choicest piece cut out, a scarf is made. 

This is a just specimen of Cowley's imagery; what might in generalexpressions be great and forcible, he weakens and makes ridiculousby branching it into small parts. That Gabriel was invested withthe softest or brightest colours of the sky, we might have beentold, and been dismissed to improve the idea in our differentproportions of conception; but Cowley could not let us go till hehad related where Gabriel got first his skin, and then his mantle, then his lace, and then his scarf, and related it in the terms ofthe mercer and tailor. 

Sometimes he indulges himself in a digression, always conceived withhis natural exuberance, and commonly, even where it is not long, continued till it is tedious:

I' th' library a few choice authors stood, Yet 'twas well stored, for that small store was good;Writing, man's spiritual physic, was not thenItself, as now, grown a disease of men. Learning (young virgin) but few suitors knew;The common prostitute she lately grew, And with the spurious brood loads now the press;Laborious effects of idleness. 

As the "Davideis" affords only four books, though intended toconsist of twelve, there is no opportunity for such criticism asEpic poems commonly supply. The plan of the whole work is veryimperfectly shown by the third part. The duration of an unfinishedaction cannot be known. Of characters either not yet introduced, orshown but upon few occasions, the full extent and the nicediscriminations cannot be ascertained. The fable is plainly implex, formed rather from the "Odyssey" than the "Iliad;" and manyartifices of diversification are employed, with the skill of a manacquainted with the beet models. The past is recalled by narration, and the future anticipated by vision: but he has been so lavish ofhis poetical art, that it is difficult to imagine how he could filleight books more without practising again the same modes ofdisposing his matter; and perhaps the perception of this growingincumbrance inclined him to stop. By this abruption, posterity lostmore instruction than delight. If the continuation of the"Davideis" can be missed, it is for the learning that had beendiffused over it, and the notes in which it had been explained. 

Had not his characters been depraved like every other part byimproper decorations, they would have deserved uncommon praise. Hegives Saul both the body and mind of a hero:

His way once chose, he forward threat outright. Nor turned aside for danger or delight. 

And the different beauties of the lofty Merah and the gentle Michalare very justly conceived and strongly painted. 

Rymer has declared the "Davideis" superior to the "Jerusalem" ofTasso, "which, " says he, "the poet, with all his care, has nottotally purged from pedantry. " If by pedantry is meant that minuteknowledge which is derived from particular sciences and studies, inopposition to the general notions supplied by a wide survey of lifeand nature, Cowley certainly errs, by introducing pedantry, far morefrequently than Tasso. I know not, indeed, why they should becompared; for the resemblance of Cowley's work to Tasso's is onlythat they both exhibit the agency of celestial and infernal spirits, in which, however, they differ widely; for Cowley supposes themcommonly to operate upon the mind by suggestion; Tasso representsthem as promoting or obstructing events by external agency. 

Of particular passages that can be properly compared, I rememberonly the description of Heaven, in which the different manner of thetwo writers is sufficiently discernible. Cowley's is scarcelydescription, unless it be possible to describe by negatives; for hetells us only what there is not in heaven. Tasso endeavours torepresent the splendours and pleasures of the regions of happiness. Tasso affords images, and Cowley sentiments. It happens, however, that Tasso's description affords some reason for Rymer's censure. He says of the Supreme Being:

Ha sotto i piedi e fato e la naturaMinistri humili, e'l moto, e ch'il misura. 

The second line has in it more of pedantry than perhaps can be foundin any other stanza of the poem. 

In the perusal of the "Davideis, " as of all Cowley's works, we findwit and learning unprofitably squandered. Attention has no relief;the affections are never moved; we are sometimes surprised, butnever delighted; and find much to admire, but little to approve. Still, however, it is the work of Cowley, of a mind capacious bynature, and replenished by study. 

In the general review of Cowley's poetry it will be found that hewrote with abundant fertility, but negligent or unskilful selection;with much thought, but with little imagery; that he is neverpathetic, and rarely sublime; but always either ingenious orlearned, either acute or profound. 

It is said by Denham in his elegy, To him no author was unknown, Yet what he writ was all his own. 

This wide position requires less limitation, when it is affirmed ofCowley, than perhaps of any other poet. --He read much, and yetborrowed little. 

His character of writing was indeed not his own; he unhappilyadopted that which was predominant. He saw a certain way to presentpraise; and, not sufficiently inquiring by what means the ancientshave continued to delight through all the changes of human manners, he contented himself with a deciduous laurel, of which the verdurein its spring was bright and gay, but which time has beencontinually stealing from his brows. 

He was in his own time considered as of unrivalled excellence. Clarendon represents him as having taken a flight beyond all thatwent before him; and Milton is said to have declared that the threegreatest English poets were Spenser, Shakespeare, and Cowley. 

His manner he had in common with others; but his sentiments were hisown. Upon every subject he thought for himself; and such was hiscopiousness of knowledge, that something at once remote andapplicable rushed into his mind; yet it is not likely that he alwaysrejected a commodious idea merely because another had used it: hisknown wealth was so great that be might have borrowed without lossof credit, in his elegy on Sir Henry Wotton, the last lines havesuch resemblance to the noble epigram of Grotius on the death ofScaliger, that I cannot but think them copied from it, though theyare copied by no servile hand. 

One passage in his "Mistress" is so apparently borrowed from Donne, that he probably would not have written it had it not mingled withhis own thoughts, so as that he did not perceive himself taking itfrom another:

Although I think thou never found wilt be, Yet I'm resolved to search for thee; The search itself rewards the pains. So, though the chymic his great secret miss(For neither it in Art or Nature is), Yet things well worth his toil he gains: And does his charge and labour payWith good unsought experiments by the way. --COWLEY. 

Some that have deeper digg'd Love's mine than I, Say, where his centric happiness doth lie: I have loved, and got, and told;But should I love, get, tell, till I were old, I should not find that hidden mystery; Oh, 'tis imposture all!And as no chymic yet th' elixir got, But glorifies his pregnant pot, If by the way to him befalSome odoriferous thing, or medicinal, So lovers dream a rich and long delight, But get a winter-seeming summer's night. 

Jonson and Donne, as Dr. Hurd remarks, were then in the highestesteem. 

It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley always acknowledged hisobligation to the learning and industry of Jonson: but I have foundno traces of Jonson in his works: to emulate Donne appears to havebeen his purpose. ; and from Donne ~he may have learnt thatfamiliarity with religious images, and that light allusion to sacredthings, by which readers far short of sanctity are frequentlyoffended; and which would not be borne in the present age, whendevotion, perhaps not more fervent, is more delicate. 

Having produced one passage taken by Cowley from Donne, I willrecompense him by another which Milton seems to have borrowed fromhim. He says of Goliath:

His spear, the trunk was of a lofty tree, Which Nature meant some tall ship's mast should be. 

Milton of Satan:

His spear, to equal which the tallest pineHewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mastOf some great ammiral, were but a wand, He walked with. 

His diction was in his own time censured as negligent. He seems notto have known, or not to have considered, that words being arbitrarymust owe their power to association, and have the influence, andthat only, which custom has given them. Language is the dress ofthought; and as the noblest mien, or most graceful action, would bedegraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the grossemployments of rustics or mechanics; so the most heroic sentimentswill lose their efficacy, and the most splendid ideas drop theirmagnificence, if they are conveyed by words used commonly upon lowand trivial occasions, debased by vulgar mouths, and contaminated byinelegant applications. 

Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is always reason; they havean intrinsic and unalterable value, and constitute that intellectualgold which defies destruction; but gold may be so concealed in basermatter, that only a chemist can recover it; sense may be so hiddenin unrefined and plebeian words, that none but philosophers candistinguish it; and both may be so buried in impurities, as not topay the cost of their extraction. 

The diction, being the vehicle of the thoughts, first presentsitself to the intellectual eye; and if the first appearance offends, a further knowledge is not often sought. Whatever professes tobenefit by pleasing, must please at once. The pleasures of the mindimply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates mustalways surprise. What is perceived by slow degrees may gratify uswith the consciousness of improvement, but will never strike withthe sense of pleasure. 

Of all this, Cowley appears to have been without knowledge, orwithout care. He makes no selection of words, nor seeks anyneatness of phrase: he has no elegance either lucky or elaborate;as his endeavours were rather to impress sentences upon theunderstanding, than images on the fancy: he has few epithets, andthose scattered without peculiar propriety of nice adaptation. 

It seems to follow from the necessity of the subject, rather thanthe care of the writer, that the diction of his heroic poem is lessfamiliar than that of his slightest writings. He has given not thesame numbers, but the same diction, to the gentle Anacreon and thetempestuous Pindar. 

His versification seems to have had very little of his care; and ifwhat he thinks be true, that his numbers are unmusical only whenthey are ill-read, the art of reading them is at present lost; forthey are commonly harsh to modern ears. He has indeed many noblelines, such as the feeble care of Waller never could produce. Thebulk of his thoughts sometimes swelled his verse to unexpected andinevitable grandeur; but his excellence of this kind is merelyfortuitous: he sinks willingly down to his general carelessness, and avoids with very little care either meanness or asperity. 

His contractions are often rugged and harsh:

One flings a mountain, and its rivers tooTorn up with 't. 

His rhymes are very often made by pronouns, or particles, or thelike unimportant words, which disappoint the ear, and destroy theenergy of the line. 

His combination of different measures is sometimes dissonant andunpleasing; he joins verses together, of which the former does notslide easily into the latter. 

The words "do" and "did, " which so much degrade in presentestimation the line that admits them, were in the time of Cowleylittle censured or avoided; how often he used them, and with how badan effect, at least to our ears, will appear by a passage, in whichevery reader will lament to see just and noble thoughts defrauded oftheir praise by inelegance of language:

Where honour or where conscience DOES not bind No other law shall shackle me; Slave to myself I ne'er will be;Nor shall my future actions be confined By my own present mind. Who by resolves and vows engaged DOES stand For days, that yet belong to fate, DOES like an unthrift mortgage his estate, Before it falls into his hand; The bondman of the cloister so, All that he DOES receive DOES always owe. And still as Time comes in, it goes away, Not to enjoy, but debts to pay! Unhappy slave, and pupil to a bell!Which his hour's work as well as hours DOES tell:Unhappy till the last, the kind releasing knell. 

His heroic lines are often formed of monosyllables; but yet they aresometimes sweet and sonorous. 

He says of the Messiah, Round the whole earth his dreaded name shall sound, AND REACH TO WORLDS THAT MUST NOT YET BE FOUND. 

In another place, of David, Yet bid him go securely, when he sends;'TIS SAUL THAT IS HIS FOE, AND WE HIS FRIENDS. THE MAN WHO HAS HIS GOD, NO AID CAN LACK;AND WE WHO BID HIM GO, WILL BRING HIM BACK. 

Yet amidst his negligence he sometimes attempted an improved andscientific versification; of which it will be best to give his ownaccount subjoined to this line:

Nor can the glory contain itself in th' endless space. 

"I am sorry that it is necessary to admonish the most part ofreaders, that it is not by negligence that this verse is so loose, long, and, as it were, vast; it is to paint in the number the natureof the thing which it describes, which I would have observed indivers other places of this poem, that else will pass as verycareless verses: as before, AND OVER-RUNS THE NEIGHB'RING FIELDS WITH VIOLENT COURSE. 

"In the second book:

DOWN A PRECIPICE DEEP, DOWSE HE CASTS THEM ALL -

"And, AND FELL A-DOWN HIS SHOULDERS WITH LOOSE CARE. 

"In the third, BRASS WAS HIS HELMET, HIS BOOTS BRASS, AND O'ERHIS BREAST A THICK PLATE STRONG BRASS HE WORE. 

"In the fourth, LIKE SOME FAIR PINE O'ER-LOOKING ALL THE IGNOBLER WOOD. 

"And, SOME FROM THE ROCKS CAST THEMSELVES DOWN HEADLONG. 

"And many more: but it is enough to instance in a few. The thingis, that the disposition of words and numbers should be such, asthat, out of the order and sound of them, the things themselves maybe represented. This the Greeks were not so accurate as to bindthemselves to; neither have our English poets observed it, for aughtI can find. The Latins (qui musas colunt severiores) sometimes didit; and their prince, Virgil, always: in whom the examples areinnumerable, and taken notice of by all judicious men, so that it issuperfluous to collect them. "

I know not whether he has, in many of these instances, attained therepresentation or resemblance that he purposes. Verse can imitateonly sound and motion. A "boundless" verse, a "headlong" verse, anda verse of "brass" or of "strong brass, " seem to comprise veryincongruous and unsociable ideas. What there is peculiar in thesound of the line expressing "loose care, " I cannot discover; norwhy the "pine" is "taller" in an Alexandrine than in ten syllables. 

But, not to defraud him of his due praise, he has given one exampleof representative versification, which perhaps no other English linecan equal:

Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise:He, who defers this work from day to day, Does on a river's bank expecting stayTill the whole stream that stopp'd him shall be gone, WHICH RUNS, AND, AS IT RUNS, FOR EVER SHALL RUN ON. 

Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that mingled Alexandrines atpleasure with the common heroic of ten syllables, and from himDryden borrowed the practice, whether ornamental or licentious. Heconsidered the verse of twelve syllables as elevated and majestic, and has therefore deviated into that measure when he supposes thevoice heard of the Supreme Being. 

The author of the "Davideis" is commended by Dryden for havingwritten it in couplets, because he discovered that any staff was toolyrical for an heroic poem; but this seems to have been known beforeby May and Sandys, the translators of the "Pharsalia" and the"Metamorphoses. "

In the "Davideis" are some hemistichs, or verses left imperfect bythe author, in imitation of Virgil, whom he supposes not to haveintended to complete them; that this opinion is erroneous, may beprobably concluded, because this truncation is imitated by nosubsequent Roman poet; because Virgil himself filled up one brokenline in the heat of recitation; because in one the sense is nowunfinished; and because all that can be done by a broken verse, aline intersected by a coesura, and a full stop, will equally effect. 

Of triplets in his "Davideis" he makes no use, and perhaps did notat first think them allowable; but he appears afterwards to havechanged his mind, for in the verses on the government of Cromwell heinserts them liberally with great happiness. 

After so much criticism on his poems, the essays which accompanythem must not be forgotten. What is said by Sprat of hisconversation, that no man could draw from it any suspicion of hisexcellence in poetry, may be applied to these compositions. Noauthor ever kept his verse and his prose at a greater distance fromeach other. His thoughts are natural, and his style has a smoothand placid equability, which has never yet obtained its duecommendation. Nothing is far-sought, or hard-laboured; but all iseasy without feebleness, and familiar without grossness. 

It has been observed by Felton, in his Essay on the Classics, thatCowley was beloved by every Muse that he courted; and that he hasrivalled the ancients in every kind of poetry but tragedy. 

It may be affirmed, without any encomiastic fervour, that he broughtto his poetic labours a mind replete with learning, and that hispages are embellished with all the ornaments which books couldsupply; that he was the first who imparted to English numbers theenthusiasm of the greater ode, and the gaiety of the less; that hewas equally qualified for sprightly sallies, and for lofty flights;that he was among those who freed translation from servility, and, instead of following his author at a distance, walked by his side;and that, if he left versification yet improvable, he left likewisefrom time to time such specimens of excellence as enabled succeedingpoets to improve it.