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The chearful man hears the lark in the morning; the penfive man hears the nightingale in the evening. The chearful man fees the cock ftrut, and hears the horn and hounds echo in the wood; then walks not unseen to obferve the glory of the riding fun, or liften to the finging milk-maid, and view the labours of the plowman and the mower; then cafts his eyes about him over scenes of smiling plenty, and looks up to the diftant tower, the refidence of fome fair inhabitant; thus. he pursues rural gaiety through a day of labour or of play, and delights himfelf at night with the fanciful narratives of fuperftitious ignorance.

The penfive man, at one time, walks unfeen to muse at midnight; and at another hears the fullen curfew. If the weather drives him home, he fits in a room lighted only by glowing embers; or by a lonely lamp outwatches the North Star, to discover the habitation of feparate fouls, and varies the fhades of meditation, by contemplating the magnificent or pathetic fcenes of tragick and epick poetry. When the morning comes, a morning gloomy with rain and wind, he walks into the dark tracklefs woods, falls afleep by fome murmuring water, and with melancholy enthufiafin expects fome dream of prognoftication, or fome mufic played by aerial performers.

Both Mirth and Melancholy are folitary, filent inhabitants of the breast, that neither receive nor transmit communication; no mention is therefore made of a philofophical friend, or a pleasant companion. The feriousness does not arife from any participation of calamity, nor the gaiety from the pleafures of the bottle.

The man of chearfulness, having exhaufted the country, tries what towered cities will afford, and min

gles

gles with scenes of fplendor, gay affemblies, and nuptial feftivities; but he mingles a mere fpectator, as, when the learned comedies of Jonfon, or the wild dramas of Shakspeare, are exhibited, he attends the

theatre.

The penfive man never lofes himself in crowds, but walks the cloifter, or frequents the cathedral. Milton probably had not yet forfaken the Church.

Both his characters delight in mufick; but he seems to think that chearful notes would have obtained from Pluto a compleat difmiffion of Eurydice, of whom folemn founds only procured a conditional release.

For the old age of Chearfulness he makes no provifion; but Melancholy he conducts with great dignity to the close of life. His Chearfulness is without levity, and his Penfiveness without afperity.

Through these two poems the images are properly felected, and nicely distinguished; but the colours of the diction seem not fufficiently difcriminated. I know not whether the characters are kept fufficiently apart. No mirth can, indeed, be found in his melancholy; but I am afraid that I always meet fome melancholy in his mirth. They are two noble efforts of imagination *.

The greatest of his juvenile performances is the Mafk of Comus; in which may very plainly be dif

* Mr. Warton intimates (and there can be little doubt of the truth of his conjecture) that Milton borrowed many of the images in these two fine poems from "Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy," a book published in 1624, and at fundry times fince, abounding in learning, curious information, and pleafantry. Mr. Warton fays, that Milton appears to have been an attentive reader thereof; and to this affertion I add of my own knowledge, that it was a book that Dr. Johnson frequently reforted to, as many others have done, for amufement after the fatigue of study. L 4

covered

covered the dawn or twilight of Paradife Loft. Milton appears to have formed very early that system of diction, and mode of verfe, which his maturer judgement approved, and from which he never endeavoured nor defired to deviate.

Nor does Comus afford only a fpecimen of his language; it exhibits likewife his power of defcription and his vigour of fentiment, employed in the praise and defence of virtue. A work more truly poetical is rarely found; allufions, images, and defcriptive epithets, embellish almost every period with lavish decoration. As a series of lines, therefore, it may be confidered as worthy of all the admiration with which the votaries have received it.

As a drama it is deficient. The action is not probable. A Mafque, in thofe parts where fupernatural intervention is admitted, muft indeed be given up to all the freaks of imagination; but, so far as the action is merely human, it ought to be reasonable, which can hardly be faid of the conduct of the two brothers; who, when their sister finks with fatigue in a pathless wildernefs, wander both away together in fearch of berries too far to find their way back, and leave a helpless Lady to all the fadness and danger of folitude. This however is a defect overbalanced by its conveni

ence.

What deferves more reprehenfion is, that the prologue spoken in the wild wood by the attendant Spirit is addreffed to the audience; a mode of communication fo contrary to the nature of dramatick reprefentation, that no precedents can fupport it.

The difcourfe of the Spirit is too long; an objection may be made to almoft all the following fpeeches:

that

they

they have not the fpriteliness of a dialogue animated by reciprocal contention, but seem rather declamations deliberately compofed, and formally repeated, on a moral question. The auditor therefore liftens as to a lecture, without paffion, without anxiety.

The fong of Comus has airinefs and jollity; but, what may recommend Milton's morals as well as his poetry, the invitations to pleasure are fo general, that they excite no diftinct images of corrupt enjoyment, and take no dangerous hold on the fancy.

The following foliloquies of Coinus and the Lady are elegant, but tedious. The fong muft owe much to the voice, if it ever can delight. At laft the Brothers enter, with too much tranquillity; and when they have feared left their fifter fhould be in danger, and hoped that she is not in danger, the Elder makes a speech in praise of chastity, and the Younger finds how fine it is to be a philofopher.

Then defcends the Spirit in form of a fhepherd; and the Brother, instead of being in hafte to ask his help, praises his finging, and enquires his bufinefs in that place. It is remarkable, that at this interview the brother is taken with a fhort fit of rhyming.

The

Spirit relates that the Lady is in the power of Comus; the Brother moralifes again; and the Spirit makes a long narration, of no use because it is falfe, and therefore unfuitable to a good Being.

In all these parts the language is poetical, and the fentiments are generous; but there is fomething wanting to allure attention.

The difpute between the Lady and Comus is the moft animated and affecting fcene of the drama, and wants nothing but a brifker reciprocation of

objections

objections and replies, to invite attention, and de

tain it.

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

Throughout the whole, the figures are too bold, and the language too luxuriant for dialogue. It is a drama in the epick ftyle, inelegantly fplendid, and tediously instructive.

The Sonnets were written in different parts of Milton's life, upon different occafions. They deferve not any particular criticism; for of the best it can only be faid, that they are not bad; and perhaps only the eighth and the twenty-firft are truly entitled to this flender commendation. The fabrick of a fonnet, however adapted to the Italian language, has ever fucceeded in ours, which, having greater variety of termination, requires the rhymes to be often changed.

Those little pieces may be dispatched without much anxiety; a greater work calls for greater care. I am now to examine Paradife Loft; a poem, which, confidered with respect to defign, may claim the first place, and with refpect to performance the fecond, among the pro

ductions of the human mind.

By the general confent of criticks, the first praife of genius is due to the writer of an epick poem, as it requires an affemblage of all the powers which are singly fufficient for other compofitions. Poetry is the art of uniting pleafure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reafon. Epick poetry undertakes to teach the most important truths by the most pleasing precepts, and therefore relates fome great event in the most affecting manner. Hiftory muft fupply the writer

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