What more could Jove himself, unless he gave
His own abode the heaven in which he reigns?
More eligible gifts than these were not
Apollo's to his son, had they been safe
As they were insecure, who made the boy
The world's vice-luminary, bade him rule
The radiant chariot of the day, and bind
To his young brows his own all-dazzling wreath.
I therefore, although last and least, my place
Among the learned in the laurel grove
Will hold, and where the conqueror's ivy twines,
Henceforth exempt from the unletter'd throng
Profane, nor even to be seen by such.
Away, then, sleepless Care! Complaint, away!
And Envy, with thy jealous leer malign!
Nor let the monster Calumny shoot forth
Her venom'd tongue at me. Detested foes!
Ye all are impotent against my peace,
For I am privileged, and bear my breast
Safe and too high for your viperean wound.
But thou, my Father! since to render thanks
Equivalent, and to requite by deeds
Thy liberality, exceeds my power,
Suffice it, that I thus record thy gifts,
And bear them treasured in a grateful mind.
Ye, too, the favourite pastime of my youth,
My voluntary numbers! if ye dare
To hope longevity, and to survive
Your master's funeral, not soon absorb'd
In the oblivious Lethæan gulf,
Shall to futurity perhaps convey
This theme, and by these praises of my Sire
Improve the fathers of a distant age.

In 1627, Milton wrote his first Latin elegy, addressed to Charles Deodate,* in answer to a letter from Cheshire.

Milton's Latin epistles are written in the style of Ovid; but the matter and language not servilely borrowed from him. It seems to me extraordinary that Milton should have taken Ovid for his model. I agree with Warton, that it would have been more probable that he would have taken Lucretius and Virgil, as more congenial to him. His poems 'Ad Patrem' and 'Mansus' I consider much superior, and in a different manner. I cannot agree that "his inherent powers of fancy and invention display themselves" much in the Elegies.' I suspect that the greater part of them might have been by any classical scholar of lively talents, rich in learning, and

1609 he appears to have been physician to Henry, Prince of Wales, and the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Bohemia. He was brother of John Deodate, a learned Puritan divine, whose theological works, printed at Geneva, are well known. The family came from Lucca on account of their religion.

The following notice as to the family I am favoured with by one of its members, a learned librarian in the Public Library of Geneva. It is extracted from a letter written by Theodore, the father of Charles Deodate, and dated London, 20th March, 1675.

"Nous avons tenu le premier rang entre les familles nobles et patriciennes de tous tems à Lucques, et en sommes encore en possession; le père de mon grand-père logea en son palais l'empereur Charles Quinte: il étoit alors gonfalonier; auquel tems mon grand-père nacquit, et l'empereur fût son parrain, et le nomma Charles, et lui donna l'enseigne des diamans, qu'il portait en son col à son départ. Nous avons eu des généreaux d'armées. Le général Diodati conserva Brissac à l'empereur contre l'armée des princes d'Allemagne; et fût tué d'une volée de canon dans Munich en Bavière. A' cette heure nous avons Don Jean Diodati, chevalier de Malthe, grand prieur de Venize, cousin germain de feu mon père," &c.

practised in conversation. Not so 'Ad Patrem' or Mansus;' or some of the college exercises. But it is no more than justice to quote Warton's more favourable judgment on the sixth elegy, also addressed to Deodate. He says, "the transitions and corrections of this elegy are conducted with the skill and address of a master, and form a train of allusions and digressions, productive of fine sentiment and poetry. From a trifling and unimportant circumstance the reader is gradually led to great and lofty imagery."

Of all the elegies, that which pleases me most, and which I consider far the most poetical, and at the same time the most original in its imagery, is the fifth elegy, 'In Adventum Veris,' ætatis 20, 1629.

But even here the images have not the raciness and wildness of the descriptions in his English poems. Warton speaks of it as excellent in all the requisites of poetry.

Here Milton says that his poetical genius returns in the spring: in later life, he has said that the autumn was the season of his composition.

The last elegy is, perhaps, the best, next to that upon the Spring. Milton was apt to encumber his poetry with too many learned allusions, which unfitted them for the general readers, who might have taste and sympathy without much technical erudition.

At this period, Milton's mind, though his English poems prove that at times it was grave and deep, yet occasionally showed all the playfulness of his youthful age. I am not sure that I like his Ovidian graces. I prefer the solemn tones of his grander imagery; his picturesque descriptions of the scenery of nature; his voices among the lonely mountains; his evening contemplations, and his studious melancholy by the night-lamp. I prefer his allusions to the fables of Gothic romance rather than to the pantheon of the classics, which does not carry with it any part of our belief. Our imaginations can easily enter into the superstitions of the dark ages, which have far more of dignity and sublimity.

Perhaps Milton was at this date more proud of his scholarship than of his own original genius, as Petrarch to the last preferred his own Latin poems to his Italian, and placed on them his hopes of fame. But in a language which is not our own, we can never equally express our unborrowed thoughts. In bringing our phraseology to the test, we are driven to the train of mind of others. It is only when the language rises up with the mental conception, that it is racy and vigorous. Hence in my opinion there is a radical defect in all modern Latin poetry-though it may still have great merit of a secondary sort. I deny that Milton shows in these Latin compositions, unless perhaps on some rare occasion, any thing of the peculiarity of his native genius.

In his own tongue there are bursts of that mind which produced Paradise Lost,' even in his verses from the age of thirteen. Sometimes an image, sometimes an epithet displays it. A holy inspiration had already commenced in his mind. The tone of the Sacred Writings had taken fast possession of his enthusiasm: this perhaps was increased by his study of Dante. In Spenser there is more profusion and more flexibility; but not the same sombre and sublime cast: in Shakspeare also, there is more sweetness, and less study, -more of the "native woodnote wild;"-but not that solemn and divine strain, as if an oracle spoke. There is a sort of prophetic awe in the out-breathings of Milton, like that of the Hebrew poetry: yet there is nothing totally uncompounded with human learning. Perhaps it were better, if it had been. It is occasionally encumbered.

Milton conforms every thing to his own grand inventions. Shakspeare enters into the souls of others: Spenser brings them upon the stage in groups, in all the allegorical fabulousness of their outward forms; - he is the painter of the times of chivalry, moralized into fictions of his own, which display the different virtues in the adventures of different knights; they form wonderful tales of inexhaustible variety, - giants, and enchanted castles, and imprisoned damsels, rescued by heroic courage and divine interference.