Milton, does it with a peculiar and irresistible charm. Subordinate poets exercife no invention, when they tell how a fhepherd has loft his companion, and muft feed his flocks alone, without any judge of his skill in piping: but Milton dignifies and adorns these common artificial incidents with unexpected touches of picturefque beauty, with the graces of fentiment, and with the novelties of original genius. It is objected "here is no art, for there is nothing new." To fay nothing that there may be art without novelty, as well as novelty without art, I must reply, that this objection will vanish, if we confider the imagery which Milton has raifed from local circumftances. Not to repeat the use he has made of the mountains of Wales, the ifle of Man, and the river Dee, near which Lycidas was fhipwrecked; let us recollect the introduction of the romantic fuperftition of St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall, which overlooks the Irish feas, the fatal fcene of his friend's difafter.

66

But the poetry is not always unconnected with paffion. The poet lavishly describes an ancient fepulchral rite, but it is made preparatory to a stroke of tenderness. He calls for a variety of flowers to decorate his friend's hearfe, fuppofing that his body was prefent, and forgetting for a while that it was floating far off in the ocean. If he was drowned, it was fome confolation that he was to receive the decencies of burial. This is a pleafing deception: it is natural and pathetic. But the real catastrophe recurs. And this circumftance again opens a new vein of imagination.

Dr. Johnfon cenfures Milton for his allegorical mode of telling that he and Lycidas ftudied together, under the fictitious images of rural employments, in which, he fays, there can be no tendernefs; and prefers Cowley's lamentation of the lofs of Harvey, the companion of his labours, and the partner of his discoveries. I know not if, in this fimilarity of fubject, Cowley has more tenderness; I am sure he has lefs poetry. I will allow that he has more wit, and more fmart fimilies. The fenfe of our author's allegory on this occafion is obvious, and is just as intelligible as if he had ufed plain terms. It is a fiction, that when Lycidas died, the woods and caves were deferted and overgrown with wild thyme and luxuriant vines, and that all their echoes mourned; and that the green copfes no longer waved their joyous leaves to his foft ftrains: but we cannot here be at a lofs for a meaning, a meaning which is as clearly perceived, as it is elegantly reprefented. This is the fympathy of a true poet. We know that Milton and King were not nurfed on the fame bill; that they did not feed the fame flock, by fountain, fhade, or rill; and that rough Satyrs and Fauns with cloven heel never danced to their rural ditties. But who hefitates a moment for the application? Nor are fuch ideas more untrue, certainly not lefs far-fetched and unnatural, than when Cowley fays, that he and Harvey ftudied together every night with fuch unremitted diligence, that the twin-ftars of

Leda,

Leda, fo famed for love, looked down upon the twin-ftudents with wonder from above. And where is the tenderness, when he wishes, that, on the melancholy event, the branches of the trees at Cambridge, under which they walked, would combine themselves into a darker umbrage, dark as the grave in which his departed friend was newly laid?

Our author has alfo been cenfured for mixing religious disputes with pagan and paftoral ideas. But he had the authority of Mantuan and Spenfer, now confidered as models in this way of writing. Let me add, that our poetry was not yet purged from its Gothic combinations; nor had legitimate notions of difcrimination and propriety so far prevailed, as fufficiently to influence the growing improvements of English compofition. Thefe irregularities and incongruities muft not be tried by modern criticism.

This poem first appeared in a Cambridge Collection of verses on the Death of Mr. Edward King, fellow of Chrift's College, printed at Cambridge in a thin quarto, 1638. It confifts of three Greek, nineteen Latin, and thirteen Englifh poems. The three Greek are written by William Ivefon, John Pots, and Henry More, the great Platonic theologift, and then or foon afterwards a fellow of Christ's College. The nineteen Latin are by Anonymous, N. Felton, R. Mafon, John Pullen, Jofeph Pearson, R. Browne, J. B. Charles Mafon, Coke, Stephen Anftie, Jofeph Hoper, R. C. Thomas Farnaby Mr. King's Schoolmafter, but not the celebrated rhetorician, Henry King Mr. Edward King's brother, John Hayward chancellor and canon refidentiary of Lincoln, M. Honywood who has two copies, William Brearley, Chriftopher Bainbrigg, and R. Widdrington. The thirteen English, by Henry King abovementioned, J. Beaumont, Anonymous, John Cleveland the Poet, William More, William Hall, Samfon Briggs, Ifaac Oliver, J. H. C. B. R. Brown, T. Norton, and our author JOHN MILTON, whofe Monody, entitled LyCIDAS, and subscribed with his initials only, ftands laft in the Collection. J. H.'s copy is infcribed, "To the deceased's ver"tuous Sifter, the Ladie Margaret Loder." She here appears to have lived near Saint Chad's church at Litchfield, and to have excelled in painting. Cleveland's copy is very witty. But the

two concluding lines are hyperboles of wit.

Our teares fhall feem the Irish feas,

We floating Islands, living Hebrides.

The contributors were not all of Chrift's College. The Greek and Latin pieces have this title, which indeed ferves for the title to the book, "Jufta EDOVARDO KING naufrago, ab Amicis "mærentibus, amoris et pas xágu. Si rette calculum ponas, « ubique naufragium eft. Petron. Arb. CANTABRICIA, Apud "Thomam Buck et Rogerum Daniel, celeberrimæ Academiæ "typographos. 1638." The English are thus intitled, "Obfequies

quies, to the memorie of Mr. Edward King, Anno Dom. 1638. "Printed by Th. Buck and R. Daniel, printers to the Vniverfitie "of Cambridge. 1638." To the whole is prefixed a profe infcriptive panegyric on Mr. King, containing short notices of his life, family, character, connections, and deplorable catastrophe. This I fufpect to have been compofed either by Milton or Henry More, who perhaps were two the most able masters in Latinity which the college could then produce.

Peck examined this firft edition of LYCIDAS, which he bor rowed of Baker the antiquary, very fuperficially. And all that Milton's last editor, the learned bishop of Bristol, knew about it, is apparently taken from Peck.

Peck is of opinion, that Milton's poem is placed last in this Cambridge Collection, on account of his fuppofed quarrel with Chrift's college. A much more probable and obvious reafon may be affigned. Without entering at prefent into the ftory of Milton's dispute with his college, I fhall only juft obferve, that when he wrote LYCIDAS, he had quitted the univerfity about five years, and that he now refided with his father and mother at Horton in Buckinghamshire. He therefore did not write of course on this occafion he was folicited by those whom he had left behind at Chrift's college, to affift, and who certainly could never intend to difgrace what they had asked as a favour. In a collection of this fort, the laft is the place of honour. The college here availed itfelf of Milton's well-known abilities. And if we fuppofe that Milton's compofition was a voluntary contribution of friendship fent from the country, its fuperiour merit could not but meet with due 'diftinction.

:

Edward King, the fubject of this Monody, was the son of fir John King, knight, fecretary for Ireland, under queen Elizabeth, James the firft, and Charles the firft. He was failing from Chester to Ireland, on a vifit to his friends and relations in that country: These were, his brother fir Robert King, knight; and his fifters, Anne wife of fir George Caulfield Lord Claremont, and Margaret, abovementioned, wife of fir George Loder, Chief Juftice of Ireland; Edward King bishop of Elphin, by whom he was baptized; and William Chappel, then Dean of Cafhel, and Provost of Dublin College, who had been his tutor at Chrift's college Cambridge, and was afterwards bishop of Cork and Rofs, and in this Paftoral is probably the fame person that is ftyled old DaMOETAS, V. 36. When, in calm weather, not far from the Englifh coaft, the fhip, a very crazy veffel, a fatal and perfidious bark, ftruck on a rock, and fuddenly funk to the bottom with all that were on board, not one escaping, Aug. 10, 1637. King was now only twenty-five years old. He was perhaps a native of Ireland.

At

At Cambridge, he was diftinguished for his piety, and proficiency in polite literature. He has no inelegant copy of Latin iambics prefixed to a Latin Comedy called SENILE ODIUM, acted at Queen's College Cambridge, by the youth of that fociety, and written by P. Haufted, Cantab. 1633. 12mo. From which I select these lines, as containing a judicious fatire on the false taste, and the cuftomary mechanical or unnatural expedients, of the drama that then fubfifted.

Non hic cothurni fanguine infonti rubeat,

Nec flagra Megæræ ferrea horrendum intonant;
Noverca nulla fævior Erebo furit ;

Venena nulla, præter illa dulcia

Amoris; atque his vim abftulere noxiam
Cafti lepores, innocua feftivitas,

Nativa fuavitas, proba elegantia, &c.

He also appears with credit in the Cambridge Public Verfes of his time. He has a copy of Latin iambics, in the ANTHOLOGIA ON the King's Recovery, Cantab. 1632. 4to. p. 43. Of Latin elegiacs, in the GENETHLIACUM ACAD. CANTABRIG. Ibid. 1631. 4to. p. 39. Of Latin iambics in REX REDUX, Ibid. 1633. 4to. p. 14. See also EYNMAIA, from Cambridge, Ibid. 16374to. Signat. C. 3. I will not fay how far these performances juftify Milton's panegyric on his friend's poetry, v. 9.

Who would not fing for LYCIDAS? He knew
Himself to fing, and build the lofty rhyme.

This poem, as appears by the Trinity manufcript, was written in November, 1637, when Milton was not quite twenty-nine years old.

L'ALLEGRO.

L'ALLEGRO.*

ENCE, loathed Melancholy,

HE

Of Cerberus, and blackest Midnight born! In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongft horrid fhapes, and fhrieks, and fights unholy,

* Thefe are Airs, "That take the prifon'd foul, and lap it in "Elyfium." H.

V. 1. Hence, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus, and blackeft Midnight born!] Erebus, not Cerberus, was the legitimate husband of Night. Milton was too univerfal a scholar to be unacquainted with this mythology. In his Prolufions, or declamatory Preambles to philofophical queftions difcuffed in the fchools at Cambridge, he fays, "Cæterum nec "defunt qui Æthera et Diem itidem EREBO Noctem peperiffe "tradunt." PROSE-WORKS, vol. ii. 585. Again, in the Latin Ode on the Death of Felton bishop of Ely. v. 31.

Non eft, ut arbitraris elufus miser,

Mors atra Noctis filia,
EREBOVE PATRE Creta.-

Again, IN QUINTUM NOVEMBRIS, V. 69.

Nox fenis amplexus EREBI taciturna petivit.

But as Melancholy is here the creature of Milton's imagination, he had a right to give her what parentage he pleased, and to marry Night the natural mother of Melancholy, to any ideal husband that would beft ferve to heighten the allegory. See OBSERVAT. on Spenfer's F. Q. i. 73.

I have formerly remarked, that in this exordium Milton had an eye on fome elegant lines of Marfton, SCOURGE OF VILLANIE, B. iii. S. 10. edit. 1598.

Sleepe,