One of the earlieft encomiums which this volume of Milton feems to have received, was from the pen of Addifon. In a SPECTATOR, written 1711, he mentions Milton's Laughter in the opening of L'ALLEGRO as a very poetical figure and adds, citing the lines at large, that Euphrofyne's groupe of Mirth is finely defcribed. But this fpecimen and recommendation, although from fo favourite a writer, and so elegant a critic, was probably premature, and I fufpect contributed but little to make the poem much better known. In the mean time I will venture to pronounce, that although the citation immediately refulted from the fubject of Addifon's paper, he thought it the finest groupe or defcription either in this piece or its companion the PENSEROSO. Had Addison ever entered into the spirit and genius of both poems, he certainly did not want opportunities of bringing them forward, by exhibiting paffages of a more poetical character. It has been observed in the Effay on the Genius of Pope, that Milton's nephew, E. Philips, in his "Tractatus de carmine "dramatico poetarum veterum cui fubjungitur “Enumeratio Poetarum, Lond. 1670." mentioning his uncle's PARADISE LOST, adds, præter alia quæ fcripfit elegantiffime tum Anglicè tum Latine." p. 270. And Toland, from the fame quarter, fays of coмUS, "like which

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piece, in the peculiar difpofition of the story, "the fweetness of the numbers, the juftness of "the expreffion, and the moral it teaches, there "is nothing extant in any language." LIFE, prefixed to Milton's Profe Works, Amft. 1698. And of LYCIDAS, "the Monody is one of the "fineft [poems] he ever wrote." Ibid. p. 44. These indeed are early teftimonies; but as coming from his relations, are not properly admiffible.*

My father used to relate, that when he once, at Magdalene college Oxford, mentioned in high terms, this volume to Mr. Digby, the intimate friend of Pope, Mr. Digby expressed much furprise that he had never heard Pope speak of them, went home and immediately gave them an attentive reading, and asked Pope if he knew any thing of this hidden treasure. Pope availed himself of the question: and accordingly, we find him foon afterwards fprinkling his ELOISA TO ABELARD with epithets and phrases of a new form and found, pilfered from COMUS and the PENSEROso. It is a phenomenon in the history of English poetry, that Pope, a poet not of Milton's pedigree, should be their first copier. He was

It ought to be added, that in the fourth edition of Dryden's Mifcellanies, published 1716, and as it has been reported at the fuggeftion of Elijah Fenton, L'Allegro, Il Penferofo, and Lycidas, were inferted in that collection, and they are much praised by Fenton in his life of Milton, 1725. Il Penferofo was quoted in the Spectator, No. 425. in the year 1712. in a paper on the Seasons.

however

however conscious, that he might borrow from a book then scarcely remembered, without the hazard of a discovery, or the imputation of plagiarism. Yet the theft was fo flight, as hardly to deserve the name: and it must be allowed, that the experiment was happily and judiciously applied, in delineating the fombrous fcenes of the penfive Eloifa's convent, the folitary Paraclete.

At length, we perceive thefe poems emerging in the criticism of the times. In 1733, doctor Pearce published his Review of the Text of PARADISE LOST, where they frequently furnish collateral evidences in favour of the established ftate of that text; and in refutation of Bentley's chimerical corrections. In the following year, the joint labour of the two Richardfon's produced Explanatory Notes on the PARADISE LOST, where they repeatedly lend their affiftance, and are treated in such a style of criticism, as fhews that their beauties were truly felt. Soon afterwards, fuch refpectable names as Jortin, Warburton, and Hurd, confpired in examining their excellencies, in adjusting their claims to praise, and extending their reputation. They were yet further recommended to the public regard. In 1738, COMUS was prefented on the stage at Drury-Lane, with mufical accompaniments by Dr. Arne, and the application of additional

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ditional fongs, felected and adapted from L'ALLEGRO, and other pieces of this volume and although not calculated to shine in theatric exhibition for those very reasons which constitute its effential and specific merit, from this introduction to notice, COMUS grew popular as a poem. L'ALLEGRO and IL PENSEROSO were set to music by Handel in 1741; and his expreffive harmonies here received the honour which they have so seldom found, but which they so justly deserve, of being married to immortal verfe. Not long afterwards, LYCIDAS was imitated by Mr. Mason: as L'ALLEGRO and IL PENSEROSO had been before, in his Il Bellicofo ed Il Pacifico. In the mean time, the PARADISE LOST was acquiring more numerous readers: the manly melodies of blank-verse, which after its revival by Philips had been long neglected, caught the public ear: and the whole of Milton's poetical works, affociating their respective powers as in one common intereft, jointly and reciprocally cooperated in diffusing and forming just ideas of a more perfect fpecies of poetry. A vifible revolution fucceeded in the general caft and character of the national compofition. Our verfification contracted a new colouring, a new ftructure and phraseology; and the school of Milton rose in emulation of the school of Pope.

An

An editor of Milton's juvenile poems cannot but exprefs his concern, in which however he may have been anticipated by his reader, that their number is fo inconfiderable. With Milton's mellow hangings, delicious as they are, we reasonably reft contented: but we are juftified in regretting that he has left fo few of his earlybloffoms, not only because they are fo exquifitely fweet, but because fo many more might have naturally been expected. And this regret is yet aggravated, when we confider the caufe which prevented the production of more, and intercepted the progrefs of fo promising a spring: when we recollect, that the vigorous portion of his life, that those years in which imagination is on the wing, were unworthily and unprofitably wafted on temporary topics, on elaborate but perishable differtations in defence of innovation and anarchy. To this employment he facrificed his eyes, his health, his repofe, his native propensities, his elegant ftudies. Smit with the deplorable polemics of puritanism, he fuddenly ceased to gaze on fuch fights as youthful poets dream. The numerous and noble plans of tragedy which he had deliberately formed with the discernment and selection of a great poetical mind, were at once interrupted and abandoned; and have now left to a difappointed pofterity only a few naked outlines, and confused fketches. Instead of embellishing original tales of chivalry,

of