rightly, informs us, that Elwood saw a complete copy of the Paradife Loft at Milton's houfe, at Chalfont, in 1665; that Milton fold the copy in 1667, and that the third edition was printed in 1678, when it is probable that many copies had paffed over to the continent, and contributed to encrease the reputation which his name had gained abroad; and therefore we have a right to fuppofe, that Clarke, and not Milton, was the copyift: The poem, however, appears to have much merit. The baron has finished ten or eleven books, with what fidelity I know not, but certainly with much animation. Milton has often been accused of plagiarism, it is to be feared fometimes with truth; for though bishop Douglas, with great acutenefs, detected Lauder's interpolations in the works of different writers, which were defigned to difparage Milton's reputation, he by no means undertook to prove, that Milton's claim to originality might not, in other inftances, be impeached; and Lauder, though perfuaded by Dr. Johnson to give up, in a hafty fit of shame, his whole Effay as an impofition, afterwards, in part, recanted his recantation, and attempted, with fome fuccefs, to prove the charge of forgery against Milton. But it is time to put an end to this digreffion defigned to vindicate Milton, as every Englishman must wish to do, where he can be vindicated without injury to truth."

W

To the latter part of this remark it will be proper to fubjoin the words of bishop Douglas. "Grown defperate by his disappointment, this very man, [Lauder,] whom but a little before we have seen as abject in the confeffion of his forgeries, as he had been bold in the contrivance of them, with an inconfiftence, equalled only by his impudence, renewed his attack upon the author of the Paradife Loft; and in a " pamphlet, published for that purpose, acquainted the world, that the true reafon which had excited him to contrive his forgery was, because Milton had attacked the character of Charles the firft, by interpolating Pamela's prayer from the Arcadia, in an edition of the Eicon Bafiliké; hoping, no doubt, by this curious key to his conduct, to be received into favour, if not by the friends of truth, at least by the idolaters of the royal martyr: the zeal of this wild party-man against Milton having at the fame time extended itself against his biographer, the very learned Dr. Birch, for no other reafon but because he was

Entitled, "King Charles I. Vindicated from the charge of plagiarism, brought against him by Milton, and Milton himself convicted of forgery, and a grofs impofition on the publick." Not content with this title,' he begins the two firft pages with all the confequence of a keeper of wild beafts, when he exhibits a more celebrated monster than ufual; "The Grand Impoftor detected!"

fo candid as to exprefs his difbelief of a tradition unfupported by evidence."

I have been unable to discover whether there is any edition of Clarke's book, prior to that which is mentioned.

VI. We are now to be again gratified with the very curious researches, and ingenious deductions, of Mr. Hayley. Having observed it to be highly probable, that Andreini turned the thoughts of Milton from Alfred to Adam, as the fubject of a dramatick compofition, he thinks it poffible that an Italian writer, less known than Andreini, first threw into the mind of Milton the idea of converting Adam into an epick perfonage. "I have now before me," he proceeds,

a literary curiofity, which my accomplished friend, Mr. Walker, to whom the literature of Ireland has many obligations, very kindly fent me, on his return from an excursion to Italy, where it happened to ftrike a traveller, whose mind is peculiarly awakened to elegant pursuits. The book I am speaking of is entitled La Scena Tragica d'Adamo ed Eva, Eftratta dalli primi tre capi della Sacra Genefi, e ridotta a fignificato Morale da Troilo Lancetta, Benacenfe. Venetia 1644. This little work is dedicated to Maria

* Conjectures on the Origin of Paradife Loft, at the end of the Life of Milton, 2d edit. 1796, p. 264, &c.

Gonzaga, Dutchefs of Mantua, and is nothing more than a drama in profe, of the ancient form, entitled a morality, on the expulsion of our first parents from Paradife. The author does not mention Andreini, nor has he any mixture of verse in his compofition; but, in his address to the reader, he has the following very remarkable paffage: after suggesting that the Mosaick history of Adam and Eve is purely allegorical, and defigned as an incentive to virtue, he says,

• Una notte fognai, che Moisè mi porfe gratiofa efpofitione, e misteriofo fignificato con parole tali apunto :

Dio fà parte all' Huom di se steffo con l' intervento della ragione, e difpone con infallibile fentenza, che fignoreggiando in lui la medefina fopra le fenfuali voglie, prefervato il pomo del proprio core dalli appetiti difordinati, per guiderdone di giufta obbedienza li trasforma il mondo in Paradifo.-Di quefto s'io parlaffi, al ficuro formarei heroico poema convenevole a femidei."

• One night I dreamt that Mofes explained to me the myftery, almost in these words:

• God reveals himself to Man by the intervention of reason, and thus infallibly ordains that reason, while she supports her fovereignty over the sensual inclinations in Man, and preserves the apple of his heart from licentious appetites, in reward of his juft obedience transforms the world into Paradise.-Of this were I to speak, affuredly I might form an heroick poem worthy of demi-gods.'

"It strikes me as poffible that these last words, affigned to Mofes in his vifion by Troilo Lancetta, might operate on the mind of Milton like the question of Ellwood, and prove, in his pro

lifick fancy, a kind of rich graft on the idea he derived from Andreini, and the germ of his greatest production.

"A fceptical critick, inclined to discountenance this conjecture, might indeed obferve, it is more probable that Milton never faw a little volume not published until after his return from Italy, and written by an author fo obfcure, that his name does not occur in Tiraboschi's elaborate hiftory of Italian literature; nor in the patient Italian chronicler of poets, Quadrio, though he bestows a chapter on early dramatick compofitions in profe. But the mind, that has once started a conjecture of this nature, must be weak indeed, if it cannot produce new shadows of argument in aid of a favourite hypothesis. Let me therefore be allowed to advance, as a prefumptive proof of Milton's having feen the work of Lancetta, that he makes a fimilar ufe of Mofes, and introduces him to speak a prologue in the fketch of his various plans for an allegorical drama. It is indeed poffible that Milton might never fee the performances either of Lancetta or Andreini; yet conjecture has ground enough to conclude very fairly, that he was acquainted with both; for Andreini wrote a long allegorical drama on Paradife, and we know that the fancy of Milton first began to play with the fubject according to that peculiar form of composition.