not attempt to polish and brighten his composition into the Ciceronian* gloss and brilliancy. He does not, in short, sacrifice sense and spirit to pedantic refinements. The nature of his subject compelled him to use many words 5 'That would have made Quintilian + stare and gasp'. But he writes with as much ease and freedom as if Latin were his mother tongue; and where he is least happy, his failure seems to arise from the carelessness of a native, not from the ignorance of a foreigner. 10 What Denham, with great felicity, says of Cowley,§ may be applied to him. He wears the garb but not the clothes of the ancients. Throughout the volume are discernible the traces of a powerful and independent mind, emancipated from 15 the influence of authority, and devoted to the search of truth. He professes to form his system from the Bible alone; and his digest of scriptural texts is certainly among the best that have appeared. But he is not always so happy in his inferences as in his 20 citations. * Cicero (106-43, B.C.) the greatest orator of Rome, whose works show the Latin Language in its greatest perfection. + Quintilian (40-118, A.D.) a famous Roman teacher of Rhetoric, and author of an exhaustive treatise on that subject. The line is from one of Milton's sonnets. Denham, Sir John (1615-1668), a poet contemporary with Milton. His chief work is Cooper's Hill, a contemplative poem on the view over the Thames, from a hill near Windsor Castle. § Cowley, Abraham (1618-1667), also a poet of the same time, more famous perhaps as a writer of Prose Essays. His poetry is fantastical and extravagant. Some of the heterodox * opinions which he avows seem to have excited considerable amazement; particularly his Arianism,† and his notions on the subject of polygamy. Yet we can scarcely conceive that any 5 person could have read the Paradise Lost without suspecting him of the former; nor do we think that any reader, acquainted with the history of his life, ought to be much startled at the latter. The opinions which he has expressed respecting the nature of the Deity, the eternity of matter, and the observation of the Sabbath, might, we think, have caused more just surprise. 10 15 But we will not go into the discussion of these points. The book, were it far more orthodox, or far more heretical than it is, would not much edify or corrupt the present generation. The men of our time are not to be converted or perverted by quartos. § A few more days, and this essay will follow the Defensio Populi || to the dust and silence of the upper shelf. The name 20 of its author, and the remarkable circumstances at * Heterodox-deviating from established opinion, opposed to 'orthodox'. † Arianism. The doctrines of the followers of Arius (4th Cent., A.D.). Their heterodox opinions related to the subject of the Incarnation. Polygamy. Milton had peculiar views on the subject of divorce, prompted in him by the conduct of his first wife (See Memoir of Milton, p. xvii). $ Quartos. Books in which every sheet being twice folded, makes four leaves, generally written 4to. So octavo, 8vo, where every sheet is folded into eight leaves. Duodecimo, 12mo, into twelve. Defensio Populi. A Defence of the People of England-a work by Milton in Latin, written to justify the English people in executing Charles I. tending its publication, will secure to it a certain degree of attention. For a month or two it will occupy a few minutes of chat in every drawing-room, and a few columns in every Magazine; and it will then, to borrow the elegant language of the play-bills, be with- 5 drawn, to make room for the forthcoming novelties. We wish, however, to avail ourselves of the interest, transient as it may be, which this work has excited. The dexterous Capuchins * never choose to preach on the life and miracles of a saint, till they have awakened 10 the devotional feelings of their auditors, by exhibiting some relic of him—a thread of his garment, a lock of his hair, or a drop of his blood. On the same principle, we intend to take advantage of the late interesting discovery, and, while this memorial of a great and good 15 man is still in the hands of all, to say something of his moral and intellectual qualities. Nor, we are convinced, will the severest of our readers blame us if, on an occasion like the present, we turn for a short time from the topics of the day, to commemorate, in all 20 love and reverence, the genius and virtues of John Milton, the poet, the statesman, the philosopher, the glory of English literature, the champion and the martyr of English liberty. It is by his poetry that Milton is best known; and 25 it is of his poetry that we wish first to speak. By the * Capuchins, a nickname given to a branch of the Franciscan order of monks, from the Capuce or pointed cowl which they wore in imitation of St. Francis. general suffrage of the civilised world, his place has been assigned among the greatest masters of the art. His detractors, however, though outvoted, have not been silenced. There are many critics, and some of 5 great name, who contrive in the same breath to extol the poems and to decry the poet. The works, they acknowledge, considered in themselves, may be classed among the noblest productions of the human mind. But they will not allow the author to rank with those 10 great men who, born in the infancy of civilisation, supplied, by their own powers, the want of instruction, and, though destitute of models themselves, bequeathed to posterity models which defy imitation. Milton, it is said, inherited what his predecessors created; he 15 lived in an enlightened age; he received a finished education; and we must therefore, if we would form a just estimate of his powers, make large deductions for these advantages. We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as 20 the remark may appear, that no poet has ever had to struggle with more unfavourable circumstances than Milton. He doubted, as he has himself owned, whether he had not been born 'an age too late'. For this notion Johnson* has thought fit to make him the * Johnson, Dr. Samuel (1709-1784)-one of the most famous literary men of the Eighteenth Century. He wrote the first English Dictionary; edited a periodical called the 'Rambler,' &c. The work in which he ridiculed Milton, is his 'Lives of the Poets,' a book containing as much criticism as biography, and dealing with all the English poets from Cowley to Gray, chief amongst whom are Milton, Pope, Dryden, Addison, and Swift. Johnson was unjust to Milton's poetry. butt of his clumsy ridicule. The poet, we believe, understood the nature of his art better than the critic. He knew that his poetical genius derived no advantage from the civilisation which surrounded him, or from the learning which he had acquired; and he 5 looked back with something like regret to the ruder age of simple words and vivid impressions. We think that, as civilisation advances, poetry almost necessarily declines. Therefore, though we admire those great works of imagination which have 10 appeared in dark ages, we do not admire them the more because they have appeared in dark ages. On the contrary, we hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilised age. We cannot understand why those 15 who believe in that most orthodox article of literary faith, that the earliest poets are generally the best, should wonder at the rule as if it were the exception. Surely the uniformity of the phenomenon indicates a corresponding uniformity in the cause. 20 The fact is, that common observers reason from the progress of the experimental sciences to that of the imitative arts. The improvement of the former is gradual and slow. Ages are spent in collecting materials, ages more in separating and combining 25 them. Even when a system has been formed, there is still something to add, to alter, or to reject. Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits it, augmented by |