4. Throughout the volume are discernible the traces of a powerful and independent mind, emancipated from the influence of authority, and devoted to the search of truth. Milton professes 5 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 citations.

5. Some of the heterodox doctrines which he 10 avows seem to have excited considerable amazement, particularly his Arianism, and his theory on the subject of polygamy. Yet we can scarcely conceive that any person could have read the Paradise Lost without suspecting him of the 15 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 20 of the Sabbath, might, we think, have caused more just surprise.

6. 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 of its 5 author, and the remarkable circumstances attending 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 drawingroom, and a few columns in every magazine; and 10 it will then, to borrow the elegant language of the play-bills, be withdrawn, to make room for the forthcoming novelties.

7. We wish, however, to avail ourselves of the interest, transient as it may be, which this work 15 has excited. The dexterous Capuchins never choose to preach on the life and miracles of a saint till they have awakened the devotional feelings of their auditors by exhibiting some relic of him, a thread of his garment, a lock of his hair, or 20 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 man is still in the hands of all, to say some

thing 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, 5 to commemorate, in all 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.

10

8. It is by his poetry that Milton is best known; and it is of his poetry that we wish first to speak. By the general suffrage of the civilized world, his place has been assigned among the greatest masters of the art. His detractors, however, though out15 voted, have not been silenced. There are many critics, and some of 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 20 noblest productions of the human mind. But they will not allow the author to rank with those great men who, born in the infancy of civilization, supplied, by their own powers, the want of instruction, and, though destitute of models them

selves, bequeathed to posterity models which defy imitation. Milton, it is said, inherited what his predecessors created; he lived in an enlightened age; he received a finished education; and we must, therefore, if we would form a just estimate 5 of his powers, make large deductions in consideration of these advantages.

9. We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as the remark may appear, that no poet has ever had to struggle with more unfavorable 10 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 butt of much clumsy ridicule. The poet, we believe, understood the 15 nature of his art better than the critic. He knew that his poetical genius derived no advantage from the civilization which surrounded him, or from the learning which he had acquired; and he looked back with something like regret to the 20 ruder age of simple words and vivid impressions.

10. We think that, as civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines. Therefore, though we fervently admire those great works of

imagination which have 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 5 a great poem produced in a civilized age. We cannot understand why those 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. 10 Surely the uniformity of the phenomenon indicates a corresponding uniformity in the cause.

11. The fact is, that common observers reason from the progress of the experimental sciences to that of the imitative arts. The improvement of 15 the former is gradual and slow. Ages are spent in collecting materials, ages more in separating and combining them. Even when a system has been formed, there is still something to add, to alter, or to reject. Every generation enjoys the 20 use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages. In these pursuits, therefore, the first speculators lie under great disadvantages, and, even when they fail, are entitled