In 1627, Milton wrote his first Latin elegy, addressed to Charles Deodate, in answer to a letter from Cheshire.

Milton's Latin epistles are written in the style of Ovid, but the matter and language not servilely borrowed from him. It seems to me extraordinary that Milton should have taken Ovid for his model. I agree with Warton that it would have been more probable that he would have taken Lucretius and Virgil, as more congenial to him. His poems "Ad Patrem,” and “Mansus," I consider much superior, and in a different manner. I cannot agree that "his inherent powers of fancy and invention display themselves" much in the "Elegies." I suspect that the greater part of them might have been by any classical scholar of lively talents, rich in learning, and practised in conversation. Not so "Ad Patrem" or 66 Mansus;" or some of the college exercises. But it is no more than justice to quote Warton's more favourable judgment on the sixth elegy, also addressed to Deodate. He says, "the transitions and corrections of this elegy are conducted with the skill and address of a master, and form a train of allusions and digressions, productive of fine sentiment and poetry. From a trifling and unimportant circumstance the reader is gradually led to great and lofty imagery."

Of all the elegies, that which pleases me most, and which I consider far the most poetical, and at the same time the most original in its imagery, is the fifth elegy, "In Adventum Veris," ætatis 20, 1629.

But even here the images have not the raciness and wildness of the descriptions in his English poems. Warton speaks of it as excellent in all the requisites of poetry. Here Milton says that his poetical genius returns in the spring: in later life, he has said that the autumn was the season of his composition.

The last elegy is, perhaps, the best, next to that upon the Spring. Milton was apt to encumber his poetry with too many learned allusions, which unfitted them for the general readers, who might have taste and sympathy without much technical erudition.

At this period, Milton's mind, though his English poems prove that at times it was grave and deep, yet occasionally showed all the playfulness of his youthful age. I am not sure that I like his Ovidian graces. I prefer the solemn tones of his grander imagery; his picturesque descriptions of the scenery of nature: his voices among the lonely mountains; his evening contemplations, and his studious melancholy by the night-lamp. I prefer his allusions to the fables of Gothic romance rather than to the pantheon of the classics, which does not carry with it any part of our belief. Our imaginations can easily enter into the superstitions of the dark ages, which have far more of dignity and sublimity.

Perhaps Milton was at this date more proud of his scholarship than of his own original genius, as Petrarch to the last preferred his own Latin poems to his Italian, and placed on them his hopes of fame. But in a language which is not our own we can never equally express our unborrowed thoughts. In bringing our phraseology to the test, we are driven to the train of mind of others. It is only when the language rises up with the mental conception that it is racy and vigorous. Hence, in my opinion, there is a radical defect in all modern Latin poetry—though it may still have great merit of a secondary sort. I deny that Milton shows in these Latin compositions, unless perhaps on some rare occasion, any thing of the peculiarity of his native genius

* Charles Deodate, the son of Theodore, was born in 1574, at Geneva, where the family still flourishes. See Galiffe's "Généalogies des Familles Genevoises." Theodore came to England, and married a lady of good birth and fortune. In 1609 he appears to have been physician to Henry, Prince of Wales, and the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Bohemia. He was brother of John Deodate, a learned Puritan divine, whose theological works, printed at Geneva, are well known. The family came from Lucca on account of their religion.

The following notice as to the family I am favoured with by one of its members, a learned librarian in the Public Library of Geneva. It is extracted from a letter written by Theodore, the father of Charles Deodate, and dated London, 20th March, 1675.

"Nous avons tenu le premier rang entre les familles nobles et patriciennes de tous tems à Lucques, et en sommes encore en possession; le père de mon grand-père logea en son palais l'empereur Charles Quint: il étoit alors gonfalonier; auquel tems mon grand-père nacquit, et l'empereur fût son parrain, et le nomma Charles, et lui donna l'enseigne des diamans, qu'il portait en son col, à son départ. Nous avons eu des généraux d'armées. Le général Diodati conserva Brissac à l'empereur contre l'armée des princes d'Allemagne; et fut tué d'une volée de canon dans Munich en Bavière. A cette heure nous avons Don Jean Diodati, chevalier de Malthe, grand-prieur de Venise, cousin-germain de feu mon père," &c.

In his own tongue there are bursts of that mind which produced "Paradise Lost," even in his verses from the age of thirteen. Sometimes an image, sometimes an epithet displays it. A holy inspiration had already commenced in his mind. The tone of the sacred writings had taken fast possession of his enthusiasm: this perhaps was increased by his study of Dante. In Spenser there is more profusion and more flexibility, but not the same sombre and sublime cast. In Shakspeare also, there is more sweetness and less study; more of the “native woodnote wild;” but not that solemn and divine strain, as if an oracle spoke. There is a sort of prophetic awe in the out-breathings of Milton, like that of the Hebrew poetry: yet there is nothing totally uncompounded with human learning. Perhaps it were better if it had been. It is occasionally encumbered.

Milton conforms every thing to his own grand inventions. Shakspeare enters into the souls of others. Spenser brings them upon the stage in groups, in all the allegorical fabulousness of their outward forms. He is the painter of the times of chivalry, moralised into fictions of his own, which display the different virtues in the adventures of different knights; they form wonderful tales of inexhaustible variety,giants, and enchanted castles, and imprisoned damsels, rescued by heroic courage and divine interference.

CHAPTER IV.

ON L'ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSo.

MILTON left the university of Cambridge in 1632, at the age of twenty-three, and retired to the villa of his father at Horton in Buckinghamshire: here he wrote those juvenile poems, which are the most celebrated. The exact date of the "L'Allegro," and "Il Penseroso," is not known: it is evident that they were suggested by a poem in Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," and by a few beautiful stanzas of Beaumont and Fletcher. These poems are familiar to all: they are rich in picturesque description of natural imagery, selected and combined with the power of splendid genius, according to the opposite humours of cheerfulness and contemplative melancholy; and are the more attractive, because they paint Milton's individual taste, character, and habits. The style of the scenery is principally adapted to the spot and neighbourhood where he now lived

But if I may venture the opinion, I will own that these are not the compositions in which the peculiarity of the grandeur of Milton's genius displays itself. Beautiful as these Odes are, there are others, besides Milton, who might have written them :-not many indeed. They have not the solemnity,-the dim and unearthly visions, the awful and gigantic grandeur,-the prophetic enthusiasm,—the terrible roll and bound and swell of the "Hymn on the Nativity." The subject did not call for such merits; but then, if they are excellent, they are excellent in an inferior walk. Probably I shall be thought heterodox in this judgment. I much prefer "Il Penseroso" to "L'Allegro," as more solemn, more deep-coloured, and more original in its imagery. Perhaps the general merit of these two pieces lies more in a selection of rural pictures combined with taste, than in particular images,—except in a few passages of the latter poem. The metre wants variety and sonorousness. The passages I chiefly allude to, are Contemplation—

In general, there is more of description than of sentiment, more of the material than of the immaterial, in these two compositions: but there are some parts of them which are very important to the illustration of the poet's character. The poet describes a very early period of the morning, "by selecting and assembling such picturesque objects," says Warton, "as were familiar to an early riser. He is waked by the lark, and goes into the fields; the sun is just emerging, and the clouds

are still hovering over the mountains: the cocks are crowing, and, with their lively notes, scatter the lingering remains of darkness. Human labours and employments are renewed with the dawn of day; the hunter, formerly much earlier at his sport than at present, is beating the covert; and the slumbering morn is roused with the cheerful echo of hounds and horns: the mower is whetting his scythe to begin his work; the milk-maid, whose business is of course at daybreak, comes abroad singing; the shepherd opens his fold, and takes the tale of his sheep, to see if any were lost in the night," &c., line 67.

When he sees towers and battlements bosomed high in tufted trees, the same excellent commentator says, "it is the great mansion-house in Milton's early days, before the old-fashioned architecture had given way to modern arts and improvements. Turrets and battlements were conspicuous marks of the numerous new buildings of King Henry VIII., and of some rather more ancient, many of which yet remained in their original state unchanged and undecayed: nor was that style, in part at least, quite omitted in Inigo Jones's first manner; where only a little is seen, more is left to the imagination. These symptoms of an old palace, especially when thus disposed, have a greater effect than a discovery of larger parts, and even a full display of the whole edifice. The embosomed battlements, and the spreading top of the tall grove, on which they reflect a reciprocal charm, still farther interest the fancy from the novelty of combination; while just enough of the towering structure is shown to make an accompaniment to the tufted expanse of venerable verdure, and to compose a picturesque association. With respect to their rural residence, there was a coyness in our gothic ancestors: modern seats are seldom so deeply ambushed: they disclose all their glories at once; and never excite expectation by concealment, by gradual approaches, and by interrupted appearances."

At line 131, the poet alludes to a stage worthy of his presence :

Then to the well-trod stage anon,

If Jonson's learned sock be on;

Or sweetest Shakspeare, fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.

Milton had not yet gone such extravagant lengths in puritanism, as to join with his reforming brethren in condemning the stage.

By "trim gardens" ("Il Pens." 1. 50), Milton means those gardens of elaborate artifice and extravagance, of which Bacon has given a description; some of which I still remember in existence, in my own boyhood, sixty years ago. There was a sort

of magnificence and variety about them, in some respects more interesting than modern barrenness. I often wish them back;-the terraces, the slopes, the wilderness-walks, the mazes, the alleys, the garden-plots, the gravel-walks, the bowers, the summerhouses, the bowling-greens, have been too rudely and indiscriminately swept away. Where the poet says, line 109,

Or call up him who left half-told

The story of Cambuscan bold,

he expresses his admiration of Chaucer, "the father of English poetry," says Warton, "who is here distinguished by a story remarkable for the wildness of its invention; and hence Milton seems to make a very pertinent and natural transition to Spenser, whose 'Faerie Queene,' although it externally professes to treat of tournaments and the trophies of knightly valour, of forests drear and terrific enchantments, is yet allegorical, and contains a remote meaning concealed under the veil of a fabulous story and of a typical narrative, which is not immediately perceived. Spenser sings in sage and solemn tunes, with respect to his morality, and the dignity of his stanza. In the mean time, it is to be remembered that there were other great bards, and of the romantic class, who sang in such tunes, and who mean more than meets the ear.' Both Tasso and Ariosto pretend to an allegorical and mysterious meaning; and Tasso's enchanted forest, the most conspicuous fiction of the kind, might have been here intended. Berni allows that his incantations, giants, magic gardens, monsters, and other romantic imageries, may amuse the ignorant, but that the intelligent have more penetration. Orl. Inam. I. 1. c. xxv.

Ma voi ch' avete gl' intelletti sani,
Mirate la dottrina che s' asconde
Sotto queste coperte alte e profonde.

"One is surprised," continues Warton, "that Milton should have delighted in romances: the images of feudal and royal life which those books afford, agreed not at all with his system. A passage should here be cited from our author's Apology for Smectymnuus:'-'I may tell you whither my young feet wandered: I betook me among those lofty fables and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of knighthood,' &c. The extraordinary and most imaginative, but inconsistent poet, exclaims, line 155,

But let my due feet never fail

To walk the studious cloisters pale, &c.

Being educated at St. Paul's school, contiguous to the church, he thus became impressed with an early reverence for the solemnities of the ancient ecclesiastical architecture, its vaults, shrines, aisles, pillars, and painted glass, rendered yet more awful by the accompaniment of the choral service.'

It is unnecessary to copy the opinion which Johnson gives of "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," because it is in every one's hands. Johnson yet allows that "they are two noble efforts of imagination."-They would be noble for a common poet; but not comparatively for Milton: I cannot allow them that high invention which belongs to the bard of "Paradise Lost." Warton criticises Johnson's comment with a just severity:-"Never," says he, "were fine imagery and fine imagination so marred, mutilated, and impoverished by a cold, unfeeling, and imperfect representation.""No part of 'L'Allegro,' says Johnson, "is made to arise from the pleasures of the bottle." What sad vulgarity! Who could suspect that Milton would write a Bacchanalian song?

It seems to me that these two poems are much more valuable for their development of Milton's studies and amusements, than for their poetry, by proving his love of nature,-of books,-of solitude,-of contemplation,-of all that is beautiful, and all that is romantic,-than for those bold figures, and that glorious fiction, which were his power and his chief delight. Observation and an accurate copy of the external appearances of nature do not make the highest poetry: to copy always restrains the imagination.

When we make things after our own fashion, we have the ascendancy over them: it is better to deal with the invisible world than with the visible: but we ought to associate them together: mere description is always imperfect: all the grandeur of natural scenery will not avail, unless by its tendency to operate on the human mind. This is the spell of Gray's poetry: this makes the charm of Collins' "Ode to Evening" this is the magic of the poetical part of Cowley's "Essays:" all those parts of Shakspeare's dramas which break into pure poetry, are of this cast. It is

a charm which, to my apprehension, was scarce ever reached by Dryden or Pope : Byron repeatedly reached it; sometimes he was extravagant: Wordsworth absolutely deals in it. All impression on the mind is nothing, unless the mind throws back its own colours upon it.

All the labour and all the art in the world will do nothing for poetry: they may draw copiously and freely from a cistern which they have previously filled with borrowed water: but the water will be stale, vapid, and good for nothing.

I have said the more on these two lyrics of Milton, because they are so much more universal favourites than some of his diviner compositions. The greater part of the images are within every one's observance; but this is not, I think, a high merit: the poet's eye should "give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.' Here the images, for the most part, are such as actually exist bodily: the touches upon their most picturesque features are indeed exquisite; and here and there are passages of aërial music unknown to common ears: but then the want of dignity, of the "long-resounding pace" in the versification, lessens the magic. The whole is written lightly, and upon the surface: the poet skims away, just touches with his wings, and goes on: he does not here rise in slow and majestic dignity to the sun; hovering sometimes on his mighty pinions, and seeming to hang over the earth, as if his eye was penetrating into its depths; and then, as if with an angel's power, again darting into the upper regions of the sky.

I can scarcely suppose that these two pieces cost Milton any labour, or time, or strong exercise of mind: each of them might easily have been produced by him in a few hours but there is an abstraction of mind, a visionary enthusiam, which requires a very different sort of nursing: in that state Milton must have been in his

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sublimer compositions. Here he deals with nothing difficult, nor enters into the mysteries of the soul.

If I say that there is not much sentiment in these descriptions I shall probably be answered, that the images are selected by sentiment, and so arranged as to produce a particular tone of sentiment. If it be so, the sentiment is not brought out; and the poet ought not to trust to others to bring out that which he ought to express himself. It will not be pretended that there is any moral pathos here; and moral pathos is assuredly one of the finest spells of poetry. Pathos cannot be produced by a writer who has not a visionary presence of the objects which produce it; but it were better to give more of the pathos, and less of the objects.

This faculty, indeed, was not Milton's chief excellence: now and then he is pathetic in "Paradise Lost," but he has none of Shakspeare's human pathos: he was too stern and heroic for tears.

It is rarely that I get into a different track of criticism from Warton; but Warton was perhaps too exclusively fond of imagery and descriptions, and therefore has estimated the poems, of which I am now speaking, higher than I do. Warton also wanted pathos, but he was not without a gentle and kindly sentiment.

These descriptive poems had long fallen into oblivion, when, about 1740, they were revived by the Wartons, who formed a school upon them. Like all schools when they once took up the thing, they carried it too far: but Collins, in his "Ode to Evening," stopped precisely at the true point: Gray caught some of the infusion, and I suspect that in two or three images or epithets he was indebted to Collins; but did not owe his tone to the Warton school, being rather their senior, and drinking from the original fountains, not only of Milton, but still more of the Italians, as well as of the classics. Altogether, the cast and combination of the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" is his own, though he may have borrowed particular ingredients. His is a perfect model, sui generis. Joseph Warton's "Ode to Fancy" is an attempted echo of "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso;" indeed, almost a cento.

CHAPTER V.

ON LYCIDAS, AND EPITAPHIUM DAMONIS.

EDWARD KING, fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, the friend of Milton, passing over to Ireland to visit his friends, the ship struck on a rock on the English coast, August 10th, 1637, when all on board perished. He was son of Sir John King, knight, secretary for Ireland under Queen Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I. At Cambridge, Edward King was distinguished for his piety and proficiency in polite letters. "Lycidas," which laments his death, first appeared in the Cambridge collection of verses on that occasion, 1638.

Dr. Johnson's censure on this poem is gross and tasteless it is disgraceful only to the critic. He has treated with insolent rudeness one tenfold greater than himself: he has set the example; and why should he be spared? I will endeavour to discuss this question with the utmost impartiality, and confer neither praise nor blame from unfounded prejudice.

This poem is so far from deserving the character applied to it by Johnson, that "the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers unpleasing,”—that, the language is throughout imaginative and picturesque, and the rhythm harmonious and enchanting: there is no poem in which the epithets are more beautiful, more appropriate, and more fresh: they are like the diction of no predecessor, but of some of the occasional passages of rural description by Shakspeare, in his happiest modes: the outburst at the commencement is eminently striking, and rich with poetry the images that present themselves, and the transitions, are always natural, and sometimes sublime: they have this difference from those of "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," that they are more spiritual; that is, they are more mingled up with intellect they are not purely material. As to the poem being pastoral, Johnson might much more object to the Psalms; as in Addison's beautiful version

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:

The Lord my pasture shall prepare, &c.

where the Deity himself is represented in the character of a shepherd.