Life by Fenton the poet is too meagre to satisfy a moderate curiosity.

Dr. Birch was a laborious searcher into minute facts among original documents; but had neither the power of reflection, criticism, nor style.

Bishop Newton was a classical scholar, of excellent taste and judgment; but was, for the most part, languid and feeble.

Peck was a mere antiquary; toilsome, but tasteless, frivolous, weak, and absurd.

We now come to one who has been thought the giant of biography-Dr. Samuel Johnson. He was undoubtedly a man of admirable talents; of great sagacity; of powers of criticism subtle, strong, and original; of acute knowledge of human nature; of nice observation; of great experience, both in manners and in literature; and of a virtuous, conscientious, and religious mind: but he had his foibles, his blind prejudices, and his perverse and excessive humours. In politics he was a bigot; in sensibility and poetical taste he was hard, and one "who could not, or would not hear." His Life of Milton,' by some strange chance, yet keeps its hold at least on a part of the public; but as it is flagrantly dero

gatory to the unrivalled bard's fame, both as a poet and as a man, it has appeared to me not only a pleasure, but a duty, to endeavour to counteract its poison. Many will deem the attempt bold and presumptuous: I care not; my arrow is shot, and I will endure the consequence with calmness and fortitude.

But it will be objected to me that this duty has been already performed by others. Let me enter into a little explanation on that subject.

Johnson has generally the reputation of strong, pure, and elegant language. In his Life of Milton' he is sometimes vulgar and coarse. His manner is dogmatical and pedantic; but the matter of his criticisms is worse than his style. He affects to be humorous or witty, where he is often only pompous and malicious. The observation made by Coleridge in his 'Table-Talk,' on the style of his Rambler,' is often true here.* Johnson abounded in verbiage,—even in his latter writings. There are those, who still believe that in soundness of criticism he is almost infallible; and that they, who defend the higher flights of

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* See Quarterly Review,' Feb. 1835.

imagination, have airy notions, the effects of whim and false pretension;-that Milton may be ingenious and fantastic,-but that solid sense is with Johnson. When common intellects have the authority of a man of Johnson's literary reputation for this sort of ordinary matter-of-fact taste, they nurse themselves in it with a triumphant scorn of their opponents. But what can rich and accomplished minds say of him, who could find no true poetry in Lycidas?

Johnson's political hatred to Milton was neither rational nor moral. Milton might carry his love of democracy much too far: I, for one, assuredly think so. His defence of the people for their decapitation of Charles I. brings no justification to my mind. But to doubt that he acted on conscientious principles, is to have no faith in human protestations or human virtue. If Milton was a bigoted democrat, Johnson was a most bigoted and blind royalist. There is not a particle of benevolence or candour in this furious and bitter piece of biography of the celebrated critic; nor is there any research; nor is the narrative well put together. There are not even many splendid passages, which commonly occur in other

Lives by this popular author, except what are borrowed from Addison's criticism on the great Epic Poem.

Immediately after Johnson's death, Thomas Warton published his edition of the 'Juvenile Poems.' In the preface and notes he scattered many antidotes to Johnson's poison, which restored the minds of the lovers of true poetry to their proper tone: but it had not much effect with the multitude, who resolved to nurse the tasteless dogmas which seemed to justify their own insensibility. The Wartons were men of the romantic school of poetry, which had gone out of fashion from the introduction of the French school at the restoration of Charles II. The days of chivalry were gone; and the picturesque requires a nicety of eye and brightness of fancy, which are not the endowments of the many.

The lovers of political liberty, rational as well as irrational, were alarmed at the Tory critic's extravagant attacks on their favourite doctrines. Dr. Charles Symmons stepped forward with a new life of the poet; but it was coarsely and heavily, though violently, written; and it did not obtain much reception except among readers of a

political cast. It was not as a politician that Milton was ever a great favourite in the literary world.

Hayley, himself a poet, now also came forth in defence of the great bard with enthusiasm, taste, and a copiousness of polite and rich erudition; but what he possessed in love and admiration he wanted in power. His genius was not strong; his style was diffuse and languid; and his constant use of superlative epithets of a vague and trite character gave a sickly cast to his biography, which failed to make much impression. Cowper's translations of the Latin poems, with his notes, had something more of charm; but he could not hit Milton's style; and the notes are neither numerous nor profound.

:

Todd has performed all he undertook to perform the toil of his researches has been indefatigable; and the notices he has recovered from the State-Paper Office are curious: but his business is that of a literary antiquary, and his narrative and his notes can scarcely be expected to afford much interest to the general reader. The supposed coincidences with the thoughts or expressions of obscure and forgotten poets are only