attractive to poring and minute bibliographers; and rather incumber and obscure than illustrate the great poet.

The Life and Notes,' by the Rev. John Mit

ford, added to the

Aldine edition,' are certainly

of a higher tone.

Of a living contemporary it will not be expected that I should say more. Assuming this point of literary history to be fairly stated, and these criticisms to be wellfounded, I have been induced, still perhaps with some rashness, to enter the lists. In going over ground so often trod, I will not deny that I have often had great difficulty to avoid triteness; for I have always resolved not to seek for novelty at the expense of truth. It is easy to find novelty if we permit ourselves to turn aside into the paths of error. To be natural and just, yet not obvious, is, as Addison says, the grand secret.

I have followed the steps of no preceding biographer-I have recast the whole. I have expressed no sentiment which I did not feel: I have uttered no opinion but with sincerity. I hope that I have not been guilty of indulging in commonplace, clothed in a pompous profusion of empty words. If I have been severe on Johnson, it is

not a liberty so great as he has himself taken on the sublimest and noblest of our poets. I have given reasons for the judgments I have ventured to pronounce; and if the principles of poetry, which I have adopted, -not discovered,—are wrong, or my application of them not just, let it be shown by temperate criticism. I may be mistaken; but I have not ventured them without a deep and unimpassioned consideration of fifty years.

But whatever becomes of my part in this edition, the illustrations from the rich and incomparable pencil of Turner, will, I doubt not, secure the public favour to it. He has entered upon the work with the enthusiasm and fellowfeeling of a highly-endowed poetical mind, and in his daring flight has reached a level of imagination, which no rival, ancient or modern, has surpassed. He is worthy to illustrate MILTON.

The notes will be chosen from the numerous preceding annotators, with all the care, and I hope, taste, which can be exercised on such a task. Every thing frivolous or minute will be rejected the amusement or instruction of the general reader-well-educated, and of native

:

sensibility—will alone be regarded. It is the editor's opinion, that poetry ought to be addressed, not to the learned, but to those of inborn spirituality. Too much learning incumbers and overlays poetry; and a reference to abstruse or pedantic notes destroys its spell.

But to return to the Life. Of a great poet's history we desire to know more than the leading facts, and the titles and dates of his works: we wish to know his private disposition, feelings, temper, habits, and manners. Milton's contemporaries have preserved little on these topics concerning him; and we are left to deduce them from incidental passages in his prose works, or from the tone and colour of his poems. Less in this

way has been attempted by my predecessors in this task than seemed to me to be requisite. Perhaps I have been more copious in my own reflections and conjectures than many will approve : but if there is a raciness in my narrative—a freshness of tints, yet not over-coloured-a picture not dry, and barren, and faint; but distinct and prominent, yet natural-then I shall not have worked in vain. The same facts, told in the same words, and in the same order, and accompanied

by the same comments, have had a tendency, in the successive lives which have been published of our bard, during a period of more than one hundred and thirty years, to fatigue and repel the public attention. If there be any thing new in the Life by Johnson, it is the novelty of bitterness, sarcasm, and bad taste. These give a strong flavour, but one neither healthy nor pleasurable. Whoever has been seduced into Johnson's opinions on Milton, has received a great and momentous injury;-whoever has been confirmed by them in his own, must have an unenviable debasement of heart.

There have been temporary idols of admiration from whom it has been well to withdraw unmerited worship, but who will dare to say that the worship of Milton has been unmerited? Or, if any one has thus dared, does he not deserve chastisement, or at least reproof? Let not, therefore, the blind or attached followers of Johnson rise up in arms against me for the part I have taken. I have done it conscientiously; nor will it be easy to persuade me that in this case I am in erMy spirits, during the progress of this composition, have been subdued and despondent :

ror.

my private calamities have been numerous and relentless. In this state of depression I have worked as I could, - perhaps feebly and unsatisfactorily, but with a sincere and conscientious desire of the truth. From the dead of the night, while all was silent around me, I have worked till dawn; and when the broad round beam of the golden sun had lifted itself clearly above the Alps, I laid down my pen, and prepared to enjoy in the open air the refreshing breezes of the blue lake. From that time till midnight again closed over me, all was idleness; but not all repose: the hateful affairs of the world tormented my heart and fevered my spirit. The peace which my destiny would take from me, I have endeavoured to court by lofty and inspiring literature.

Geneva, May, 1835.