religious establishment, as it now fubfifts: they are fubverfive of our legislature, and our fpecies of government. In condemning tyranny, he ftrikes at the bare exiftence of kings; in combating fuperftition, he decries all public religion. These difcourfes hold forth a fyftem of politics, at prefent as unconftitutional, and almoft as obfolete, as the nonfenfe of paffive obedience and in this view, we might juft as well think of republishing the pernicious theories of the kingly bigot James, as of the republican ufurper Oliver Cromwell. Their ftyle is perplexed, pedantic, poetical, and unnatural: abounding in enthufiaftic effufions, which have been mistaken for eloquence and imagination. In the midft of the moft folemn rhapfodies, which would have fhone in a faft-fermon before Cromwell, he fometimes indulges a vein of jocularity; but his witticisms are as aukward as they are unfuitable, and Milton never more misunderstands the nature and bias of his genius, than when he affects to be arch either in profe or verse. His want of deference to fuperiours teaches him to write without good manners; and, when we confider his familiar acquaintance with the elegancies of antiquity, with the orators and hiftorians of Greece and Rome, few writers will be found to have made fo flender a facrifice to the Graces. From fome of these ftrictures, I must except the TRACTATE ON EDUCATION, and the AREOPAGITICA, which are written with a tolerable degree of facility, fimplicity, purity, and perfpicuity; and the latter, fome tedious hiftorical digreffions, and fome little fophiftry excepted, is the most clofe, conclufive, comprehenfive, and decifive vindication of the liberty of the prefs that has yet appeared, on a fubject on which it is difficult to decide, between the licentioufnefs of fcepticism and fedition, and the arbitrary exertions of authority. In the mean time, Milton's profe-works, I fufpect, were never popular: he deeply engaged in moft of the ecclefiaftical difputes of his times, yet he is feldom quoted or mentioned by his contemporaries, either of the prefbyterian or independent perfuafion even by Richard Baxter, paftor of Kidderminster, a judicious and voluminous advocate on the fide of the presbyterians, who vehemently cenfures and opposes feveral of his coadjutors in the cause of church-independency, he is paffed over in profound filence. For his brethren the independents he feems to have been too learned and unintelligible. In 1652, fir Robert Filmer, in a general attack on the recent antimonarchical writers, beftows but a very short and flight refutation on his politics. It appears from the CENSURE OF THE ROTA, a pamphlet publifhed in 1660, faid to be fabricated by Harrington's club, that even his brother party-writers ridiculed the affectations and abfurdities of his ftyle t. Lord Monboddo is the only modern critic who ranks Milton as a profe-writer with Hooker, Sprat, and Clarendon. I have hitherto been fpeaking of Milton's profe-works in English. I cannot allow, that his Latin performances in profe are formed on + Oldys attributes this pamphlet to Harrington, in his Catalogue of the pamphlets in the Harleian Library. any any one chafle Roman model. They confift of a modern factitious mode of latinity, a compound of phrafeology gleaned from a general imitation of various ftyles, commodious enough for the author's purpofe. His DEFENSIO PRO POPULO ANGLICANO againft Salmafius, fo liberally rewarded by the prefbyterian administration, the best apo-, logy that ever was offered for bringing kings to the block, and which diffused his reputation all over Europe, is remembered no more. Doctor Birch obferves of this prophetic hope in the text, that “the "univerfal admiration with which his Works are read, juftifies what " he himself says in his Ode to Roufe." LIFE, p. lxiii. But this hope, as we have feen, our author here reftricts to his political fpeculations, to his works on civil and religious fubjects, which are ftill in expectation of a reverfionary fame, and ftill await the partial fuffrages of a fana pofteritas, and a cordatior atas. The flattering anticipation of more propitious times, and more equitable judges, at fome remote period, would have been justly applicable to his other works; for in those, and thofe only, it has been amply and confpicuously verified. It is from the ultimi nepotes that juftice has been done to the genuine claims of his poetical character. Nor does any thing, indeed, more strongly mark the improved critical difcernment of the present age, than that it has attoned for the contemptible tafte, the blindness and the neglect, of the laft, in recovering and exalting the poetry of Milton to its due degree of cultivation and efteem: and we may fafely prognofticate, that the pofterities are yet unborn, which will bear teftimony to the beauties of his calmer imagery, and the magnificence of his more fublime defcriptions, to the dignity of his fentiments, and the vigour of his language. Undoubtedly the PARADISE LOST had always it's readers, and perhaps more numerous and devoted admirers even at the infancy of its publication, than our biographers have commonly fuppofed. Yet, in its filent progreffion, even after it had been recommended by the popular papers of Addifon, and had acquired the diftinction of an English claffic, many years elapfed before any fymptoms appeared, that it had influenced the national tafte, or that it had wrought a change in our verfification, and our modes of poetical thinking. The remark might be still farther extended, and more forcibly directed and brought home, to the pieces which compofe the prefent volume. Among other proofs of our reverence for Milton, we have feen a monument given to his memory in Westminster abbey. But this fplendid memorial did not appear, till we had overlooked the author of REFORMATION IN ENGLAND, and the DEFENSIO: in other words, till our rifing regard for Milton the poet had taught us to forget Milton the politician. Not long before, about the year 1710, when Atterbury's infcription for the monument of John Philips, in which he was faid to be foli Miltono fecundus, was fhewn to doctor Sprat then dean of Westminster, he refufed it admittance into the church; the name of Milton as doctor Jonfon obferves, who first relates this anecdote, anecdote, "being in his opinion, too deteftable to be read on the wall "of a building dedicated to devotion." Yet when more enlarged principles had taken place, and his busft was erected where once his name had been deemed a profanation, doctor George, Provost of Eton, who was folicited for an epitaph on the occafion, forbearing to draw his topics of reconciliation from a better fource, thought it expedient to apologise for the reception of the monument of Milton the republican into that venerable repofitory of kings and prelates, in the following hexameters; which recall our attention to the text, and on account of their fpirited fimplicity, and nervous elegance, deferve to be brought forward, and to be more univerfally circulated. 1 Augufti regum cineres, fanctæque favillæ ; APPENDIX TO THE NOTES ON COMUS". Pretrofpect in writing Comus, opens thus. EELE's play, to which it is fuppofed our author had at least Anticke, Frolicke, and Fantafticke, three adventurers, are loft in a wood, in the night. They agree to fing the old Song, "Three merrie men, and three merrie men, "I in the wood, and thou on the ground, They hear a dog, and fancy themselves to be near fome village. A cottager appears, with a lantern: on which Frolicke fays, "I per"ceiue the glimryng of a gloworme, a candle, or a cats-eye, &c." They intreat him to fhew the way: otherwife, they fay, "wee are "like to wander among the owlets and hobgoblins of the foreft." He invites them to his cottage; and orders his wife to “lay a crab in the "fire, to roft for lambes-wool, &c." They fing, "When as the rie reach to the chin, "And chopcherrie, chopcherrie ripe, within ; "And schoole-boyes playing in the ftreame, &c." At length, to pass the time trimly, it is propofed, that the wife fhall tell"a merry winters tale," or, "an old wiues winters tale," of which fort of ftories fhe is not without a score. She begins, There was a king, or duke, who had a most beautiful daughter, and she was stolen away by a necromancer, who turning himself into a dragon, carried her in his mouth to his caftle. The king fent out all his men to find his daughter; "at laft, all the king's men went out fo long, that hir Two Brothers went to feeke hir." Immediately the Two Brothers enter, and speak, 66 a See above, pp. 127. 123. b This old Ballad is alluded to in TWELFTH NIGHT, A. ii. S. iii. Sir Toby fays, "My Lady's a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio's a Peg a Ramsey, and THREE "MERRY MEN BE WE." Again, in the Comedy of RAM-ALLEY, 1611. See Reed's OLD PL. vol. v. P. 437. And in the Preface to the SHOEMAKER'S HOLIDAY, 1610. 4to, Bl. Let. “The merriments that paffed in Eyre's house and other accidents; with "two merry THREE MENS SONGS." And in the Comedy LAUGH AND LIE DOWN, 1605. Signat. E. 5. "He plaied such a song of the THREE MERRY MEN, &c," Many more inftances occur. See Shakespeare's WINTER'S TALE, A. ii, S. i. H.-Pray you fit by us, And tell us a tale. M. Merry or fad fhall't be ? A fad tale's best for winter: I have one of fprights and goblins. There is an entry in the Register of the Stationers, of "A Book entitled A Wynter Nybgts "pastyme, May 22, 1594." This is not Shakesį eare's WINTER'S TALE, which perhaps did not appear till after 1600, "1. Br. "1 Br. Vpon these chalkie cliffs of Albion, "To feeke our Sifter, &c." A foothsayer enters, with whom they converfe about the loft lady. "Sooths. Was fhe tayre? 2 Br. The fayreft for white and the pureit "for redde, as the blood of the deare or the driuen fnowe, &c." In their fearch, Echo replies to their call. They find too late that their Sifter is under the captivity of a wicked magician, and that fhe had tafted his cup of oblivion. In the clofe, after the wreath is torn from the magician's head, and he is difarmed and killed, by a Spirit in the shape and character of a beautiful page of fifteen years old, fhe still remains fubject to the magician's inchantment. But in a fubfequent fcene the Spirit enters, and declares, that the Sifter cannot be delivered but by a Lady, who is neither maid, wife, nor widow. The Spirit blows a magical horn, and the Lady appears; fhe diffolves the charm, by breaking a glafs, and extinguishing a light, as I have before recited. A curtain is withdrawn, and the Sifter is feen feated and asleep. She is difinchanted and restored to her fenses, having been fpoken to THRICE. She then rejoins her Two Brothers, with whom the returns home; and the Boy-fpirit vanishes under the earth. The magician is here called "inchanter vile," as in COMUS, V. 906. There is another circumftance in this play, taken from the old English APULEIUS. It is where the Old Man every night is tranfformed by our magician into a bear, recovering in the day-time his natural shape. Among the many feats of magic in this play, a bride newly mar ried gains a marriage-portion by dipping a pitcher into a well. As the dips, there is a voice: Gently dippe, but not too deepe, "For feare thou make the goulden beard to weepe! "Faire maiden, white and redde, "Combe me smooth, and itroke my head; "And euery haire a fheaue fhall be, "And euery fheaue a goulden tree!" .. With this ftage-direction, "A head comes up full of gold; fue combes it " into her lap." I must not omit, that Shakespeare feems alfo to have had an eye on this play. It is in the fcene where "The Harueft-men enter with a "Song." Again, Enter the Haruefl-men finging with women in their "bandes." Frolicke fays, "Who have we here, our amorous harueft"ftarres ?". They fing. "Loe, here we come a reaping a reaping, "To reape our haruelt-fruite; a See Note on COMUS, V. 243. And Reed's OLD Pravi. 426. xii.401. See an allufion to this APULEIUS in Tomkis's ALBUMAZAR, written 1614. Reed's OLD PL. vii. 188. "And |