Such are the faults of that wonderful performance Paradife Loft; which he who can put in balance with its beauties must be confidered not as nice but as dull, as lefs to be cenfured for want of candour, than pitied for want of fenfibility.

Of Paradife Regained, the general judgement feems now to be right, that it is in many partselegant, and every where inftructive. It was not to be supposed that the writer of Paradife Loft could ever write without great effufions of fancy, and exalted precepts of wisdom. The bafis of Paradife Regained is narrow; a dialogue without action can never please like an union of the narrative and dramatick powers. Had this poem been written not by Milton, but by fome imitator, it would have claimed and received univerfal praise.

If Paradife Regained has been too much depreciated, Sampfon Agonistes has in requital been too much admired. It could only be by long prejudice, and the bigotry of learning, that Milton could. prefer the ancient tragedies, with their encumbrance of a chorus, to the exhibitions of the French and English stages; and it is only by a blind confidence in the reputation of Milton, that a drama can be praised in which the intermediate parts have neither caufe nor confequence, neither haften nor retard the catastrophe.

In this tragedy are however many particular beauties, many just fentiments and striking lines; but it wants that power of attracting the attention which a well-connected plan produces.

Milton would not have excelled in dramatick writing; he knew human nature only in the grofs, and

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had never ftudied the fhades of character, nor the combinations of concurring, or the perplexity of contending paffions. He had read much, and knew what books could teach; but had mingled little in the world, and was deficient in the knowledge which éxperience must confer.

Through all his greater works there prevails an uniform peculiarity of Diction, a mode and caft of expreffion which bears little refemblance to that of any former writer; and which is fo far removed from common ufe, that an unlearned reader, when he first opens his book, finds himself furprifed by a new language.

This novelty has been, by thofe who can find nothing wrong in Milton, imputed to his laborious endeavours after words fuitable to the grandeur of his ideas. Our language, fays Addifon, junk under bim. But the truth is, that, both in profe and verfe, he had formed his ftyle by a perverfe and pedantick principle. He was defirous to use English words with a foreign idiom. This in all his profe is difco. vered and condemned; for there judgement operates freely, neither foftened by the beauty, nor awed by the dignity of his thoughts; but fuch is the power of his poetry, that his call is obeyed without refiftance, the reader feels himself in captivity to a higher and a nobler mind, and criticifm finks in admiration.

Milton's ftyle was not modified by his fubject; what is shown with greater extent in Paradife Loft, may be found in Comus. One fource of his peculi. arity was his familiarity with the Tuscan poets; the difpofition of his words is, I think, frequently Ita

lian; perhaps fometimes combined with other tongues. Of him, at laft, may be said what Jonfon fays of Spenfer, that he wrote no language, but has formed what Butler calls a Babylonifh Dialect, in itself harsh and barbarous, but made by exalted genius and extenfive learning the vehicle of fo much inftruction and fo much pleasure, that, like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity.

Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praise of copioufnefs and variety: he was mafter of his language in its full extent; and has felected the melodious words with fuch diligence, that from his book alone the Art of English Poetry might be learned.

After his diction, fomething must be faid of his verfification. The meafure, he fays, is the English heroick verfe without rhyme. Of this mode he had many examples among the Italians, and fome in his own country. The Earl of Surrey is faid to have tranflated one of Virgil's books without rhyme; and, befide our tragedies, a few fhort poems had appeared in blank verfe, particularly one tending to reconcile the nation to Raleigh's wild attempt upon Guiana, and probably written by Raleigh himself. These petty performances cannot be fuppofed to have much influenced Milton, who more probably took his hint from Triffino's Italia Liberata; and, finding blank verfe eafier than rhyme, was defirous of perfuading himself that it is better.

Rhyme, he fays, and fays truly, is no necessary adjunct of true poetry. But, perhaps, of poetry, as a mental operation, metre or mufick is no neceffary adjunct: it is however by the mufick of metre that poetry

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has been difcriminated in all languages; and, in languages melodiously conftructed with a due proportion of long and fhort fyllables, metre is fufficient. But one language cannot communicate its rules to another where metre is fcanty and imperfect, fome help is neceffary. The mufick of the English heroick lines ftrikes the ear fo faintly, that it is eafily loft, unless all the syllables of every line co-operate together; this co-operation can be only obtained by the prefervation of every verfe unmingled with another as a distinct fyftem of founds; and this diftinctness is obtained and preferved by the artifice of rhyme. The variety of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers of blank verfe, changes the measures of an English poet to the periods of a declaimer; and there are only a few happy readers of Milton, who enable their audience to perceive where the lines end or begin. Blank verfe, faid an ingenious critick, feems to be verfe only to the eye.

Poetry may fubfift without rhyme, but English poetry will not often pleafe; nor can rhyme ever be fafely fpared but where the subject is able to fupport itself. Blank verfe makes fome approach to that which is called the lapidary style; has neither the eafiness of profe, nor the melody of numbers, and therefore tires by long continuance. Of the Italian writers without rhyme, whom Milton alledges as precedents, not one is popular; what reafon could urge in its defence has been confuted by the ear.

But, whatever be the advantage of rhyme, I cannot prevail on myfelf to wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot with his work to be other than it is; yet, like other heroes, he is to be admired rather

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rather than imitated. He that thinks himself capable of aftonishing may write blank verfe; but thofe that hope only to please muft condefcend to rhyme.

The highest praise of genius is original invention. Milton cannot be faid to have contrived the structure of an epick poem, and therefore owes reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind to which all generations must be indebted for the art of poetical narration, for the texture of the fable, the variation of incidents, the interpofition af dialogue, and all the ftratagems that furprife and enchain attention. But, of all the borrowers from Homer, Milton is perhaps the least indebted. He was naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, and difdainful of help or hindrance: he did not refufe admiffion to the thoughts or images of his predeceffors, but he did not feek them. From his contemporaries he neither courted nor received fupport; there is in his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might be gratified, or favour gained; no exchange of praife, nor folicitation of fupport. His great works were performed under difcountenance, and in blindnefs; but difficulties vanifhed at his touch; he was born for whatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of heroick poems only because it is not the firft.

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