On Cowley. "To him no author was unknown, "Yet what he wrote was all his own; "Horace's wit, and Virgil's ftate, "He did not fteal, but emulate! "And when he would like them appear, As one of Denham's principal claims to the regard of pofterity arifes from his improvement of our nunbers, his verfification ought to be confidered. It will afford that pleasure which arifes from the obfervation of a man of judgement, naturally right, forfaking bad copies by degrees, and advancing towards a better practice, as he gains more confidence in himself. In his tranflation of Virgil, written when he was about twenty-one years old, may be ftill found the old manner of continuing the fenfe ungracefully from verfe to verse : "Then all thofe "Who in the dark our fury did efcape, "Returning, know our borrow'd arms, and fhape, "And differing dialect; then their numbers fwell "And grow upon us; firft Chorobeus fell "Before Minerva's altar; next did bleed } No "No foes, nor death, nor danger, I declin'd, "Did and deferv'd no less, my fate to find." From this kind of concatenated metre he afterwards refrained, and taught his followers the art of concluding their fenfe in couplets; which has perhaps been with rather too much constancy pursued. This paffage exhibits one of thofe triplets which are not unfrequent in this effay, but which is to be fuppofed his maturer judgement difapproved, fince in his latter works he has totally forborn them. His rhymes are fuch as feem found without difficulty, by following the sense; and are for the most part as exact at least as those of other poets, though now and then the reader is shifted off with what he can get: "O how transform'd! "How much unlike that Hector, who return'd And again : "From thence a thousand leffer poets /prung "Like petty princes from the fall of Rome." Sometimes the weight of rhyme is laid upon a word too feeble to fuftain it : "From all her glories: if it might have stood 66 Tydides nor Achilles could prevail, "Nor ten years conflict, nor a thousand fail." He He is not very careful to vary the ends of his verses; in one paffage the word die rhymes three couplets in fix. Most of these petty faults are in his first productions, when he was lefs fkilful, or at least less dexterous in the use of words; and though they had been more frequent, they could only have leffened the grace, not the ftrength of his compofition. He is one of the writers that improved our tafte, and advanced our language, and whom we ought therefore to read with gratitude, though, having done much, he left much to do. MILT O N. T HE life of Milton has been already written in fo many forms, and with fuch minute enquiry, that I might perhaps more properly have contented myfelf with the addition of a few notes on Mr. Fenton's elegant Abridgement, but that a new narrative was thought neceffary to the uniformity of this edition. JOHN MILTON was by birth a gentleman, defcended from the proprietors of Milton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited his eftate in the times of York and Lancaster. Which fide he took I know not; his defcendant inherited no veneration for the White Rofe. His grandfather John was keeper of the forest of Shotover, a zealous papift, who difinherited his fon, because he had forfaken the religion of his ancestors. His father, John, who was the fon difinherited, had recourfe for his fupport to the profeffion of a fcrivener. He was a man eminent for his fkill in mufick, many of his compofitions being ftill to be found; and his reputation in his profeffion was fuch, that he grew rich, and retired to an eftate. He had probably more than common literature, as his fon addreffes him in one of his moft elaborate Latin poems. He married a gentlewoman of the name of Cafton, a Welsh family, by whom he had two fons, John, the poet, and Chriftopher, who ftudied the law, and adhered, as the law taught him, to the King's party, for which he was a while perfecuted, but having, by his brother's intereft, obtained permiffion to live in quiet, he fupported himself fo honourably by chamber-practice, that, foon after the acceffion of King James, he was knighted and made a Judge; but, his conftitution being too weak for bufinefs, he retired before any difreputable compliances became neceffary. He had likewise a daughter Anne, whom he mar ried with a confiderable fortune to Edward Philips, who came from Shrewsbury, and rofe in the Crown office to be fecondary: by him fhe had two fons, John and Edward, who were educated by the poet, and from whom is derived the only authentic account of his domestick manners. John, the Poet, was born in his father's house, at the Spread-Eagle in Bread-ftreet, Dec. 9, 1608, be. tween fix and seven in the morning. His father appears to have been very folicitous about his education; for he was inftructed at first by private tuition under the care of Thomas Young, who was afterwards chaplain to the English merchants at Hamburgh, and of whom we have reafon to think well, fince his fcholar confidered him as worthy of an epiftolary elegy. |