which the prefs is always providing for the public on all forts of fubjects.

In January 1758 he releafed himself from his quarentine, and appeared in the Literary Magazine for that month, holding forth to the public his POETI CAL SCALE, the particulars of which, fave what relates to Milton, we leave to the critics by profeffion. This is what he fays of Milton

I am fenfible that in the calculations I have here exhibited I have, in many inftances, ftrong prejudices against me! The friends of Milton will not yield to Shakespeare the fuperiority of genius, which, I think, lies on the fidé of Shakespeare. Both of them have faults. But the faults of Shakespeare

--66 were

were thofe of Genius; thofe of Milton

The former.

of the MAN OF GENIUS. "arifes from imagination getting the better of judgment; the latter from "habit getting the better of imagination. Shakespeare's faults were thofe of

66

a

66 great poet; thofe of Milton of a little pedant. When Shakespeare is execra "ble he is fo exquifitely fo, that he is "inimitable in his blemifres as in his "beauties. The puns of Milton betray, " a narrowness of education, and a dege, *neracy of babit."

Thus far Dr. Johnfon's exhibition of Milton in the fcale of poetical merit, which perhaps at the bottom may amount to no more than that Milton could not make a faddle,, or dance upon

the

the rope *.

But this too we leave to cri

tics on poetry, of whom we should requeft to explain the difference between a Genius and a Man of Genius, and by what operation babit, in the abstract, gets the better of imagination; remarking only for ourselves, that for the balance-mafter to reproach Milton for his pedantry is certainly betraying a ftrange unconfciousness of his own talents, unless hé depends upon his reader's fagacity in difcriminating a great pedant from a little one. He is obliged, however, to complete the humiliation of Milton, to put his profe-works into the scale.a

His theological quibbles and perplexed fpeculations are daily equalled

See Cibber's Letter to Pope, p. 35.

" and

7

and excelled by the most abject en"thufiafts; and if we confider him as a "profe-writer, he has neither the learn"ing of a scholar, nor the manners of a "gentleman. There is no force in his "reasoning, no elegance in his ftyle, and "no tafte in his compofition."

Peremptory, but not, decifive! To make this go down, even with a moderate tory, it should have been added, that the narrowness of Milton's education prevented, not only his proficiency in the study of the abftrufer fciences, but even in the elemental acquifitions of reading or fpelling...

1

"We are therefore," continues the critic, "to confider him in one fixed

point of light, that of a great poet,.

"with a laudable envy of rivalling,

eclipfing, and excelling, all who at"tempted fublimity of fentiment and

Could this be a hopeful attempt in fo wretched a writer of profe? or does the critic propofe to entertain his readers with a miracle, or only with a paradox? Immediately however the critic withdraws Milton from this fixed point of light, and places his fublimity of fentiment and description in contrast with Shakespeare's amiable variety; and concludes, " that

Shakefpeare could have wrote like

Milton, but Milton could never have "wrote like Shakespeare."

Does not the Doctor here overturn his

own metaphyfical fyftem? Shakespeare's

judge