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ungraceful ornament.

The blem

the most part, blemishes caused by times, like other contributors to p writing at a distance from all book memory for facts, dates, and quota post without reading them over. often been as rapidly printed. H now appear as it probably would if he had then been allowed an add with the assistance of a good librar

CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS

CONTRIBUTED TO

THE EDINBURGH REVIEW.

MILTON. (August, 1825.) Joannis Miltoni, Angli, de Doctrinâ Chris tiana libri duo posthumi. A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone. By JOHN MILTON, translated from the Original by Charles R. Sumner, M.A. &c. &c. 1825.

in which it has been found. But whatever the adventures of the manuscript may have been, no doubt can exist that it is a genuine relic of the great poet.

Mr. Sumner, who was commanded by his Majesty to edite and translate TOWARDS the close of the year 1823, his task in a manner honourable to his the treatise, has acquitted himself of Mr. Lemon, deputy keeper of the state talents and to his character. His ver.. papers, in the course of his researches sion is not indeed very easy or elegant; among the presses of his office, met but it is entitled to the praise of clearwith a large Latin manuscript. Withness and fidelity. His notes abound it were found corrected copies of the with interesting quotations, and have foreign despatches written by Milton the rare merit of really elucidating the while he filled the office of Secretary, text. and several papers relating to the Po-work of a sensible and candid man, firm The preface is evidently the pish Trials and the Rye-house Plot. in his own religious opinions, and toleThe whole was wrapped up in an en- rant towards those of others. velope, superscribed To Mr. Skinner, Merchant. On examination, the large manuscript proved to be the long lost Essay on the Doctrines of Christianity, which, according to Wood and Toland, Milton finished after the Restoration, and deposited with Cyriac Skinner. Skinner, it is well known, held the same political opinions with his illustrious friend. It is therefore probable, as Mr. Lemon conjectures, that he may have fallen under the suspicions of the government during that persecution of the Whigs which followed the dissolution of the Oxford parliament, and that, in consequence of a general seizure of his papers, this work may have been brought to the office

to the fame of Milton. It is, like all The book itself will not add much his Latin works, well written, though not exactly in the style of the prize essays of Oxford and Cambridge. There is no elaborate imitation of classical antiquity, no scrupulous purity, none of the ceremonial cleanness which characterises the diction of our academical Pharisees. The author does not attempt to polish and brighten his composition into the Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy. He does not in short sacrifice sense and spirit to pedantic refinements. The nature of his subject compelled him to use many words "That would have made Qui tilian stare and gasp." B

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