}

copies by degrees, and advancing towards å better practice, as he gains more confidence in hinsself.

In his translation of Virgil, written when he was about twenty-one years old, may be ftill found the old manner of continuing the sense ungracefully from verse to verse.

« Then all those
" Who in the dark our fury did escape,
“ Returning, know our borrow'd arms, and shape;
"And differing dialect : then their numbers swell
“ And grow upon us; first Chorcebus fell
“ Before Minerva's altar; next did bleed
“ Just Ripheus, whom no Trojan did exceed
“ In virtue; yet the gods his fate decreed.
“ Then Hypanis and Dymas, wounded by
• Their friends; nor thee; Pantheus, thy piety,
“ Nor consecrated mitre, from the same
“ Ill fate could save; my country's funeral flame
" And Troy's cold ashes I atteft, and call
" To witness for myself, that in their fall
“ No foes, or death, nor danger I declin'd,

“ Did and deserv'd no less, my fate to find.”
From this kind of concatenated metre he afterwards
refrained, and taught his followers the art of conclud-
ing their sense in couplets; which has perhaps been
with rather too much constancy pursued.

This passage exhibits one of those triplets which are not infrequent in this first efsay, but which it is to be supposed his maturer judgement disapproved, since in his latter works he has totally forborn them.

His rhymes are such as seem found without difficulty, by following the sense; and are for the most part as

exact

!

exact at least as those of other poets, though now
and then the reader is shifted off with what he can
get.

"O how transfo: m'd!
“How much unlike that Hector, who return'd

“ Clad in Achilles' spoils ! And again :

“ From thence a thousand lesser poets sprung,

“ Like petty princes from the fall of Rome.”
Sometimes the weight of rhyme is laid upon a word = 1
too feeble to sustain it:

“ Troy confounded falls
“ From all her glories : if it might have stood
“ By any power, by this right hand it shou’d.
"And though my outward state misfortune hath

Deprest thus low, it cannot reach my faith.”
“ -Thus by his fraud and our own faith o'ercome,
" A feigned tear destroys us, against whim

Tydides nor Achilles could prevail,
“ Nor ten years conflict, nor a thousand fail.”
He is not very careful to vary the ends of his ver-
ses: in one paffage the word die rhimes three couplets
in fix.

Most of these petty faults are in his first productions,
when he was less skilful, or at least teľs dexterous in the
use of words; and though they had been inore frequent
they could only have lefsened the grace, not the strength
of his composition. He is one of the writers that im-
proved our taste, and advanced our language, and
whom we ought therefore to read with gratitude,
though, having done much, he left much to do.

Μ Ι L Τ ο Ν.

T T O

TH

HE Life of Milton has been already written in

so many forms, and with such minute enquiry, that I might perhaps more properly have contented myself with the addition of a few notes to Mr. Fenton's elegant Abridgement, but that a new narrative was thought necessary to the uniformity of this edition.

JOHN MILTON was by birth a gentleman, descended from the proprietors of Milton ncar Thame in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited his estate in the times of York and Lancaster. Which fide he took I know not; his descendant inherited no veneration for the White Rose.

His grandfather John was keeper of the forest of Shotover, a zealous papist, who disinherited · his son, because he had forsaken the religion of his ancestors.

His father, John, who was the son disinherited, had recourse for his support to the profession of a scrivener.

Hc

;

He was a man eminent for his skill in musick *, many of his compositions being still to be found; and his reputation in his profession was such, that he grew rich,

, and retired to an estate. He had probably more than common literature, as his son addresses him in one of his most elaborate Latin poems. He married a gentlewoman of the name of Caston, a Welsh family, by whom he had two sons, John the poet, and Christopher who studied the law, and adhered, as the law taught him, to the King's party, for which he was awhile perfecuted; but having, by his brother's interest, obtained permission to live in quiet, he supported himself so honourably by chamber-practice, that soon after the acceffion of King James, he was knighted and made a Judge; but, his constitution being too weak for business, he retired before any disreputable compliances became neceffary of

He had likewise a daughter Anne, whom he married with a considerable fortune to Edward Philips, who came from Shrewsbury, and rose in the Crown-office to be secondary: by him she had two sons, John and Edward I, who were educated by the poet, and froin

whom

S S

1

* Indeed fo eminent as to rank among the first practical com. posers in his time. Philips, mentioned in the next page, says, that for a composition of his he was presented by a Polish prince with a gold medal and chain. An anthem of his composing may be seen in " The General History of the Science and Practice of “ Music, 4to." 1776, vol. III. page 369.

whom is derived the only authentick account of his domestic manners.

John, the poet, was born in his father's house, at the Spread-Eagle in Bread-street, Dec. 9, 1608, between fix and seven in the morning.

His father appears to have been very solicitous about his education ; for he was instructed 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 reason to think well, since his scholar considered him as worthy of an epistolary Elegy.

He was then sent to St. Paul's Scóol, under the care of Mr. Gill; and removed, in the beginning of his