they are indecent, and at least approach to impiety, of which, however, I believe the writer not to have been confcious.

Such is the power of reputation juftly acquired, that its blaze drives away the eye from nice examination. Surely no man could have fancied that he read Lycidas with pleasure, had he not known the author.

Of the two pieces, L'Allegro and Il Penferofo, I believe, opinion is uniform; every man that reads them, reads them with pleasure. The author's defign is not, what Theobald has remarked, merely to fhew how objects derive their colours from the mind, by reprefenting the operation of the fame things upon the gay and the melancholy temper, or upon the fame man as he is differently disposed; but rather how, among the fucceffive variety of appearances, every difpofition of mind takes hold on thofe by which it may be gratified.

The chearful man hears the lark in the morning; the penfive man hears the nightingale in the evening. The chearful man fees the cock ftrut, and hears the horn and hounds echo in the wood; then walks, not unfeen, to obferve the glory of the rifing fun, or liften to the finging milk-maid, and view the labours of the plowman and the mower; then cafts his eyes about him over fcenes of fmiling plenty, and looks up to the diftant tower, the refidence of fome fair inhabitant; thus he purfues real gaiety through a day of labour or of play, and delights himfelf at night with the fanciful narratives of fuperftitious ig

norance.

The penfive man, at one time, walks unfeen to muse at midnight; and at another hears the fullen

cur

curfew. If the weather drives him home, he fits in a room lighted only by glowing embers; or by a lonely lamp outwatches the North Star, to difcover the habitation of feparate fouls, and varies the fhades of meditation, by contemplating the magnificent or pathetick scenes of tragick and epick poetry. 'When the morning comes, a morning gloomy with rain and wind, he walks into the dark tracklefs woods, falls afleep by fome murmuring water, and with melancholy enthufiafm expects fome dream of prognoftication, or fome mufick played by aërial performers.

Both Mirth and Melancholy are folitary, filent inhabitants of the breaft, that neither receive nor tranfmit communication; no mention is therefore made of a philofophical friend, or a pleafant companion. The ferioufnefs does not arife from any participation of calamity, nor the gaiety from the pleafures of the bottle.

The man of chearfulness, having exhausted the country, tries what towered cities will afford, and mingles with fcenes of fplendour, gay affemblies, and nuptial feftivities; but he mingles a mere fpectator, as, when the learned comedies of Jonfon, or the wild dramas of Shakspeare, are exhibited, he attends the theatre.

The penfive man never lofes himfelf in crowds, but walks the cloifter, or frequents the cathedral. Milton probably had not yet forfaken the church.

Both his characters delight in mufick; but he feems to think that chearful notes would have obtained from Pluto a complete difmiflion of Eurydice, of whom folemn founds only procured a conditional release.

For

For the old age of Chearfulness he makes no provifion; but Melancholy he conducts with great dignity to the close of life. His Chearfulness is without levity, and his Penfiveness without asperity.

Through thefe two poems the images are properly felected and nicely diftinguifhed; but the colours of the diction feem not fufficiently difcriminated. I know not whether the characters are kept fufficiently apart. No mirth can, indeed, be found in his melancholy; but I am afraid that I always meet fome melancholy in his mirth. They are two noble efforts of imagination *.

The greateft of his juvenile performances is the Mafk of Comus, in which may very plainly be difcovered the dawn or twilight of Paradife Loft. Milton appears to have formed very early that fyftem of diction, and mode of verfe, which his maturer judgement approved, and from which he never endeavoured nor defired to deviate.

Nor does Comus afford only a fpecimen of his language; it exhibits likewife his power of defcription and his vigour of fentiment, employed in the praise and defence of virtue. A work more truly poetical is rarely found; allufions, images, and de

* Mr. Warton intimates (and there can be little doubt of the truth of his conjecture) that Milton borrowed many of the images in these two fine poems from "Burton's Anatomy of Melan"choly," a book published in 1621, and at fundry times fince, abounding in learning, curious information, and pleafantry. Mr. Warton fays, that Milton appears to have been an attentive reader thereof; and to this affertion I add, of my own knowledge, that it was a book that Dr. Johnfon frequently reforted to, as many others have done, for amusement after the fatigue of study. H.

fcriptive

fcriptive epithets, embellish almost every period with lavish decoration. As a feries of lines, therefore, it may be confidered as worthy of all the admiration with which the votaries have received it.

As a drama it is deficient. The action is not probable. A Mafque, in thofe parts where fupernatural intervention is admitted, muft indeed be given up to all the freaks of imagination, but, fo far as the action is merely human, it ought to be reafonable, which can hardly be faid of the conduct of the two brothers; who, when their fifter finks with fatigue in a pathlefs wildernefs, wander both away together in fearch of berries too far to find their way back, and leave a helplefs Lady to all the fadness and danger of folitude. This, however is a defect overbalanced by its convenience.

What deferves more reprehenfion is, that the prologue fpoken in the wild wood by the attendant Spirit is addreffed to the audience; a mode of communication fo contrary to the nature of dramatick representation, that no precedents can fupport it.

The difcourfe of the Spirit is too long; an objection that may be made to almoft all the following fpeeches; they have not the fpritelinefs of a dialogue animated by reciprocal contention, but feem rather declamations deliberately compofed, and formally repeated, on a moral queftion. The auditor therefore liftens as to a lecture, without paffion, without anxiety.

The fong of Comus has airinefs and jollity; but, what may recommend Milton's morals as well as his poetry, the invitations to pleasure are fo general,

that

that they excite no diftinct images of corrupt enjoyment, and take no dangerous hold on the fancy.

The following foliloquies of Comus and the Lady are elegant, but tedious. The fong muft owe much to the voice if it ever can delight. At laft the Brothers enter with too much tranquillity; and, when they have feared left their fifter fhould be in danger, and hoped that fhe is not in danger, the Elder makes a speech in praise of chastity, and the Younger finds how fine it is to be a philofopher.

Then defcends the fpirit in form of a fhepherd; and the Brother, inftead of being in hafte to ask his help, praises his finging, and enquires his bufiness in that place. It is remarkable, that at this interview the Brother is taken with a fhort fit of rhyming. The Spirit relates that the Lady is in the power of Comus; the Brother moralizes again; and the Spirit makes a long narration, of no ufe because it is falfe, and therefore unfuitable to a good Being.

In all these parts the language is poetical, and the fentiments are generous; but there is fomething wanting to allure attention.

The difpute between the Lady and Comus is the moft animated and affecting fcene of the drama, and wants nothing but a brifker reciprocation of objections and replies to invite attention and detain it.

The fongs are vigorous and full of imagery; but they are harth in their diction, and not very mufical in their numbers.

Throughout the whole the figures are too bold, and the language too luxuriant, for dialogue. It is a drama in the epick ftyle, inelegantly fplendid, and tedioufly inftructive.

The