never forsook it, the recent literature of his native tongue was studied quite as eagerly and admiringly; and a love hardly less intense was kindled towards those wild pictures of knighthood and magic, which were painted in the romances of the middle ages. No poet, hardly Virgil himself, has ever claimed more boldly the self-assumed prerogative, which genius uses in appropriating the thoughts of its predecessors; and none has ever more elicitously transformed the borrowed stores, so as to make the new image truly original. His imitations of the older English poets are innumerable: so are his borrowings from the classics: and his delight in the artless literature and the shadowy traditions of the early times, tempted him, when young, to contemplate, as the great task of his life, a chivalrous poem on the exploits and fate of King Arthur. If this design had been executed, the English tongue might have received a monument rivalling the Italian epics of the sixteenth century. Those early visions still dwelt in his mind, after his aspirations had been fixed on objects higher and more solemn. The classical allusions in all his writings are as numerous as fine; and hardly less often does he enliven and vary his descriptions of sacred things, by passages in which he clothes, with a more majestic beauty than their own, his chivalrous and romantic recollections. But, like that fervid pleasure in external nature which glowed still more brightly when the earth had become dark to the poet's eye, his classicism and his fondness for romance became but subordinate as guides to his thoughts and wishes. Poetical dreams made way for the action and reflection of one who was at once a religious man, a statesman, and a man of business. Diplomatic papers, and controversial treatises, sometimes mixed with matter of more permanent interest, diverted from its higher offices the energetic mind, in which, nevertheless, there was ever brooding the thought of a poetical work more ambitious and more vast than any of those that had been fancied in his youthful hours. At length, amidst evil men and in the gloom of evil days, the great idea was macured; and the Christian epic, chanted at first when there were ew disposed to hear, became an enduring monument of genius and learning and art, never perhaps destined to gain the favour of the many, but always cherished and reverenced by all who love poetry inspired by high genius, and who honour, most of all, poetry which is consecrated to holiness and virtue.

13. The prodigal variety of Milton's imagination, and the delicate tenderness of feeling which was overshadowed by the solemnity of his great work, are exhibited in those poems which he wrote in early manhood, before his mind had been made

stern by the turmoil of active life in a turbulent age. It is not too much to say, that those early poems would, if he had given us nothing else, vindicate his superiority to all the poets of his period, except Shakspeare and Spenser. The most popular of them, the descriptive pieces of "L'Allegro," and "Il Penseroso," are perhaps perfect in their kind, and certainly the best in their kind that any language actually possesses. Never was voice given, more sweetly, to the echo which the loveliness of inani mate nature awakens in the poetic heart: never were the feeling of that heart invested with a finer medium of communication through images drawn from things without. In the "Comus," Milton gave vent to that hearty admiration, with which he regarded the dramatists of the preceding generation. He here emulates the most poetical form of composition which they had adopted; the Masque, a pageant designed for court and other festivals, usually interspersed with lyrical pieces, and, if not mythological or allegorical, at least open everywhere to free imaginative adornment. For exhibition either of intense passion, or of strongly developed character, such a composition gives no ade quate scope. There is not in our tongue any poem of similar length, from which could be culled a larger collection of passages that are exquisite for imagination, for sentiment, or for the musical flow of the rhythm, in which indeed the majestic swell of the poet's later blank verse begins to be heard. The "Arcades" may be described as a weaker effort of the same sort. The elegy called "Lycinas" is one of the fullest examples of the author's poetical learning, and of the skill with which he used his materials. It is in form Italian, and brimful of classical allusion; unattractive to most minds, but delightful to those which are trained highly enough to relish the most refined idealism of thought, and the most delicate skill of construction. The Ode on the Nativity has been pronounced to be, perhaps, the finest in the English language.

Much less poetical than these youthful works, are those with which the great poet closed his course. The "Paradise Regained" abounds with passages which in themselves are in one way or another beautiful: but the plan is poorly conceived; and the didactic tendency, which the defective design created, prevails to wearisomeness as the work proceeds.* Nor is the “Sam

*JOHN MILTON.

From "Paradise Regained."

Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount.
Westward, much nearer by south-west, behold

son Agonistes" by any means so successful an imitation of the Greek drama, as the "Comus" had been of Jonson and Fletcher. It wears a striking air of solemnity, rising indeed into a higher sphere than that of its classical models; but it is neither impassioned, nor strong in character, nor poetical in its lyrical parts. It is an interesting proof of that long-cherished fondness for the dramatic form of composition, which shows itself in the structure even of his epics, and which had tempted him to begin the "Paradise Lost" in the form of a play.

14. That the theme of Paradise Lost is the noblest which any poet ever chose, and that yet its very grandeur may make it the less pleasing to many readers, are points that will be admitted by all. If we say that the theme is managed with a skill almost unequalled, the plan laid down and executed with extraordinary

Where on the Ægean sea a city stands
Built nobly; pure the air and light the soil;
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits
Or hospitable in her sweet recess,

City or suburban, studious walks and shades.
See there the olive-grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird

Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long:

There, flowery hill, Hymettus, with the sound
Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites

To studious musing: there Ilyssus rolls

His whispering stream. Within the walls then view
The schools of ancient sages; his who bred

Great Alexander to subdue the world;

Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next:

There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power

Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit

By voice or hand, and various-measured verse,
Eolian charms, and Dorian lyric odes;

And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,
Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer called,
Whose poem Phoebus challeng'd for his own.
Thence, what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In chorus or iambic, teachers best

Of moral prudence with delight received
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life;
High actions and high passions best describing:
Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancients, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece,
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.

exactness of art, we make assertions which are due to the poet, but on the correctness of which few of his readers are qualified to judge. Like other great works, and in a higher degree than most, the poem is oftenest studied and estimated by piecemeal only. Though it be so taken, and though its unbroken and weighty solemnity should at length have caused weariness, it cannot but have left a vivid impression on all minds not quite unsusceptible of fine influences. The stately march of its diction; the organ-peal with which its versification rolls on; the continual overflowing, especially in the earlier books, of beautiful illustrations from nature or art; the clearly and brightly coloured pictures of human happiness and innocence; the melancholy grandeur with which angelic natures are clothed in their fall: these are features, some or all of which must be delightful to most of us, and which give to the mind images and feelings not easily or soon effaced. If the poet has sometimes aimed at describing scenes, over which should have been cast the veil of reverential silence, we shall remember that this occurs but rarely. If other scenes and figures of a supernatural kind are invested with a costume which may seem to us unduly corporeal even for the poetic inventor, we should pause to recollect that the task thus attempted is one in which perfect success is unattainable; and we shall ourselves, unless our fancy is cold indeed, be awed and dazzled, whether we will or not, by many of those very pictures.

"The most striking characteristic of the poetry of Milton, is the extreme remoteness of the associations by means of which it acts on the reader. Its effect is produced, not so much by what it expresses, as by what it suggests; not so much by the ideas which it directly conveys, as by other ideas which are connected with them. He electrifies the mind through conductors. The most unimaginative man must understand the Iliad; Homer gives him no choice; but takes the whole on himself, and sets his images in so clear a light that it is impossible to be blind to them. Milton does not paint a finished picture, or play for a mere passive listener. He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline; he strikes the key-note, and expects his hearer to make out the melody."*

* Macaulay: Essays from the Edinburgh Review.

1. Social and Literary Character of the Period.-PROSE. 2. Theology-Leighton-Sermons of South, Tillotson, and Barrow-Nonconformist Divines-Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress-The Philosophy of Locke-Bentley and Classical Learning.-8. Antiquaries and Historians-Lord Clarendon's History-Bishop Burnet's Histories.-4. Miscellaneous Prose-Walton-Evelyn-L'Estrange-Butler and Marvell-John Dryden's Prose Writings-His Style-His Critical Opinions Temple's Essays.POETRY. 5. Dramas-Their Character-French Influences-Dryden's Plays-Tragedies of Lee, Otway, and Southerne--The Prose Comedies-Their Moral Foulness. 6. Poetry Not Dramatic-Its Didactic and Satiric Character-Inferences.-7. Minor Poets-Roscommon-Marvell-Butler's Hudibras-Prior. 8. John Dryden's Life and Works.-9. Dryden's Poetical Character.

1. THE last forty years of the seventeenth century will not occupy us long. Their aspect is, on the whole, far from being pleasant; and some features, marking many of their literary works, are positively revolting.

In the reign of Charles the Second, England, whether we have regard to the political, the moral or the literary state of the nation, resembled a fine antique garden, neglected and falling into decay. A few patriarchal trees still rose green and stately; a few chance-sown flowers began to blossom in the shade: but lawn and parterre and alley were matted with noisome weeds; and the stagnant waters breathed out pestilential damps. When, after the Revolution, the attempt was made to re-introduce order and productiveness, many of the wild plants were allowed still to cumber the ground; and there were compartments which, worn out by the rank vegetation they had borne, became for a time altogether barren. In a word, the Restoration brought in evils of all kinds, many of which lingered through the age that succeeded, and others were not eradicated for several generations.

Of all the social mischiefs of the time, none infected literature so deeply as that depravation of morals, into which the court and the aristocracy plunged, and into which so many of the people followed them. The lighter kinds of composition mirrored faith