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hausted; and its inherent improbability always forces diffatisfaction on the mind. When Cowley tells of Hervey that they ftudied together, it is eafy to fuppofe how much he must miss the companion of his labours, and the partner of his discoveries; but what image of tenderness can be excited by these lines!

We drove a field, and both together heard
What time the grey fly winds her fultry horn
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night.

We know that they never drove a field, and that they had no flocks to batten; and though it be allowed that the representation may be allegorical, the true meaning is fo uncertain and remote, that it is never fought because it cannot be known when it is found.

Among the flocks, and copfes, and flowers,

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appear the heathen deities; Jove and Phoebus, Neptune and Eolus, with a long train of mythological imagery, fuch as a College eafily fupplies. Nothing can lefs difplay knowledge, or lefs exercise invention, than to tell how a fhepherd has loft his companion, and muft now feed his flocks alone, without any judge

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judge of his skill in piping; and how one god asks another god what is become of Lycidas, and how neither god can tell. He who thus grieves will excite no fympathy; he who thus praises will confer no honour.

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This poem has yet a groffer fault. With thefe trifling fictions are mingled the most awful and facred truths, fuch as ought never to be polluted with fuch irreverend combina tions. The fhepherd likewife is now a feeder of sheep, and afterwards an ecclefiaftical pastor, a fuperintendent of a Chriftian flock, Such equivocations are always unskilful; but here they are indecent, and at leaft approach to impiety, of which, however, I believe the writer not to have been confcious.

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

Of the two pieces, L'Allegro and Il Penserofo, I believe opinion is uniform; every man that reads them, reads them with pleasure.

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The author's defign is not, what Theobald has remarked, merely to fhew how objects derive their colours from the mind, by representing the operation of the fame things upon the gay and the melancholy temper, or upon the fame man as he is differently dif pofed; 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 pensive man hears the nightingale in the evening. The chearful man sees the cock strut, and hears the horn and hounds echo in the wood; then walks not unseen 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 distant tower, the refidence of fome fair inhabitant; thus he purfues rural gaiety through a day of labour or of play, and delights himself at night with the fanciful narratives of fuperftitious ignorance.

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The penfive man, at one time, walks unfeen to mufe at midnight; and at another hears the fullen 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 discover the habitation of feparate fouls, and varies the fhades of meditation, by contemplating the magnificent or pathetick scenes of tragick and epic poetry. When the morning comes, a morning gloomy with rain and wind, he walks into the dark trackless woods, falls afleep by fome mur muring water, and with melancholy enthu fiasm expects fome dream of prognostication, or fome mufick played by aerial performers.

Both Mirth and Melancholy are folitary, filent inhabitants of the breast that neither receive nor tranfmit communication; no mention is therefore made of a philosophical friend, or a pleasant companion. The feriousness does not arise from any participation of calamity, nor the gaiety from the pleasures of the bottle.

The man of chearfulness, having exhausted the country, tries what towered cities will afford,

afford, and mingles with scenes of fplendor, 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 himself in crowds, but walks the cloifter, or frequents the cathedral. Milton probably had not yet forfaken the Church.

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

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

Through these two poems the images are properly felected, and nicely diftinguished; but the colours of the diction feem not fuffi

ciently

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