ciently discriminated. 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 Mask of Comus; in which may very plainly be discovered 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 endea voured nor defired to deviate.

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

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

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

The difcourfe of the Spirit is too long; an objection that may be made to almost all the following fpeeches: they have not the fprite-, linefs of a dialogue animated by reciprocal VOL. I.

con

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 Comús has airinefs and jollity; but, what may recommend Milton's morals as well as his poetry, the invitations to pleasure are so general, 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 fpeech in praife of chastity, and the Younger finds how fine it is to be a philofopher.

Then defcends the Spirit in form of a fhepherd; and the Brother, inftead of being in hafte to ask his help, praifes his finging,

and

and enquires his business 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 moralises again; and the Spirit makes a long narration, of no ufe because it is falfe, and therefore unsuitable 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 dispute between the Lady and Comus is the most animated and affecting scene of the drama, and wants nothing but a brisker reciprocation of objections and replies, to invite attention, and detain it.

The fongs are vigorous, and full of imagery; but they are harsh 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 epic ftyle, inelegantly fplendid, and tedioufly inftructive.

The Sonnets were written in different parts of Milton's life, upon different occafions. They deserve not any particular criticism; for of the best it can only be faid, that they are not bad; and perhaps only the eighth and the twenty-first are truly entitled to this flender commendation. The fabrick of a fonnet, however adapted to the Italian language, has ever fucceeded in ours, which, having greater variety of termination, requires the rhymes to be often changed.

Those little pieces may be dispatched without much anxiety; a greater work calls for greater care. I am now to examine Paradife Loft; a poem, which, confidered with refpect to defign, may claim the first place, and with refpect to performance the fecond, among the productions of the human mind.

By the general confent of criticks, the first praise of genius is due to the writer of an epick poem, as it requires an affemblage of all the powers which are fingly fufficient for other compofitions. Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason. Epick poetry undertakes.