Carreer, for the course of the fun, moon, and planets, is the regular word of Sylvefter; the fun's bright eye, t CARREERING daily once about the fky- p. I. thy brave fteeds stood ftill, In full CARREER ftopping thy whirling wheel. P. 90. When we can stop th' accustomed CARREER which may corroborate a reading, PAR. LOST, i. 786, fuggefted by Mr. Capel Loft, of courfers for courfe. 123. -trick'd 123. trick'd and frounc'd-] Trick'd, for gorgeously dreft, is used by Sylvefter in his tranflation of Du Bartas's JUDITH; where the heroine, ornamented for her purpose, is defcribed, So brave a gallant, TRICK'D and trimmed fo, * ARCADE S. 23 Juno dares not give her odds; When a literary lady, of your acquaintance, once afked Dr. Johnfon, " 66 why Milton, who could write fo fublimely on other occafions, produced fuch poor fonnets?" his anfwer was, "Ma"dam! Milton could cut a Coloffus out "of a rock, but he could not carve a head upon a cherry-ftone.". The fame coloffal critic has alfo predicated of *It remains to be fhewed, that Milton's fonnets are poor;" as well as that fonnet-writing is a mere knack, the "cherry-ftone-carving of poetry." Several of Milton's fonnets would contradict both thefe ideas but, although he has dignified them with fublime thoughts, and numbers highly poetic, there is, it must be allowed, frequently a want of that nicer and more artificial finishing, which is justly required in short compofitions. Milton, Milton, that "he never learned the art "of doing little things with grace;" and that he was a lion, who had no skill in "dandling the kid."-The Miltonic mufe indeed was little accustomed Dionæo fub antro Quærere modos leviore plectro; neither was the any ways calculated for the legéreté of common fong writing. The three principal fongs in CoмUS, although Dr. Johnfon has cenfured the diction of them as harfh, are exquifitely beautiful; but they are not common fongs, and the fubjects of them are in fact majoris ple&tri. Milton's fong on May Day has been juftly admired; as the greatest part of it well deferves. Lord Monboddo, in fome obfervations with which he favoured me, refpecting Milton's rhyming verfe, fays it is the prettieft little poem in our language but I confefs that, to my ear, it clofes in a manner rather flat and infipid. The conclufion of the two laft fongs, in this ENTERTAINMENT, is perfectly vapid and fpiritlefs; Such a rural queen, All Arcadia hath not feen. I am tempted to fay with Defdemona, "O moft lame and impotent conclufion !" This firft fong is alfo rather ftiff throughout, and by no means fortunate in its conclufion; efpecially where, in comparing the lady patronefs to the heathen deities, he borrows the language of a Newmarket jocky: Juno dares not give her odds: The fame thought has been much better managed by Sylvefter, in a masque fonnet to Queen Anne, confort of James I. Old Joshua was certainly not a cherryftone-carving poet at least he did himself no credit, by his attempts in the minutia of poetry. I do not, indeed, prefent him to you as the lion of poets; but I think you will agree with me, that, in the fol G lowing |