The imitation of Beaumont and Fletcher in these lines is too obvious to be overlooked, if we compare them with the first seven lines of the song: and I think we may safely conclude, Milton had them here in his eye; but he immediately starts away, and his divine genius hurries him into the unbounded fields of fancy, where he makes such noble excursions as convince us he wanted no hints, though he had modesty enough to take them from authors, who, with all their merit, were much his inferiors. There is another passage in which the likeness is too strong, at least in my judgment, to be accidental, though not so very striking as in that before quoted. I submit it to my readers: Welcome, folded arms, and fixed eyes, A sigh that piercing mortifies, A look that's fasten'd to the ground, A tongue chain'd up, without a sound. The passage in Milton is so beautiful, that I will venture to give it whole, as I can plead Mr. Addison's example for the liberty, though only a part of it has any relation to my comparison : All in a robe of darkest grain, With a sad leaden downward cast, Thou fix them on the earth as fast. I am far from intending, in this comparison, any disrespect to the memory of Milton, whose genius was above all praise; and who, in this very poem, and its companion L'Allegro, if he had written nothing else, has displayed such extensive powers of imagination, as would have given him a place among the foremost of the sons of Phoebus: but great as my reverence for Milton is, it must not take place of my regard for truth. It is, I think, no vulgar praise to this small well-polished gem, that it will bear being viewed in the same light with Il Penseroso, without losing its radiance: and that such a writer as Milton should think it worthy imitation, is a proof of merit infinitely beyond any thing I can say in its praise. It is impossible, I think, to point out all the beauties of this little ode, unless we were to examine every line separately; for there appears to me scarce a sentence that is not conceived in the real sublime spirit of poetry; truth, nature, and simplicity, the most animated fire, and the most studied correctness, are conspicuous through the whole; and all your readers, who have, at any time in their lives, felt the influence of this sober goddess, will, I am sure, acknowledge, that nothing can be more justly imagined, or executed in a more masterly man ner. For my own part, madam, I will own to you, that I have long been a votary to this pensive power, which may possibly be the reason why this ode strikes my imagination so forcibly; I lost, seven years since, a wife I adored, in all the bloom of youth and beauty: whose dear remembrance, even at this distance of time, calls the sacred drops of sorrow into my eyes. The world has now no joys for me; and since I have been thus unhappily deprived of the soft companion of my hours, I have preferred Fountain heads, and pathless groves, Places which pale passion loves, to all the hurry of cities and pomp of courts. I can say with the strictest truth, that to me, Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy. I am, madam, with the sincerest wishes for the continuance of your success, Milton has not only imitated this exquisite song in the Nice Valour, or Passionate Madman, of Beaumont and Fletcher; but he has also taken some of his imagery, and, in some degree, the measure of his versification, from a poem prefixed to Burton's Anatomie of Melancholy, entitled "The author's Abstract of Melancholy," which was probably written about the year 1600. It consists of twelve stanzas, of which I shall present my reader with the first six. When I go musing all alone, Thinking of divers things fore-known, When I go walking all alone, |