"The muses in a ring

Aye round about Jove's altar sing:

Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea,
And hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.”

If all these mighty fictions had really existed, they could have done no more for us!—I shall only give one other passage from Lycidas; but I flatter myself that it will be a treat to my readers, if they are not already familiar with it. It is the passage which contains that exquisite description of the flowers:

"Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past

That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flow'rets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades and wanton winds and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers;
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan, that hang the pensive head,
And every flower, that sad embroidery wears;
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed.

And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureat herse where Lycid lies.

For so to interpose a little cause,

Let our frail thoughts daily with false surmise.
Ah me! Whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Waft far away, where'er thy bones are hurl'd,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fables of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks towards Namancos and Bayona's hold
Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth,
And, O ye Dolphins, waft the hapless youth."

Dr. Johnson is very much offended at the introduction of these Dolphins; and indeed, if he had had to guide them through the waves, he would have made much the same figure as his old friend Dr. Burney does, swimming in the Thames with his wig on, with the water-nymphs, in the picture of Barry, at the Adelphi.

There is a description of flowers in the Winter's Tale, which I shall give as a parallel to Milton's. I shall leave my readers to decide which is the finest; for I dare not give the preference. Perdita says,

"Here's flowers for you,

Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram,
The marygold that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises, weeping; these are flowers
Of middle summer, and I think they are given

To men of middle age. Y' are welcome.

"Camillo. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing.

"Perdita. Out, alas!

You'd be so lean that blasts of January

Would blow you through and through. Now, my fairest friends,

I would I had some flowers o' th' spring, that might

Become your time of day: O Proserpina,

For the flowers now that, frighted, you let fall
From Dis's wagon! daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower de lis being one. O these I lack
To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend
To strew him o'er and o'er."

Dr. Johnson's general remark, that Milton's genius had not room to shew itself in his smaller pieces, is not well-founded. Not to mention Lycidas, the Allegro, and Penseroso, it proceeds on a false estimate of the merits of his great work, which is not more distinguished by strength and sublimity than by tender

ness and beauty. The last were as essential qualities of Milton's mind as the first. The battle of the angels, which has been commonly considered as the best part of the Paradise Lost, is the worst.

II.

ON THE CHARACTER OF MILTON'S EVE.

THE difference between the character of Eve in Milton, and Shakspeare's female characters is very striking, and it appears to me to be this:-Milton describes Eve not only as full of love and tenderness for Adam, but as the constant object of admiration in herself. She is the idol of the poet's imagination, and he paints her whole person with a studied profusion of charms. She is the wife, but she is still as much as ever the mistress, of Adam. She is represented, indeed, as devoted to her husband, as twining round him for support, 66 as the vine curls her tendrils," but her own grace and beauty are never lost sight of in the picture of conjugal felicity. Adam's attention and regard are as much to her as hers to him; for "in the first garden of their innocence," he had no other objects or pursuits to distract his attention; she was both his business and his pleasure. Shakspeare's females, on the contrary, seem to exist only in their attachment to others. They are pure abstractions of the affections. Their features are not painted, nor the colour of their hair. Their hearts only are laid open. We are acquainted with Imogen, Miranda, Ophelia, or Desdemona, by what they thought and felt, but we cannot tell whether they were black, brown, or fair. But Milton's Eve is all of ivory and gold. Shakspeare seldom tantalizes the reader with a luxurious display of the personal charms of his heroines, with a curious inventory of particular beauties, except indirectly, and for some other purpose, as where Iachimo describes Imogen asleep, or the old men in the Winter's Tale vie with each other in invidious praise of Perdita. Even in Juliet, the most voluptuous and

Dr. Johnson is very much offended at the introduction of these Dolphins; and indeed, if he had had to guide them through the waves, he would have made much the same figure as his old friend Dr. Burney does, swimming in the Thames with his wig on, with the water-nymphs, in the picture of Barry, at the Adelphi.

There is a description of flowers in the Winter's Tale, which I shall give as a parallel to Milton's. I shall leave my readers to decide which is the finest; for I dare not give the preference. Perdita says,

"Here's flowers for you,

Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram,
The marygold that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises, weeping; these are flowers
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age. Y' are welcome.

"Camillo. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,
And only live by gazing.

"Perdita. Out, alas!

You'd be so lean that blasts of January

Would blow you through and through. Now, my fairest friends,

I would I had some flowers o' th' spring, that might

Become your time of day. O Proserpina,

For the flowers now that, frighted, you let fall

From Dis's wagon! daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower de lis being one. O these I lack
To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend
To strew him o'er and o'er."

Dr. Johnson's general remark, that Milton's genius had not room to shew itself in his smaller pieces, is not well-founded. Not to mention Lycidas, the Allegro, and Penseroso, it proceeds on a false estimate of the merits of his great work, which is not more distinguished by strength and sublimity than by tender

ness and beauty.—The last were as essential qualities of Milton's mind as the first. The battle of the angels, which has been commonly considered as the best part of the Paradise Lost, is the worst,

II.

ON THE CHARACTER OF MILTON'S EVE.

66

THE difference between the character of Eve in Milton, and Shakspeare's female characters is very striking, and it appears to me to be this:-Milton describes Eve not only as full of love and tenderness for Adam, but as the constant object of admiration in herself. She is the idol of the poet's imagination, and he paints her whole person with a studied profusion of charms. She is the wife, but she is still as much as ever the mistress, of Adam. She is represented, indeed, as devoted to her husband, as twining round him for support, as the vine curls her tendrils," but her own grace and beauty are never lost sight of in the picture of conjugal felicity. Adam's attention and regard are as much to her as hers to him; for "in the first garden of their innocence," he had no other objects or pursuits to distract his attention; she was both his business and his pleasure. Shakspeare's females, on the contrary, seem to exist only in their attachment to others. They are pure abstractions of the affections. Their features are not painted, nor the colour of their hair. Their hearts only are laid open. We are acquainted with Imogen, Miranda, Ophelia, or Desdemona, by what they thought and felt, but we cannot tell whether they were black, brown, or fair. But Milton's Eve is all of ivory and gold. Shakspeare seldom tantalizes the reader with a luxurious display of the personal charms of his heroines, with a curious inventory of particular beauties, except indirectly, and for some other purpose, as where Iachimo describes Imogen asleep, or the old men in the Winter's Tale vie with each other in invidious praise of Perdita. Even in Juliet, the most voluptuous and