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in the same person, and what a grandeur of moral principle may actuate the human heart; but at the same time it shows how little all these combined talents and virtues can secure the due respect and regard of contemporaries. It is absurd to deny that Milton was neglected during his life, and that his unworldly mindedness let the meanest of the people mount over his head. He lived poor, and for the most part in obscurity. Even high employments in the state seem to have obtained him no luxuries, and few friends or acquaintance: no brother poets flocked round him; none praised him, though in the habit of flattering each other.

If intellect is the grand glory of man, Milton stands pre-eminent above all other human beings; above Homer, Virgil, Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Spenser, and Shakspeare! To the highest grandeur of invention upon the sublimest subject, he unites the greatest wisdom and learning, and the most perfect art. Almost all other poets sink into twinkling stars before him. What has issued from the French school of poetry seems to be the production of an inferior order of beings, and in this I include even our Dryden and Pope; for I cannot place these two famous men among the greatest poets: they may be among the first of a secondary class.

It is easy to select fine passages from minor poetical authors; but a great poet must be tried by his entirety-by the uniform texture of his web.

Milton has a language of his own; I may say, invented by himself. It is somewhat hard, but it is all sinew: it is not vernacular, but has a Latinized cast, which requires a little time to reconcile a reader to it. It is best fitted to convey his own magnificent ideas; its very learnedness impresses us with respect; it moves with a gigantic step; it does not flow, like Shakspeare's style, nor dance, like Spenser's. Now and then there are transpositions somewhat alien to the character of the English language, which is not well calculated for transposition; but in Milton this is perhaps a merit, because his lines are pregnant with deep thought and sublime imagery, which require us to dwell upon them, and contemplate them over and over. He ought never to be read rapidly: his is a style which no one ought to imitate till he is endowed with a soul like Milton's. His ingredients of learning are so worked into his original thoughts, that they form a part of them; they are never patches.

DOCTOR JOHNSON.

Boswell's summary of Johnson's character does not seem to me very well done. Johnson was a moral philosopher and a critic, but had little fancy and no imagination. His strength lay in his quick powers of discrimination, and the ready and forcible language in

which he expressed it. His opinions were the result of observation and reasoning, not of invention; and where he had imagery by way of illustration, it was seldom or never of a poetical character. There was a directness and self-confidence in his manner, which gave an effect to many things he said, not intrinsically due to them. He had been a great thinker, and therefore was prepared upon most subjects presented to him. He had read much by fits, and had digested what he had read.

But his mind was bent to analyze, detect faults, and destroy charms. His ambition was to be the evil magician, at the touch of whose spear delusions fled.

His "Rasselas" and his "Tour to the Hebrides" are supposed to have a poetical cast of language; but even here his images are vague, and his words more sounding than picturesque; they are oratorical more than poetical; there is more of swell than solidity.

He always spoke ex cathedra, and had none but submissive listeners. He had lived among the chief literati of the metropolis, at least from his twenty-fifth year, and was a master of the literary history of his own time. He reflected upon facts, not upon visionsand therefore always seemed to have the acuteness of practical good

sense.

On almost all occasions he reasoned rather than felt, and therefore had little sentiment. What he wrote critically came from the processes of his own mind, and what he wrote ornamentally was rather derived from the stores of his memory.

He was an author to whom the booksellers were always glad to have resort, because on any proposed subject he had a prepared mind, and language always at his command.

But, as he admitted nothing which stern reason cannot demonstrate, he neither communicated nor secretly cherished any of those spiritual dreams in which a poet delights. Such a mind is better fitted for conversation, because what it communicates is more comprehensible by the generality of auditors. His desire of victory was so excessive as to be unjust, and his resentment of contradiction ferocious.

Envy and jealousy had such dominion over him as to make him mean and unpardonable in some of his censures. When he gave himself time to deliberate, he was benevolent and wise. I am far from denying that Johnson was a very great man in his own department; but then, as in the case of Pope, the character and 1ank of that department must not be mistaken.

The first rank belongs to him who invents with grandeur, beauty, and truth, on probability. The inventive faculty will scarcely be conceded to Johnson; and that in which he did not excel himself, his envious temper prompted him to depreciate.

Boswell strangely says that Johnson's mind was filled with ima

gery: it was not filled with imagery, but with reasonings laid up by constant meditation, and with which his memory always supplied him when called for. He never gazed upon visions, but argued to himself upon that with which experience and reading had furnished his recollection. Peruse his two celebrated satires-they have nothing of the higher ingredients of poetry in them; no poetical imagery is to be found there; they are the spiritual reflections or declamations of a moral philosopher, tinged with a deep melancholy, and plaintive from a sense of the sufferings, frailties, and imperfections of humanity. They have no invention, no enthusiasm, none of those enchanting illusions by which our human existence is exalted into a higher sphere. It was wrong of him to endeavor to tear away these delights from others because he could not enjoy them himself.

Thus he treated the memory of his friend William Collins, with which I was shocked and disgusted, when his "Lives of the Poets" came out, and for which I could never afterward forgive him. In that Life, while he speaks of the poet personally with kindness and sensibility, he shows a wanton absence of taste and imaginative feeling, and an ignorance or denial of the primary ingredients of poetry.

POSTHUMOUS FAME.

He who is willing to enjoy the present moment, then to die, and leave no trace of his existence behind him, may do so if he can reconcile it to his own self-complacence. But it does not seem to be the sort of self-complacence which distinguishes human nature from brutes. We are taught to aspire, and to endeavor to make wings to rise above oblivion, when our bodies moulder in the grave. But it will be observed how few can do this with success. Is it, then, to be our fate to be tormented with a desire of what so few are formed by nature to attain? But in proportion as the inborn faculties are narrow, the desires are probably limited to narrow objects and narrow means. Every one flatters himself that he can carve out for himself some ground of distinction. We must keep our mind in constant advance, by a progressive attention to those objects and means. To rest upon our oars, and work only at long intervals, will not do.

Some think that genius will equally show itself in sunshine or in shade, and therefore that unpropitious circumstances will not account for mediocrity of merit. The lives of unfortunate men of genius do not justify this opinion, nor does reason justify it. Mental energy is partly generated by animal spirits; and who that is discouraged and neglected can feel the same animal spirits?

All the advantages of education and art will do nothing without genius; and with how few, or rather without any of these, the

bright flame of real genius will come forth. Witness in our days Burns and Bloomfield. They have some advantages over those better instructed, because they have stronger hope. Many writers of verses have a powerful memory, without any imagination at all; and some have a fancy which reflects with the faithfulness of a mirror, but cannot invent. But nothing less than invention-and noble and tender invention-will make a poet of any high order. We may give to our characters the lovely sensibility and lofty thoughts which only exist in a few, and we may show the forms of humanity free from its blemishes and alloys; we may look on female beauty, and imagine that there dwells in it an angelic spirit; these are within the province of the truly inspired bard. But such notes are not reached except by the highly favored of heaven. Thousands have felt the dim visions within, but have not been able to embody them: they have gone to their graves dissatisfied with themselves, and unknown to the world.

Besides his numerous and admirable criticisms on English poets, Sir Egerton Brydges has himself written some of the finest sonnets in the language.1

ECHO AND SILENCE.

In eddying course when leaves began to fly,
And Autumn in her lap the store to strew,

As mid wild scenes I chanced the Muse to woo,
Through glens untrod, and woods that frown'd on high,
Two sleeping nymphs with wonder mute I spy!

And, lo, she's gone!-In robe of dark-green hue
'Twas Echo from her sister Silence flew,

For quick the hunter's horn resounded to the sky!
In shade affrighted Silence melts away.

Not so her sister.-Hark! for onward still,
With far-heard step, she takes her listening way,
Bounding from rock to rock, and hill to hill.
Ah, mark the merry maid in mockful play,
With thousand mimic tones the laughing forest fill!

TO AUTUMN, NEAR HER DEPARTURE.

Thou Maid of gentle light! thy straw-wove vest,
And russet cincture; thy loose pale-tinged hair;
Thy melancholy voice, and languid air,
As if, shut up within that pensive breast,
Some ne'er-to-be-divulged grief was prest;

"The great labors of Sir Egerton Brydges in the cause of English literature will be duly appreciated by posterity. For some years past, (1833,) he has resided at Geneva, where ne still devotes himself to his favorite pursuits with an enthusiasm, which neither age nor sick ness can subdue."-DYCE,

Thy looks resign'd, that smiles of patience wear,
While Winter's blasts thy scatter'd tresses tear;
Thee, Autumn, with divinest charms have blest!
Let blooming Spring with gaudy hopes delight

That dazzling Summer shall of her be born;
Let Summer blaze; and Winter's stormy train
Breathe awful music in the ear of Night;

Thee will I court, sweet dying Maid forlorn,
And from thy glance will catch the inspired strain.

ARCHIBALD ALISON, 1756-1838.

ARCHIBALD ALISON was the son of Andrew Alison, of Edinburgh, and was matriculated at Baliol College, Oxford, in 1775. After completing his theological course of study, he was settled successively in two or three different parishes, and finally became the senior minister of St. Paul's Chapel, in his native city. In 1790, he published his admirable "Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste," the work for which he is most distinguished. In 1814, he gave to the public two volumes of sermons, justly admired for the elegance and beauty of their language, and their gently persuasive inculcation of Christian duty. He died at Edinburgh in the year 1838, at the advanced age of eighty-two.2

ON THE PLEASURE OF ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE.

In every period of life, the acquisition of knowledge is one of the most pleasing employments of the human mind. But in youth, there are circumstances which make it productive of higher enjoyment. It is then that every thing has the charm of novelty; that curiosity and fancy are awake; and that the heart swells with the anticipations of future eminence and utility. Even in those lower branches of instruction which we call mere accomplishments, there is something always pleasing to the young in their acquisition. They seem to become every well-educated person; they adorn, if they do not dignify, humanity; and, what is far more, while they give an elegant employment to the hours of leisure and relaxation, they afford a means of contributing to the purity and innocence of domestic life.

In this he maintains, "that all beauty, or, at least, that all the beauty of material ob jects, depends on the associations that may have connected them with the ordinary affections or emotions of our nature; and in this, which is the fundamental part of his theory, we con ceive him to be no less clearly right than he is convincing and judicious in the copious and beautiful illustrations by which he has sought to establish its truth." Read a most interesting article on "Beauty," in the "Encyclopædia Britannica," by Lord Jeffrey, vol. iv. 481.

2 Read an article on "Alison's Essays on Taste," in the "Edinburgh Review," vol. xviii. 1; one on his "Sermons," vol. xxiii. 424; and another upon his "Sermons," in the " Quarterly Review," vol. xiv. 429.

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