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son would have acknowledged no government that was not dependent on the throne, and he would have reverenced no ecclesiastical institution that was not united to a hierarchy. It would be curious to guess what his expression would have been, had he lived to read the defence of Polygamy, the denial of the eternal generation of the Son, the inferiority of the Holy Spirit, and the open avowal of Arianism. Bolt Court would have grown darker at his frown, as he directed the thunder of his wrath against an impracticable philosophy he would have despised, and an erratic theology he would have detested.

To disarm the severity of this criticism, and to represent in fairer lights and with softer colours those circumstances which had excited the indignation of the critic, seems to have been the chief purpose 5 for which Mr. Hayley's Life was written. I cannot say much that is favourable to its execution; but we are indebted to him for first calling the attention of the learned to that singular Italian drama," the Adamo of Andreini, and other

5 Hayley is called by Mr. Todd, the affectionate biographer; but temperance and impartiality are the qualities required when the subject of the biography has become a matter of history.

6 I much question whether Milton ever read the numerous obscure Italian poems, whose names, Mr. Hayley, Dr. J. Warton, and others subsequently have mentioned, but many of which they themselves have never seen. Whether, as Hayley supposes, Milton was familiar with the Angeleida of Erasmo de Valvasone, Venet. 1590, or not, it certainly is

productions of the same class, which are the supposed prototypes of Milton's poem.

Mr. Todd's exemplary diligence, his various information, and his extensive acquaintance with rare and curious books, has enabled him to throw light on some particulars of Milton's history that were previously obscure: the second edition of his work is also enriched with valuable documents lately brought to light. His narrative is for the most part copied from that of Dr. Johnson; and when he ventures to stray from his illustrious model, and alter his language, it is seldom with advantage.

The latest biography which I have perused is that written by Dr. Symmons. This biographer was a violent Whig, a most warm and zealous partisan, and, I must add, an intemperate and incautious writer. The language which he uses towards those opposed to him in opinion, as to Johnson, and T. Warton, is far too violent and vituperative; and Hayley's name is seldom men-, tioned but to be coupled with contempt. His work is too much expanded with conjectures that cannot satisfy the mind, nor lead to the discovery of truth; and it has added but little to our knowledge of facts. Yet his metrical criticisms on the worthy of remark, that the Italian poet assigns to the infernal powers the invention of artillery; but on this subject consult a note by Todd in vol. ii. 465, on the Adamo. See Walker, on Italian Tragedy, p. 172, App. xxxii. on passages in the Paradise Lost, taken from the Setti giorni of Tasso. See Black's Life of Tasso, vol. ii. p. 469.

Latin poems of Milton, though they have not quite exhausted the subject, are more accurate and learned than ever before appeared: and some translations are given which are spirited and elegant.

The notes which Bentley' published on Paradise Lost appear to have been selected from that copy of Tonson's Milton, once belonging to him, which I now possess; and much as his violence and rashness of conjecture has been blamed, the public has yet to learn, that his alterations, numerous as they were, form only a selection from a much larger mass that still remains upon the margin of the edition which he used. But if the wild attempt to unite his own lifeless and prosaic passages with the living spirit of Milton's poetry, were an act of presumption in the aged critic; yet, I must confess, there is something less of arrogance in the manner in which they are proposed, than might have been expected, when the boldness of his system was so openly avowed. He had the humanity to leave the established text untouched: and to confine the troubled spirit of his emendations within the lower circle of his notes. His changes (he says) are only sug

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7 Dr. Newton's observations on Bentley's Milton are temperate and judicious. See his Pref. p. 32. It appears that Dr. Heylin gave the notes which he had made on Milton, with the intention of publishing an edition, to Bentley, who has printed them as his own, without any acknowledgment, p. 34.

gested to the reader, and not obtruded on him; and if any person will substitute better, he will deserve every reader's thanks; though it is to be hoped even these will not be found absurd, or disagreeing from the Miltonian character.

'Sunt et mihi Carmina, me quoque dicunt

Vatem Pastores, sed non ego credulus illis.'

The few notes which are now for the first time published, are partly designed to prove, that Bentley did not generally attempt to substitute the actual and genuine words of Milton in the place of the fictitious and adulterated text (v. Book viii. 653); but only to restore what he conceived to be the sense and meaning of the passage. The conjectures which, in his own printed edition, I find waiting in the margin, and eager for admittance into the verse; in his MS. copy are attended with a numerous train, as little plausible or satisfactory as themselves. He had a large store of arrows in his quiver, besides that which he had shot: nor can a reason be readily assigned for his preference of the one selected. The hypothesis which he formed, is, I presume, generally known and known only to be repudiated. 'Our celebrated author, being obnoxious to the gout, poor, friendless, and, what is worst of all, blind with a gutta serena, could only dictate his verses to be writ by another: when it necessarily follows that any errors in pointing, spelling, nay, even in whole words, of a like or near sound, are not to be charged upon the poet, but the amanu

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ensis. The friend or acquaintance to whom Milton committed his copy, and the overseers of the press, did so vilely execute that trust, that Paradise, under his ignorance and audaciousness, may be said to be twice lost. But these typographical faults, occasioned by the negligence of his acquaintance, if all may be imputed to that, and not several wilfully made, were not the least blemishes brought upon our poem. For this supposed friend, knowing Milton's bad circumstances, thought that he had a fit opportunity to foist into the work several of his own verses, without the blind poet's discovery. This trick has too frequently been played, but especially in works published after the author's death; and poor Milton, in that condition, with sixty years' weight upon his shoulders, might be reckoned half dead. The whole of this visionary fabric seems to have been built by Bentley on the slender foundation that, owing to Milton's blindness, some mistakes in the text of the poem certainly did occur; and that such a one, as is found in P. L. x. 260, should pervade both editions (being an error which Milton himself had no means of detecting), certainly betrays the negligence or ignorance of those to whose care his edition was entrusted.

Feeling, as truly as others, the absurdity of

8 See Note on P. L. i. 197. 'Knowing by the passages, that our poet blind, and then poor and friendless, had frequently foul play.'

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