rightly, informs us, that Elwood faw a complete copy of the Paradise Loft at Milton's house, at Chalfont, in 1665; that Milton fold the copy in 1667, and that the third edition was printed in 1678, when it is probable that many copies had passed over to the continent, and contributed to encrease the reputation which his name had gained abroad; and therefore we have a right to suppose, that Clarke, and not Milton, was the copyift: The poem, however, appears to have much merit. The baron has finished ten or eleven books, with what fidelity I know not, but certainly with much animation. Milton has often been accused of plagiarifm, it is to be feared fometimes with truth; for though bishop Douglas, with great acuteness, detected Lauder's interpolations in the works of different writers, which were designed to disparage Milton's reputation, he by no means undertook to prove, that Milton's claim to originality might not, in other instances, be impeached; and Lauder, though perfuaded by Dr. Johnfon to give up, in a hasty fit of shame, his whole Essay as an imposition, afterwards, in part, recanted his recantation, and attempted, with some success, to prove the charge of forgery against Milton. But it is time to put an end to this digression designed to vindicate Milton, as every Englishman must wish to do, where he can be vindicated without injury to truth."

:

"To the latter part of this remark it will be proper to fubjoin the words of bishop Douglas. Grown defperate by his disappointment, this very man, [Lauder,] whom but a little before we have seen as abject in the confeffion of his forgeries, as he had been bold in the contrivance of them, with an inconfiftence, equalled only by his impudence, renewed his attack upon the author of the Paradise Lost; and in a pamphlet, published for that purpose, acquainted the world, that the true reason which had excited him to contrive his forgery was, becaufe Milton had attacked the character of Charles the first, by interpolating Pamela's prayer from the Arcadia,

in an edition of the Eicon Bafiliké; hoping, no doubt, by this curious key to his conduct, to be received into favour, if not by the friends of truth, at least by the idolaters of the royal martyr: the zeal of this wild party-man againft Milton having at the fame time extended itself against his biographer, the very learned Dr. Birch, for no other reafon but because he was

▼ Entitled, "King Charles I. Vindicated from the charge of plagiarism, brought against him by Milton, and Milton himself convicted of forgery, and a gross impofition on the publick." Not content with this title, he begins the two first pages with all the consequence of a keeper of wild beafts, when he exhibits a more celebrated monster than usual; "The Grand Impostor detected!"

so candid as to express his disbelief of a tradition unsupported by evidence."

I have been unable to discover whether there is any edition of Clarke's book, prior to that which is mentioned.

VI. We are now to be again gratified with the very curious researches, and ingenious deductions, of Mr. Hayley. Having observed it to be highly probable, that Andreini turned the thoughts of Milton from Alfred to Adam, as the fubject of a dramatick composition, he thinks it possible that an Italian writer, less known than Andreini, first threw into the mind of Milton the idea of converting Adam into an epick perfonage. * " I have now before me," he proceeds, "a literary curiosity, which my accomplished friend, Mr. Walker, to whom the literature of Ireland has many obligations, very kindly sent me, on his return from an excurfion to Italy, where it happened to strike a traveller, whose mind is peculiarly awakened to elegant pursuits. The book I am speaking of is entitled La Scena Tragica d'Adamo ed Eva, Estratta dalli primi tre capi della Sacra Genesi, e ridotta a fignificato Morale da Troilo Lancetta, Benacenfe. Venetia 1644. This little work is dedicated to Maria

* Conjectures on the Origin of Paradife Loft, at the end of the Life of Milton, 2d edit. 1796, p. 264, &c.

Gonzaga, Dutchess of Mantua, and is nothing more than a drama in profe, of the ancient form, entitled a morality, on the expulsion of our first parents from Paradife. The author does not mention Andreini, nor has he any mixture of verse in his composition; but, in his address to the reader, he has the following very remarkable passage: after suggesting that the Mofaick history of Adam and Eve is purely allegorical, and designed as an incentive to virtue, he says,

Una notte sognai, che Moisè mi porse gratiosa espositione, e mifteriofo fignificato con parole tali apunto:

• Dio fa parte all' Huom di se stesso con l' intervento della ragione, e difpone con infallibile sentenza, che signoreggiando in lui la medesma sopra le sensuali voglie, prefervato il pomo del proprio core dalli appetiti difordinati, per guiderdone di giusta obbedienza li trasforma il mondo in Paradifo.-Di questo s'io parlassi, al sicuro formarei heroico poema convenevole a semidei."

• One night I dreamt that Mofes explained to me the myftery, almost in these words:

• God reveals himself to Man by the intervention of reafon, and thus infallibly ordains that reason, while she supports her fovereignty over the fenfual inclinations in Man, and preferves the apple of his heart from licentious appetites, in reward of his just obedience transforms the world into Paradise. Of this were I to speak, assuredly I might form an heroick poem worthy of demi-gods.'

" It strikes me as possible that these last words, affigned to Mofes in his vision by Troilo Lancetta, might operate on the mind of Milton like the question of Ellwood, and prove, in his prolifick fancy, a kind of rich graft on the idea he derived from Andreini, and the germ of his greatest production.

A fceptical critick, inclined to discountenance this conjecture, might indeed observe, it is more probable that Milton never faw a little volume not published until after his return from Italy, and written by an author fo obfcure, that his name does not occur in Tirabofchi's elaborate hiftory of Italian literature; nor in the patient Italian chronicler of poets, Quadrio, though he bestows a chapter on early dramatick compositions in profe. But the mind, that has once started a conjecture of this nature, must be weak indeed, if it cannot produce new shadows of argument in aid of a favourite hypothesis. Let me therefore be allowed to advance, as a prefumptive proof of Milton's having seen the work of Lancetta, that he makes a fimilar use of Mofes, and introduces him to speak a prologue in the fketch of his various plans for an allegorical drama. It is indeed possible that Milton might never fee the performances either of Lancetta or Andreini; yct conjecture has ground enough to conclude very fairly, that he was acquainted with both; for Andreini wrote a long allegorical drama on Paradife, and we know that the fancy of Milton first began to play with the subject according to that peculiar form of compofition.