"No foes, no death, nor danger, I declin'd, "Did and deferv'd no lefs, my fate to find."

From this kind of concatenated metre he afterwards refrained, and taught his followers the art of concluding their fenfe in couplets; which has perhaps been with rather too much conftancy pursued.

This paffage exhibits one of those triplets which are not unfrequent in this firft effay, but which it is to be supposed his maturer judgement disapproved, fince in his latter works he has totally forborn them.

His rhymes are fuch as feem found without difficulty, by following the fense; and are for the most part as exact at least as those of other poets, though now and then the reader is fhifted off with what he can get:

"O how transform'd!

"How much unlike that Hector, who return'd
"Clad in Achilles' spoils !"

And again :

"From thence a thousand leffer poets Sprung

"Like petty princes from the fall of Rome."

Sometimes the weight of rhyme is laid upon a word too feeble to fuftain it:

"Troy confounded falls

"From all her glories: if it might have stood
By any power, by this right hand it shou'd.
"And though my outward ftate misfortune hath
"Depreft thus low, it cannot reach my faith."
"Thus, by his fraud and our own faith o'ercome,
"A feigned tear deftroys us, against whom

"Tydides nor Achilles could prevail,

"Nor ten years conflict, nor a thousand fail."

He

He is not very careful to vary the ends of his verses; in one paffage the word die rhymes three couplets in fix.

Most of these petty faults are in his first productions, where he was less skilful, or at leaft lefs dextrous in the use of words; and though they had been more frequent, they could only have leffened the grace, not the ftrength of his compofition. He is one of the writers that improved our tafte, and advanced our language, and whom we ought therefore to read with gratitude, though, having done much, he left much to do.

MILTON.

THE life of Milton has been already written in fo many forms, and with fuch minute enquiry, that I might perhaps more properly have contented myfelf with the addition of a few notes on Mr. Fenton's elegant Abridgement, but that a new narrative was thought neceffary to the uniformity of this edition.

JOHN MILTON was by birth a gentleman, defcended from the proprietors of Milton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited his estate in the times of York and Lancaster. Which fide he took I know not; his defcendant inherited no veneration for the White Rofe.

His grandfather John was keeper of the foreft of Shotover, a zealous papift, who difinherited his fon, because he had forfaken the religion of his ancestors.

His father, John, who was the fon difinherited, had recourfe for his fupport to the profeffion of a fcrivener. He was a man eminent for his fkill in mufick, many of his compofitions being ftill to be found; and his reputation in his profeffion was fuch, that he grew

rich, and retired to an eftate. He had probably more than common literature, as his fon addreffes him in one of his most elaborate Latin poems. He married a gentlewoman of the name of Cafton, à Welch family, by whom he had two fons, John, the poet, and Chriftopher, who ftudied the law, and adhered, as the law taught him, to the King's party, for which he was a while perfecuted, but having, by his brother's intereft, obtained permiffion to live in quiet, he fupported himfelf fo honourably by chamber-practice, that, foon after the acceffion of King James, he was knighted and made a judge; but, his conftitution being too weak for bufinefs, he retired before any difreputable compliances became neceffary.

He had likewife a daughter Anne, whom he married with a confiderable fortune to Edward Philips, who came from Shrewsbury, and rofe in the Crownoffice to be fecondary: by him fhe had two fons, John and Edward, who were educated by the poet, and from whom is derived the only authentic account of his domestic manners.

John, the poet, was born in his father's houfe, at the Spread-Eagle in Bread-ftreet, Dec. 9, 1608, between fix and feven in the morning. His father appears to have been very folicitous about his education; for he was inftructed at firft by private tuition under the care of Thomas Young, who was afterwards chaplain to the English merchants at Hamburgh, and of whom we have reafon to think well, fince his fcholar confidered him as worthy of an epiftolary elegy.

He was then fent to St. Paul's School, under the care of Mr. Gill; and removed, in the beginning of his fixteenth year, to Chrift's College in Cambridge, where he entered a fizar *, Feb. 12, 1624.

He was at this time eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and he himself, by annexing the dates to his first compofitions, a boaft of which the learned Politian had given him an example, feems to commend the earlinefs of his own proficiency to the notice of pofterity. But the products of his vernal fertility have been surpaffed by many, and particularly by his contemporary Cowley. Of the powers of the mind it is difficult to form an eftimate: many have excelled Milton in their firft effays, who never rofe to works like Paradife Loft.

At fifteen, a date which he uses till he is fixteen, he tranflated or verfified two Pfalms, 114 and 136, which he thought worthy of the publick eye; but they raise no great expectations: they would in any numerous school have obtained praife, but not excited wonder.

Many of his elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenth year, by which it appears that he had then read the Roman authors with very nice difcernment. I once heard Mr. Hampton, the tranflator of Polybius, remark, what I think is true, that

In this affertion Dr. Johnson was mistaken. Milton was admitted a penfioner, and not a fizar, as will appear by the following extract from the College Regifter: "Johannes Milton "Londinenfis, filius Johannis, inftitutus fuit in literarum ele"mentis fub Mag'ro Gill Gymnatii Paulini præfecto, admiffus est "Penfionarius Minor Feb. 12°, 1624, fub M'ro Chappell, folvitq. pro Ingr. o 10s od." R.