have already taken occasion to introduce into the body of my volume: but I must not omit the present opportunity of mentioning that many of my last sheets, as they passed through the press, have been improved by the revision of this accurate critic, and most friendly man.

On the plan and the execution of my work, it would not be my wish, if I possessed the ability to influence the determination of the reader. It has been my object to present to him as complete a view of the subject, of which I have undertaken to treat, as was admitted by my materials or my powers; and to communicate to my pages all the variety and entertainment, of which they were susceptible, I have interspersed them with small pieces of criticism, with translations and extracts from my author, and with occasional, though short, views of the great contemporary occurrences in the state.

For the political sentiments discoverable in my work I am neither inclined, nor, indeed, able to offer an apology. They flow directly from those principles which I imbibed with my first efforts of reflection, which have derived force from my subsequent reading and observation, which have grown with my growth, and strengthened with my strength." If they should, therefore, unhappily be erroneous, my misfortune, as I fear, is hopelessly irremediable, for they are now so vitally blended with my thought and my feelings, that with them they must exist or must perish. The nature of these principles will be obviously and immediately apparent to my readers; for I

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have made too explicit an avowal of my political creed, with reference to the civil and the ecclesiastical system of which I am fortunately a member, to be under any apprehensions of suffering by misconstruction. If any man should affect to see more deeply into my bosom than I profess to see myself; or to detect an ambush of mischief which I have been studious to cover from observation,-that man will be the object not of my resentment, but of my pity. I shall be assured that he suffers the infliction of a perverted head or a corrupt heart; and to that I shall contentedly resign him, after expressing a simple perhaps, but certainly a sincere wish for his relief from what may justly be considered as the severest of human evils.

I belong to a fallible species, and am probably to be numbered with the most fallible of its individuals: but I cannot pollute myself with fraud; and I am too proud for concealment. TRUTH, religious, moral, and political, is what I profess to pursue; and if I fancied that I discerned this prime object of my regard by the side of the Mufti or the grand Lama, of the wild demagogues of Athens or the ferocious tribunes of Rome, I would instantly recognise and embrace her. As I find her however, or find a strong and bright resemblance of her in my own country, I feel that I am not summoned to propitiate duty with the sacrifice of prudence; and that, conscious of speaking honestly, I can enjoy the satisfaction of speaking safely. Without acknowledging any thing in common, but a name, with that malignant

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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

and selfish faction which, surrendering principles to passion, inflicted in the earlier periods of the last century some fatal wounds on the constitution; or with those men who in later times, abandoning their party and its spirit, have struggled to retain its honorable appellation,-I glory as I profess myself to be a wHIG; to be of the school of SOMERS and of LOCKE; to arrange myself in the same political class with those enlightened and virtuous statesmen who framed the BILL OF RIGHTS and the ACT OF SETTLEMENT, and who, presenting a crown, which they had wrested from a pernicious bigot and his family, to the HOUSE OF HANOVER, gave that most honorable and legitimate of titles, the FREE CHOICE OF the PEOPLE, to the Sovereign who now wields the imperial sceptre of Britain.

August 4, 1804.

THE

LIFE OF MILTON.

Quem tu, Dea, tempore in omni

Omnibus ornatum voluisti excellere rebus. LUCR,

THE author of the "Defense of the People of England" and of the "Paradise Lost" has engaged too much of the attention of the world not to invite its curiosity to the circumstances of his conduct and the peculiarities of his mind. His biographers have been numerous; and every source of information respecting him has been explored with a degree of solicitous minuteness, which bears honorable testimony to the impression of his importance. Unfortunately, however, the character which the great Milton sustained, on the political theatre of his calamitous times, has exposed him to the malignity of party; and this undying and sleepless' pest has been ever watchful to diminish the pride of his triumph, and to obscure that glory which it could not extinguish.

During the immediate agitation of the political

Party resembles the "Fama, malum," the allegorical monster of Virgil, in more than this particular of sleeplessness; for it is also "ficti pravique tenax," tenacious of falsehood and wrong; 66 et magnas territat urbes," and it alarms and agitates great cities, breaking the repose and concord of large communities of men.

conflict, while interest is directly affected, passion will necessarily be excited; and the weapons of passion are seldom delicately fashioned or scrupulously employed. When the good or the great, therefore, are exposed to falsehood by contemporary malignity; and are held up, with questioned virtues and imputed vices, to the execration instead of the applause of their species, we acknowledge the cause of the fact in the corruption of man; and it forms the subject of our regret rather than of our surprise. But when, after a lapse of years sufficient to obliterate the very deepest trace of temporary interest, we observe the activity of passion stagnating into the sullenness of rancour; and see these heroes of our race subjected to the same injuriousness of malice which they had suffered from their personal adversaries, we stare at the consequence of unexpected depravity, and are astonished in as great a degree as we are afflicted.

This remark is immediately to our present purpose: for this generation has witnessed an attempt on the character of our great writer, which would have done credit to the virulence of his own age. We have seen a new Salmasius, unimpelled by those motives which actuated the hireling of Charles, revive in Johnson; and have beheld the virtuous and the amiable, the firm and the consistent Milton, who appears to have acted, from the opening to the close of his life,

"As ever in his great Taskmaster's eye,”

exhibited in the disguise of a morose and a male

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