feveral alterations and additions, it appears to have been written with great care and deliberation; and both the draughts have been published by Mr. Birch in his Hiftorical and Critical Account of the life and writings of Milton. There are alfo feveral of his poems, Arcades, At a folemn mufic, On time, Upon the circumcifion, the Mafk, Lycidas, with five or fix of his fonnets, all in his own hand-writing: and there are fome others of his fonnets written by different hands, being most of them compofed after he had loft his fight. It is curious to fee the first thoughts and subsequent corrections of fo great a poet as Milton: but it is remarkable in these manufcript poems, that he doth not often make his ftops, or begin his lines with great letters. There are likewise in his own hand-writing different plans of Paradife Loft in the form of a tragedy: and it is an agreeable amusement to trace the gradual progrefs and improvement of such a work from its first dawnings in the plan of a tragedy to its full luftre in an epic poem. And together with the plans of Paradife Loft there are the plans or fubjects of feveral other intended tragedies, fome taken from the Scripture, others from the British or Scottish hiftories: and of the latter the last mentioned is Macbeth, as if he had an inclination to try his ftrength with Shakespear; and to reduce the play more to the unities, he propofes, beginning at the arrival of Malcolm at "Macduff; the matter of Duncan may be expref fed by the appearing of his ghoft." These manufcripts of Milton were found by the learned Mr. Profeffor Mafon among fome other old papers, which, he fays, belonged to Sir Henry Newton Puckering, : Puckering, who was a confiderable benefactor to the library and for the better preservation of fuch truly valuable reliques, they were collected together, and handfomely bound in a thin folio by the care and at the charge of a person, who is now very eminent in his profeffion, and was always a lover of the Muses, and at that time a fellow of Trinity College, Mr. Clarke, one of his Majefty's counsel. Ο UI legis Amiffam Paradifum, grandia magni Res cunctas, & cunctarum primordia rerum, Et quodcunque ullis conclufum eft finibus ufquam, Et fine fine magis, fi quid magis est fine fine, Et tamen hæc hodie terra Britanna legit. Quantus Quantus in æthereis tollit fe Lucifer armis ! Atque ipfo graditur vix Michaele minor! quam funeftis concurritur iris, Quantis, & Dum ferus hic ftellas protegit, ille rapit! Et flammæ vibrant, & vera tonitrua rauco Excidit attonitis mens omnis, & impetus omnis, Ad pœnas fugiunt, & ceu foret Orcus afylum, Cedite Romani Scriptores, cedite Graii, SAMUEL BARROW, M. D, ON W HEN I beheld the Poet blind, yet bold, In flender book his vaft defign unfold, Meffiah crown'd, God's reconcil'd decree, Rebelling Angels, the forbidden tree, Heaven, Hell, Earth, Chaos, all; the argument Through that wide field how he his way fhould find, Might hence prefume the whole creation's day VOL. I. Pardon |