Scene 6. "Famine, Thirst, Lassitude, Despair, Adam and Eve.-Famine explains her own nature, and that of her associates. Scene 7. "Death, Adam and Eve.-Death reproaches Eve with the horrours she has occasioned-Adam closes the Act by exhorting Eve to take refuge in the mountains. Act V. Scene 1. "The Flesh, in the shape of a woman; and Adam.-He resists her temptation. Scene 2.Lucifer, the Flesh, and Adam.-Lucifer pretends to be a man, and the elder brother of Adam, Scene 3.A Cherub, Adam, the Flesh, and Lucifer. The cherub secretly warns Adam against his foes; and at last defends him with manifest power. Scene 4. "The World, in the shape of a man, exulting in his own finery. Scene 5. "Eve and the World.-Ile calls forth a rich palace from the ground, and tempts Eve with splendour. Scene 6. "Chorus of Nymphs, Eve, the World, and Adam.-He exhorts Eve to resist these allurements--the World calls the demons from Hell to enchain his victims Eve prays for mercy: Adam encourages her. Scene 7. "Lucifer, Death, chorus of Demons.-They prepare to seize Adam and Eve. Scene 8. "The Archangel Michael, with a chorus of good Angels.-After a spirited altercation, Michael subdues and triumphs over Lucifer. Scene 9. "Adam, Eve, chorus of Angels.-They rejoice in the victory of Michael: he animates the offenders with a promise of favour from God, and future residence in Heaven: they express their hope and gratitude.-The angels close the drama, by singing the praise of the Redeemer." When the reader compares the allegorical characters in this drama with those in Milton's sketches on similar subjects, intended once for tragedies, he will again see reason to admit that the Adamo had made considerable impression, either in re. presentation or by perusal, on the mind of the English poet. See the Appendix, at the end of Paradise Lost, in the third volume of this edition. Of Andreini, who has been contemptuously called a stroller, Mr. Hayley has vindicated the fame. "He had some tincture of classical learning, and considera. ble piety. He occasionally imitates Virgil, and quotes the Fathers." In one of the passages, cited from his Adamo by Mr. Hayley, Mr. Walker observes that the course of a river is described with a richness of fancy, and a "dance of words,” that prove Andreini to have been endowed with no common poetic powers. Of the Adamo there have been four editions, those of Milan in 1613, and 1617, printed in quarto; that of Perugia in 1641, printed in duodecimo; and that of Modena in 1685, printed in the same form. The edition of 1641 is considered the most rare. The description to which Mr. Walker alludes, is beautifully amplified in that edition; and has been given in the Appendix to the Historical Memoir on Italian Tragedy, 1799, p. xliv. Andreini was the son of the celebrated actress, Isabella Andreini 9. His various productions, says Mr. Hayley, "amount 8 Hist. Memoir on Ital. Tragedy, p. 160. 9 Giovanni Battista Andreini, Fiorentino, o piuttosto Pistojese, fù figlio dela celebre Comica Isabella Andreini (della quale si veda il Bayle, e il Mazzuchelli,) e nacque nel 1578. Dopo essersi to the number of thirty; and form a singular medley of comedies and devout poems." The writer of the article Andreini (Isabelle) in the Nouveau Dict. Hist. à Caen, 1786, adds, to the account of her son's theatrical pieces, On a encore d'Andreini trois Traités en faveur de la Comédie & des Comédiens, publiés à Paris en 1625; ils sont fort rares. II. The next remark respecting the Origin of Paradise Lost is that of Dr. Pearce, who, in the Preface to his Review of the Text of the twelve books, &c. published in 1733, says, "It is probable that Milton took the first hint of the poem from an Italian tragedy, called II Paradiso Perso; for I am informed that there is such an one extant, printed many years before Milton entered upon his desigu." Mr. Hayley, in a very extensive research, has been able to discover no such performance. Nor have my inquiries been more successful. III. We are next informed, in the Preface to the poetical works of the Rev. J. Sterling, printed at Dublin in 1734, that "The great Milton is said to have ingenuously confessed that he owed his immortal work of Paradise Lost to Mr. Fletcher's Locusta." The person here mentioned is Phineas Fletcher, better known by his poem, entitled the Purple Island; and the Locustæ is a spirited Latin poem, writen against the Jesuits, and published at Cambridge, while Milton was a student there, in 1627; as was also the same author's Locusts, or Apollyonists, an English poem, consisting of five cantos. That Milton had read both the Latin and English poem of Fletcher, I make no doubt. And I have accordingly offered, to the reader's observation, some passages from both in the Notes on his poetical works, with which Milton appears to have been pleased. But Milton's obligations to Fletcher are too confined to admit so extensive an ac knowledgment, as that which is contained in Mr. Sterling's Preface; and indeed the authority of the anecdote has not been given. Mr. Sterling has translated with great spirit the speech of Lucifer to his Angels in the Locustæ, vel Pietas Jesuitica. See his poems, p. 43. As Fletcher's Latin poem is little known, it may be here proper to select, from this speech, the lines which seem to have influ enced the imagination of Milton, and perhaps to have given rise to the preceding anecdote. Nos contrà immemori per tuta silentia somno acquistato molto credito sulle Scene Italiane porrossi in Francia, ove si meritò la stima di Luigi XIII. Visse per lo meno sino al 1652. From the remarks mentioned in the note 5, p. 318.It is not impossible, that Milton might have seen and conversed with Andreini, when he visited France and Italy. The Jesuits were called Locusts, in the theological language of this period. See Sundrie Sermons by bishop Lake, fol. 1629, p. 205. "There is a kind of metaphoricall Locusts and Caterpillers, Locusts that came out of the bottomlesse pit; I meane Popish Priests and Iesuits; the Catterpillars of the Commonweale, Proiectors and Inuentors of new tricks how to exhaust the purses of the subiects, couering private ends with publicke pretences.” Restituet, cœlum nobis soliúmque relinquet, Rumpere, ferventíque juvat miscere tumultu. Quò tanti cecidere animi? Quò pristina virtus Et toties victo imbelles conceditis hosti. Atque animum splendor superent, ubi gaudia damno Pœna tamen damno crescit, per flagra, per ignes, Aequemus meritis pœnas, atque ultima passis Dixerat, insequitur fremitus, trepidantiáque inter Completur, resonántque accensis litora bombis. The simile, which here follows this speech, resembles, in some degree, that of Milton in his poem on the fifth of November. See In Quint. Nov. ver. 176, &c. See also Par. Lost, B. i. 768. To which we might add the assembly of devils, summoned before Lucifer in the old French morality of The Assumption, 1527. Ung grand tas de dyables plus drus Que voucherons en l' air molans— Milton's Latin poem is dated at the age of seventeen, namely in 1625. Fletcher's was published in 1627. The subjects of both are certainly similar. See the first Note on In Quint. Nov. vol. vi. p. 302. Fletcher, whose diction and imagery are often extremely beautiful, was educated at Eton, whence he was sent to King's College, Cambridge, in 1600; became B. A. in 1604, and M. A. in 1608.; was afterwards beneficed at Hilgay in Norfolk, and died in 1649. 2 IV. Hitherto what had been mentioned as hints, to which the active mind of Milton might not be insensible, had been mentioned without betraying a wish to tear the laurels from the brow of the great poet. Not such was the intelligence conveyed to the public by the malicious Lauder, He, unfortunate man, scrupled not to disgrace the considerable learning which he possessed,and to forfeit all pretensions to probity, by an audacious endeavour to prove that Milton was "the worst and greatest of all plagiaries." He acquired, indeed, a temporary credit, and engaged a powerful advocate in his cause, by the speciousness of his charge. But he "played most foully for it." He corrupted the text of those poets, whom he produced as evidences against the originality of Milton, by interpolating several verses either of his own fabrication, or from the Latin translation of Paradise Lost by William Hog. His enmity to Milton first discovered itself, on Dr. Newton's publishing his proposals for printing a new edition of the Paradise Lost with Notes of va rious Authors; which appeared in 1749. He affirmed that "he could prove," says Dr. Newton, (giving an account of his interview with Lauder,)" that Milton had borrowed the substance of whole books together, and that there was scarcely a single thought or sentiment in his poem which he had not stolen from some author or other, notwithstanding his vain pretence to things unattempted yet in prose or rhime. And then, in confirmation of his charge he recited a long roll of Scotch, German, and Dutch poets, and affirmed that he had brought the books along with him which were his vouchers; and appealed particularly to Ramsay, a Scotch divine, and to Masenius, a German Jesuit: but, upon producing his au thors, he could not find Masenius; he had dropped the book somewhere or other These interpolations are given in the Appendix to this edition, No. II. in the way, and expressed much surprise and concern for the loss of it; Ramsay he left with me, and my opinion of Milton's imitations of that author I have given in a note on B. ix. 513. I knew very well that Milton was an universal scholar, as famous for his great reading as for the extent of his genius; and I thought it not improbable, that Mr. Lauder, having the good fortune to meet with these German and Dutch poems, might have traced out there some of his imitations and illusions, which had escaped the researches of others: and it was my advice to him then, and as often as I had opportunities of seeing him afterwards, that if he had really made such notable discoveries as he boasted, he would do well to communicate them to the public; an ingenious countryman of his had published an Essay upon Milton's Imitations of the Ancients, and he would equally deserve the thanks of the learned world by writing an Essay upon Milton's imitations of the moderns; but at the same time I recommended to him a little more modesty and decency, and urged all the arguments I could to persuade him to treat Milton's name with more respect, and not to write of him with the same acrimony and rancour with which he spoke of him; it would weaken his cause instead of strengthening it, and would hurt himself more than Milton in the opini on of all candid readers. He began with publishing some specimens of his work in the Gentleman's Magazine: and I was sorry to find that he had no better regarded my advice in his manner of writing; for his papers were much in the same strain and spirit as his conversation; his assertions strong, and his proofs weak. However, to do him justice, several of the quotations which he had made from Adamus Exul, a tragedy of the famous Hugo Grotius, I thought so exactly par allel to several passages in the Paradise Lost, that I readily adopted them, and inserted them without scruple in my Notes; esteeming it no reproach to Milton, but rather a commendation of his taste and judgment, to have gathered so many of the choicest flowers in the gardens of others, and to have transplanted them with improvements into his own. At length, after I had published my first edition of the Paradise Lost, came forth Mr. Lauder's Essay on Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns; but except the quotations from Grotius, which I had already inserted in my first edition, I found in Mr. Lauder's authors not above half a dozen passages, which I thought worth transferring into my second edition; not but he had produced more passages somewhat resembling others in Milton; but when a similitude of thought or expression, of sentiment or description, occurs in Scripture and we will say in Staphorstius, in Virgil and perhaps in Alexander Ross, in Ariosto and perhaps in Taubmannus, 1 should rather conclude that Milton had borrowed from the former whom he is certainly known to have read, than from the latter whom it is very uncertain whether he had ever read or not. We know that he had often drawn, and delighted to draw, from the pure foun tain; and why then should we believe that he chose rather to drink of the stream after it was polluted by the trash and filth of others? We know that he had thoroughly studied, and was perfectly acquainted with, the graces and beauties of the great originals; and why then should we think that he was only the servile copier of perhaps a bad copy, which perhaps he had never seen?" If Lauder had traced the marks of imitation in Milton with truth and candour; if he had modestly noted images or sentiments apparently transferred from other |