in her glory) he publish'd PARADIS REGAIN'D But, Ob! what a falling off was there! Of which I will fay no more, than that there is scarcely a more remarkable inftance of the frailty of human reason, than our author gave, in preferring this poem to PARADISE LOST; nor a more inftructive caution to the best writers, to be very diffident in deciding the merit of their own productions.

AND thus having attended him to the fixty fixth year of his age, as clofely as fuch imperfect lights, as men of letters and retirement ufually leave to An. Etat. 69. guide our inquiry, would allow; it now only remains to be recorded, that in the year 1674, the gout put a period to his life at Bunhill near London; from whence his body was conveyed to St. Giles's church by Cripplegate, where it lies interr'd in the chancel; but neither has, nor wants, a monument to perpetuate his memory.

In his youth he is faid to have been extremely handfome the colour of his hair was a light-brown: the symmetry of his features exact; enlivened with an agreeable air, and a beautiful mixture of fair and ruddy which occafioned the marquis of Villa to give his* epigram the fame turn of thought, which Gregory, arch-deacon of Rome, had employed above a thousand years before, in praifing the amiable complexions of fome English youths, before their converfion to Chriftianity. His ftature († as we find it measured by himself) did not exceed the middle fize; neither too lean, nor corpulent: his limbs well proportion'd, nervous, and active; ferviceable in all respects to his exercising the fword, in which *Ut mens, forma, decor, facies, mós, fi pietas fic,

Non Anglus, verum hercle Angelus ipfe fores.

† Defenfio fecunda. p. 87. Fol.

he much deli ted; and wanted neither skill, nor courage, to relent an affront from men of the most athletic conftitutions. In his diet he was abftemious; not delicate in the choice of his difhes; and ftrong liquors of all kinds were his averfion. Being too fadly convinced how much his health had suffered by night-ftudies in his younger years, he used to go early, feldom later than nine, to reft; and rofe commonly before five in the morning. It is reported, (and there is a paffage in one of his Latin elegies to countenance the tradition) that his fancy made the happiest flights in the fpring: but one of his nephews ufed to deliver it as MILTON's own obfervation, that his invention was in its highest perfection from September to the Vernal Equinox: however it was, the great inequalities to be found in his compofures are inconteftable proofs, that in fome feafons he was but one of the people. When blindness reftrain'd him from other exercises, he had a machine to fwing in, for the preservation of his health; and diverted himself in his chamber with playing on an organ. His deportment was erect, open, affable; his conversation easy, chearful, inftructive; his wit on all occafions at command, facetious, grave, or fatirical, as the fubje&t required. His judgment, when difengaged from religious and political fpeculations, was juft and penetrating; his apprehenfion, quick; his memory, tenacious of what he read; his reading, only not fo extenfive as his genius, for that was univerfal. And having treasured up such immense stores of fcience, perhaps the faculties of his foul grew more vigorous after he was deprived of his fight: and his imagination (naturally fublime, and inlarged by reading romances, * of which he was much enamour'd in his youth) when it was wholly abstracted His apology for Smedtymnuus. p. 177. Fol.

from material objects, was more at liberty to make fuch amazing excurfions into the ideal world, when, in compofing his divine work, he was tempted to range

Beyond the vifible diurnal Jphere.

With fo many accomplishments, not to have had fome faults and misfortunes, to be laid in the balance with the fame, and felicity, of writing PARADISE LOST, would have been too great a portion for humanity.

ELIJAH FENTON.

THE

VER S E.

By MILTON.

THE measure is English heroic verse without rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin; rime being no neceffary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verfe, in longer works efpecially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to fet off wretched matter and lame metre; graced indeed fince by the ufe of fome famous, modern poets, carried away by cuftom, but much to their own vexation, hinderance, and constraint to exprefs many things otherwise, and for the most part worse than elfe they would have expreffed them. Not without cause therefore, fome, both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rime both in longer and fhorter works, as have also long fince our best Englifh tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, trivial and of no true mufical delight; which confifts only in apt numbers, fit quantity of fyllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling found of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory. This neglect then of rime fo little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar readers, that it rather is to be esteemed an example fet, the first in English, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem, from the troublefome and modern bondage of riming.

PARADISE LOS T.

BOOK I.

THE ARGUMENT.

This first book proposes, first in brief, the whole fubject, man's difobedience, and the lofs thereupon of Paradife wherein he was placed: Then touches the prime caufe of bis fall, the Serpent, or rather Satan in the Serpent; who revolting from God, and drawing to bis fide many legions of angels, was by the command of God driven out of heaven, with all bis crew into the great deep. Which action paffed over, the poem haftes into the midst of things, prefenting Satan with bis angels now fallen into bell, defcribed here, not in the center (for heaven and earth may be Juppofed as yet not made, certainly not yet accurfed) but in a place of utter darknefs, fitlieft called Chaos: bere Satan with his angels, lying on the burning lake, thunderstruck and aftonifbed, after a certain Space recovers, as from confufion, calls up bim who next in order and dignity lay by him: they confer of their miferable fall. Satan awakens all bis legions, who lay till then in the fame manner confounded: they rife; their numbers, array of battle, their chief leaders named, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan, and the countries adjoining. To thefe Satan directs bis Speech, comforts them with hopes yet of regaining beaven, but tells them laftly of a new world, and new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy or report in