pretends, when he took so much pains to inoculate that public with a sense of the Miltonic grandeur. The "Paradise Lost" had then been published barely forty years, which was nothing in an age without reviews or any other organs of literary advertisement; and though no Addison could eventually promote, for the instant he quickened, the circulation. If I recollect, Tonson's accurate revision of the text followed immediately upon Addison's papers. And it is certain that Addison* must have diffused the knowledge of Milton upon the Continent, from signs that soon followed. But does not this prove that I myself have been in the wrong as well as Schlosser? No; that's impossible. Schlosser is always in the wrong; but it's the next thing to an impossibility that I should be detected in an error: philosophically speaking, it is supposed to involve a contradiction. “But surely I said the very same thing as Schlosser, by assenting to what he said." Maybe I did; but then I have time to make a distinction, because my article is not yet finished; we are only at the beginning; whereas Schlosser can't make any distinction now, because his book is printed; and his list of errata (which is shocking, though he does not confess to the thousandth part) is actually published and finished. My distinction is, that, though Addison generally hated the impassioned, and shrank from it as from a fearful thing, yet this was when it combined with forms of life and fleshly realities (as in dramatic works), but not when it combined with elder forms of eternal abstractions. Hence he did not

* It is an idea of many people, and erroneously sanctioned by Wordsworth, that Lord Somers gave a powerful lift to the "Paradise Lost." He was a subscriber to the sixth edition, the first that had plates; but this was some years before the Revolution of 1688, and when he was simply Mr Somers, a barrister, with no effectual power of literary patronage.

read, and did not like, Shakspere; the music was here too rapid and life-like: but he sympathised profoundly with the solemn cathedral-chanting of Milton. An appeal to his sympathies which exacted quick changes in those sympathies he could not meet, but a more stationary key of solemnity he could. Indeed, this difference is illustrated daily. A long list can be cited of passages in Shakspere which have been solemnly denounced by many eminent men (all blockheads) as ridiculous: and if a man does find a passage in a tragedy which displeases him, it is sure to seem ludicrous. Witness the indecent exposures of themselves made by Voltaire, La Harpe, and many billions beside of bilious people. Whereas, of all the shameful people (equally billions and not less bilious) that have presumed to quarrel with Milton, not one has thought him ludicrous, but only dull and somnolent. In "Lear" and in "Hamlet," as in a human face agitated by passion, are many things that tremble on the brink of the ludicrous to an observer endowed with small range of sympathy or intellect. But no man ever found the starry heavens ludicrous, though many find them dull, and prefer, for a near view, a decanter of brandy. So, in the solemn wheelings of the Miltonic movement, Addison could find a sincere delight. But the sublimities of earthly misery and of human frenzy were for him a book sealed. Beside all which, Milton renewed the types of Grecian beauty as to form; whilst Shakspere, without designing at all to contradict these types, did so in effect by his fidelity to a new nature, radiating from a Gothic centre.

In the midst, however, of much just feeling, which one could only wish a little deeper, in the Addisonian papers on "Paradise Lost," there are some gross blunders of criticism, as there are in Dr Johnson, and from the self-same

cause-an understanding suddenly palsied from defective passion. A feeble capacity of passion must, upon a question of passion, constitute a feeble range of intellect. But, after all, the worst thing uttered by Addison in these papers is not against Milton, but meant to be complimentary. Towards enhancing the splendour of the great poem, he tells us that it is a Grecian palace as to amplitude, symmetry, and architectural skill: but, being in the English language, it is to be regarded as if built in brick; whereas, had it been so happy as to be written in Greek, then it would have been a palace built in Parian marble. Indeed? that's smart-"that's handsome, I calculate!" Yet, before a man undertakes to sell his mother-tongue as old pewter trucked against gold, he should be quite sure of his own metallurgic skill; because else the gold that he buys may happen to be copper, and the pewter that he sells to be silver. Are you quite sure, my Addison, that you have understood the powers of this language which you toss away so lightly as an old tea-kettle? Is it a ruled case that you have exhausted its resources? Nobody doubts your grace in a certain line of composition; but it is only one line among many, and it is far from being amongst the highest. It is dangerous, without examination, to sell even old kettles; misers conceal old stockings filled with guineas in old teakettles: and we all know that Aladdin's servant, by exchanging an old lamp for a new one, caused an Iliad of calamities: his master's palace jumped from Bagdad to some place on the road to Ashantee; Mrs Aladdin and the piccaninnies were carried off as inside passengers; and Aladdin himself only escaped being lagged for a rogue and a conjurer by a flying jump after his palace. Now, mark the folly of man. Most of the people I am going to mention subscribed generally to the supreme excellence of

Milton, but each wished for a little change to be made, which, and which only, was wanted to perfection. Dr Johnson, though he pretended to be satisfied with the "Paradise Lost," even in what he regarded as the undress of blank verse, still secretly wished it in rhyme. That's No. 1. Addison, though quite content with it in English, still could have wished it in Greek. That's No. 2. Bentley, though admiring the blind old poet in the highest degree, still observed, smilingly, that after all he was blind. He, therefore, Slashing Dick,* could have wished that the great man had always been surrounded by honest people; but, as that was not to be, he could have wished that his amanuensis had been hanged; yet, as that also had become impossible, he could wish to do execution upon him in effigy, by sinking, burning, and destroying his handiwork; upon which basis of posthumous justice he proceeded to amputate all the finest passages in the poem. Slashing Dick was No. 3. Payne Knight, who in his own person had rendered services to literature, was a severer man even than Slashing Dick. He professed to look upon the first book of "Paradise Lost" as the finest thing that earth had to show; but, for that very reason, he could have wished, by your leave, to see the other eleven books sawed off, and sent overboard; because, though tolerable perhaps in another situation, they really were a national disgrace when standing behind that unrivalled portico of Book I. There goes No. 4. Then came a fellow, whose name was either not on his title-page, or I have forgotten

*Slashing was the characteristic epithet by which Pope described Bentley, in allusion, generally, to Bentley's bold style of practice in critical correction, but specially to his furious ravages up and down the "Paradise Lost," on the plea that Milton's amanuensis, whosoever ho might be, had taken a base advantage of the great poet's blindness.

it, that pronounced the poem to be laudable, and full of good materials; but still he could have wished that the materials had been put together in a more workmanlike manner; which kind office he set about himself. He made a general clearance of all lumber; the expression of every thought he entirely re-cast; and he fitted up the metre with beautiful patent rhymes-not, I believe, out of any consideration for Dr Johnson's comfort, but on principles of mere abstract decency; as it was, the poem seemed naked, and yet was not ashamed. There went No. 5. Him succeeded a droller fellow than any of the rest. A French bookseller had caused a prose French translation to be made of the "Paradise Lost," without particularly noticing its English origin, or at least not in the title-page. Our friend No. 6, getting hold of this as an original French romance, translated it back into English prose, as a satisfactory novel for the season. His little mistake was at length discovered, and communicated to him with shouts of laughter; on which, after considerable kicking and plunging (for a man cannot but turn restive when he finds that he has not only got the wrong sow by the ear, but actually sold the sow to a bookseller), the poor translator was tamed into sulkiness; in which state he observed that he could have wished his own work, being evidently so much superior to the earliest form of the romance, might be admitted by the courtesy of England to take the precedency as the original " Paradise Lost," and to supersede the very rude performance of "Milton, Mr John."*

Schlosser makes the astounding assertion, that a compli

"Milton, Mr John:"-Dr Johnson expressed his wrath, in an amusing way, at some bookseller's hack, who, when employed to make an index, introduced Milton's name among the M's, and by way of being particularly civil, as Milton, Mr John."

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