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 complimen tary. 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 he 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."

ment of Boileau to Addison, and a pure compliment of ceremony upon Addison's early Latin verses, was (credite posteri!) the making of Addison in England. Understand, Schlosser, that Addison's Latin verses were never heard of by England, until long after his English prose had fixed the public attention upon him; his Latin reputation, so far from being the foundation upon which he built, was a slight reaction from his English* reputation: and, secondly, understand that Boileau had at no time any such authority in England as to make anybody's reputation; he had first of all to make his own. A sure proof of this is, that Boileau's name was first published in London by Prior's burlesque of what the Frenchman had called an ode. This gasconading ode celebrated the passage of the Rhine in 1672, and the capture of a famous fortress ("le fameux fort de Skink") by Louis XIV., known to London at the time of Prior's parody by the name of "Louis Baboon." That was not likely to recommend Master Boileau to any of the allies against the said Baboon, had it ever been heard of out of France. Nor was it likely to make him popular in England, that his name was first mentioned amidst shouts of laughter and mockery. It is another argument of the slight notoriety possessed by Boileau in England, that no attempt was ever made to translate even his satires, epistles, or "Lutrin," except by booksellers' hacks; and

* In Oxford, where naturally an academic reputation forestalls for any scholarlike student his more national reputation, some of Addison's Latin verses were probably the ground of his first premature notoriety. But in London, I believe that Addison was first made known by his "Blenheim" in 1704; most assuredly not by any academic exercise whatever.

+"Louis Baboon :"-As people read nothing in these days that is more than a month old, I am daily admonished that allusions the most obvious to anything in the rear of our own time need explanation. Louis Baboon is Swift's allegorico-jocular name for Louis Bourbon-i. e., Louis XIV.

that no such version ever took the slightest root amongst ourselves, spite of Skink, from Addison's day down to our own. Boileau was essentially, and in two senses-viz., both as to mind and as to influence-un homme borné.

Addison's "Blenheim "is poor enough; one might think it a translation from some German original of those times. Gottsched's aunt, or Bodmer's wet-nurse, might have written it; but still no fibs even as to "Blenheim." His "enemies" did not say this thing against "Blenheim "" aloud," nor his friends that thing against it "softly." And why? Because at that time (1704-5) he had made no particular enemies, nor any particular friends; unless by friends you mean his Whig patrons, and by enemies his creditors.

As to "Cato," Schlosser, as usual, wanders in the shadow of ancient night. The English "people," it seems, so “extravagantly applauded" this wretched drama, that you might suppose them to have "altogether changed their nature," and to have forgotten Shakspere. That man must have forgotten Shakspere, indeed, and from ramollissement of the brain, who could admire "Cato." "But," says Schlosser, "it was only a 'fashion;' and the English soon repented." The English could not repent of a crime which they had never committed. Cato was not popular for a moment, nor tolerated for a moment, upon any literary ground, or as a work of art. It was an apple of temptation and strife thrown by the goddess of faction between two infuriated parties. "Cato," coming from a man without parliamentary connections, would have dropped lifeless to the ground. The Whigs have always affected a special love and favour for popular counsels: they have never ceased to give themselves the best of characters as regards public freedom. The Tories, as contradistinguished from the Jacobites, knowing that without their aid, the Revolution could not have been carried, most