a supreme degree by Milton in this performance. You will particularly remark, that it is rare to meet with two contiguous lines which have corresponding pauses; and that the termination on the tenth syllable occurs with no greater frequency than is necessary to mark the prevailing measure. There is a considerable intermixture of lines so imperfectly versified that they are scarcely distinguished from prose. It is probable that the author sometimes designed these irregularities, as productive of some effect correspondent to the subject; but they may often be more justly attributed to that negligence which is so apt to intrude in a long work, and which the poet's infirmity of blindness rendered almost unavoidable. I confess, that even the authority of Milton would make me unwilling to admit that discords are ever necessary to prevent the ear from being satiated with the melody of our blank verse; and I conceive that change in the pauses will produce all desirable variety of modulation, without any infraction of the rules of so lax a metre.

The perusal of Paradise Lost has been represented by some of its most magnificent eulogists rather as a task than a pleasure. Accomplish this task, however, once with attention. Make yourself mistress of the whole plan of the work: endeavour to understand all the classical and theological allusions in it as far as notes will explain them to you, and for that purpose provide yourself with Newton's edition, or any later one equally furnished with explanations: mark in your progress the passages that most strike and please you :—and then assure yourself that you are possessed for life of a source of exquisite entertainment, capable of elevating the mind under depression, and of recalling the taste from a fondness for tinsel and frivolity, to a relish for all that is solidly grand and beautiful.

When you have gone through the Paradise Lost, you will probably feel little inclination directly to undertake the " Paradise Regained;" and indeed I would recommend the interposition of some other

author before you take up the resembling, but inferior, work of the same poet. I shall here, however, in order to preserve a continuity of subject, subjoin a few observations on this production of Milton's declining years.

Paradise Regained was written as a theological supplement to Paradise Lost, and it bears every indication of its subordinate character. It is grave and argumentative, little enlivened by flights of fancy or interesting situations. It has more of dialogue than action, for the latter is comprised in one event, the temptation of Christ in the wilderness; in which, the only two persons concerned are so unequal in dignity, that no doubt can ever arise as to the result. The versification of the poem is still more careless than that of the most neglected parts of the former work; and the diction is frequently flat and unanimated. Yet it contains many pleasing sketches of rural scenery; and its pictures of the three capitals, Rome, Athens, and

Ctesiphon, are unrivalled in that species of descriptive poetry. Many of its moral sentences are likewise worthy of being retained, if you can separate them from the general mass of theological matter. I do not mean to insinuate that moral duties are best considered apart from religious principles; but Milton's system of divinity is not perhaps the most rational to which you might be directed. Yet it would not be easy to find a passage of purer theology, than that which he gives as the reply of our Saviour to Satan's defence of the love of glory, on the ground that God himself requires and receives glory from all nations:

And reason! since his word all things produc'd,
Though chiefly not for glory as prime end,
But to show forth his goodness, and impart
His good communicable to every soul
Freely; of whom what could he less expect
Than glory and benediction, that is, thanks,
The slightest, easiest, readiest recompense
From them who could return him nothing else?

The last work of our great poet is his

Samson Agonistes," a dramatic composition, but still less than his Comus adapted to a modern stage. In this piece he has copied the severe simplicity of the Grecian theatre, whose "lofty grave tragedians," according to his own description, taught "moral wisdom in sententious precepts." This mood best suited his declining years, in which fancy was cooled, whilst every serious impression was enhanced, and had acquired additional austerity. It would be vain to expect either high poetry, or impassioned tenderness, in this performance; but what the author intended, he has well executed. He has furnished a store of weighty philosophical and pious maxims, expressed with nervous brevity; and has exhibited a striking example of patient endurance and resignation in adversity, accompanied with invincible courage. Indeed, Milton had been brought up in no school of passive submission; and it is easy to see to what events of his time he alludes in the following spirited lines: