X.

From a Letter to John Wilmot, Esq.*

"My life is one unvaried scene of writing letters, and attending the donzelle vezzose e tenerolle, by whose beauties I confess myself easily overcome.

"I have just read Robertson's Life of Charles the Fifth, the narrative of which is amusing and instructive, and the style flowing and elegant: but the former wants that spirit and fire of genius, that alone can make a history animated, and leave great impressions on the mind; and the latter has too great a sameness in the turn of the sentences, and abounds with too many affected words.

"I have also given my favourite Petrarch a second reading, and was so much pleased with his lamentations over Laura, that I selected the most beautiful passages, and threw them all together in the form of an elegy, which I send you enclosed, but beg you will return it as soon as you can, as I have no other copy. I fear I shall not be at Oxford this spring, but am not certain. Give my compli

• This letter was written from Wimbledon in the spring of 1769.

ments to Poore, and tell him, if he will descend from the starry temple of philosophy, and write to a very idle fellow, I shall be glad to hear from him; especially as I am desirous of knowing his sentiments about my treatise, De Poësi Asiaticâ."

XI.

To Lady Spencer."

September 7, 1769.

THE necessary trouble of correcting the first printed sheets of my history prevented me to-day from paying a proper respect to the memory of Shakspeare, by attending his jubilee: but I was resolved to do all the honour in my power to so great a poet, and set out in the morning, in company with a friend, to visit a place, where Milton spent some part of his life, and where, in all probability, he

Mr. Jones had been appointed private tutor to lord Althorpe, now earl Spencer. In the summer of 1768, his lordship was settled at Harrow, and Mr. Jones accompanied him thither. During the autumnal vacation of the ensuing year, he (Mr. Jones) visited his friends at Oxford, and made an excursion to Forest-hill, the occasional habits. tion of Milton. The public will read with pleasure, in the following animated letter, his relation of what he saw and felt on this occasion.

composed several of his earliest productions. It is a small village, situated on a pleasant hill, about three miles from Oxford, called Forest Hill, because it formerly lay contiguous to a forest, which has since been cut down. The poet chose this place of retirement after his first marriage; and he de. scribes the beauties of his retreat, in that fine passage of his L'Allegro :

While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid singeth blythe,
And the mower whets his scythe;
And every shepherd tells his tale,
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landscape round it measures:

Russet lawns, and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast,
The labouring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim, with daisies pied;
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
Towers and battlements it sees,
Bosom'd high in tufted trees.

It was neither the proper season of the year, nor time of the day, to hear all the rural sounds, and see all the objects mentioned in this description; but, by a pleasing concurrence of circumstances, we

were saluted, on our approach to the village, with the music of the mower and his scythe; we saw the ploughman intent upon his labour, and the milkmaid returning from her country employment.

As we ascended the hill, the variety of beautiful objects, the agreeable stillness and natural simplicity of the whole scene, gave us the highest pleasure. We at length reached the spot whence Milton undoubtedly took most of his images: it is on the top of the hill, from which there is a most extensive prospect on all sides: the distant mountains, that seemed to support the clouds; the villages and turrets, partly shaded with trees of the finest verdure, and partly raised above the groves that surrounded them; the dark plains and meadows of a grayish colour, where the sheep were feeding at large; in short, the view of the streams and rivers convinced us that there was not a single useless or idle word in the above-mentioned description, but that it was a most exact and lively representation of nature. Thus will this fine

passage, which has always been admired for its elegance, receive an additional beauty from its exactness. After we had walked, with a kind of poetical enthusiasm, over this enchanted ground, we returned to the village.

The poet's house was close to the church; the greatest part of it has been pulled down, and what remains belongs to an adjacent farm. I am informed, that several papers, in Milton's own hand, were found by the gentleman who was last in possession of the estate. The tradition of his having lived there is current among the villagers: one of them showed us a ruinous wall that made part of

his chamber; and I was much pleased with another, who had forgotten the name of Milton, but récollected him by the title of The Poet.

It must not be omitted, that the groves near this village are famous for nightingales, which are so elegantly described in the Penseroso. Most of the cottage windows are overgrown with sweet-briers, vines, and honey-suckles; and that Milton's habitation had the same rustic ornament, we may conclude, from his description of the lark bidding him good-morrow,

Through the sweet-brier, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:

for it is evident, that he meant a sort of honeysuckle by the eglantine; though that word is commonly used for the sweet-brier, which he could not mention twice in the same couplet.

If I ever pass a month or six weeks at Oxford in the summer, shall be inclined to hire and repair this venerable mansion, and to make a festival for a circle of friends, in honour of Milton, the most perfect scholar, as well as the sublimest poet, that our country ever produced. Such an honour will be less splendid, but more sincere and respectful, than all the pomp and ceremony on the banks of the Avon.

I have the honour, &c.