of cloathing the fabulous atchievements of the early British kings and champions in the gorgepus trappings of epic attire, he wrote SMECTYMNUUS and TETRACHORDON, apologies for fanatical preachers and the doctrine of divorce. In his travels, he had intended to vifit Sicily and Athens, countries connected with his finer feelings, interwoven with his poetical ideas, and impressed upon his imagination by his habits of reading, and by long and intimate converse with the Grecian literature. But fo prevalent were his patriotic attachments, that hearing in Italy of the commencement of the national quarrel, instead of proceeding forward to feaft his fancy with the contemplation of fcenes familiar to Theocritus and Homer, the pines of Etna and the paftures of Peneus, he abruptly changed his course, and hastily returned home to plead the cause of ideal liberty. Yet in this chaos of controverfy, amidst endless disputes concerning religious and political reformation, independency, prelacy, tythes, toleration, and tyranny, he fometimes feems to have heaved a figh for the peaceable enjoyments of lettered folitude, for his congenial purfuits, and the more mild and ingenuous exercises of the mufe.. In a Letter to Henry Oldenburgh, written in 1654, he fays," Hoc "cum libertatis adverfus inopinatum certamen, "DIVERSIS longe et AMANIORIBUS omnino "me ftudiis intentum, ad fe rapuit IMITUM." * PROSE WORKS, ii. 574. And And in one of his profe-tracts, "I may one day hope to have ye again in a ftill time, "when there shall be no Chiding. Not in thefe "Noifes." And in another, having mentioned fome of his fchemes for epic poetry and tragedy, "of highest hope and hardest attempting” he adds, “With what fmall willingness "I endure to interrupt the pursuit of no less hopes than these, and leave a calm and pleaf"ing folitarineffe, fed with chearful and confi"dent thoughts, to imbark in a troubled fea of "noifes and hoarfe difputes, from beholding the 66 64 66 号 bright countenance of truth in the quiet and "still air of delightfull studies, &c." "He ftill, however, obftinately perfifted in what he thought his duty. But furely thefe fpeculations fhould have been configned to the enthufiafts of the age, to fuch restlefs and wayward fpirits as Prynne, Hugh Peters, Goodwyn, and Baxter. Minds less refined, and faculties lefs elegantly cultivated, would have been better employed in this task. Coarfe complexions, 1 And cheeks of forry grain, will serve to ply a APOL. SMECTYM. See PROSE WORKS, i. p. 103. b CH. GOVERNM. B. ii. ut fupr. vol. i. p. 61. Comus, v. 750. For For obvious reasons, the Latin poems of this volume can never acquire the popularity of the English. But as it is my wish that they may be better known than before, and as they are in this edition, partly on that account, and for the firft time, accompanied with a series of Notes of proportionably equal extent with those attached to the English text, I have thought it proper to introduce them to the reader's acquaintance by fome general remarks, from which an estimate of their character might be preparatively formed, and at one view. Our author is faid to be the first Englishman, who after the restoration of letters wrote Latin verses with claffic elegance. But we must at leaft except fome of the hendecafyllables and epigrams of Leland, one of our firft literary reformers, from this hafty determination. In the Elegies, Ovid was profeffedly Milton's model for language and verfification. They are not, however, a perpetual and uniform tiffue of Ovidian phrafeology. With Ovid in view, he has an original manner and character of his own, which exhibit a remarkable perfpicuity of contexture, a native facility and fluency. Nor does his obfervation of Roman models opprefs or deftroy our great poet's inherent powers of invention and sentiment. I value these pieces as much for H for their fancy and genius, as for their style and expreffion. That Ovid among the Latin poets was Milton's favourite, appears not only from his elegiac but his hexametric poetry. The versification of our author's hexameters has yet a different ftructure from that of the Metamorphofes : Milton's is more clear, intelligible, and flowing; lefs defultory, lefs familiar, and lefs embarraffed with a frequent recurrence of periods. Ovid is at once rapid and abrupt. He wants dignity: he has too much converfation in his manner of telling a ftory. Prolixity of paragraph, and length of sentence, are peculiar to Milton. This is feen, not only in fome of his exordial invocations in the PARADISE LOST, and in many of the religious addreffes of a like caft in the profe-works, but in his long verfe. It is to be wished that in his Latin compofitions of all forts, he had been more attentive to the fimplicity of Lucretius, Virgil, and Tibullus. Dr. Johnson, unjustly I think, prefers the Latin poetry of May and Cowley to that of Milton, and thinks May to be the first of the three. May is certainly a fonorous verfifier, and was fufficiently accomplished in poetical declamation for the continuation of Lucan's PHARSALIA. But May is scarcely an author in point. His skill is in paVOL. I. rody; C rody; and he was confined to the peculiarities of an archetype, which, it may be prefumed, he thought excellent. As to Cowley when compared with Milton, the fame critic obferves, Milton is generally content to express the thoughts of the ancients in their language: Cowley, without much lofs of purity or ele66 gance, accommodates the diction of Rome to "his own conceptions.-The advantage feems "to lie on the fide of Cowley." But what are thefe conceptions? Metaphyfical conceits, all the unnatural extravagancies of his English poetry; fuch as will not bear to be cloathed in the Latin language, much lefs are capable of admitting any degree of pure Latinity. I will give a few inftances, out of a great multitude, from the DAVIDEIS. Hic fociatorum facra conftellatio vatum, Temporis ingreditur penetralia celfa futuri, And, to be short, we have the Plufquam vifus aquilinus of lovers, Natio verborum, Exuit vitam aeriam, Menti auditur fymphonia dulcis, Naturæ archiva, Omnes fymmetria fenfus con • See Cowley's POEMATA LATINA, Lond. 1668. 8vo. p. 398. Ibid. p. 399 |