attracting notice by advertisements were then very few; the means of proclaiming the publication of new books have been produced by that general literature which now pervades the nation through all its ranks." In answer to what Johnson has advanced, let us ask in his own words, "Has the case been truly stated?" The century that was satisfied with but two editions of Shakspeare in forty-one years, called for three of Paradise Lost in ter, and three of Prince Arthur in two. "That Prince Arthur found readers," says Johnson," is certain; for in two years it had three editions; a very uncommon instance of favourable reception, at a time when literary curiosity was yet confined to particular classes of the nation." But it was no uncommon instance, for the same age demanded edition after edition of Cowley, of Waller, of Flatman, and of Sprat. There was no paucity of readers: the sale of Paradise Lost was slow because it was not to the taste of the times: our very plays were in rhyme; and the public looked with wonder on Shakspeare when improved by Shadwell, Ravenscroft, and Tate. Dryden, who wrote when Cowley was in the full blaze of his reputation, and Milton neglected and unknown, lived long enough to see and tell of a distinct change in public opinion, and Milton stand where Cowley had stood. That the sale of thirteen hundred copies of a three-shilling book in two years was an uncommon example of the prevalence of genius, Mr. Wordsworth was among the first to disprove. Yet so difficult is it to eradicate an error insinuatingly advanced by a popular author, that Johnson's overthrown statement has been printed without contradiction in every edition of his Lives, and has found an additional stronghold for its perpetuity in the Works of Lord Byron. "Milton's politics kept him down," says Byron; "but the epigram of Dryden, and the very sale of his work, in proportion to the less reading time of its publication, prove him to have been honoured by his contemporaries*." But Blackmore, who wrote when literary curiosity was yet confined, if we may believe Johnson, to particular classes of the nation, has told us in an acknowledged work that Paradise Lost lay many years unspoken of and entirely disregarded. No better testimony could possibly be wished for; and as the passage has hitherto passed without extract or allusion, we shall quote it at length "It must be acknowledged," says Sir Richard Blackmore," that till about forty years ago Great Britain was barren of critical learning, though fertile in excellent writers; and in particular had so little taste for epic Poetry, and were so unacquainted with the essential properties and peculiar beauties of it, that Paradise Lost, an admirable work of that kind, published by Mr. Milton, the great ornament of his age and country, lay many years unspoken of and entirely disregarded, till at * Works, vol. v. p. 15. length it happened that some persons of greater delicacy and judgment found out the merit of that excellent poem, and by communicating their sentiments to their friends, propagated the esteem of || the author, who soon acquired universal applause +." To strengthen Blackmore in a position which is the very reverse of Johnson, there are other authorities and circumstances, less curious, it is true, but still of interest. "Never any poet," writes Dennis, "left a greater reputation behind him than Mr. Cowley, while Milton remained obscure, and known but to few.” "When Milton first published his famous poem," Swift writes to Sir Charles Wogan, "the first edition was long going off; few either read, liked, or understood it, and it gained ground merely by its merit." But it had other assistance: "It was your lordship's encouraging," writes Hughes to Lord Somers, "a beautiful edition of Paradise Lost that first brought that incomparable poem to be generally known and esteemed §." This was in 1688; and such, if we may judge the present by the past, was then the influence of Lord Somers, that in a dedication of Swift's Tale of a Tub to the same great man, the bookseller says with ill-concealed satisfaction and in a very grateful strain, “Your Lordship's name on the front, in capital letters, will at any time get off one edition." Whatever Somers did, the poem had made no great way till Philips published his Splendid Shilling, Addison his translation from Virgil, and his delightful papers in The Spectator, that seem to have written it into reputation. True it is, we must add, that it had been called by Dryden in 1674, when its author was but newly in his grave, "one of the greatest, most noble, and most sublime poems, which either the age or nation has produced |;" that The State of Innocence was suggested by it; that Dryden, the most popular of living poets, and the great critic of our nation, had repeatedly published his high approval, and, better still, had turned his glorious epigram in its praise; nay more, that the Earl of Roscommon, who was dead in 1684, had written in Milton's measure and manner T. Yet Johnson would have us believe that its admirers did not dare to publish their opinions! But all were not of his way of thinking; and Rymer, who was in poetry what his name would denote, could speak of it in 1678, as "that Paradise Lost of Milton's, which some are pleased to call a poem **;" and Prior and Montague, of its author, in 1687, as “a + Essays, 8vo. 1716. Familiar Letters. § Spenser's Works, 12mo. 1715. Dedication. Pr. Works by Malone, vol. ii. p. 397. In another place (vol. ii. p. 403), he puts Milton on the same footing with Homer, Virgil, and Tasso. This was in 1675. See page 280 of this volume. **Letter to Fleetwood Shepherd on the Tragedies of the Last Age, p. 143. rough unhewn fellow, that a man must sweat to read him *." This was the general feeling of the age; and the truth is, as Sir Walter Scott has observed †, that the coldness with which Milton's mighty epic was received upon the first publication, is traceable to the character of its author, so obnoxious for his share in the government of Cromwell, to the turn of the language, so different from that of the age, and the seriousness of a subject so discordant with its lively frivolities. A Christian poem, that should have found its greatest admirers and received its warmest advancement from the Established Church, met there with open and avowed opposition. Milton, hateful as he was to the churchmen for the violence of his political tenets, The Hind and the Panther Tranversed, &c. Bayes says after quoting a liquid line, "I writ this line r the ladies, I hate such a rough unhewn fellow as Milton," &c. Misc. Pr. Works, vol. i. p. 141, encountered in the whole collected body of established clergy, that dislike which Sprat when Dean of Westminster professed to feel at the mention of his name,-a name too odious, as he said, to be engraven on the walls of a Christian church. What the clergy should have read, honoured, and encouraged for their cloth, if not for their conscience' sake, was left in the same disregarded state by the laity, who did not profess or wish for once to be wiser than those whose duty it was to direct their minds to good and holy books, and Milton worked his way against every obstacle slowly but surely. No poem ever appeared in an age less fitted or less inclined to read, like, or understand it than did Paradise Lost 1. Yet Mr. Hallam is inclined to think that the sale was great for the time, and adds, "I have some few doubts, whether Paradise Lost, published eleven years since, would have met with a greater demand."-Lit. Hist. vol. iv. p. 427. C. ANNE COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA, [Died 1720,] Was the daughter of Sir William Kingsmill of Sidmonton in the county of Southampton, maid of honour to the duchess of York, and wife to Heneage earl of Winchelsea. A collection of her poems was printed in 1713; several still remain unpublished. "It is remarkable," says Wordsworth, "that excepting the Nocturnal Reverie, and a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the poetry of the period intervening between the publication of Paradise Lost and The Seasons does not contain a single new image of external nature." A NOCTURNAL REVERIE. In such a night, when every louder wind When through the gloom more venerable shows O'er all below a solemn quiet grown, Joys in the inferior world and thinks it like her own: Till morning breaks, and all 's confused again; GENERAL INDEX. The Roman numerals refer to the Essay;-the Arabic figures, to the body of the Book. ABSENCE. Jago, 565. ADDISON (Joseph), specimens of, 338, 339. Elegy on the Death of. Tickell, 367. Agrippina, a Fragment. Gray, 508. AKENSIDE (Mark), notice of, 488; allusion to, 548. Specimens of, 489-494. ALEXANDER (William). See STERLINE (Earl of). America, discovery and happiness of, predicted. Dwight, 617. Anacreontics, by Oldmixon, 370. Angler's wish. Walton, 279. Anglo-Saxon Language, influence of the Norman Conquest When it began to be English, xxx. ANONYMOUS Poets, specimens of, 186, 210, 286, 320, 516, ANSTEY (Christopher), notices of, 291, 695. Specimen of his Bath Guide, 695–697. Argalia, adventures of. Chamberlayn, 202–208. Athens described. Milton, 259. Poem said to have been written by, 77. Bale (Bishop), an early dramatic author, lvii. Robene and Makyne. Henrysone, 20. On a Wedding. Sir J. Suckling, 181. From the What-d'ye-call-it. Gay, 356. Sir Charles Bawden. Chatterton, 498. May-Eve, or Kate of Aberdeen. Cunningham, 517. BAMPFYLDE (John), Sonnets by, 639, 640. BARKLAY (Alexander), critical notice of, xlix. Bateson's Madrigals, specimens from, 61. Bath, public breakfast at, described. Anstey, 695-697. Baucis and Philemon, a Tale. Swift, 383. BEATTIE (Dr. James), account of, 687. His admiration of Thomson, 403. BEAUMONT (Francis), and FLETCHER (John), notices of, 86, 87. Specimens of their dramatic productions, 88-99. BEAUMONT (Sir John), notice of, 105. Specimen of his Poems, 105. Further Extracts from, 701. Beauty, vanity of. Gascoigne, 39. Final cause of our pleasure in. Akenside, 491. Mental. Akenside, 492. Bedford (Lucy, Countess of), epigram on. Ben Jonson, 146. Bird's Collection of Songs, specimens from, 60. BISHOP (Rev. Samuel), specimens of, 638, 639. Specimens of, 627. BLACKSTONE (Sir Wm.), specimen of, 563. Specimens of, 400-402. BOOTH (Barton), specimen of, 357. Bowles (Rev. Mr.), his strictures on Pope, remarks on, lxxxvi-xc, 375. BRATHWAITE (Richard), specimen of, 256. BRAMSTON (James), specimen of, 389-392. BRERETON (Jane), Poem attributed to Lord Chesterfield, written by, 521. BRETON (Nicholas), lxv, 84. Specimens of his Poems, 85. Specimens of his Poems, 230, 231. BROWN (Dr. John), notice of, 473. BROWN (Thomas), specimens of, 315, 316. Extracts from, 189, 190. BRUCE (Michael), notices of, 476, 604. BULTEEL (John), specimen of the Poetry of, 246. Thought borrowed from Dr. Young, 467, note. His opinion of Cowper's Task, 676, note. BUTLER (Samuel), specimens of, 269-279; alluded to, lxxxii. Epigram by, 516. CHURCHILL (Charles), notice of, 454; alluded to, 583, 584. CIBBER (Colley), specimen of, 433. Ode on a Pipe of Tobacco, in imitation of. I. H. Cleveland (John), his knotted deformities, Ixxii. Of Beaumont and Fletcher, lxxvii, note. Collier (John Payne), his character of Brathwaite's Strap- COLLINS (William), notice of, 429. Specimens of, 430–433. A Sonnet by, 663, note. His Poems, 664. His History of the Revival of Learning, 666, nole. CONSTABLE (Henry), 84. Sonnet by, 84. Content, a pastoral. Cunningham, 516. Contentment, hymn to. Parnell, 331. Ode on. Harte, 541. COOPER (John Gilbert), Song attributed to, 479. Song by, 479. Cooper's Hill described. Sir J. Denham, 242. CORBET (Bishop), Notice of and Extract from, 1xvi, 134-136. Commendatory Poems, their importance in biography, 87, note. COTTON (Charles), notice of, 291. Specimens of, 292–297. COTTON (Nathaniel), specimen of, 615. Country Justice, duties of. Langhorne, 552. Country Life described. Herrick, 233. COWLEY (Abraham), notices of, lxxii, lxxix, 233, 234. Critical remarks on it, Note upon, 238. Line in imitated by Cowper, 675, note; his country- COWPER (William), account of, 669-676. Specimens of, 676-684. Compared with Thomson, 402, 403. Notes on Milton by, lxxx, lxxxi. Of similes, lxxxvii, note. CRASHAW (Richard), notice of, 198. Specimen of his Poems, 192-200. CRAWFURD (William), Songs by, 424. Croker (J. W.), note on Dr. Young by, 387. On the identity of Thales with Savage, 572. Cromwell's Conspiracy, a Tragi-Comedy, extract from, 210. Cunningham (Allan), notes by, 345, 661, 663. Life of Burns by, characterised, 643. CUNNINGHAM (John), specimens of, 516. DANIEL (Samuel), notice and specimen of, lxiii, lxv, lxvi, DARWIN (Dr. Erasmus), notice of, 684-687. Brooke's "Universal Beauty" the prototype of his DAVENANT (Sir William), notices of, lxxxiii, 239. Specimens of Gondibert, 240–242. Davie (Adam), an early English poet, notice of, xli. Specimen of his Poems, 100-102. Davison's Rhapsody, specimen from, 58. Specimens of his Poems, 160, 161. Specimens of his Poetry, 242-246. Description of such a one as he would love. Sir T. Spring described. Earl of Surrey, 33. A prisoner's reflections on his past happiness. The A lover's request for comfort. Rich. Edwards, 34. Arraignment of a lover. Gascoigne, 38. Una followed by the lion. Spenser, 47. Description of the witch Duessa's journey to the in- The Bower of Bliss. The same, 52. Glauce and Britomart exploring the Cave of Merlin. Belphœbe finding Timias wounded. Spenser, 55. Mercy dwelling in heaven, and pleading for the Morning, birds, and hunting of the deer. The same, The priestess of Diana. Chalkhill, Ixvii. The image of jealousy. The same, Ixvii. Evening. The same, 190. Death of Rosamond. May, 197. Soliloquy of Satan, Crashaw, 198. To Meadows. Herrick, 232. To Daffodils. The same, 232. To Blossoms. The same, 232. The Country Life. The same, 233. The Complaint. Cowley, 235. The Waiting-Maid. The same, 236. Honour. The same, 237. Wit. The same, 237. The father of Rhodalind offering her to Duke Gondi- bert. Davenant, 240. |