with him only as he appears in the page of Johnfon, must suppose him little formed for love; but his poetry in general, and especially the compositions we are now speaking of, may convince us, that he felt, with the most exquifite fenfibility, the magic of beauty, and all the force of female attraction. His feventh Elegy exhibits a lively picture of his firft paffion; he reprefents himself as captivated by an unknown fair, who, though he faw her but for a moment, made a deep impreffion on his heart. Protinus infoliti fubierunt corda furores, Uror amans intus, flammaque totus eram. Aft ego progredior tacite querebundus, & excors, A fever, new to me, of fierce defire Now feiz'd my foul, and I was all on fire; I paufe, I turn, proceed, yet wish to stay: The juvenile poet then addresses himself to love, with a requeft that beautifully expreffes all the inquietude, and all the irresolution, of hopeless attachment. Deme meos tandem, verum nec deme, furores; mifer eft fuaviter omnis amans. Nefcio cur, Remove, no, grant me ftill this raging woe; After having contemplated the youthful fancy of Milton under the influence of a fudden and vehement affection, let us furvey him in a different point of view, and admire the purity and vigor of mind, which he exerted at the age of twenty-three, in meditation on his paft and his future days. To a friend, who had remonftrated with him on his delay to enter upon active life, he afcribes that delay to an intense defire of rendering himfelf more fit for it. "Yet (he fays)" that you 66 may see that I am fomething fufpicious of my"felfe, and doe take notice of a certain belated"neffe in me, I am the bolder to fend you some of my night-ward thoughts, fome while fince, "because they come in not altogether unfitly, "made up in a Petrarchian stanza, which I told you of:" 66 How foon hath time, the fubtle thief of youth, But my late fpring no bud or bloffom fhow'th. Perhaps my femblance might deceive the truth, And inward ripenefs doth much less appear, To that fame lot, however mean or high, heaven; All is, if I have grace to use it fo, As ever in my great task-mafter's eye. This fonnet may be regarded, perhaps, as a refutation of that injurious criticism, which has afferted, "the best fonnets of Milton are entitled only to this negative commendation, that they are not bad;" but it has a fuperior value, which induced me to introduce it here, as it seems to reveal the ruling principle, which gave bias and energy to the mind and conduct of Milton; I mean the habit, which he fo early adopted, of confidering himself As ever in his great task-mafter's eye. " It was, perhaps, the force and permanency with which this perfuafion was impressed on his heart, that enabled him to afcend the fublimest heights, both of genius and of virtue. When Milton began his course of academical study, he had views of foon entering the church, to "whose service," he says, "by the intentions "of my parents and friends, I was deftined of "a child, and in mine own refolutions." It was a religious fcruple that prevented him from taking orders; and though his mode of thinking may be deemed erroneous, there is a refined and hallowed probity in his conduct on this occasion, that is entitled to the highest efteem; particularly when we confider, that although he declined the office of a minifter, he devoted himfelf, with intense application, to what he confidered as the intereft of true religion. The fincerity and fervor with which he speaks on this topic must be applauded by every candid perfon, however differing from him on points that relate to our religious eftablishment. "For me (fays this zealous and difinterefted "advocate for fimple chriftianity) I have deter"mined to lay up, as the best treafure and fo"lace of a good old age, if God vouchsafe it me, "the honeft liberty of free speech from my youth, where I fhall think it available in fo dear a "concernment as the church's good." In the polemical writings of Milton there is a merit to which few polemics can pretend; they were the pure dictates of confcience, and produced by the facrifice of his favorite purfitits: this he has ftated in the following very forcible and interefting language: "Concerning therefore this wayward fubject against prelaty, the touching whereof is fo dif"tafteful and difquietous to a number of men, 66 66 as by what hath been faid I may deserve of "charitable readers to be credited, that neither "envy nor gall hath entered me upon this con"troverfy, but the enforcement of confcience "only, and a preventive fear, left the omitting "of this duty fhould be against me, when I "would store up to myself the good provision "of peaceful hours: fo left it fhould be ftill imputed to be, as I have found it hath been, "that fome felf pleafing humor of vain glory "has incited me to conteft with men of high ef "timation, now while green years are upon my "head; from this needlefs furmifal I fhall hope to diffuade the intelligent and equal auditor, "if I can but fay fuccessfully, that which in this "exigent behoves me, although I would be “heard, only if it might be, by the elegant "and learned reader, to whom principally for "a while I fhall beg leave I may addrefs myfelf: to him it will be no new thing, though I " tell him, that if I hunted after praise by the "oftentation of wit and learning, I fhould not "write thus out of mine own feason, when I "have neither yet completed to my mind the "full circle of my private ftudies (although I "complain not of any infufficiency to the mat"ter in hand) or were I ready to my wifhes, "it were a folly to commit any thing elaborate"ly compofed to the careless and interrupted 66 liftening of these tumultuous times. Next, if "I were wife only to my own ends, I would |