That breathes upon a bank of violets, This fimilitude is remarkable not only for the beauty of the image that it presents, but likewise for the exactness to the thing compared. This is a way of teaching peculiar to the Pocts; that, when they would describe the nature of any thing, they do it not by a direct enumeration of its attributes or qualities, but by bringing fomething into comparison, and describing these qualities of it that are of the kind with those in the thing compared. So, here for inftance, the Poet willing to inftruct in the properties of musick, in which the fame ftrains have a power to excite pleasure, or pain, according to that state of mind the hearer is then in, does it by prefenting the image of a sweet South wind blowing o'er a violet-bank; which wafts away the odour of the violets, and at the fame time communicates to it, its own sweetness: by this infinuating, that affecting musick, tho' it takes away the natural fweet tranquillity of the mind, yet, at the fame time, communicates a pleasure the mind felt not before. This knowledge, of the fame objects being capable of raising two contrary affections, is a proof of no ordinary progrefs in the study of human nature. The general beauties of those two poems of MILTON, intitled, L'Allegro and Il Penforofo, are obvious to all readers, because the defcriptions are the most poetical in the world; yet there is a peculiar beauty in those two excellent pieces, that will much much enhance the value of them to the more capable readers; which has never, I think, been obferved. The images, in each poem, which he raises to excite mirth and melancholy, are exactly the fame, only fhewn in different attitudes. Had a writer, lefs acquainted with nature, given us two poems on these fubjects, he would have been fure to have fought out the most contrary images to raise these contrary paffions. And, particularly, as Shakespeare, in the paffage I am now commenting, speaks of thefe different effects in mufick; fo Milton has brought it into each poem as the exciter of each affection: and left we fhould mistake him, as meaning that different airs had this different power, (which every fidler is proud to have you understand,) he gives the image of those self-fame ftrains that Orpheus used to regain Eurydice, as proper both to excite mirth and melancholy. But Milton moft industriously copied the conduct of our Shakespeare, in paffages that fhewed an intimate acquaintance with nature and science. I have not thought it out of my province, whenever occafion offered, to take notice of fome of our Poet's grand touches of nature: Some, that do not appear fuperficially fuch; but in which he seems the moft deeply inftructed; and to which, no doubt, he has fo much owed that happy preservation of his Characters, for which he is juftly celebrated. If he was not acquainted with the rule as delivered by Horace, his own admi a 4 admirable genius pierced into the neceffity of fuch a rule. -Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incapto procefferit, & fibi conftet. For what can be more ridiculous, than, in our modern writers, to make a debauched young man, immersed in all the vices of his age and time, in a few hours take up, confine himself in the way of honour to one woman, and moralize in good earnest on the follies of his past behaviour? Nor can, that great examplar of Comic writing, Terence, be altogether excused in this regard; who, in his Adelphi, has left Demea in the laft fcenes fo unlike himself: whom, as ShakeSpeare expreffes it, he has turn'd with the feamy fide of his wit outward.' This conduct, as errors are more readily imitated than perfections, Beaumont and Fletcher feem to have followed in a character in their Scornful Lady. It may be objected, perhaps, by fome who do not go to the bottom of our Poet's conduct, that he has likewife tranfgreffed, against the rule himself, by making Prince Harry at once, upon coming to the crown, throw off his former di Toluteness, and take up the practice of a fober morality and all the kingly virtues. But this would be a mistaken objection. The Prince's reformation is not fo fudden, as not to be prepared and expected by the audience. He gives, indeed, a loose to vanity, and a light unweighed behaviour, when he is trifling among his diffolute companions; but the fparks fparks of innate honour and true noblenefs break. from him upon every proper occafion, where we would hope to fee him awake to fentiments fuiting his birth and dignity. And our Poet has fo well, and artfully, guarded his character from the fufpicions of habitual and unreformable profligateness; that even from the first fhewing him. upon the ftage, in the First Part of Henry IV. when he made him confent to join with Falstaff in a robbery on the highway, he has taken care not to carry him off the scene, without an intimation. that he knows them all, and their unyoked humour; and that, like the fun, he will permit them only for a while to obfcure and cloud his brightnefs; then break through the mift, when he pleases to be himself again; that his luftre, when wanted, may be the more wondered at. Another of Shakespeare's grand touches of nature, and which lies ftill deeper from the ken of common obfervation, has been taken notice of in a note upon The Tempeft; where Profpero at onceinterrupts the mafque of fpirits, and ftarts into a fudden paffion and diforder of mind. As the latent cause of his emotion is there fully inquired into, I fhall no farther dwell upon it here. Such a conduct in a poet (as Shakespeare has. manifefted on many like occafions;) where the turn of action arifes from reflections of his characters, where the reafon of it is not expreffed in words, but drawn from the inmoft refources of nature, fhews him truly capable of that art, a 5 which ६ which is more in rule than practice: Ars eft celare artem. 'Tis the foible of your worfer poets to make a parade and oftentation of that little science they have; and to throw it out in the most ambitious colours. And whenever a writer of this clafs fhall attempt to copy these artful concealments of our author, and shall either think them eafy, or practifed by a writer for his ease, he will foon be convinced of his mistake by the difficulty of reaching the imitation of them. Speret idem, fudet multùm, frustráque laboret, Another grand touch of nature in our author, (not lefs difficult to imitate, tho' more obvious to the remark of a common reader) is, when he brings down at once any character from the ferment and height of paffion, makes him correct himfelf for the unruly disposition, and fall into reflections of a fober and moral tenour. An exquifite fine inftance of this kind occurs in Lear, where that old King, hafty and intemperate in his paffions, coming to his fon and daughter Cornwall, is told by the earl of Gloucester that they are not to be fpoken with: and thereupon throws himself into a rage, fuppofing the excufe of fickness and wearinefs in them to be a purpofed contempt: Gloucefter begs him to think of the fiery and unremoveable quality of the Duke: And this, which was defigned to qualify his paffion, ferves to exaggerate the transports of it. As |