as ought never to be polluted with fuch irreverend combinations. The fhepherd likewise is now a feeder of sheep, and afterwards an ecclefiaftical paftor, a fuperintendent of a Chriftian flock. Such equivocations are always unfkilful, but here they are indecent, and at least approach to impiety, of which, however, I believe the writer not to have been confcious.

Such is the power of reputation juftly acquired, that its blaze drives away the eye from nice examination. Surely no man could have fancied that he read Lycidas with pleasure, had he not known its author.

Of the two pieces, L'Allegro and Il Penferofo, I believe opinion is uniform;

form; every man that reads them, reads them with pleasure. The author's defign is not, what Theobald has remarked, merely to fhew how objects derive their colours from the mind, by reprefenting the operation of the fame things upon the gay and the melancholy temper, or upon the fame man as he is differently. difpofed; but rather how, among the fucceffive variety of appearances, every difpofition of mind takes hold on those by which it may be gratified.

The chearful man hears the lark in the morning; the penfive man hears the nightingale in the evening. The chearful man fees the cock ftrut, and hears the horn and hounds echo in the wood; then walks not unfeen to obferve the

glory

glory of the rifing fun, or liften to the finging milk-maid, and view the labours of the plowman and the mower; then cafts his eyes about him over fcenes of fmiling plenty, and looks up to the diftant tower, the refidence of fome fair inhabitant; thus he purfues rural gaiety through a day of labour or of play, and delights himself at night with the fanciful narratives of fuperftitious igno

rance.

The penfive man,, at one time, walks unfeen to muse at midnight; and at another hears the fullen curfew. If the wea ther drives him home, he fits in a room lighted only by glowing embers; or by a lonely lamp outwatches the North Star, to: discover the habitation of separate fouls,

and

and varies the shades of meditation, by contemplating the magnificent or pa thetick scenes of tragick and epic poetry. When the morning comes, a morning gloomy with rain and wind, he walks into the dark tracklefs woods, falls afleep by fome murmuring water, and with melancholy enthufiafim expects fome dream of prognoftication, or fome mufick plaid by aerial perfor

mers.

Both Mirth and Melancholy are folitary, filent inhabitants of the breaft that neither receive not tranfmit communication; no mention is therefore made of a philofophical friend, or a pleafant companion.

Serioufnefs does

not arife from any participation of calamity,

lamity, nor gaiety from the pleasures of

the bottle.

The man of chearfulness, having exhaufted the country, tries what towered cities will afford, and mingles with scenes of fplendor, gay affemblies, and nuptial feftivities; but he mingles a mere fpectator, as when the learned comedies of Jonfon, or the wild dramas of Shakefpeare, are exhibited, he attends the

theatre.

The penfive man never lofes himself in crowds, but walks the cloifter, or frequents the cathedral. Milton probably had not yet forfaken the Church.

Both his characters delight in mufick; but he feems to think that chearful. notes would have obtained from Pluto a