compleat difmiffion of Eurydice, of whom folemn founds only procured å conditional release.

For the old age of Chearfulness he makes no provifion; but Melancholy he conducts with great dignity to the close of life.

Through these two poems the images are properly felected, and nicely diftinguifhed; but the colours of the diction feem not fufficiently difcriminated. His Chearfulness is without levity, and his Penfiveness without afperity. I know not whether the characters are kept fufficiently apart. No mirth can, indeed, be found in his melancholy; but I am afraid that I always meet fome melancholy

lancholy in his mirth. They are two noble efforts of imagination.

The greatest of his juvenile performances is the Mafk of Camus; in which may very plainly be difcovered the dawn or twilight of Paradife Loft. Milton appears to have formed very early that fyftem of diction, and mode of verfe, which his maturer judgement approved, and from which he never endeavoured nor defired to deviate.

Nor does Comus afford only a fpecimen of his language; it exhibits likewife his power of defcription, and his vigour of fentiment, employed in the praife and defence of virtue. A work more truely poctical is rarely found; allufions, images, and defcriptive epithets,

m 2

thets, embellish almoft every period with lavish decoration. As a feries of lines, therefore, it may be confidered as worthy of all the admiration with which the votaries have received it.

The

As a drama it is deficient. action is not probable. A Mafque, in thofe parts where fupernatural intervention is admitted, muft indeed be given up to all the freaks of imagination; but, fo far as the action is merely human, it

ought to be reasonable, which can hardly be faid of the conduct of the two brothers; who, when their fifter finks with fatigue in a pathlefs wilderness, wander both away together in fearch of berries too far to find their way back, and leave a helplefs lady to all the fadness

and danger of folitude. This however is a defect over-balanced by its convenience...

... What deferves more reprehenfion is, that the prologue fpoken in the wild wood by the attendant Spirit is addreffed to the audience; a mode of communication fo contrary to the nature of dramatick reprefentation, that no precedents can fupport it.

The difcourfe of the Spirit is too long; an objection that may be made to almost all the following fpeeches: they have not the fpritelinefs of a dialogue animated by reciprocal contention, but feem rather declamations deliberately compofed, and formally repeated, on a moral queftion. The au

ditor therefore liftens as to a lecture, without paffion, without anxiety.

The fong of Comus has airinefs and jollity; but, what may recommend Milton's morals as well as his poetry, the invitations to pleasure are fo general, that they excite no distinct images of corrupt enjoyment, and take no dangerous hold on the fancy.

The following foliloquies of Comus and the Lady are elegant, but tedious. The fong muft owe much to the voice, if it ever can delight. At laft the brothers enter, with too much tranquillity; and when they have feared left their fifter fhould be in danger, and hoped that he is not in danger, the Elder makes a fpeech in praife of chastity,