The Monthly Review

terized, with the size and Price of each Article, and References
to the Reviews wherein the Account of them, with the Book-
fellers' Names, are inserted. Also an Index to the principal
Extracts, Observations, and remarkable Passages.

Sold by T. BECKET, Pall Mall.
"AT length this Compilement, so long and so frequently called

for by our Readers, hath made its appearance; and we hope
it will answer the expectations of those who have been so desirous of
fuch a Publication. Of the manner in which the Work hath been
execated, some idea may be formed, by attending to the following
extract from the Compiler's Preface.

« The First Volume contains an Index to the Titles, AUTHORS'
Names, Sizes and Prices, of all the Books and Pamphlets (digested
under their respective classes) which are characterized in the Reviews,
from the beginning of the Work, in 1749, to the end of the Seven-
TIETH Volume, which was finished in the year 1784.

“ In respect to the Prices of Books and Pamphlets, they are giver
as they stand in the Reviews. The names of the Booksellers and
Publihers will be found in the Reviews themselves; to which the
reader is constantly directed, by the First Volume, or Catalogue part,
as we may term it, of this work.

« For the accommodation of those who may wish to know what
hath been written by or concerning any particular Author, during
the period of the Reviews, an INDEX to all the Names is added to
the Table of Contents, of which the First Volume confifts.

« In the Second VOLUME is given an Index to the principal
Extracts, Observations, and remarkable Passages. As these mate-
rials could not be so properly arranged in Clasies as those of the First
Volume, they are wholly comprehended under one General Alpha.
bet; and the particulars are literally copied from the original In-
dexes, fubjoined to the different Volumes of the Review."

• To what Mr. A. hath observed, we need only to add one re-
mark, viz. That even to readers who are not pofiefied of sets of the
Review, these volumes will be of great use, as they may, with friet
truth, be affirmed to comprehend the most general, and most com-
plete priced Catalogue that ever was offered to the Public.

• It may be further observed, with respect to those whose fets of
the Review are incomplete, that to such persons, this publication
will be found peculiarly useful, as it will, in fome measure, supply
the want of those volumes of Review in which their sets are deficient,
and which, perhaps, are no where to be procured.'.

Rev. March, 1786.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

ART. I. Poems upon several Occasions, English, Italian, and Latin,

with Translations, by John Milton : vix. Lycidas, l'Allegro, il Penseroso, Arcades, Comus, Odes, Sonnets, Miscellapies, English Psalms, Elegiarum Liber, Epigrammatum Liber, Sylvarum Liber. With Notes critical and explanatory, and other Illuftrations, by Thomas Warion, Fellow of Trinity College, and late Profeffor of Poetry at Oxford. 8vo. 85. Boards. Dodfley. 178;. E hould deem it neceffiry to begin this article with of.

fering some apology to the Public for having so long postponed the account of the work now before us, were we not persuaded that all our Readers must do us the justice to recollect, that our labours, like those of other men, will sometimes meet with unavoidable interruptions. Of this, indeed, the late appearance of Mr. Warton's edition of the smaller poems of Mils ton, in our monthly Journal, may be adduced as an instance : for this is not a work which we could have overlooked, but the confideration of which has been hitherto protracted, from circumstances painful to our recollection.

That there Juvenile Poems should have attracted Mr. Warton's attention, we may mention as a proof of an elegant taste, while the many notes with which he has enriched them entitle him to considerable, though not to unalloyed, praise.

Milton is undoubtedly the most learned of all our English poets; and he has so interwoven his learning with his poetry, that bis readers will gladly accept the affiftance of an able anno. tator. For this office his present Editor is peculiarly qualified, being not only conversant with the elegant remains of Grecian and Roman learning, but intimately acquainted likewise, as bis valuable History of English Poetry sufficiently testifies, with those treasures of Gothic and old English literature with which Milton, in his younger years, appears to have been fingularly delighied, and to which frequent allusions are made even in the Paradise Lod. Voli : LXXIX.

Considerable

Considerable pleasure have we received from this learned at. tempt to illustrate the obscurities, and to display, and give additional effect to, the beauties of our great poet; who, little dejected by the neglect of his cotemporaries, looked forward with the calmness and confidence of conscious merit, to the impartiality of a future generation ;-persuaded that a cordatior ætas was not far diftant, when a juft tribute would be paid to his poetical abilities.

Tum (says he in his Ode to Rouse) livore fepulto,

Si quid meremur sana posteritas fciet. To behold the fulfilment of such predictions always affords pleasure ;- in the case of Milion we contemplare it with singular satisfaction. Those violent party-prejudices which are well known to have been industriously propagated after the Reftoration, both against the political and religious principles he espoused (and which, so far from being extinct, have excited the acrimony of bis lateft Critic and Biographer), contributed to render those of his own and the following age insensible to the exquisite charms of bis Muse.

The poems, we find, which are here presented to the Public, accompanied with the annotations and illustrations of Mr. W. were published almoft thirty years before the appearance of the Paradise Lost: during which interval they were so totally disregarded, at least by the general reader, as scarcely to confer on their author the reputation of a writer of verses, much less the distinction and character of a true poet; and even after the pub. lication of that immortal work, they long continued to remain in their original state of neglect and obscurity. How little he was esteemed as a poet, or at least how extremely averse the writers of that period were to contribute to his poetic fame, may be inferred from a circumstance or two that are mentioned by Mr. Warton in his ingenious Preface :

In an old Miscellany, quaintly called NAPS ON PARNASSUS, and printed in 1658, there is a recital of the most excellent English poets, who, accoraing to this Author's enumeration, are Chaucer, Lydgate, Hardyng, Spencer, Drayton, Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, Beaumont and Fletcher, Sandys, Cowley, and Cleveland, with some others then living, and perhaps in fashion, but now forgotten. But there is not a syllable of the writer of L'ALLEGRO, Il Penseroso, and Comus. Nor is there the quantity of an hemiftich quoted from any of these poems in the collections of those who have digested the beauties or phrases of the English Poets, from 1655 to 1738 inclusively ;-though the author of one of these collections promises to “ give the reader the great images that are found in our poets who are truly great, as well as their topics and moral reflections ;” and the compiler of another professes chiefly to consider “ neglected and expiring merit, and to revive and preserve the excellencies which time and oblivion were upon the point of cancelling, rather than to repeat

what

« Previous Continue »