or coincidences. This may happen in particular lines, or thoughts. But where can be found the same general and equal cast of imagery and sentiment; the same tone of enthusiasm and inspiration throughout? Milton, untouched by the ordinary vanities and passions of the world, which exercise uncontrolled dominion over inferior minds, passed his youth either in severe study, or the intellectual society of his potent imagination: he retired to court visions of angelic choirs on the banks of haunted streams; not to dark closets, glimmering with the midnight lamp, that hẹ might waste the stores of poetry, and betray a distorted wit, in celebrating some court beauty, or some unworthy minion of state favouritism. Yet so little were these things to the taste of the day, that neither then, nor for nearly a century afterwards, do I recollect a single imitator of these most exquisite poems! Carew was now passing through four editions; Waller was a still greater favourite: Sir John Suckling also was in the hands of every Courtier. Of John Cleveland, a forgotten versifier, more univer sally read at this time than any other pretender to poetry, I say nothing, because we may attribute the attention he received to the party zeal from whence his productions originated. Cowley was popular; but popular, I suspect, on account of his faults. Those beautiful moral essays, containing a mixture of prose and poetry, written after he was sick of the world, and recommending obscurity, retirement, and the pleasures of the country, were not then published; yet these are the compositions on which his permanent fame must rest. While others, who aspired to the reputation of poets, ushered their works to the world by commendatory verses of many of those who were pursuing the same course, Milton disdained to give or receive such assistance. He stood aloof; and seems to have retired within himself, calmly content, amid coldness and neglect, with his own singular powers. It is dangerous to leave the classical models of antiquity; which, with a few exceptions, will be found to contain all the excellence that is calculated to please through the fluctuating taste of a series of ages, Yet Milton is, I think, one of these exceptions. It does not strike me that any thing of the cast of the four juvenile poems I have mentioned is to be found among the ancients. They have a wilder and more picturesque air, and they have allusions to popular superstitions, arising perhaps out of Gothic institutions and manners, which have the strongest tendency to delight or agitate the fancy. This peculiar character ascribed to Milton's genius and compositions, will perhaps be deemed by some to be carried to a fanciful length. But let them carefully examine the following List, which is extracted from the Catalogue of the King's Pamphlets. Of a large proportion of these books, an account may be found either in Censura Literaria, or in The British Bibliographer. It is but fair to say of Herrick, that there are two or three pieces of his, full of that pure description and wild allusion, which mark a poetical mind of a genuine cast. List of poetical Tracts. 1. Elegies on Horace Lord Vere. 2. Wither's Remembrancer. 3. Eugenio's Tears. 4. Psalms in four languages, by W. Sclater. 5. Wither's Campo-Musæ. 6. Triumphs of Love, from Petrarch, by Anna Hume. 7. Milton's Poems. 8. Philipot's Poems. 9. Waller's Poems. 10. Wither's Vox Pacifica. 11. John Hall's Poems, 12. Crashaw's Steps to the Temple. 13. G. Hills's Odes of Casimir. 14. Hen. Vaughan's Poems, with 10th Satire of Juvenal. 15. Llewellin's Men Miracles. 16. Sir Robert Stapylton's Musæus. 17. Rob. Baron's Cyprian Academy. 18. Jas. Shirley's Poems. 19. Bp. Corbet's Poems, 20. Stanley's Aurora and Oronta, principally prose: 21. Rob. Herrick's Hesperides. 22. Sir Rob. Stapylton's Musæus, 23. Cowley's Mistress. 24. Wither's Prosopopæia Britannica. 25. Alexander Ross's Muse's Interpreter. 33. Peter Hausted's Poem in Honour of Tobacco. 34. Reliquiæ Wottonianæ. 35. Rob. Heath's Clarastella. 36. R. Baron's Pocula Castalia. 37. The Tenth Muse, lately sprung up in America. 38. The Loves of Hero and Leander, a mock poem. 39. W. Cartwright's Plays and Poems. 40. J. Harington's Polender and Flostella. 41. W. B.'s Haleluiah, or Hymns from Scripture. 42. Mrs. A. W.'s Continuation of Sydney's Arcadia. 43. Herbert's Remains. 44. Digges's Gerardo, or the unfortunate Spaniard. 45. Francis Beaumont's Poems. 46. Rd. Flecknoe's Miscellanea, or Poems. 47. Selected Parts of Horace, Prince of Lyrics. 48. Lamentations of Jeremiah, in metre. 49. Tho. Manley's Whole Book of Job, in metre, 50. Anacreon, Bion, Moschus, Kisses, by Tho. Stanley, (Dec. 30, 1652.) 51. G. Wither's Dark Lanthorn. 52. Verses to be reprinted with the 2d edition of Gondibert. 53. Rd. Brome's five new Plays. 54. Lady Newcastle's Philosophical Fancies. 55. G. Wither's Westrow revived. 56. Song of Solomon, in metre. 57. J. C.'s Melancholy Cavalier. 58. Tho. Washbourne's Divine Poems. 59. J. C.'s Wit's Interpreter; or the English Parnassus. 60. W. W.'s Muse's Cabinet, stored with variety of Poems. 61. Geo. Wither's Protector, a poem. 62. E. E.'s Dia Poemata. 63. Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece. 64. R. C.'s Sacred Poems, presented to the Countess of Den bigh. 65. Poems by W. H[ammond.] 66. Jos. Rigby's Drunkard's Burning Glass. 67. John Collop's Poesis Rediviva. 68. Sir J. M[ennes's] Jovial Poems. 69. John White's Psalms of David, in metre. 70. The Diarium, in burlesque verse. 71. Vaticinia Poetica. 72. Parnassus Biceps. 73. John Quarles's Elegy on the most Rev. James Usher. 77. Sir W. Davenant's Entertainment at Rutland House, 79. Bp. King's Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes, and Sonnets. 80. Hugh Crompton's Pierides. 81. Garden of Delight, deck'd with choice flowers. 82. J. Jones's Ovid's Invective against Ibis. 83. E. E.'s Divine Poems, with a short description of Christian Magnanimity. 84. Poems, consisting of Epistles and Epigrams, Satires, Epitaphs and Elegies, Songs, Sonnets, &c. 85. Sir W. Lower's Enchanted Lovers, a pastoral. 86. Naps upon Parnassus. 87. Pharonnida, an heroick poem, by William Chamberlain of Shaftsbury. 88. Last Remains of Sir John Suckling. 89. Tho. Peck's Parnassi Puerperium. 90. J. Cleaveland's Poems, revived. 91. William Shipton's Dia. 92. G. Wither's Furor Poeticus. 93. The Rump, a collection of Songs. 94. John Dancer's Aminta and other Poems. 95. Sir Rob. Howard's Poems. 96. Poems by Wm. Earl of Pembroke, and Sir Ben. Rudyard. |