noble image for a lefs noble one. The truth is, they would not ftand together. Livery belongs to human grandeur; wings to divine or celestial. So that, in Milton's very attempt to furpafs his original, he put it out of his power to employ the circumftance that moft recommended it.

"

He is not happier on another occafion. Spenfer had faid, with his usual fimplicity,

Gorda Virtue gives herself light thro' darkness for F. Q. B. &.

"to wade!" di

Milton catched at this image, and has run it into a fort of paraphrafe in thofe fine lines,

Virtue could fee to do what Virtue would “ By her own radiant light, tho* Sun and Moon "Were in the flat fea funk" tied Comus.

In Spenfer's line we have the idea of Virtue dropt down into a world all over darkened with vice and error.

Virtue ex

cites the light of Truth to fee all around her, and not only diffipate the neighbouring darkness, but to direct her courfe in apurfuing her victory, and driving her enemy out of it; the arduousness of which exploit is well expreffed by-through darkness for to

WADE. On the contrary, Milton, in borrowing, fubftitutes the phyfical for the 'moral idea-by her own radiant lightand though Sun and Moon were in the flat fea Junk. It may be asked, how this happened? Very naturally. Milton was caught with the obvious imagery, which he found he could difplay to more advantage; and fo did not enough attend to the noble fentiment that was couched under it..

dilating on a famous

XIII. These are inftances of a paraPhrastical licence in fentiment, or image. fame, only flourished

The ground is the upon by the genius

.

of the imitator. At times we find him practifing a different art; "not merely "spreading, as it were, and laying open the fame fentiment, but adding to it, and by a new and ftudied device improving upon it.' "In this cafe we naturally conclude, that the refinement had not been made, if the plain and fimple thought had not preceded and given rife to it. You will apprehend my meaning by what fol

Tows.

1. Shakespeare had faid of Henry IV,

He

He cannot long hold out thefe pangs;

The inceffant care and labour of his mind.

Hath wrought the mure, that should confine it in,

So thin, that Life looks through, and will break out. HEN. IV. A. iv.

You have here the thought in its first -fimplicity. It was not unnatural, after fpeaking of the body as a cafe or tenement of the foul, the mure that confines it, ato say, that, as that cafe wears away and grows thin, Life looks through, and.is ready to break out. !

DANIEL, by refining on this fentiment, if by nothing elfe, fhews himself to be the copyift. Speaking.of the fame Henry, he obferves, in ch

And Pain and Grief, inforcing more and more,
Beffeg'd the hold that could not long defend;
Confuming fo all the refifting ftore

Of thofe provifions Nature deign'd to lend,
As that the walls, worn thin, permit the mind
To look out thorough, and his frailty find.

Here we fée not fimply that Life is going to break through the infirm and much-worn habitation, but that the Mind looks through and finds his frailty, that it discovers that

Life

Life will foon make his escape. I might add, that the four first lines are of the na ture of the Paraphrafe confidered in the last article; and that the expression of the others is too much the fame to be original. But we are not yet come to the head of expreffion. And I choose to confine myfelf to the fingle point of view we have be fore us.

Daniel's improvement then looks like the artifice of a man that would outdo his Mafter. Though he fails in the attempt; for his ingenuity betrays him into a falfe thought. The mind, looking through, does not find its own frailty, but the frailty of the building it inhabits. However, I have endeavoured to rectify this mistake in my explanation.

The truth is, Daniel was not a man to improve upon Shakespeare. But now comes a writer, that knew his business much bet ter. He chufes to employ this well-worn image, or rather to alter it a little and then employ it, for the conveyance of a very new fancy. If the mind could look through a thin body, much more one that was

STO

Befor

cracked and battered.And if it looking through at all, he will have lit fook to good purpoft, and find not its frailty only, but much other useful knowledge, flot

The lines are Mr. Willer's, and mɔthe best manner of that very refined writer": f Welym sqaron or glood

"Stronger by weakness, wifer, men become As they draw near to their eternal home.

The foul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in new light thro' chinks that time has made. eid ohwo bi

not

2. After all, thefe conceits, I doubt, are of much to your tafte. The inftance I am going to give will afford you more pleasure. Is there a paffage in Milton you read with more admiration than this Penferofondered

in the

?

vad nail tips ou bowovssina Entice the dewy-feather'd fleep; And let fome ftrange m ftrange myfterious dream Wave at his wings in airy ftream

Of lively portraiture difplay'a yorqi Softly on my eye-lids laid. na adre

quld you think it poffible now that trad the ground-work of this fine imagery fhould be laid in a paffage of Ben Jonfon? Yet fo we read, or feem to read, in his Vifion of Delight.

III.

P

Break,