95 



detractors who feed and fatten on the body of a noble game, which 

 they have liuuted down. Nor would I, on the other side, be one of that 

 abject crowd, who swell, without thought or reason, the general shout 

 of applause or the condemnatory hiss. 



It has been well remarked, that even in Milton's own lifetime, when 

 he was poor, old, blind, and neglected, when his political enemies 

 reigned triumphaut, the " Paradise Lost " was received by the nation 

 as a great work, and that the sale of 1,300 copies in two years, at that 

 period, is a proof of great popularity. 



The time immediately following produced Dryden's well known 

 epigram : — 



" Three poets, iu three distant ages born, 



Greece, Italy, and England did adorn : 



The first in loftiness of thought surpassed ; 



The next in majesty ; in both the last. 



The foi'ce of nature could no further go ; 



To make a third she joined the other two." 



I cannot pause to criticise this dictum, which, to say the least, is far 

 less correct than pointed. It reveals total ignorance of the relative 

 merit of Homer, who is all nature, originality, and vigour, and 

 of Virgil, who is all art, imitation, and elegance ; and it certainly 

 overshoots the mark by placing IMilton above all the other poets, the 

 world ever produced. 



From that time Milton's fame was firmly established and generally 

 acknowledged. But the foundation of a reasonable appreciation of the 

 poet was laid by Addison, who first undertook to analyze and to 

 demonstrate the beauties of the " Paradise Lost." But Addison was, 

 I should almost be tempted to say, too amiable a critic. He practically 

 followed the rule which lie laid down, that "a true critic ought to dwell 

 rather upoa excellencies than imperfections, and to discover the con- 

 cealed beauties of a writer." This is lowering the critic to the position 

 of a paid advocate, instead of raising him to the dignity of an impartial 

 judge. It is the general fault of editors, who ai'e mostly too much in 

 love with their authors to be just to him or others. 



A greater proof of Milton's excellence than the praise of Addison is 

 the disguised censure of llichard Beutley, the greatest of English and 

 the greatest of European critics. Nay, the fact, that Beutley undertook 

 to edit the " Paradise Lost," proves, that he considered Milton a worthy 

 rival of the great poets of antiquity. But, iu his critical annotations, 

 Beutley very ingeniously and astutely, though perhaps not very honestly, 

 exposes the Ideialshcs of the poem, whilst pretending to extol the poet, 

 and to purge his text from the interpolations and corruptions, whicli, as 



