280 POTATOES. [PART n. 



pair of compasses out of a drmver r to trace the 

 form of the earth-: all this, and, indeed, the 

 whole of Milton's poem, is such barbarous 

 trash, so outrageously offensive to reason and 

 to common sense, that one is naturally led to 

 wonder how it can have been tolerated by a 

 people, amongst whom astronomy, navigation, 

 and chemistry are understood. But, it is the 

 fashion to turn up the eyes, when Paradise 

 Lost is mentioned ; and, if you fail herein you 

 want taste; you want judgment even, if you do 

 not admire this absurd and ridiculous stuff, 

 when, if one of your relations were to write a 

 letter in the same strain, you would send him 

 to a mad-house and take his estate. It is the 

 sacrificing of reason to fashion. And as to the 

 other " Divine Bard," the case is still more pro 

 voking. After his ghosts, witches, sorcerers, 

 fairies, and monsters; after his bombast and 

 puns and smut, which appear to have been not 

 much relished by his comparatively rude con 

 temporaries, had had their full swing ; after 

 hundreds of thousands of pounds had been ex 

 pended upon embellishing his works ; after 

 numerous commentators and engravers and 

 painters and booksellers had got fat upon the 

 trade ; after jubilees had been held in honour of 

 his memory; at a time when there were men, 

 otherwise of apparently good sense, who were 



