CHAP. XII.] CIIANNING ON MILTON. 157 



pathy in the minds of a large class of readers, who ought, by their 

 station, to have been less prejudiced, and who, in reality, have 

 no bigoted aversion to science itself, but simply dread the effects 

 of its dissemination among the peo*ple at large. 



It is remarkable that a writer of such genius and so enlarged 

 a mind as Channing, who was always aiming to furnish the mul 

 titude with sources of improvement and recreation, should have 

 dwelt so little on the important part which natural history and 

 the physical sciences might play, if once the tastes of the million 

 were turned to their study and cultivation. From several passa 

 ges in his works, it is evident that he had never been imbued 

 w r ith the slightest knowledge or feeling for such pursuits ; and 

 this is apparent even in his splendid essay on Milton, one of the 

 most profound, brilliant, and philosophical dissertations in the 

 English language. Dr. Johnson, while he had paid a just hom 

 age to the transcendent genius of the great poet and the charms of 

 his verse, had allowed his party feelings and bigotry to blind him 

 to all that was pure and exalted in Milton s character. Chan 

 ning, in his vindication, pointed out how Johnson, with all his 

 strength of thought and reverence for virtue and religion, his vig 

 orous logic, and practical wisdom, wanted enthusiasm and lofty 

 sentiment. Hence, his passions engaged him in the unworthy 

 task of obscuring the brighter glory of one of the best and most 

 virtuous of men. But the American champion of the illustrious 

 bard fails to remark that Milton was also two centuries in ad 

 vance of the age in which he lived, in his appreciation of the 

 share which the study of nature ought to hold in the training of 

 the youthful mind. Of Milton s scheme for enlarging the ordi 

 nary system of teaching, proposed after he had himself been prac 

 tically engaged in the task as a schoolmaster, the lexicographer 

 spoke, as might have been anticipated, in terms of disparagement 

 bordering on contempt. He treated Milton, in fact, as a mere 

 empiric and visionary projector, observing that &quot; it was his pur 

 pose to teach boys something more solid than the common litera 

 ture of schools, by reading those authors that treat of physical 

 subjects.&quot; &quot; The poet Cowley had formed a similar plan in his 

 imaginary college ; but the knowledge of external nature, and the 



