Dryden, and Marvel, we may rest satisfied in the persuasion, that he enjoyed a grateful earnest of his future renown, and, according to the petition he addressed to Urania,

"Fit audience found, tho' few."

If the spirit of a departed bard can be gratified by any circumstances of posthumous renown, it might gratify Milton to perceive, that his divine poem was first indebted for general celebrity to the admiration of Sommers and of Addison, two of the most accomplished and most amiable of English names. Sommers promoted the first ornamented edition of Paradise Lost in 1688; and Addison wrote his celebrated papers on Milton in 1712.

But to return to the living author; in the year 1670, the great poet aspired to new distinction, by appearing in the character of an historian. He had long meditated a work, which in his time, was particularly wanted in our language, and which the greater cultivation bestowed by the present age on this branch of literature has not yet produced in perfection-an eloquent and impartial His

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tory of England. Milton executed only six books, beginning with the most early fabulous period, and closing with the Norman conquest. Why he should have given the first part (says Johnson) which he seems not to believe, and which is universally rejected, it is difficult to conjecture." Had the critic taken the trouble to peruse a few pages of the work in question his difficulty would have vanished; he would at least have found the motive of the author, if he had not esteemed it satisfactory:

"I have determined (says Milton) in speaking of the antient and rejected British fables, to bestow the telling over even of these reputed tales, be it for nothing else but in favor of our English poets and rhetoricians, who by their art will know how to use them judiciously." This sentiment implies a striking fondness for works of imagination, and a good natured disposition to promote them.

The historian discovers higher aims as he advances in his work, and expresses a moral and patriotic desire to make the les

sons suggested by the early calamities of this nation a source of wisdom and virtue to his improving countrymen. The very passage, which was most likely to produce such an effect, was struck out of the publication by the gothic hand of the licenser, an incident that seems to give new energy to all the noble arguments, which the injured author had formerly adduced in vindicating the liberty of the press.

The passage in question contained a very masterly sketch of the long parliament and assembly of divines, contrasting their situation and their misconduct, after the death of Charles the First, with those of the antient Britons, when, by the departure of the Roman power, " they were left (according to the expression of the historian) to the sway of their own councils." The author gave a copy of this unlicenced parallel to the celebrated Earl of Anglesey, a man distinguished by erudition, with a liberal respect for genius, and though a minister of Charles the Second, a frequent visiter of Milton. This curious fragment was pub

lished in 1681, with a short preface, declaring, that it originally belonged to the third book of Milton's history, and in the edition of his prose works, in 1738, it was properly replaced. The poet would have succeeded more eminently as an historian, had his talents been exercised on a period more favorable to their exertion. We have reason to regret his not having executed the latter part of his original intention, instead of dwelling on the meagre and dark annals of Saxon barbarity. In his early history, however, there are passages of great force and beauty; his character of Alfred in particular is worthy that engaging model of an accomplished monarch, and verifies a sentiment, which Milton professed, even while he was defending the commonwealth, that although a resolute enemy to tyrants, he was a sincere friend to such kings as merited the benediction of their people.*

*The attractive merit of Alfred, and the affectionate zeal, with which Milton appears to have delineated his character, form a double motive for inserting it in a note, as a specimen of the great author's style in historical composition.

In 1671, the year after the first appear

"After which troublesome time Alfred enjoying three years of peace, by him spent, as his manner was, not idly or voluptuously, but in all virtuous employments, both of mind and body, becoming a prince of his renown, ended his days in the year nine hundred, the fifty-first of his age, the thirtieth of his reign, and was buried regally at Winchester: he was born at a place called Wanading, in Berkshire, his mother Osburga, the daughter of Oslac the king's cup-bearer, a Goth by nation, and of noble descent. He was of person comlier than all his brethren, of pleasing tongue, and graceful behaviour, ready wit and memory; yet, through the fondness of his parents towards him, had not been taught to read till the twelfth year of his age: but the great desire of learning which was in him soon appeared, by his conning of Saxon poems day and night, which with great attention, he heard by others repeated. He was besides excellent at hunting, and the new art then of hawking, but more exemplary in devotion, having collected into a book certain prayers and psalms, which he carried ever with him in his bösom to use on all occasions. He thirsted after all liberal knowledge, and oft complained, that in his youth he had no teachers, in his middle age so little vacancy from wars, and the cares of his kingdom; yet leisure he found sometimes, not only to learn much himself, but to communicate thereof what he could to his people, by translating books out of Latin into English, Orosius, Boethius, Beda's History, and others; permitted none unlearned to bear office, either