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A step, methinks, may pass the stream,
So little distant dangers seem;

So we mistake the Future's face,
Ey'd through Hope's deluding glass.
As yon summits, soft and fair,
Clad in colours of the air,

Which to those, who journey near,
Barren, and brown, and rough appear,
Still we tread the same coarse way,
The Present's still a cloudy day.

The unexpected insertion of such reflections, imparts to us the same pleasure that we feel, when, in wandering through a wilderness or grove, we suddenly behold, in the turning of the walk, a statue of some VIRTUE or MUSE.

It may be observed in general, that description of the external beauties of nature, is usually the first effort of a young genius, before he hath studied manners and passions. Some of Milton's most early, as well as most exquisite pieces, are his Lycidas, L'Allegro, and Il Penseroso; if we may except his Ode on the Nativity of Christ, which is, indeed, prior in the order of time, and D 2

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which I had the pleasure of reading in manuscript, with Dr. Akenside, is written in a pure and classical taste, and with many happy imitations of Virgil.

in which a penetrating critic might have discovered the seeds of that boundless imagination, which afterwards was to produce the Paradise Lost. This ode, which, by the way, is not sufficiently read nor admired, is also of the descriptive kind; but the objects of its description are great, and striking to the imagination; the false deities of the Heathen forsaking their temples on the birth of our Saviour; divination and oracles at an end; which facts, though, perhaps, not historically true, are poetically beautiful.

The lonely mountains o'er,

And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament!

From haunted spring, and dale

Edg'd with poplar pale,

The parting Genius is with sighing sent;

With flower-enwoven tresses torn,

The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.*

The lovers of poetry (and to such only I write) will not be displeased at my presenting them also with the following image, which is so

strongly

* On the morning of Christ's Nativity. Newton's edition, octavo. Vol. ii. page 28, 29, of the Miscellaneous Poems.

strongly conceived, that, methinks, I see at this instant the dæmon it represents:

And sullen Moloch fled,

Hath left in shadows dread,
His burning idol all of blackest hue;
In vain with cimbals' ring

They call the griesly king,

In dismal dance about the furnace blue.*

Attention is irresistibly awakened and engaged by that air of solemnity and enthusiasm that reigns in the following stanzas:

The oracles are dumb ;+

No voice, or hideous hum,

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving;
No nightly trance, or breathed spell,

Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell.

Such is the power of true poetry, that one is almost inclined to believe the superstitions here alluded to, to be real; and the succeeding circumstances make one start, and look around:

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* See also verses written at a Solemn Music, and on the Passion, in the same volume; and a vacation exercise, page 9. in all which are to be found many strokes of the sublime.

+ Page 28.

In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

The lars and lemurs moan with midnight plaint;
In urns and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

Affrights the flamens at their service quaint!

Methinks we behold the priests interrupted in the middle of the secret ceremonies they were performing, "in their temples dim," gazing with ghastly eyes on each other, and terrified, and wondering from whence these aërial voices should proceed! I have dwelt chiefly on this ode as much less celebrated than L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, which are now universally known; but which, by a strange fatality, lay in a sort of obscurity, the private enjoyment of a few curious readers, till they were set to admirable music by Mr. Handel. And, indeed, this volume of Milton's Miscellaneous Poems has not till very lately met with suitable regard. Shall I offend any rational admirer of POPE, by remarking, that these juvenile descriptive poems of Milton, as well as his Latin Elegies, are of a strain far more exalted than any the former author can boast? Let me add, at the same time, what justice obliges me to add, that they

are far more incorrect. For in the very ode before us, occur one or two passages, that are puerile and affected to a degree not to be paralleled in the purer, but less elevated, compositions of POPE. The season being winter

when Jesus was born, Milton says,

Nature, in awe to HIM,*

Had dofft her gawdy trim.

And afterwards observes, in a very epigrammatic and forced thought, unsuitable to the dignity of the subject, and of the rest of the ode, that, "she wooed the air, to hide her guilty front with innocent snow,'

And on her naked shame,+

Pollute with sinful blame,

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The saintly veil of maiden white to throw,

Confounded that her Maker's eyes

Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

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*This conceit, with the rest, however, is more excusable, if we recollect how great a reader, especially at this time, Milton was of the Italian Poets. It is certain that Milton, in the beginning of the ode, had the third sonnet of Petrarch strong in his fancy,

Era 'l giorno, ch' al sol si scoloraro

Per la pietà del suo fattore i rai;

Quand', &c.

+ Milton's Miscellaneous Poems, vol. ii.

page 19.

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