of the press, and fearful lest the tenderness of his blossoms should be blighted by the breath of the public. The Lycidas was written, as there is reason to believe, at the solicitation of the author's College, to commemorate the death of Mr. Edward King, one of its fellows, and a son of sir John King, Knt. secretary for Ireland in the reigns of Elizabeth James and Charles. This young man, whose vessel' foundered, as she was sailing from Chester to Ireland, • From a letter of our author's to his friend, Alex. Gill, dated Dec. 4, 1634, we find that in the same year, in which the poet finished Comus, he made that version of the 114th Psalm into Greek hexameters, which he afterwards published with his other poems. It was thrown off, as he tells his correspondent, without any thought or intention of mind, and as it were with some sudden and strange impulse, before day-light in his bed. "Nullo certè animi proposito, sed subito nescio quo impetu, ante lucis exortum, ad Græci carminis heroici legem, in lectulo ferè concinnabam." Epis. fam. 5. f I shall here rectify an inaccuracy in Mr. Warton's relation of the Shipwreck of Mr. King. Mr. W. says, "When in calm weather, not far from the English coast, the ship, a very crazy vessel, a fatal and perfidious lark, struck on a rock, and suddenly sunk to the bottom with all that were on board, not one escaping." [See Milton's Juven. Poems, 2d ed. p. 38.] A more correct account of this disaster, given by Hogg who in 1694 published a Latin translation or rather paraphrase of the Lycidas, informs us that several escaped in the boat from the sinking vessel; but that Mr. King and some others, fatally unmoved by the importunities of their associates, continued on board and perished. This melancholy event happened on the 10th of August 1637. in a calm sea and not far from land, was so highly esteemed by the whole University, for his learning piety and talents, that his death was deplored as a public loss, and Cambridge invited her Muses to celebrate and lament him. In the collection of poems, which was published on this occasion in 1638, Milton's Lycidas occupies the last and, as it was no doubt intended to be, the most honourable place. Every honour which could be paid. to its poetic excellence was inferior to its just demand: but we may reasonably wonder that a poem, breathing such hostility to the clergy of the church of England and menacing their leader with the axe, should be permitted to issue from the University press. The speech indeed, assigned to St. Peter The pilot of the Galilean lake. may properly be regarded as the most objec tionable part of the composition. The poetry in these nineteen lines is not equal to what precedes and what follows them; and to make an Apostle speak with exultation of the approaching punishment of a bishop by the hand of the executioner must certainly be censured as improper and indecorous. But, whatever sentence may be passed on this small portion of the Lycidas, the entire monody must be felt by every reader of taste as an effusion of the purest and most exalted poetry. We may wish perhaps that it had been constructed on some other plan of stanza, or with a different arrangement of its rhymes; we may sometimes be tempted to think its transitions too violent, and its allusions not sufficiently obvious: but, as a whole, it seizes upon our fancy with irresistible force, and will scarcely suffer our judg ment to discover its defects. In one place, and in one only, it exhibits a magnificent, though obscure image in a state rather of injury from its association with what is little and improper: Where the great vision of the guarded mount After invoking the great vision, or the Arch Angel seated on his lofty rock and throwing his angel-ken over the sea Towards Namancos and Bayona's hold, 8 This Namancos has puzzled all the commentators. The conjecture that it is a name, found in some old romance, for Numantia, strikes me as improbable; and I am unable to suggest any other. From its situation, not indeed near the coast but in that line of country towards which St. Michael's Mount looks, Numantia would sufficiently answer the purpose poet. of the to turn his countenance homeward and to weep for the calamity of that country which was under his own immediate guardianship, it surely is a most notable anti-climax to call upon the dolphins to waft the hapless youth, when their services could be of no use to him, and when he was so far from hapless, that he was "laving his locks with nectar in the blest kingdoms of joy and love." To enumerate the beauties of this poem would extend our digression beyond its just length, and would not be consistent with our plan. We have observed that the Comus came into the world unacknowledged by its author, and it is remarkable that the writer of the Lycidas was intimated only by the initials J. M. This great man seems to have felt an awe of the public by which the herd of small writers are seldom repressed For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. But, if he published with diffidence, he wrote with boldness and with the persuasion, resulting from the consciousness of power, of literary immortality. "After I had (he tells us') from my first years, by the ceaseless diligence of my father, (whom God recompense!) h Reasons of C. Govern. B. 2d. P. W. i. 118. been exercised in the tongues, and some sciences as my age would suffer, by sundry masters and teachers both at home and at the schools, it was found that whether ought was imposed on me by them that had the overlooking, or betaken to of my own choice, in English or other tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly this latter, the style by certain vital symptoms it had, was likely to live." In a letter, which from its date was written about two months before his Lycidas, he lays open to his friend Deodati the lofty hopes and the daring projects of his heart. "But you are now anxious, as I know," (the writer says)" to have your curiosity gratified. You solicitously enquire even about my thoughts. Attend then, Deodati, but let me spare myself a blush by speaking in your ear; and for a moment let me talk proudly to you. Do you ask me what is in my thought? So may God prosper me, as it is nothing less than immortality. But how shall I accomplish it? My wings are sprouting, and I meditate to fly: but while my Pegasus yet lifts himself on very tender pinions, let me be prudent and humble."" i For the amusement of my readers I will insert the whole letter from which I have made this extract, with a translation of it by my friend Mr. Wrangham. We find by this document that Milton |