As much to brutal force and envy's bane, And vulgar fears, and vulgar hopes unknown, Where Love, stern power, has plunged the immedicable dart. Ashes revered of kings! and thou blest mold, A name, once foe to royalty, we trace: Here, soothed by death, your long resentments wave; When I remarked upon an unfortunate note of Mr. Warton's on a passage in the poem to Manso, it has been suggested to me that I ought to have produced the subject of my correction. I will here, therefore, request the reader to revert to the note (') in page 108, and then to read the following specimen of Mr. Warton's critical and literary ability. Mycalen qui natus ad altum,” 66 &c. Plutarch, who wrote the Life of Homer. He was a native of Bæotia, where Mycale is a mountain. It is among those famous hills that blazed in Phaeton's conflagration, Ovid, Metam. ii. 223. The allusion is happy, as it draws with it an implicit comparison between Tasso and Homer. In the epithet fa cundus, there is much elegance and propriety. Plutarch is the great master of ancient biography. To insult on prostrate weakness is always pusillanimous; and I feel no inclination "thrice to slay the slain:" I must observe, however, that the reason, assigned by the commentator for the propriety of “ facundus," in its application to the rugged and uncouth Plutarch, is more than commonly curious. Would not an illiterate man conclude either that facundus was latin for ancient biography, or that ancient biography was a species of composition altogether distinct from modern, which he knows to be in no way, inseparably and vitally con ́nected with eloquence or the beauties of diction. I avail myself of this opportunity to rectify an inaccuracy in Mr. Warton's rela tion of the shipwreck of Mr. King, the Lycidas of Milton. Mr. W. says (Milton's Juv. Poems, 2d edit. p. 38), "When, in calm weather, not far from the English coast, the ship, a very crazy vessel, a fatal and perfidious bark, struck on a rock, and suddenly sunk to the bottom with all that were on board, not one escaping." A more correct account of this disaster, given by Hog, who in 1694 published a latin translation, or rather 9 Milton's Juvenile Poems, p. 539. pa raphrase 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 of the perfidious bark, and perished. This melancholy event happened, as we have already observed, on the 10th of august, 1637. Shall I be forgiven if I here profess that Mr. Warton seems to me to be an author who has accidentally and capriciously been elevated into unmerited celebrity? He was not, perhaps, an unuseful labourer in the dry and leaden mines of Gothic and English antiquity; but his compass of learning was narrow; his poetry is indifferent, and his criticism most commonly sinks below contempt. Like all the little men in the world of letters, he would sometimes indulge himself with an attack upon the great. Of the many blows. which he aimed at Milton, and to which he was incited, no doubt, by the zeal of his tory virtue, some have been noticed in the course of the preceding work: but other favourites of the Muse could not escape him. For borrowing two or three expressions from Il Penseroso and the Comus, Mr. Warton could thus speak of Pope: " But Pope was a gleaner of the old English poets; and he was here is stated to have been engraven on a cannon; whence copies were taken, and hung up in almost every house throughout the continent of America. The false points of this short production are too obvious to require any particular indication. The conduct of Bradshaw was the result, as I am persuaded, of high though misdirected principle; and he, therefore, may be allowed the praise which his American eulogist has lavished on him: but, under all the circumstances of the case, the death of Charles must for ever be condemned as an act in atrocious opposition to the law and the constitution of England, and must consequently be branded, to the last revolution of time, as a MURDER. Stranger! Ere thou pass, contemplate this cannon; that near its base lies deposited the dust of JOHN BRADSHAW: who nobly superior to selfish regards, despising alike the pageantry of courtly splendour, the blast of calumny, and the terrour of regal vengeance, presided in the illustrious band of heroes and patriots, CHARLES STUART, tyrant of England, to a public and exemplary death; thereby presenting to the amazed world, and transmitting down through applauding ages, the most glorious example love of freedom, and impartial justice, ever exhibited on the blood-stained theatre Oh! Reader! pass not on till thou hast blessed his memory; THAT REBELLION TO TYRANTS IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD. Having had occasion more than once in the preceding pages to mention the name of Lauder, I conceive it to be proper to give some account of this unfortunate man's conduct as it is connected with the history of Milton, and has justly stampt the character of this enemy of our great poet with indelible infamy. In the year 1747, William Lauder, a teacher of the latin tongue, and a man certainly possessing both talents and learning, excited general attention by publishing in the Gentleman's Magazine, for the months of january, february, and march, a paper, signed with the initials W. L. which he called "Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns;" intended to prove that our illustrious epic bard had been considerably in |
