What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than He Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least Perhaps of all the passages in Paradise Lost, the descrip tion of the employments of the angels during the absence of Satan, some of whom, "retreated in a silent valley, sing with notes angelical to many a harp their own heroic deeds and hapless fall by doom of battle," is the most perfect example of mingled pathos and sublimity. The character which a living poet has given of Spenser would be much more true of Milton: "Yet not more sweet Than pure was he, and not more pure than wise; Milton has finely shown the power of discrimination in respect to character in EVE'S LAMENTATION ON BEING DRIVEN FROM PARADISE. "O unexpected stroke, worse than of death! At even, which I bred up with tender hand From the first opening bud, and gave ye names, With what to sight or smell was sweet, from thee And wild? How shall we breathe in other air Adam's reflections on the same mournful occasion are in a different strain, and still finer. After expressing his submission to the will of his Maker, he says, "This most afflicts me, that departing hence His bless'd countenance; here I could frequent On this mount He appear'd, under this tree Offer sweet-smelling gums, and fruits, and flowers. SECTION III. SAMUEL BUTLER, Strongly contrasted to Milton in every respect was his contemporary, Samuel Butler (1612-1680), the son of a farmer in Worcestershire, and at all times a poor man, but possessed of a rich fancy and a singular power of witty and pointed expression. His chief work was Hudibras, published in 1663 and subsequent years, a comic poem in shortrhymed couplets, designed to burlesque the characters of the zealously religious and Republican party, which had recently held sway. Notwithstanding the service which he thus performed to the Royalist cause and to Charles II., he was suffered to die in such poverty that the expense of his funeral was defrayed by a friend. In Hudibras, a Republican officer, of the most grotesque figure and accoutrements, is represented as sallying out, like a knight-errant, for the reformation of the state; and his character is thus, in the first place, described: CHARACTER OF SIR HUDIBRAS. He was in logic a great critic, He'd run in debt by disputation, In mood and figure he would do. His mouth, but out there flew a trope; Teach nothing but to name his tools. A Babylonish dialect, Which learned pedants much affect; Of patch'd and py-bald languages; SECTION IV. YOUNG (1681-1765). Night Thoughts. The principal work of Edward Young is the Night Thoughts. This poem, by some critics, has been pronounced mournful, angry, gloomy, and represented as springing from disappointed ambition rather than from superior sentiments. It is thought, however, to exhibit a wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions-a wildness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odor. He was too fond of antithesis, and often too turgid in his style; yet he paints, with the most lively fancy, the feelings of the heart, the vanity of human things, its fleeting honors and enjoyments, and he presents some of the strongest arguments in support of the immortality of the soul. The late Joseph Emerson speaks of this work as the dear companion of his early youth, most faithful counselor of his advancing days-a precious, invaluable friend-for more than thirty summers the balm of his sorrows, the pillow of his weary, throbbing head-the sweetener of his sweetest joys. "Dark and dismal, indeed, are many of his pictures; but I think not more so than their originals. If so, we should not blame the painter, but the subjects." But his pictures of redemption are most glorious. "To me, the Night Thoughts is a poem, on the whole, most animating and delightful-amazingly energetic-full of the richest instruction-improving to the mind— much of it worthy of being committed to memorysome faults-some passages unfit to be read-obscure -extravagant-tinged occasionally with flattery." The work is well adapted for exercising the mind in the process of analysis and criticism, CONSCIENCE "Conscience, what art thou? Thou tremendous power! And treat the monarch frankly as the slave: As with a peal of thunder, to strange horrors, DEATH. "Why start at death? Where is he? death arrived, Man makes a death, which nature never made; And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one." For another specimen, yet more characteristic of Dr. Young's mind, refer to the chapter on Sublimity in this work. SECTION V. OF DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709–1784). [Extracted from the North American Review, 1835.] Dr. Channing has gained great celebrity for his criticism upon Milton, in which he vindicates the latter from the unjust representations of Dr. Johnson, in his "Lives of the Poets." Dr. Johnson has certainly not done justice to Mil ton; but this was owing, we think, to his political prejudices, and not, as Dr. Channing intimates, to any want of "enthusiasm, creative imagination, or lofty sentiment." The author of Rasselas, if he had never written another word, would have amply substantiated, by that work only, his claims to the possession of all those faculties in their fullest perfection. But all his other works are marked by the same general characteristics. The Rambler is one perpetual flow of the purest wisdom, embodied in the richest language. It is, from one end to the other, as Cicero says with so much beauty of Aristotle, a river of flowing gold. Why should we find fault with the style, because its merit is not exactly the same with that which we admire in the works of some other great writers? Are there not in the gardens of letters and art, as well as in those of nature, a hundred kinds of beauty, all different, and each equally charming in its own way? For ourselves, we look on Dr. Johnson as the master-mind of the last century. We respect even what we may consider his errors, for they were generally closely connected with the highest virtues. Almost every line that |