of ideas, and consequently the passions of the mind. This at least was the power of the spondaic and dactylic harmony, but our language can reach no eminent diversities of sound. We can, indeed, sometimes, by encumbering and retarding the line, show the difficulty of a progress made by strong efforts and with frequent interruptions, or mark a slow and heavy motion. Thus Milton has imaged the toil of Satan struggling through chaos:

So he with difficulty and labour hard
Moved on: with difficulty and labour he.

P. L. ii. 1021. Thus he has described the leviathans or whales :

Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait.

ib. vii. 411.

But he has at other times neglected such representations, as may be observed in the volubility and levity of these lines, which express an action tardy and reluctant :

-Descent and fall

To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight

We sunk thus low? Th' ascent is easy then. ib. ii.

In another place, he describes the gentle glide of ebbing waters in a line remarkably rough and halting:

-Tripping ebb; that stole

With soft foot tow'rds the deep who now had stopp'd
His sluices.

ib. xi. 847.

It is not indeed to be expected, that the sound

should always assist the meaning, but it ought never to counteract it; and therefore Milton has here certainly committed a fault like that of the player, who looked on the earth when he implored the heavens, and to the heavens when he addressed the earth.

Those who are determined to find in Milton an assemblage of all the excellencies which have ennobled all other poets, will, perhaps, be offended that I do not celebrate his versification in higher terms ; for there are readers who discover that in this sage,

So stretch'd out huge in length the arch fiend lay,

pas

P. L. i. 209.

a long form is described in a long line; but the truth is, that length of body is only mentioned in a slow line, to which it has only the resemblance of time to space, of an hour to a may-pole.

The same turn of ingenuity might perform wonders upon the description of the ark:

Then from the mountain hewing timber tall,

Began to build a vessel of huge bulk;

Measured by cubit, length, and breadth, and height.

ib. xi. 728.

In these lines the poet apparently designs to fix the attention upon bulk; but this is effected by the enumeration, not by the measure; for what analogy can there be between modulations of sound, and corporeal dimensions?

Milton, indeed, seems only to have regarded this species of embellishment so far as not to reject it when it came unsought; which would often happen to a mind so vigorous, employed upon a subject so various and extensive. He had, indeed, a greater and a nobler work to perform; a single sentiment of moral or religious truth, a single image of life or nature,

would have been cheaply lost for a thousand echoes of the cadence to the sense; and he who had undertaken to vindicate the ways of God to man, might have been accused of neglecting his cause, had he lavished much of his attention upon syllables and sounds.

"THERE are many diseases, both of the body and mind, which it is far easier to prevent than to cure, and therefore I hope you will think me employed in an office not useless either to learning or virtue, if I describe the symptoms of an intellectual malady, which, though at first it seizes only the passions, will, if not speedily remedied, infect the reason, and from blasting the blossoms of knowledge, proceed, in time, to canker the root.

"I was born in the house of discord. My parents were of unsuitable ages, contrary tempers, and different religions, and therefore employed the spirit and acuteness which nature had very liberally bestowed upon both, in hourly disputes, and incessant contrivances to detect each other in the wrong; so that from the first exertions of reason I was bred a disputant, trained up in all the arts of domestic sophistry, initiated in a thousand low stratagems, nimble shifts, and sly concealments; versed in all the turns of altercation, and acquainted with the whole discipline of fending and proving.

"It was necessarily my care to preserve the kindness of both the controvertists, and, therefore, I had very early formed the habit of suspending my judgement, of hearing arguments with indifference, inclining as occasion required to either side, and of holding myself undetermined between them till I knew for what opinion I might conveniently declare. "Thus, Sir, I acquired very early the skill of disputation; and, as we naturally love the arts in which we believe ourselves to excel, I did not let abilities lie useless, nor suffer my dexterity to be lost for want of practice. I engaged in perpetual wrangles with my school-fellows, and was never to be convinced or repressed by any other arguments than blows, by which my antagonists commonly determined the controversy, as I was, like the Roman orator, much more eminent for eloquence than courage.

my

"At the university I found my predominant ambition completely gratified by the study of logic. I impressed upon my memory a thousand axioms, and ten thousand distinctions, practised every form of syllogism, passed all my days in the schools of disputation, and slept every night with Smiglecius on my pillow.

"You will not doubt but such a genius was soon

.

raised to eminence by such application: I was celebrated in my third year for the most artful opponent that the university could boast, and became the terror and envy of all the candidates for philosophical reputation.

"My renown, indeed, was not purchased but at the price of all my time and all my studies. I never spoke but to contradict, nor declaimed but in defence of a position universally acknowledged to be false, and therefore worthy, in my opinion, to be adorned with all the colours of false representation, and strengthened with all the arts of fallacious subtilty.

My father, who had no other wish than to see his son richer than himself, easily concluded that I should distinguish myself among the professors of the law; and, therefore, when I had taken my first degree, despatched me to the Temple with a paternal admonition, that I should never suffer myself to feel shame, for nothing but modesty could retard my for

tune.

“Vitiated, ignorant, and heady as I was, I had not yet lost my reverence for virtue, and, therefore, could not receive such dietates without horror; but however was pleased with his determination of my course of life, becaused he placed me in the way that leads soonest from the prescribed walks of discipline and education, to the open fields of liberty and choice.

"I was now in the place where every one catches the contagion of vanity, and soon began to distinguish myself by sophisms and paradoxes. I declared war against all received opinions and established rules, and levelled my batteries particularly against those universal principles which had stood unshaken in all the vicissitudes of literature, and are considered as the inviolable temples of truth, or the impregnable bulwarks of science.

"I applied myself chiefly to those parts of learn