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repose too securely on the consciousness of their superiority to Addison, let them consider his 'Remarks on Ovid,' in which may be found specimens of criticism sufficiently subtle and refined; let them peruse likewise his Essays on Wit, and on the Pleasures of Imagination, in which he founds art on the base of nature, and draws the principles of invention from dispositions inherent in the mind of man with skill and elegance, such as his contemners will not easily attain.

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As a describer of life and manners he must be 10 allowed to stand perhaps the first of the first rank. His humour, which, as Steele observes, is peculiar to himself, is so happily diffused as to give the grace of novelty to domestic scenes and daily occurrences. He never "outsteps the modesty of nature," nor raises 15 merriment or wonder by the violation of truth. His figures neither divert by distortion nor amaze by aggravation. He copies life with so much fidelity that he can be hardly said to invent, yet his exhibitions have an air so much original that it is difficult to suppose 20 them not merely the product of imagination.

As a teacher of wisdom he may be confidently followed. His religion has nothing in it enthusiastic or superstitious; he appears neither weakly credulous nor wantonly sceptical; his morality is neither danger- 25 ously lax nor impracticably rigid. All the enchantment of fancy and all the cogency of argument are employed to recommend to the reader his real interest, the care of pleasing the Author of his being. is shown sometimes as the phantom of a vision, some- 30 times appears half-veiled in an allegory; sometimes attracts regard in the robes of fancy, and sometimes

Truth

steps forth in the confidence of reason.
thousand dresses, and in all is pleasing.

She wears a

Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet.

His prose is the model of the middle style; on 5 grave subjects not formal, on light occasions not grovelling; pure without scrupulosity, and exact without apparent elaboration; always equable and always easy, without glowing words or pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from his track to snatch a Io grace; he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries no hazardous innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendour.

It was apparently his principal endeavour to avoid all harshness and severity of diction; he is therefore 15 sometimes verbose in his transitions and connections, and sometimes descends too much to the language of conversation; yet if his language had been less idiomatical, it might have lost somewhat of its genuine Anglicism. What he attempted he performed; he 20 is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetic; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude nor affected brevity; his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy. Whoever wishes to attain an 25 English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.

NOTES TO LIFE OF MILTON.

3. 4. Elijah Fenton (1683-1730) prefixed a short life of Milton to his edition of Milton's poems. Fenton helped Pope to translate the 'Odyssey,' and was honoured with an epitaph by Pope, which Johnson criticises towards the end of his life of Pope. 3. 6. this edition-i.e., of the Lives of the Poets.' 3. 10. York and Lancaster. fifteenth century.

The Wars of the Roses in the

3. 12. the White Rose, by metonymy for the Yorkists.

grandfather. Richard Milton, not John (Masson's edition

of Milton's Poetical Works, i. 296).

3. 13. Shotover, near Oxford. The word is an interesting corruption of Fr. château vert (green country-house).

3. 17. scrivener, a notary, writer. The old form was scriven or scrivein, through the O.F. escrivain from Low Lat. scribanus.

4. 2. literature. We should now use "learning" in this phrase. 4. 4. Caston. She was probably a Jeffrey according to later

investigations.

4. 18. secondary, deputy.

John and Edward.

Edward Philips was Milton's elder

nephew, and published a life of his uncle in 1694.

4. 23. the Spread Eagle. These were the days before houses were numbered. Prof. Masson remarks, "The scrivener Milton had a sign as well as his neighbours" (Life of Milton).

4. 27. Young. Educated at University of St Andrews; became a noted Puritan divine.

4. 31. St Paul's school. Founded in 1512 by Colet. Dr Gill of Corpus Christi, Oxford, was its eighth head-master.

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5. 2. A sizar at Cambridge used to correspond to the "servitor in Oxford. He was admitted into college at a lower rate with a "size" or allowance of provisions granted him, and with the duty of serving out "sizes." Size is a short term of assize (L. assidere). Milton, however, was a "lesser pensioner," and so of higher academic rank (“admissus est pensionarius minor ”—College Register).

5. 5. Politian. Poliziano was (1454-1494) a noted figure in the Italian Revival of Learning, and a favourite of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was a skilled writer of Latin verse.

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5. 9. Cowley. Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) was a boy wonder. When fifteen he published 'Poetical Blossomes.' "A great poet, Dryden calls him; but Pope in 1737 asks, "Who now reads Cowley?" Probably to-day his Essays are better known than his 'Davideis' or the 'Mistress.' His deepest mark on literature was made by the introduction of " Pindarique Odes," which remained in vogue for a century.

5. 16. numerous school, well attended.

5. 22. Polybius. A Greek political prisoner in Italy in the second century B.C., who won Scipio's friendship, and wrote in Greek forty books about the period from the Second Punic War to the loss of Greek freedom (220-146 B.C.) Hampton's translation (1756-1761) was in its day the completest English translation of Polybius. Dr Johnson himself reviewed it in the 'Literary Magazine.' It went through at least seven editions before 1823 (Shuckburgh's Pref. to trans. of Polybius, 1889).

5. 23. revival of letters. The renewed interest in classic, and especially Greek, literature, in the fifteenth century. It was a movement of manifold phases, affecting the whole culture of Europe. The student should consult such works as Symonds' 'Renaissance in Italy,' and Pater's 'Renaissance.'

5. 26. Haddon. Walter Haddon, Professor of Civil Law, Cambridge; later President of Magdalen, Oxford. He acted as Elizabeth's envoy to the Netherlands. Hallam (Introduction to Lit. of Europe,' chap. x.) regards his Latinity as too "florid.".

Ascham. Roger Ascham had been Elizabeth's tutor, and was afterwards her Latin secretary; was author of 'Toxophilus' and the 'Scholemaster.'

5. 30. Alabaster's 'Roxana.' A tragedy in Latin written by

William Alabaster about forty years before its publication in 1632. Hallam mentions its original as Groto's Italian tragedy 'Dalida' ('Lit. of Europe,' chap. xxii.)

6. 3. no great fondness. This needs qualification. The wilder men at Christ's sneered at the fair-complexioned and gentle Milton as "the lady"; but the best of his teachers and fellow-students respected him.

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6. 9. corporal correction. This "silly tale" is disputed by Blackburne in his 'Remarks on Johnson's Life of Milton,' 1780, and is dismissed by Masson as a "MS. jotting of the old gossip Aubrey."

6. 13. Diodati. Charles Diodǎti, sprung from an Italian Protestant family, was Milton's bosom-friend in youth. To him was addressed Milton's 'Elegia Prima,' and on him was written the 'Epitaphium Damonis.'

7. 13. scheme of education. This is his Tractate of Education.' The scheme is set forth in a letter to "Master Hartlib" in 1644 (Milton's Prose Works, Bohn, iii. 462 sqq.) Samuel Hartlib was a merchant of Polish ancestry, sent hither by some good providence from a far country," says Milton.

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7. 14. academical instruction—i.e., education at a university. Academia ('Akadýμela) meant the sacred groves of the hero Academus near Athens, where Plato taught.

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7. 18. 'Way to remove Hirelings,' published 1659. Neither title nor quotation is absolutely accurate (see Milton's Prose Works, Bohn, iii. 1 sqq.) The words "the profits. . . uses are Johnson's, not Milton's, and refer to statute of mortmain forbidding conveyances to religious houses.

7. 32. Trincalos.

"He evidently refers to Albumazar, acted at Cambridge in 1614" (note in Murphy's edition of Johnson's Works, ed. 1810, vol. ix.) Milton would have equally condemned 'Ignoramus,' a comedy of trickery somewhat after the model of Plautus, and acted at Cambridge in the same year, 1614. It admits Latin like "Quota est clocka nunc? Inter octo et nina." The jesting Trinculo of Shakespeare's 'Tempest' is a strikingly similar name to that in the text.

8. 13. retch, vomit (A.S. hrácan, from hrác, a cough). Distinguish reach, from A. S. ræcan.

8. 18. Articles. The Thirty-nine Articles of faith accepted by the Church of England.

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