The angel, in a comparison, speaks of timorous deer, before deer were yet timorous, and before Adam could understand the comparison. Dryden remarks, that Milton has some flats among his elevations. This is only to say that all the parts are not equal. In every work one part must be for the sake of others; a palace must have passages; a poem must have transitions. It is no more to be required that wit should always be blazing, than that the sun should always stand at noon. In a great work there is a vicissitude of luminous and opaque parts, as there is in the world a succession of day and night. Milton, when he has expatiated in the sky, may be allowed sometimes to revisit earth; for what other author ever soared so high, or sustained his flight so long? Milton, being well versed in the Italian poets, appears to have borrowed often from them; and, as every man catches something from his companions, his desire of imitating Ariosto's levity has disgraced his work with the "Paradise of Fools;" a fiction not in itself ill-imagined, but too ludicrous for its place. His play on words, in which he delights too often; his equivocations, which Bentley endea vours to defend by the example of the ancients; his unnecessary and ungraceful use of terms of art, it is not necessary to mention, because they are easily remarked, and generally censured; and at last bear so little proportion to the whole, that they scarcely deserve the attention of a critic. Such are the faults of that wonderful performance, "Paradise Lost;" which he who can put in balance with its beauties must be considered not as nice but as dull, as less to be censured for want of candour, than pitied for want of sensibility. Of "Paradise Regained," the general judgment seems now to be right, that it is in many parts elegant, and every where instructive. It was not to be supposed that the writer of "Paradise Lost," could ever write without great effusions of fancy, and exalted precepts of wisdom. The basis of "Paradise Regained," is narrow; a dialogue without action can never please like a union of the narrative and dramatic powers. Had this poem been written not by Milton, but by some imitator, it would have claimed and received universal praise. If "Paradise Regained" has been too much depreciated, "Samson Agonistes" has in requital been too much admired. It could only be by long prejudice, and the bigotry of learning, that Milton could prefer the ancient tragedies, with their encumbrance of a chorus, to the exhibitions of the French and English stages; and it is only by a blind confidence in the reputation of Milton, that a drama can be praised in which the intermediate parts have neither cause nor consequence, neither hasten nor retard the catastrophe. In this tragedy are, however, many particular beauties, many just sentiments, and striking lines; but it wants that power of attracting the attention which a well-connected plan produces. Milton would not have excelled in dramatic writing; he knew human nature only in the gross, and had never studied the shades of character, nor the combinations of concurring, or the perplexity of contending, passions. He had read much, and knew what books could teach; but had mingled little in the world, and was deficient in the knowledge which experience must confer. Through all his greater works there prevails a uniform peculiarity of diction, a mode and cast of expression which bears little resemblance to that of any former writer; and which is so far removed from common use, that an unlearned reader, when he first opens his book, finds himself surprised by a new language. This novelty has been, by those who can find nothing wrong in Milton, imputed to his laborious endeavours after words suitable to the grandeur of his ideas. "Our language," says Addison, "sunk under him." But the truth is, that, both in prose and verse, he had formed his style by a perverse and pedantic principle. He was desirous to use English words with a foreign idiom. This in all his prose is discovered and condemned; for there judgment operates freely, neither softened by the beauty, nor awed by the dignity, of his thoughts; but such is the power of his poetry, that his call is obeyed without resistance, the reader feels himself in captivity to a higher and a nobler mind, and criticism sinks in admiration. Milton's style was not modified by his subject; what is shown with greater extent in "Paradise Lost," may be found in "Comus." One source of his peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tuscan poets; the disposition of his words, is, I think, frequently Italian; perhaps sometimes combined with other tongues. Of him, at last, may be said what Jonson says of Spenser, that "he wrote no language," but has formed what Butler calls a Babylonish dialect," in itself harsh and barbarous, but made by exalted genius and extensive learning the vehicle of so much instruction and so much pleasure, that, like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity. Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praise of copiousness and variety: he was master of his language in its full extent; and has selected the melodious words with such diligence, that from his book alone the art of English poetry might be learned. After his diction, something must be said of his versification. "The measure," he says, "is the English heroic verse without rhyme." Of this mode he had many examples among the Italians, and some in his own country. The Earl of Surrey is said to have translated one of Virgil's books without rhyme; and, beside our tragedies, a few short poems had appeared in blank verse, particularly one tending to reconcile the nation to Raleigh's wild attempt upon Guiana, and probably written by Raleigh himself. These petty performances cannot be supposed to have much influenced Milton, who more probably took his hint from Trissino's Italia Liberata; and, finding blank verse easier than rhyme, was desirous of persuading himself that it is better. "Rhyme," he says, and says truly, "is no necessary adjunct of true poetry." But, perhaps, of poetry, as a mental operation, metre or music is no necessary adjunct: it is however by the music of metre that poetry has been discriminated in all languages; and, in languages melodiously constructed with a due proportion of long and short syllables, metre is sufficient. But one language cannot communicate its rules to another; where metre is scanty and imperfect, some help is necessary. The music of the En The Earl of Surrey translated two books of Virgil without rhyme the second and the fourth.-J. B. glish heroic lines strikes the ear so faintly, that it is easily lost, unless all the syllables of every line co-operate together; this co-operation can be only obtained by the preservation of every verse unmingled with another as a distinct system of sounds; and this distinctness is obtained and preserved by the artifice of rhyme. The variety of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers of blank verse, changes the measures of an English poet to the periods of a declaimer; and there are only a few skilful and happy readers of Milton, who enable their audience to perceive where the lines end or begin. "Blank verse," said an ingenious critic, "seems to be verse only to the eye." Poetry may subsist without rhyme, but English poetry will not often please; nor can rhyme ever be safely spared but where the subject is able to support itself. Blank verse makes some approach to that which is called the lapidary style; has neither the easiness of prose, nor the melody of numbers, and therefore tires by long continuance. Of the Italian writers without rhyme, whom Milton alleges as precedents, not one is popular; what reason could urge in its defence has been confuted by the ear. But, whatever be the advantages of rhyme, I cannot prevail on myself to wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot wish his work to be other than it is; yet, like other heroes, he is to be admired rather than imitated. He that thinks himself capable of astonishing may write blank verse: but those that hope only to please must condescend to rhyme. The highest praise of genius is original invention. Milton cannot be said to have contrived the structure of an epic poem, and therefore owes reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind to which all generations must be indebted for the art of poetical narration, for the texture of the fable, the variation of incidents, the interposition of dialogue, and all the stratagems that surprise and enchain attention. But, of all the borrowers from Homer, Milton is perhaps the least indebted. He was naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, and disdainful of help or hinderance: he did not refuse admission to the thoughts or images of his predecessors, but he did not seek them. From his contemporaries he neither courted nor received support; there is in his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might be gratified, or favour gained, no exchange of praise, nor solicitation of support. His great works were performed under discountenance, and in blindness; but difficulties vanished at his touch; he was born for whatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of heroic poems, only because it is not the first. BUTLER. Or the great Author of "Hudibras," there is moved for a short time to Cambridge; but, for a life prefixed to the later editions of his poem, want of money, was never made a member of by an unknown writer, and therefore of disputa- any college. Wood leaves us rather doubtful ble authority; and some account is incidentally whether he went to Cambridge or Oxford; but at given by Wood, who confesses the uncertainty last makes him pass six or seven years at Camof his own narrative: more however than they bridge, without knowing in what hall or college; knew cannot now be learned, and nothing re- yet it can hardly be imagined that he lived so mains but to compare and copy them. long in either university but as belonging to one SAMUEL BUTLER was born in the parish of house or another; and it is still less likely that Strensham, in Worcestershire, according to his he could have so long inhabited a place of learnbiographer, in 1612. This account Dr. Nash ing with so little distinction as to leave his resifinds confirmed by the register. He was chris-dence uncertain. Dr. Nash has discovered that tened February 14. his father was owner of a house and a little land, worth about eight pounds a year, still called Butler's tenement. His father's condition is variously represented. Wood mentions him as competently wealthy; but Mr. Longueville, the son of Butler's princi- Wood has his information from his brother, pal friend, says he was an honest farmer with whose narrative placed him at Cambridge, in opsome small estate, who made a shift to educate position to that of his neighbours, which sent his son at the grammar-school of Worcester, un- him to Oxford. The brother seems the best der Mr. Henry Bright,* from whose care he re-authority, till, by confessing his inability to tell *These are the words of the author of the short ac- that he was a conveyancing lawyer, and a bencher of the count of Butler prefixed to "Hudibras," which Dr. Inner Temple, and had raised himself from a low beginJohnson, notwithstanding what he says above, seems toning to very great eminence in that profession; that he have supposed was written by Mr. Longueville, the fa-was eloquent and learned, of spotless integrity; that he ther; but the contrary is to be inferred from a subsequent supported an aged father who had ruined his fortunes by passage, wherein the author laments that he had neither extravagance, and by his industry and applicatica re-edisuch an acquaintance nor interest with Mr. Longueville, fied a ruined family; that he supported Butler, who, but as to procure for him the golden remains of Butler there for him, must literally have starved; and received from mentioned. He was probably led into the mistake by a him, as a recompense, the papers called his "Remains," note in the Biog. Brit. p. 1077, signifying that the son of Life of the Lord-keeper Guilford, p. 289.-These have this gentleman was living in 1736. since been given to the public by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester; and the originals are now in the hands of the Rev. Dr. Farmer, master of Emanuel College, Cam bridge.-H. Of this friend and generous patron of Butler, Mr. William Longueville, I find an account, written by a person who was well acquainted with him, to this effect; viz. his hall or college, he gives reason to suspect that he was resolved to bestow on him an academical education; but durst not name a college, for fear of detection. Wood relates that he was secretary to Villiers, duke of Buckingham, when he was chancellor of Cambridge; this is doubted by the other writer, who yet allows the Duke to have been his frequent benefactor. That both these accounts are false there is reason to suspect, from a story told by Packe, in his account of the Life of Wycherley; and from some verses which Mr. Thyer has published in the Author's Remains. He was, for some time, according to the author of his life, clerk to Mr. Jefferys, of Earl's Croomb, in Worcestershire, an eminent justice of the peace. In his service he had not only leisure for study, but for recreation; his amusements were music and painting: and the reward "Mr. Wycherley," says Packe, "had always of his pencil was the friendship of the celebrated laid hold of any opportunity which offered of reCooper. Some pictures, said to be his, were presenting to the Duke of Buckingham how well shown to Dr. Nash, at Earl's Croomb; but, Mr. Butler had deserved of the royal family, by when he inquired for them some years after-writing his inimitable 'Hudibras;' and that it wards, he found them destroyed, to stop windows, and owns that they hardly deserved a better fate. He was afterwards admitted into the family of the Countess of Kent, where he had the use of a library; and so much recommended himself to Selden, that he was often employed by him in literary business. Selden, as is well known, was steward to the Countess, and is supposed to have gained much of his wealth by managing her estate. In what character Butler was admitted into that lady's service, how long he continued in it, and why he left it, is, like the other incidents of his life, utterly unknown. The vicissitudes of his condition placed him afterwards in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's officers. Here he observed so much of the character of the sectaries, that he is said to have written or begun his poem at this time; and it is likely that such a design would be formed in a place where he saw the principles and practices of the rebels, audacious and undisguised in the confidence of success. At length the King returned, and the time came in which loyalty hoped for its reward. Butler, however, was only made secretary to the Earl of Carbury, president of the principality of Wales; who conferred on him the stewardship of Ludlow Castle, when the Court of the Marches was revived. In this part of his life, he married Mrs. Herbert, a gentlewoman of a good family, and lived, says Wood, upon her fortune, having studied the common law, but never practised it. A fortune she had, says his biographer, but it was lost by bad securities. was a reproach to the court, that a person of his loyalty and wit should suffer in obscurity, and under the wants he did. The Duke always seemed to hearken to him with attention enough; and after some time undertook to recommend his pretensions to his majesty. Mr. Wycherley, in hopes to keep him steady to his word, obtained of his Grace to name a day, when he might introduce that modest and unfortunate poet to his new patron. At last an appointment was made, and the place of meeting was agreed to be the Roebuck. Mr. Butler and his friend attended accordingly; the Duke joined them; but, as the devil would have it, the door of the room where they sat was open, and his Grace, who had seated himself near it, observing a pimp of his acquaintance (the creature too was a knight) trip by with a brace of ladies, immediately quitted his engagement to follow another kind of business, at which he was more ready than in doing good offices to men of desert, though no one was better qualified than he, both in regard to his fortune and understanding, to protect them; and from that time to the day of his death, poor Butler never found the least effect of his promise!" Such is the story. The verses are written with a degree of acrimony, such as neglect and disappointment might naturally excite; and such as it would be hard to imagine Butler capable of expressing against a man who had any claim to his gratitude. Notwithstanding this discouragement and neglect, he still prosecuted his design; and in 1678, published a third part, which still leaves the poem imperfect and abrupt. How much more he originally intended, or with what events In 1663 was published the first part, contain- the action was to be concluded, it is vain to coning three cantos, of the poem of "Hudibras," jecture. Nor can it be thought strange that he which, as Prior relates, was made known at should stop here, however unexpectedly. To court, by the taste and influence of the Earl of write without reward is sufficiently unpleasing. Dorset. When it was known, it was necessa- He had now arrived at an age when he might rily admired: the King quoted, the courtiers think it proper to be in jest no longer, and perstudied, and the whole party of the royalists ap-haps his health might now begin to fail. plauded it. Every eye watched for the golden shower which was to fall upon the Author, who certainly was not without his part in the general expectation. He died in 1680: and Mr. Longueville, having unsuccessfully solicited a subscription for his interment in Westminister Abbey, buried him at his own cost in the churchyard of Coventgarden.* Dr. Simon Patrick read the service. Granger was informed by Dr. Pearce, who named for his authority Mr. Lowndes of the Treasury, that Butler had a yearly pension of a In 1664 the second part appeared; the curiosity of the nation was rekindled, and the writer was again praised and elated. But praise was his whole reward: "Clarendon," says Wood, " gave him reason to hope for places and employments of value and credit;" but no In a note in the "Biographia Britannica," p, 1075, such advantages did he ever obtain. It is re- he is said, on the authority of the younger Mr. Longueported that the King once gave him three hun-ville, to have lived for some years in Rose-street, Codred guineas; but of this temporary bounty Ivent-garden, and also that he died there; the latter of find no proof. these particulars is rendered highly probable, by his being interred in the cemetery of that parish.-H. hundred pounds. This is contradicted by all tradition, by the complaints of Oldham, and by the reproaches of Dryden; and I am afraid will never be confirmed. About sixty years afterwards, Mr. Barber, a printer, mayor of London, and a friend to Butler's principles, bestowed on him a monument in Westminster Abbey, thus inscribed: M. S. SAMUELIS BUTLERI, Vir doctus imprimis, acer, integer; After his death were published three small volumes of his posthumous works: I know not by whom collected, or by what authority ascertained; and, lately, two volumes more have been printed by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester, indubitably genuine. From none of these pieces can his life be traced, or his character discovered. Some verses in the last collection, show him to have been among those who ridiculed the institution of the Royal Society, of which the enemies were for some time very numerous and very acrimonious, for what reason it is hard to conceive, since the philosophers professed not to advance doctrines, but to produce facts; and the most zealous enemy of innovation must admit the gradual progress of experience, however he may oppose hypothetical temerity. In this mist of obscurity passed the life of Butler, a man whose name can only perish with his language. The mode and place of his education are unknown; the events of his life are variously related; and all that can be told with certainty is, that he was poor. who, in the confidence of legal authority and the rage of zealous ignorance, ranges the country to repress superstition and correct abuses, accompanied by an an independent clerk, disputatious and obstinate, with whom he often debates, but never conquers him. Cervantes had so much kindness for Don Quixote, that however he embarrasses him with absurd distresses, he gives him so much sense and virtue as may preserve our esteem; wherever he is, or whatever he does, he is made by matchless dexterity commonly ridiculous, but never contemptible. But for poor Hudibras, his poet had no tenderness; he chooses not that any pity should be shown or respect paid him; he gives him up at once to laughter and contempt, without any quality that can dignify or protect him. In forming the character of Hudibras, and describing his person and habiliments, the author seems to labour with a tumultuous confusion of dissimilar ideas. He had read the history of the mock knights-errant; he knew the notions and manners of a Presbyterian magistrate, and tried to unite the absurdities of both, however distant, in one personage. Thus he gives him that pedantic ostentation of knowledge which has no relation to chivalry, and loads him with martial encumbrances that can add nothing to his civil dignity. He sends him out a colonelling, and yet never brings him within sight of war. tive of the Presbyterians, it is not easy to say why If Hudibras be considered as the representahis weapons should be represented as ridiculous or useless; for, whatever judgment might be passed upon their knowledge or their arguments, experience had sufficiently shown that their swords were not to be despised. The hero, thus compounded of swaggerer and pedant, of knight and justice, is led forth to action, with his squire Ralpho, an independent enthusiast. Of the contexture of events planned by the The poem of "Hudibras" is one of those Author, which is called the action of the poem, compositions of which a nation may justly since it is left imperfect, no judgment can be boast; as the images which it exhibits are do- made. It is probable that the hero was to be led mestic, the sentiments unborrowed and unexthrough many luckless adventures, which would pected, and the strain of diction original and give occasion, like his attack upon the "bear peculiar. We must not, however, suffer the and fiddle," to expose the ridiculous rigour of pride, which we assume as the countrymen of the sectaries; like his encounter with Sidrophel Butler, to make any encroachment upon justice, and Whachum, to make superstition and credunor appropriate those honours which others ity contemptible; or, like his recourse to the have a right to share. The poem of "Hudi-low retailer of the law, discover the fraudulent bras" is not wholly English; the original idea practices cf different professions. is to be found in the history of "Don Quixote;" a book to which a mind of the greatest powers may be indebted without disgrace. Cervantes shows a man, who having, by the incessant perusal of incredible tales, subjected his understanding to his imagination, and famiharised his mind by pertinacious meditation to trains of incredible events, and scenes of impossible existence; goes out in the pride of knighthood to redress wrongs, and defend virgins, to rescue captive princesses, and tumble usurpers from their thrones; attended by a squire, whose cunning, too low for the suspicion of a generous mind, enables him often to cheat his master. The hero of Butler is a Presbyterian justice, What series of events he would have formed, or in what manner he would have rewarded or punished his hero, it is now vain to conjecture. His work must have had, as it seems, the defect which Dryden imputes to Spenser; the action could not have been one; there could only have been a succession of incidents, each of which might have happened without the rest, and which could not all co-operate to any single conclusion. The discontinuity of the action might, however, have been easily forgiven, if there had been the paucity of events, and complains that in the action enough: but I believe every reader regrets poem of "Hudibras," as in the history of Thucydides, there is more said than done. The is tired with long conversation. scenes are too seldom changed, and the attention It is, indeed, much more easy to form dialogues | verbial axioms to the general stock of practical than to contrive adventures. Every position makes knowledge. way for an argument, and every objection dictates an answer. When two disputants are engaged upon a complicated and extensive question, the difficulty is not to continue, but to end, the controversy. But whether it be that we comprehend but few of the possibilities of life, or that life itself affords little variety, every man who has tried knows how much labour it will cost to form such a combination of circumstances as shall have at once the grace of novelty and credibility, and delight fancy without violence to reason. Perhaps the dialogue of this poem is not perfect. Some power of engaging the attention might have been added to it by quicker reciprocation, by seasonable interruptions, by sudden questions, and by a nearer approach to dramatic sprightliness; without which fictitious speeches will always tire, however sparkling with sentences, and however variegated with allusions. The great source of pleasure is variety. Uniformity must tire at last, though it be uniformity of excellence. We love to expect; and, when expectation is disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting. For this impatience of the present, whoever would please must make provision. The skilful writer irritat, mulcet, makes a due distribution of the still and animated parts. It is for want of this artful intertexture, and those necessary changes, that the whole of a book may be tedious, though all the parts are praised. If inexhaustible wit could give perpetual pleasure, no eye would ever leave half-read the work of Butler; for what poet has ever brought so many remote images so happily together? It is scarcely possible to peruse a page without finding some association of images that was never found before. By the first paragraph the reader is amused, by the next he is delighted, and by a few more strained to astonishment; but astonishment is a toilsome pleasure; he is soon weary of wondering, and longs to be diverted. Omnia vult belle Matho dicere, dic aliquando Et bene, die neutrum, dic aliquando male. When any work has been viewed and admired, the first question of intelligent curiosity is, how was it performed? "Hudibras" was not a hasty effusion; it was not produced by a sudden tumult of imagination, or a short paroxysm of violent labour. To accumulate such a mass of sentiments at the call of accidental desire, or of sudden necessity, is beyond the reach and power of the most active and comprehensive mind. I am informed by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester, that excellent editor of this author's relics, that he could show something like "Hudibras" in prose. He has in his possession the common-place book, in which Butler reposited not such events and precepts as are gathered by reading, but such remarks, similitudes, allusions, assemblages, or inferences, as occasion prompted, or meditation produced, those thoughts that were generated in his own mind, and might be usefully applied to some future purpose. Such is the labour of those who write for immortality. But human works are not easily found without a perishable part. Of the ancient poets every reader feels the mythology tedious and oppressive. Of "Hudibras," the manners, being founded on opinions, are temporary and local, and therefore become every day less intelligible, and less striking. What Cicero says of philosophy is true likewise of wit and humour, that "time effaces the fictions of opinions, and confirms the determinations of Nature." Such manners as depend upon standing relations and general passions are co-extended with the race of man; but those modifications of life and peculiarities of practice, which are the progeny of error and perverseness, or at best of some accidental influence or transient persuasion, must perish with their parents. Much therefore of that humour which transported the last* century with merriment is lost to us, who do not know the sour solemnity, the sullen superstition, the gloomy moroseness, and the stubborn scruples of the ancient puritans; or, if we knew them, derive our information only from books, or from tradition, have never had them before our eyes, and cannot but by recollection and study understand the lines in which they are satirized. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life; we judge of the life by contemplat Imagination is useless without knowledge: nature gives in vain the power of combination, unless study and observation supply materials to be combined. Butler's treasures of knowledge ap-ing the picture. pear proportioned to his expense: whatever topic It is scarcely possible, in the regularity and employs his mind, he shows himself qualified to composure of the present time, to image the tuexpand and illustrate it with all the accessaries mult of absurdity, and clamour of contradiction, that books can furnish: he is found not only to which perplexed doctrine, disordered practice, and have travelled the beaten road, but the by-paths disturbed both public and private quiet, in that of literature; not only to have taken general surage when subordination was broken, and awe was veys, but to have examined particulars with mi-hissed away; when any unsettled innovator, who nute inspection. If the French boast the learning of Rabelais, we need not be afraid of confronting them with Butler. But the most valuable parts of his performance are those which retired study and native wit cannot supply. He that merely makes a book from books may be useful, but can scarcely be great. Butler had not suffered life to glide beside him unseen or unobserved. He had watched with great diligence the operations of human nature, and traced the effects of opinion, humour, interest, and passion. From such remarks proceeded that great number of sententious distichs which have passed into conversation, and are added as pro could hatch a half-formed notion, produced it to the public; when every man might become a preacher, and almost every preacher could collect a congregation. The wisdom of the nation is very reasonably supposed to reside in the parliament. What can be concluded of the lower classes of the people, when, in one of the parliaments summoned by Cromwell, it was seriously proposed, that all the records in the tower should be burned, that all memory of things past should be effaced, and that the whole system of life should commence anew? We have never been witnesses of animosities * The seventeenth. |