. SIR EGERTON BRYDGES' MIILTON.

WHEN DT. JOHNSON'S Life of MILTON first appeared, Sir EGERTON BRYDGES was a boy, or we are led to infer that it would have fared but ill with the great biographer. The Memoirs of GRAY and COLLINS were published when Sir EGERTON was only a youth at college, or, in despite of .lonNsoN's " vituperation and personal invectives," he might have had to endure something worse than "the feeble missiles of POTTER and other medioerists." But though the accidents of time delayed the purpose, nothing short of death could have prevented it. " For fifty years," says our venerable friend, " I have bad an unquenchable desire to refute JOHNSON'S perverse criticisms and malignant obloquies;" and here is the result of that desire. We think that the jaundiced view which the Doctor took of MILTON'S political and private life is not very happily exposed, or even very distinctly stated; we con- jecture that it is not under Sir EGERTON'S cap altogether to overturn the criticism on MILTON'S gicater works; but lie has redeemed the minor poems from the unjust depreciation of JOHNSON, and shown indirectly that lie probably had not read them with that attention which Misrost imposes. lie has also presented a pleasant and vivid picture of the growth of MILTON'S poetical mind, and furnished some elegant, subtile, and refined criticism, both on the works and genius of his hero; though they miss producing their full effect, from being scattered up and down without a methodical connexion, and by being dyed too deeply with the personal feelings of the man. There, is moreover, a leading outline of the events of MILTON'S history, with quota- tions of an autobiographical character from his Prose compositions : so that, although it cannot be said to supersede all other books on the subject, this Life forms an indispensable companion to and commentary upon the best of them; whilst it is, we believe, without exception the best popular introduction to the reading of MILTON .S Poetry. We have just hinted at a deficiency of method, as if it were a fault. Critically, perhaps, it is; nevertheless, it forms one of the charms of the work. Without it, we should have had more formal, but not such gossippy criticism. Sir EGERTON pours out his ideas like a person talking, and displays his character and the peculiarities a his opinions just as much as if he were personally present. These tinge almost every thing he touches upon, but are strongly exhibited upon three points, — in his opinions on poetry, of which he gives such a definition as shall exclude the greater part of other writers, as well as himself; in lamentations that MILTost should for s many years have descended to controversial and political prose, and submitted to the " drudgery " of public business; and in attacking 3oHN- SON for his Life and criticisms. The first point he aceorn- 'dishes by restricting the highest class el poetry to the rules %ditch ARISTOTLE applied to epic and tragedy ; requiring the poeticah invention and construction of a table as one of the chief essentials of a lirst-rate pet. By this means, he throns POPE and DirvnEN out el the list, and. in strictness excludes every one save llomr. Vinnif, :11R1 MILTON : nay, lie Eet'lliS 'Debited to doubt tile art and genius of the two first if compared with the god ef his idolatry. Te regret what has bi en and to speculate upon what might In.ve ken, is natural and easy ; in the present in- st:inee the regret and the speculations zire vissibly vain. Had MILTON continued all his lifetime a retired scholar, as Sir EGERTON WI.511C.4, we cettainly should not have had his " Prose Works ;" it is doubtful whether we should have hail Pandisc Lest in its pre- sent state. It is zit least reaunable to fancy, that his knowledge of the statesmen or the Commonwealth might suggest the spirit C,!. the council in Pandemonium, however the poet's genius might have amplified his materials ; and that his practical acquaintance with atiairs might have given him that reasonable consistency which prevails throughout his later poems. The haughty tone and bitter sarcasm of his controversisl writings may ((hough highly sublimated) be met with, we think, in his great epic, as in the meeting of Satan with Death and Sin at the gates of Hell, and in the encounter between Gabriel aud the fallen angel at the entrain.° to Paradise. To Jon NSON our author awards hcarty praise but once, and that is for his celebrated comment upon M IL- TONS mode m f teaching: but here conclusions meet. The llaionet is equally favourable with the Doctor to the perusal of poets, orators, and historian.; : and more averse than he could have been to the cultivation or exact scienees, for he never studied them himself. The censure is very lropient. The following bits are laughable samples or it.

Johnson's cen•nre of Milton for repre•enting himself and Lyeitlas as shep- herds, would go to destroy all figurative I igrage. A shepherd's, as long as poetry has been known, bias Lee ii consideied a poetical life Ii is COU versance

with the fields anti open air, jained to his leisure, eonneets it with all pietue resque imagery. The Scriptures would have afforded the ci it ii' au authority which one should have suppesed he would have respected ; as, for instance, the beautiful adaptation of Addison, beginning

• "flte Lora my 'mature shall prepare, And teed iii, uith a shepherd's rare."

But Johnson had an abhorrence of a rural ;diode; with him " the full tide of life was at aiming Cross." Ile preferred the roll of the haekney-coach and the cries of London to the sound of the woodman's axe, the shepherd's halloo, and the echo of the deep-mouthed bounds ringing from some forest-slope ;. and the witticisms of aldermen in waistcoats of scarlet and geld, at the full- clad table of Thrale the brewer, to dreams by the side of murmuring rivers, or a link in KUM sheik, with the greenery of nature at his feet. It is not true that there is no grief in " Lycidas; " but grief el .s itself in different minds, according as they are differently constructed. At, imaginative mind does not grieve in the same way as a sterile one : it is not stunned ; it expatiates abroad ; it dwells on all the scenes in which it has been associated with the object of its loss. If it is full of tears, those tears are gilded by hope but Johnson looked to death only with a sullen gloom ; he saw no bright ema- nations of joy playing in the skies: with him it was, that

" Low, sullen rounds his grief beguiled."

• • 4r Johnson's prejudices against Milton iiiere inveterate ;- they must have been taken up early in life from some passion, and have grown with his growth. Ile never ridded himself of the imp! essions he imbibed from Lander : his hatred, however, was partly political. I know not what made him so bigoted and blind a partisan ; his birth and station will not account for it ; probably. it was imbibed jacobitism. But there was something adverse in the native struce tut e of the minds of these two celebrated men : if Johuson had genius, it was quite dies' lar to that of Milton ; it was solely argumentative: he had no inventive inutgination ; he saw no phantorns but the gloomy phantoms of superstition ; he had no chivalrous enthusiasm ; he delighted not to gaze on feudal halls or " throngs of knights and barons bold ; " he thought not of another world ; of angels, and heavenly splendour, but as subjects of trembling and painful awe! Ile turned away flora them, except so far as duty enforced his attention; he loved the world amid all its gayeties and follies and conflicts.

We should be sorry if what we have said led to the notion that &r EGERTON'S criticisms are either false or absurd. Iliscomments upon particular poems are often just, alnays ingenious; and his most extreme opinions are at least founded in truth, though exag- gerated by personal predilections or prejudices. Take a spe- cimen— It is universally admitted that the primary and most essential quality of a poet is invention ; but it must be invention also of a sublime or beautiful kind ; and, to be perfect, it must display thie excellence in feble, characters, senti- ments, and language. Of all our English poets, Milton only has combined all these merits. Shakspeate wanted the first, though he was °limitable in the last three. 'What invention of fable, or even of character, is there in Dryden or Pope? I can hardy think that strictly they have invention of sentiments; for these are by them drawn from observation. Speneer attained the marvellous in pure invention ; but Ids fictions go beyond nature, and outrage our faith. Chaucees tales are rarely, if ever, original: they are principally borrowed from the Italians, or from old romances. Sack-

vale's famous legend is historical. • •

Thus it is, that before the sun of Milton all other stars are paled, unless of Homer and Virgil; and what is there in the fable of these. two that Can stand before the divine brightness of the bard of angels? With regard to characters—invention of such as are at yore true to nature, anti yet grand or attr.:etiee, is very rare. '1110,e of Dryden and l'ope are portraits, copied front individuals they ale admir.tlde as portraits, but they have not the sublimity of poetic. invention ; th.y have frail humanity for their types. They have not the magnitireoce it Sat lit and his brother rubel; still less of ; he good ansrels, ner the pioity mid h. :nay ef Ad im .and Eve. When then, is not invention. there cannot be adequate grandi 11f. Experi- ence and rvaiitv 1,11 rdi,•1 t I our ideal gr.•11.1t....,.. We can alwa■ s imagine

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it ans ars to tier deem that he was so well o1U:del:1 for tla. task lai has werie is completed, it will

Cain the loot, the cheapest, mai the ra et eleeeint edition , I. TON'S timt has yet iip.ecart Atal if Sir 1:ei firers indi- ciously lilt, Wien t,'; Jr, in the l'ruse writitws all teinpier.ry and nwrely costrioersiol metal-, retaining only such al tsea pessess a in iie eeneral and endurine interest, he will, fir topular pitspeseo have pre: eieeil the puldie w hit a cAtip!uto edition of MILTON', \Yorks,— an undertake:0- which it is the duty, as it ought to be tile pleasure, if' every lover it Eitt4lili literature to support.