poet, Du Bartas. Lauder had asserted long since that Milton was indebted to Sylvester's translation for numberless fine thoughts, be sides his low trick of playing upon 'words, and his frequent use of technical terms. From him,' he adds, Milton has borrowed many elegant phrases, and single words, which were thought to be peculiar to him, or rather coined by him; such as palpable darkness, and a thousand others.' Lauder has also said, that Philips, Milton's nephew, every where, in his Theatrum Poetarum, either wholly passes over in silence such authors as Milton was most obliged to, or, if he chances to mention them, does it in the most slight and superficial manner imaginable: Du Bartas alone ex'cepted.' But Sylvester is also highly commended, in this work, for his translation. Mr. Hayley well observes, in apology, for other omissions of Philips, which are too frequent to be considered as accidental, that he probably chose not to enumerate various poems relating to angels, to Adam, and to Paradise, lest ignorance and malice should absurdly consider the mere existence of such poetry as a derogation from the 'glory of Milton." "That Milton, however, had read the translation of Du Burtas, has been admitted by his warmest admirers, Dr. Farmer, Mr. Bowle, Mr. Warton, and Mr. Headley. A slight remark, which the editor of these volumes long since ventured to make, in the Gentleman's Magazine, respecting Milton's ac quaintance with the poetry of Sylvester, attracted the notice of the author of the Considerations, &c. just mentioned; and appears to have stimulated his desire to know more of the forgotten bard. Mr. Dunster, therefore, having procured an edition of Sylvester's Du Bartas, drew up his ingenious volume; and, with no less elegance of language than liberality of opinion, pointed out the taste and judgment of Milton in availing himself of particular passages in that book. With honourable affection for the fame of Milton, he observes, that nothing can be further from my intention than to insinuate that Mil'ton was a plagiarist or servile imitator; but I conceive that, having • Milton has derived a multiplicity read these sacred poems of very of fine hints, scattered up and high merit, at the immediate age down his poem, especially in phi- when his own mind was just belosophy and theology.' This book ginning to teem with poetry, he "Lauder adds, that there is a 'commentary on this work, called A Summary of Du Bartas, a book full of prodigious learning, and many curious observations on all arts and sciences: from whence *See November 1796, p. 200. See also Mr. Dunster's Considerations &c. p. 3. I take this opportunity of adding that Dr. Farmer's remark occurs in a note on the • married calm of states,' in Troilus and Cressida. See Steevens's Shakspeare, edit. 1793, vol. xi. p. 254.” 'retained retained numberless thoughts, passages, and expressions, therein, so deeply in his mind, that they hung inherently on his imagination, and became as it were naturalised there. Hence many of them were afterwards insensibly tranfused into his own compositions.' Sylvester's Du Bartas was also a popular book when Milton began to write poetry; it was published in the very street in which Milton's father then lived: Sylvester was certainly, as was probably Humphry Lownes the printer of the hook, puritanically inclined; Milton's family, professing the same religious opinions, would powerfully recommend to the young student the perusal of this work t by such inferences, added to the dise Lost: Sylvester's Du Bartas contains, indeed, more material prima stamina of the Paradise Lost, than, as I believe, any other book 'whatever and my hypothesis is, that it positively laid the first stone of that" monumentum ære per ennius." That Arthur for a time predominated in Milton's mind over his, at length preferred, sacred subject, was probably owing to the advice of Manso, and the track of reading into which he had then got. How far the Adamo of Andreini, or the Scena Tragica d'Adamo et Era of Lancetta, as pointed out by Mr. Hayley; or any of the Italian poems on such subjects, noticed by Mr. Walker; contributed to revive his predilec preceding remark, the reader istion for sacred poesy, it is beside led to acknowledge the successful my purpose to inquire. If he was manner, in which Mr. Dunster has materially caught by any of these, accomplished his design; namely, it served, I conceive, only to re to show Milton's early acquaint-new a primary impression made on T ance with, and predilection for, * Sylvester's Du Bartas.' I am persuaded, however, that Milton must have sometimes closed the volume with extreme disgust; and that he then sought gratification in the strains of his kindred poets, of Spenser, and of Shakspeare; or of those, whose style was not barbarous like Sylvester's, the enticing his mind by Sylvester's Du Bartas? although the Italian dramas might induce him then to meditate his divine poem in a dramatic form. It is, indeed, justly observed by * Mr. Warton, on the very fine passage, ver. 33. of the Vacation Exercise, written when Milton was only nineteen, "that it contains strong indications of a young Drummond, the learned and affect-mind anticipating the subject of ing Drayton, and several other bards of that period; as may be gathered from expressions even in Paradise Lost." Cowley found himself to be a poet, or, as himself tells us," was made one," by the delight he took in Spenser's Fairy Queen, "which was wont to lay tion respecting the origin of Para-in his mother's apartment;" and his earliest, performances. But, to resume Mr. Dunster's observa "I may observe that the folio edition of Spenser's Faery Queen, and of his other poems, in 1611, came from the press of Humphry Lownes; the date at the end of the Faery Queen is, however, 1612. "In 1611 also Humphry Lownes printed the second edition of the little volume, from which I shall presently have occasion to make an extract or two, entitled Stat ford's Niobe: or his Age of Teares. A Treatise no lesse profitable and comfortable then the Times damnable, &c. 12mo." +"See the Notes on his Translations of the 114th and 136th Psalms." which he had read all over, before he was twelve years' old. That • Dryden was, in some degree, ⚫ similarly indebted to Cowley, we may collect from his denominating him "the darling of my youth; the famous Cowley." Pope, at a little more than eight years of age, was initiated in poetry by the perusal of Ogilby's Homer and Sandys's Ovid, and to the latter he has himself intimated obligations, where he declares, in his notes to the Iliad, "that English poetry owes much of its present beauty to the translations of Sandys." The rudimenta poetica of our great poet I suppose similarly to have been Sylvester's Du Bartas; which, I conceive, not only elicited the first sparks of poetic fire from the pubescent genius of Milton, but induced him, from that time, to devote himself principally to sacred poesy, and to select Urania for his 'immediate muse, " magno perculsus amore." "The first of these poems is noticed by Baretti in his Italian Library, p. 58; who also mentions an epic poem, first printed in Sicily, and since at Milan, of which he had forgot the dates, entitled 'Adamo poem, much admired by the followers of the Cartesian system, who were very numerous when the author wrote it.' Ib. p. 66. Baretti also mentions another epic poem Le sei Giornate, di Sebasti ་ "While I agree with Mr. Dundel Campailla. It is a philosophical ster, that Milton has adopted several thoughts and expressions from Sylvester, I hope I may be permitted to observe that, although the poem of Du Bartas treats largely of the creation of the world and the fall of man, the origin of Paradise Lost may not perhaps be absolutely attributed to that work. Smit with 'the love of sacred song,' Milton, I apprehend, might be influenced, in his long choosing and beginning late,' by other effusions of sacred poesy, in the language which he ano Erizzo. The six Days, that is, the Creation performed in six days, &c.' Ib. p. 64. But this is a mistake. Le sei Giornate of Erizzo is neither a poem, nor at all connected with the history of the Creation. It is a series of novels: Le sei giornate, nelle quali sotto loved, and in the epic form, on si-diuersi fortunati et infelici aueni milar subjects; besides those of Dante, of Tasso, and of the Italian poets already mentioned. In the menti, da sei giouani raccontati, 'si contengono ammaestramenti nobili et utili di morale Filosofia *, *Proemio, p. 1.-This work of Sebastian Erizzo was printed at Venice, in quarto, by Giouan Varisco, &c. in 1567.”" "The larly noticed. Dr. Burney has considered the sacred drama of Il Gran Natale di Christo by the elder Cicognini, as subservient to Milton's plan. See the note on Paradise Lost, b, x. 249. There is also a poem of P. Antonio Glielmo, Milton's contemporary, entitled Diluvio del Mondo; and there are the Mondo Desolato of the Shepherd-boy,' G. D. Peri, (the author also of the epic poem, Fiesole Dis trutta,) and the Giudicio Estremo of Toldo Costantini; both published before Milton perhaps had deter mined the subject of his song. The writer of the article Pona (François) in the Nouveau Dict. Hist. à Caen, edit. 1786, says that Pona published L'Adamo, poema, 1664. The Adamo by this writer, (of which I am possessed,) is not, however, a poem, although abounding with poetical expressions, but a history, in three books, of the Creation and of our first parents. I have made extracts from it in the notes on Paradise Lost, b. ix. 704, 897, &c. Pona was an author not a little admired in Italy: he died in 1652. Loredano, in a letter to him, says § L'ingegno di V. S. è un giardino di Paradiso, ove non nascono che fiori immortali. Tale ho riconos 'ciuto l'angelico,' Loredano himself has also written an Italian Life of Adam; which is mentioned in the notes on Paradise Lost, b. ix. 529, 1009. It is probable that Pona and Loredano were acquainted with Milton; that they were among those discerning persons, who, in "Now the property of Richard Gough, esq.; to whom I am much indebted for the use of the book." "He died in 1644. See Elogii d'Huomini Letterati, scritti da Lorenzo Crasso, parte sec. Venet. 1666. p. 287." "The former in 1637; and I believe there is an earlier edition: the latter in 1648." န "Lettres de Loredano, edit, Bruxelles, 1708. P. 88." H 3 • the us, the private academies of Italy, whither,' the poet teils *he was favoured to resort,' fostered his blooming genius by their approbation and encourageinent. Loredano was the founder of the Accademia degli Incogniti. His house at Venice was the constant resort of learned men. Gaddi, an Italian friend whom Milton names, and who has celebrated the foundation of the academy, would hardly fail to introduce the young Englishman to the founder of it, if by no other means he had become known to him. "Italy, then, may perhaps be thought to have confirmed, if not to have excited, the design of Milton to sing man's disobedience, and the mortal taste of the forbidden • fruit.' Phil "Mr. Bowle, in his catalogue Ergo, novum molitus opus, Pater ipse profundum • Explens carne locum, sed enim pulcherrima visu Aspicio, accipióque libens tua maxima rerum "I must not omit to mention an English poem, relating to the state of innocence, entitled The Glasse of Time in the two first Ages, divinely handled by Thomas Peyton, of Lincolne's Inne, Gent.' 4to. Lond. 1623; and to observe also that part of Du Bartas had been translated into verse, and published, before the first edition of Sylvester's by William Lisle of Wilburgham, Esquier for the King's body,' namely, in 1596 and 1598, and again in 1625. See the note on See the Preface to his Church Government, b. ii. and his Epitaph. Damen 133, &c." "See Jacobi Gaddii Adlocutiones, et Elogia, &c. Florentiæ, 1656. 4to. p. 38," "Theat. Poet. edit. 1675, Ancient Poets, p. 120" Milton's |