many a matter which, in the days of Charles the Second, had not penctrated very much deeper than the upper circle of scholars. What, therefore, was commendable in Hume's time is contemptible now. And then, during these last forty years, the popular study of our ancient lore, which may be said to have commenced with the publication of Percy's Reliques, has familiarized us with words deemed in Newton's time, when an astonishing ignorance of our old language prevailed among the ordinary run of readers and writers, fit for a glossary. We need not now be told that chivalry means people who ride on horses or drive in chariots. The reader of Hohenlinden, no very recondite poem, under

stands

"Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave, And charge with all thy chivalry!" without a patronising note of explanation. It may once have been a matter of necessity to explain that a brand is a sword. Is it now requisite for the merest lounger over a novel? What proof-armour, plate, mail, tilting, tournaments, blazonry, cressets, jousts, &c. &c., are, must be known to even the frequenters of minor theatres? Sir Walter Scott has familiarized us well to all these things, and yet they are here dully explained in formal notes. Now, really we might expect that trivial classical quotations, charity-school Scriptural lore, and circulating library knowledge, are not any longer to find a place in a critical edition of Paradise Lost. Whatever purpose they were originally intended to serve has been served long since, and they may now safely be discarded. At least one half of Mr Prendeville's notes are, in the present state of the most ordinary literature, quite useless.

In another department of his task, Mr Prendeville throws down the gauntlet of defiance against all other epic poets in behalf of Paradise Lost, as becomes a loyal editor. He copies, of course, Addison's laudatory remarks, which, however, will hardly stand the test of rigid criticism, and boldly sets Milton

"Above all Greek, above all Roman fame."

Some gentleman, who keeps him

self prudently anonymous, supplies the following sagacious sentences:

"Homer had certainly more invention than Virgil; and Virgil more judgment than Homer. But Homer had more of Virgil's talent than Virgil had of his; and, besides, possessed his own in a greater degree than Virgil did his own: in short, Homer had more judgment than Virgil had invention, and more invention than Virgil judgment. Yet the Eneid does not fall so short of the Iliad, as Virgil's genius seems to do of Homer's; which no doubt, in a great part, is owing to his skilful imitations. But Milton surpasses both; for

he was equal to Homer in invention, and superior to him and Virgil in judgment." This is a beautiful specimen of antithetical criticism, which may be success. fully applied to any thing. "Applepies have certainly more fruit in them than apple-puddings, and apple-puddings more flour than apple-pies; but the pies have more of the pudding material than the puddings have of the pie material, and besides possess their own in a greater degree than the puddings do theirs in short, the pies have more flour than the puddings have fruit, and more fruit than the puddings have flour. But plum. puddings surpass both, for they are equal to apple-pies in fruit, and surpass them and apple-puddings in flour." Now, as the proof of the pudding is in the eating of it, these elaborately balanced assertions, de re pistoria, will not be taken without being submitted to that decisive ordeal; and in like manner, we must be reluctant to admit, without some satisfactory test of their truth, the equally trim antitheses of the anonymous aphorist in re criticâ. There are people in the world who imagine that Homer had not only more invention, but more judgment than Virgil and Milton put together, and who question whether the judgment of our great English poet is exactly the point on which he is most deserving of approbation, in spite of such battledore and shuttlecock eriticism as that just quoted. Elsewhere he tells us, that most of the eminent literati contend for the supremacy of Paradise Lost over any poem in any language or age, (Editor's Preface, p. 1,) and on all due occasions takes an opportu nity of extolling it as superior to the epics of Homer. These eminent literati are, we believe, in a very respect

3

able minority; and it would be hard indeed to point out one capable of understanding Homer, who was ever guilty of holding such an opinion. At all events we do not think that Mr Prendeville has read

"The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle,"

with any remarkable care, in those passages in which he claims Milton's superiority. For instance, in his note on the 14th and 28th lines of the Ninth Book, he assures us that his (Milton's) theme was in truth more sublime than the wrath of Achilles, who dragged his dead foe Hector thrice round the walls of Troy. Now, if he had looked into Homer, he would have found that Achilles did no such thing.

“ ὡς τω (Hector and Achilles) τρις Πριάμοιο πολιν περιδινήθη την

καρπαλίμοισι ποδεσσι”

"Thrice they did both whirl round the

city of Priam with rapid step."

Hector being by no means dead, but displaying most active signs of vitality. After he was killed, indeed, Achilles tied him to his chariot, and dragged him, not round the city, but straight to the ships.

"And the swift horses dragged him pitilessly to the hollow ships of the Grecians."

If Mr Prendeville had looked at the text on which he was commenting, he would have seen that Milton made no such mistake. He describes Hector as "the foe pursued thrice fugitive-not thrice draggedabout Troy wall." But even Milton does not appear to be quite correct; for the wrath of stern Achilles-the

unvis ouλomen—which is the theme of the Iliad, was directed, not against Hector but Agamemnon. As so complete and accurate a scholar could hardly have made any error when Homer is concerned, perhaps we may conjecture that Milton dictated"the wrath

Of stern Achilles, or his foe pursued Thrice fugitive about Troy wall "such an error of the press being likely enough to escape the notice of Milton, or to excite the suspicion of his reader. If this reading be admitted, the mean

ing of the passage is, "my theme is more exalted than the anger of Achilles, which commences the Iliad, or the defeat of Hector, which brings it to a conclusion."

On B. iv. 1. 700, we have the following note:

66 Pope says that Milton imitates Homer (Il. xiv. 347), where Jupiter and Juno are represented as lying together in conjugal embrace on Ida; and that he copies the terms and cadence of his verse, and many of his words. Yes; but how small a portion of his description are Homer's three lines! and how immeasurably superior is this description to Homer's, and to those of all the ancient poets put together!

Τοισι δ' ὑπο Χθων δια φυεν νεοθηλέα ποιην, Λωτον θ' έρσηεντα, ιδε κροκον, ἡδ ̓ ὑακινθον, Πυκνον και μαλακον, ὃς απο χθονος ὑψόσ' εέργε.

The passage in Milton is unquestionably very fine.

"Thus talking, hand in hand alone they pass'd

On to their blissful bower: it was a place Chose by the sov'reign planter, when he fram'd

All things to man's delightful use: the roof,

Of thickest covert, was inwoven shade, Laurel, and myrtle; and what higher

Or costliest emblem."

But that it is immeasurably superior, or superior at all to Homer's, is ville did not reflect that Milton was quite another question. Mr Prendedescribing a bower-Homer a bed which are two rather different things. The laurel, myrtle, and what higher grew of firm and fragrant leaf, the odorous shrubs, and even the roses, if any with thorns were to be found in Paradise, would not be the most agreeable present for Earth to offer as a couch for Jupiter and Juno, however ornamental they may be in a bower. Homer employed three lines, because these three lines said all that he had

to say; as, for a reason of the same kind, Milton in his passage has employed some fifteen. When Homer

has to describe a bower, as Calypso's in the Odyssey, E. 59-74; or a garden, as that of Alcinous, Od. H. 112-132, he spends upon it as many lines as Milton, which must gratify the arithmetical heart of Mr Prendeville, who evidently values poetry by its length. Milton had the passages of the Odyssey clearly in his mind, as any one will perceive who compares the poems. By the way, why is Mr Prendeville content with merely defining " emblem," which occurs in the last line we have quoted, without taking as an illustration

"Arte pavimenti, atque emblemate vermiculato"

with which he might have been supplied by Bentley? Is it because, as B. had omitted to point out the author, P. did not like to expose himself as not knowing that it came from Lucilius?

Mr Prendeville's note on Book v.

of

1. 285, &c., is too long to be quoted; but it is directed to the purpose proving that Milton's account of the descent of Raphael to Eden far outshines that of Homer describing Mercury's flight downward to Troy in the 24th Iliad, or of the same deity's mission to Æneas, in Virgil's fourth

Æneid.

"It is unnecessary to point out the immeasurable superiority of Milton in his

description of the progress of Raphael's

flight-the spontaneous opening of heaven's

gates the first view of earth, looking like

a distant speck of land in the ocean-his sailing between worlds and worlds-his

resemblance on his approach to earth, while high in the air, to a phoenix-the gorgeous picture of his wings and his appearance in Paradise in his native majesty, (for it is in his graceful posture, after he alights, that he is chiefly compared to Mercury,) with that matchless accompaniment of his shaking his plumes, and diffusing a heavenly fragrance wide around. Virgil, who labours to improve on Homer, represents Jupiter as sending Mercury to warn Æneas of his danger in disobeying the divine injunction, and neglecting the high destinies in store for him. Here Mercury flies close by the surface of the sea." So Satan (ii. 634) shaves with level wing the deep.' In Homer, Mercury's wings bear him " over moist and o'er the boundless earth.' In

2

Virgil, they bear him o'er sea and earth.' Milton embraces all; for (iii. 652) God's angels bear his swift errands over moist and dry, o'er sea and land. Mercury lights on Mount Atlas, and thence throws himself headlong to the waves. Satan (iii. 70) does much more, for he

cess,

• Down from the ecliptic, sped with hop'd suc Throws his steep flight in many an aery wheel, Nor staid till on Niphates' top he lights.' Virgil represents the pine-capped head of Atlas, girt day by day with gloomy clouds, beat with the wind and rain.' Milton (ii. 587) represents a whole 'frozen continent dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms of whirlwind and dire hail.' Mercury drives the winds, and swims through troubled clouds.' Raphael here sails on the polar winds (the strongest of all winds, and) with steady wing;' and Satan does more, for he (ii. 1014) 'through the shock of fighting elements, on all sides round environed, wins his way.' Virgil compares Mercury to a seabird winging close along the cliffs; but Raphael is like the phoenix soaring in mid heaven. Thus the reader will see with what masterly power he embellishes whatdescription to both those.” ever he touches, and how superior is his

The

Very enlightened criticism indeed! Homer and Virgil had to describe a god, whom their mythology furnished with a pair of slippers, dia, talaria, which transported the wearer fast as the wind over land and sea. Raphael of Milton was a six-winged seraph, in conformity with the seraphim in Isaiah vi. 2. Mercury is dispatched from the Olympian heaven of Paganism, which was scarcely any thing more than terrestrial; and therefore he is compared to a purely ter restrial object-the sea-bird skimming along the cliffs. This comparison is to be found in Virgil-the

avi similis, quæ circum littora, circum

Piscosos scopulos, humilis volat æquora juxta,

of the Æneid, (B. iv. 254,) being little more than a translation of the Odyssey, E. 51-53.

Homer, and Virgil, who does not venture much beyond translating his Greek master, are doing one thing, and Milton is doing another. All three execute their tasks with great genius and grace; but something is to be said in favour of him who came first. Mr Prendeville, however, is much mistaken if he imagines that the picturesque touches (not in Homer) which he principally admires as improvements, are original in Paradise Lost. One of those treasures of the Gothic library, so much despised by our editor, namely Sannazarius, makes the angel who announces the birth of our Saviour in the De Partu Virginis, = lib. i. 107, perfume the air like Raphael by expanding his wings.

-ingentes explicat alas,

Ac tectis late insuetum diffundit odorem.

and Marino, in the Strage degli In=nocenti, was beforehand with Milton in comparing an angel to a phoenix.

I

Let us further remark, that in the Equality of judgment, which is wisely supposed to have been deficient in Homer, the old Father of Song far outstrips Milton, as indeed he does every body else. Mercury, the messenger of the gods, is never sent on idle or ineffectual messages. He goes, in the Iliad, to bring Priam to the tent of Achilles; and the body is accordingly =regained. In the Odyssey he is dispatched to free Ulysses from the thraldom of Calypso; and Ulysses is at once sent afloat on his homeward Evoyage. What may be the use of Raphael's mission it is hard to say; unless to afford the poet a convenient = opportunity of describing the revolt of Satan, the war in heaven, the =punishment of the rebellious, and the creation of the world; and to be rewarded by Adam for his communicativeness by an account of what immediately followed the creation of man. It is true that Raphael warns Adam of the danger he is in from the wiles and the malice of Satan; but the warning is not only of no use, but it was destined to be utterly fruitless. The commission given to Raphael is, Book v. 229-245,

"Go therefore, half this day as friend with friend

Converse with Adam, in what bower or shade

Thou find'st him, from the heat of noon retir'd

.

essay

If him by force he can destroy, or, worse, By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert:

For man will hearken to his glozing lies, And easily transgress the sole command, Sole pledge of his obedience: so will fall He and his faithless progeny."

Man, then, being thus foredoomed to listen to the glozing lies of the tempter, to be by them perverted, to transgress the sole pledge of his obedience, and to fall-what is the use of Raphael's mission? We should think little of the " judgment" of Homer if he sent his Mercury on such a fool's errand, as to bring home the dead body of Hector, or the living body of Ulysses, if he knew that destiny had determined that Achilles was to retain the one, and Calypso the other.

Mr Prendeville makes many other sallies of the same kind, in which any one but the eminent anonymous critic, already renowned, will without hesita tion give the palm to Homer, and cry, with Horace some nineteen centuries ago,