the materials of Paradise Lost, even during the twenty years he was so hotly engaged in polemical and political controversy, and most probably only began to reduce them to order some three or four years before he brought the work to such immortal completion." What does he mean by collecting materials during twenty years? He quotes Milton himself immediately after, to prove that he had not selected his subject till he was far advanced in life. Be it so; what then is the meaning of saying that a poet had been preparing materials, during the twenty years of the prime of life, for a poem of which he had not then chosen the subject? And what is the meaning of, "probably only begun to reduce them to order?" Does it mean inditing to Deborah the Paradise Lost, as we now have it, from materials prepared before the poet knew whether the hero of his poem was to be Adam or Arthur-its heroine Eve or Ginevra? He gives a most unsatisfactory reason for believing, that this reduction to order occupied but three or four years. "From one of his letters to Deodati," says Mr Prendeville, " it appears that after he had arranged his plan, his execution in all his works was brisk, vigorous, methodical, and untiring, never losing sight of his purpose, never distracted by illness, or worldly care." Why, the letter he refers to was written in early manhood, and can prove nothing respecting Milton's habits in advanced life: besides, Mr Prendeville appears never to have read the letter he quotes from; for there is not a single syllable in it about his method or habits of composition,-merely a fine earnest sentence or two about his studies. This comes of trusting to "translations I think objectionable in point of style and fidelity." Mr Prendeville believes, that in his description of Adam is sketched off his own picture.

"His fair large front and eyes sublime declared Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks

says that Adam's hair washyacinthine. Beautiful colours both, but opposite. "Milton," says Mr Prendeville, "was considered very handsome; but his beauty, from the regularity of his features, their general harmony, and the modesty and composure of his demeanour and look, was thought to be of the feminine order. Hence he was called in the University The Lady of Christ Church." Why not say at once that he sketched off his own picture in his description of Eve? Adam's shoulders are said to have been broad; and Mr Prendeville ob serves in a note, that broad shoulders are always assigned to the ancient heroes by the poets. Now Milton's shoulders were not broad, for he tells himself, that he was very thin. Adamis said to have been erect and tall; and Milton says of himself, "my stature certainly is not tall." These Mr Pren deville may consider but trifling discrepancies; but they serve to show, that though Adam no doubt had a sort of general resemblance to Milton, he would have run a greater risk of being spoken to by Satan for Christopher North. But why had not Adam a beard? Bishop Newton thinks that it was because Raphael and the prin cipal painters, from whose works Milton frequently fetches his ideas, represent him without one. "Ay, ay," says Mr Prendeville, " but why did they?" and then, stretching himself up to his full height, giving the collar of his shirt a twitch, and gracefully stretching out his right arm, he exclaims to his fair hearers, enamoured of their bachelor, " I think, because Adam, before the fall, and before he became subject to death, was supposed to be in a state of perpetual youth." Good! He was in a state of beardless inno cence; but alas! had you seen him the morning after the expulsion, you would have sworn he had not shaved for a week.

Let any contemporary sumph give vent to a sillyism respecting a great man, and it is sure to be transmitted to the latest posterity, from hand to

hung Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad."

The reasons assigned for this belief are not very satisfactory. "In his youth his hair was auburn." Milton

occasionally embellished by a touch of genius, and accredited by the multitude as a characteristic truth. We can easily understand how Milton, when insulted by his adversaries, should, in the ardour of manhood,

while chastising their brutal calumnies, have written with dignified complacency of his own person, on which nature had lavished her most beautiful gifts; but we can never - bring ourselves to believe that in what may be called his old age, (though little above fifty,) John Milton pleased his imagination with a picture of his own physical endowments, in his description of the sire of - mankind. Most assuredly, at that hour - he thought not at all of his own out ward man. It was right that Adam should be pictured as a being but a little lower than the angels; and we - can look on him with undiminished admiration " in that celestial colloquy sublime," sitting by Raphael's side. - But though Milton, in the hour of - inspiration, forgot that he had a body at all, it is delightful to think of him in vernal adolescence, "with a fair = and soft complexion, and light brown hair parted over his forehead, and ■ floating down his shoulders, almost realizing one of those fine creations of spiritual shapes which he has described ■ in the Paradise Lost." So says finely Robert Bell, who afterwards speaks = in the same spirit of Milton's last - wife, who probably with her own -hand closed his eyes.

"She had golden tresses, and Milton is supposed to have designed her portrait in the picture of Eve, as he is suspected of having drawn himself in Adam; but much of that beautiful delineation must have derived its charm from his imagination, as he was blind when he married her, and must therefore have formed his outlines from description. But blind men have a miraculous sense of beauty, which is hardly intelligible to others. They have a thousand ways of estimating it: their ideal is

= composed of a multitude of exquisite associations, and if they do not produce accu■rate resemblances, they create, at all events, delightful images that have a refined affinity to truth. The tone of voice, the laugh, the footstep, modes of expression, energy or languor of thought and utterance, and a multitude of exquisite types that escape all other observers, convey an eloquent and perfect language to them."

There is no such writing as that in James Prendeville; yet we benignantly ask Mr Bell how Elizabeth Minshull could possibly have been painted by Milton in the picture of Eve, seeing

that Dr Paget did not select her to be the poet's wife till 1664, and that the Paradise Lost was seen in its finished state by Ellwood the Quaker in 1665? It is sometimes not easy to understand Mr Prendeville, even when he appears to be writing about something sufficiently simple. "We are not," says he, "to consider the perhaps obs jectionable character of the polemic and the politician, in our consideration of his work, which ought to be judged of as he intended it, as an ες αει κτημα, as Herodotus says, a legacy to his country for all future ages. What is it to the admirers of the Iliad and the Odyssey whether Homer, the mendi cant singer, was the original author of these admired poems, or only a collector of the songs and rhapsodies on the subject of the Theban and Trojan wars, embellishing these stories, and adding many of his own? We know the Eneid to be in a great measure a chaste and judicious compilation from the Iliad and Odyssey, yet we do not the less admire it on that account. But this charity is not extended to Milton-a far greater name than either. The man is often remembers ed in his great work."

By whom, it may be asked, is the man often remembered in his great work? By none now to his disparagement. But were it otherwise, still the above about Homer is drivel. No man, deserving the name, would give up the existence of Homer, though barked at by a whole pack of wolves. All admirers of the Iliad and the Odyssey must scoff at Mr Prendeville for asking what is it to them such a question about Homer. A mendicant singer Homer never was. And he who believes the Iliad to be but "a collection of songs and rhapsodies about the Theban and Trojan wars," must be an ass fourteen hands high without his shoes. What can the above stuff about the Iliad possibly have to do with the Paradise Lost, and the personal character of Milton? If it could be shown that the Paradise Lost were in "a great measure a chaste and judicious compilation," as the Eneid is said to be from the Iliad and Odyssey, unquestionably all people of common sense would admire it the less on that account. But this warns us to conclude with that anonymous wiseacre, a friend of Mr Prendeville's, who may be safely set down, now that You Know Who is dead, as the chief blockhead of the age.

His doctrine is said to be founded on that of Aristotle; but to our eyes it appears original. It is as follows:Poetry originating in the pleasure we take in imitation, it is evident that when one good poet imitates another, we have a double pleasure; the first proceeding from a comparison of the description with its object; and the second from comparing the one de scription with the other. From this principle the great unknown author of the short anonymous essay draws some important conclusions: First, that when a poet imitates a description from another poet, which had been imitated from a third, our plea sure is still the greater; therefore the imitations in Milton are, in this re. spect, beyond those of Virgil, because he has imitated some places of Virgil which are imitations of Homer. Secondly, That the passages a poet is to imitate ought to be selected with great care, and should ever be the best parts of the best authors, and always ought to be improved in imitation, so that vastly less invention and judgment are required to make a good original than a fine imitation. Thirdly, That such imitations cost the author more pains, and give the reader greater pleasure, than an original composition. Fourthly, That in all such secondary imitations, as they may be called, a considerable alteration from the original has a very agreeable effect; for we have in our nature a principle to be delighted with what is new, to which

it is plain these secondary or tertiary imitations are not very conformable, on which account they ought to have, as well as a likeness, a due variation, that at one and the same time they maygratify our several dispositions for being pleased with what is imitated, and with what is new. Fifthly, That in these imitations there ought generally to be observed a medium betwixt a literal translation and a distant allusion; as the first destroys the pleasure we have from what is new, and the latter encroaches on that which we receive from imitation. Sixthly, That

a

great original poet does not confine himself, in an imitation, to the passage he principally takes it from, but renders it more complete by hints taken from other places of the same author, or from another author. Seventhly, That the merit of ordinary poets consists in the difficulty of imitating, and the more literal they are the better. The name of the author of this short anonymous essay must be discovered, and the short anonymous essay itself stereotyped, that it may never get out of print again. We devoutly trust that the author, though anonymous, is yet alive, and may be long spared to us to illuminate his kind. If he turn out to be dead, no pains nor expense must be grudged to ascertain his spot of sepulture, and there, to his immortal memory, must be erected a transitory granite monument. If no trace can be discovered of his name or his dust, a cenotaph must be erected somewhere in Ireland's capital city, with a suitable inscription from the pen of Mr Prendeville.

WE claim attention from the public on the state of our relations present and to come with China. We pretend to no private materials upon the subject; but in this respect we stand upon the same footing as the leaders of our public counsels. All speak from the text furnished to them by Captain Elliot's correspondence, as published in the newspapers. So far we stand upon the universal level. But it is astonishing how much advantage one man may gain over another, even where all start from the same basis of information, simply by these two differences-1st, by watching the oversight of his competitors, most of whom are apt to seize upon certain features of the case with an entire neglect of others; 2dly, by combining his own past experience, gathered from books or whatever sources, with the existing phenomena of the case, as the best means of deciphering their meaning or of calculating their remote effects.

We do not wish to disguise that our views tend to the policy of war-war conducted with exemplary vigour. It is better to meet openly from the first an impression, (current amongst the hasty and undistinguishing,) that in such views there is a lurking opposition to the opinions of the Conservatives. Were that true, we should hesitate. It is a matter of great delicacy to differ with one's party; and it is questionable whether, even in extreme cases, it can be right to publish such a difference. Once satisfied that the general policy

NO. CCXCVI. VOL. XLVII.

of our party is clamorously demanded by the welfare of the country; and in this particular case of the Tory pretensions finding them sustained by the very extraordinary fact, that even out of office they are not out of power, but do really impress the Conservative mind upon one-half of the public measures, whilst of the other half a large proportion is carried only by their sufferance, by their forbearance, or by their direct co-operation-under such circumstances, an honourable party-man will not think himself justified, for any insulated point of opinion or even of practice, to load his party with the reproach of internal discord. Every party, bound together by principles of public fellowship, and working towards public objects, is entitled to all the strength which can arise from union, or the reputation of union. It is a scandal to have it said " You are disunited-you cannot agree amongst yourselves; " and the man who sends abroad dissentient opinions, through any powerful organ of the press, is the willing author of such a scandal. No gain upon the solitary truth concerned, can balance the loss upon the total reputation of his party for internal harmony.

Meantime, as too constantly is the case in mixed questions, when there is much to distinguish, it is a very great blunder to suppose the Conservative party to set their faces against a Chinese war. That party, with Sir Robert Peel for their leader, have in the House of Commons recorded a strong

2 z

vote against our recent Chinese policy; so far is true; but not against a Chinese war. Such a war, unhappily, is all the more necessary in conse. quence of that late policy; a policy which provided for nothing, foresaw nothing, and in the most pacific of its acts laid a foundation and a necessity that hostilities should redress them.

There is another mistake currenta most important mistake; viz. about the relation which the opium question bears to the total dispute with China. It is supposed by many persons, that, if we should grant the Chinese Government to have been in the right upon the opium affair, it will follow of course that we condemn the principle of any war, or of any hostile demonstrations against China. Not at all. This would be a complete non sequitur. I. China might be right in her object, and yet wrong - insufferably wrong in the means by which she pursued it. In the first of the resolutions moved on the 2d of the May by Company of Edinburgh Merchants, (Mr Oliphant, chairman,) it is assumed that the opium lost by the British was a sacrifice to the "more effectual execution of the Chinese laws," which is a gross fiction. The opium was transferred voluntarily by the British: on what understanding is one of the points we are going to consider. II. There is a causa belli quite apart from the opium question; a ground of war which is continually growing more urgent; a ground which would survive all disputes about opium, and would have existed had China been right in those disputes from beginning to end.

Yet it is good to pause for a moment, and to look at this opium dispute so far as the documents give us any light for discussing it. The apologists of China say, that the Pekin Government has laboured for

some time to put down the national abuse of opium. Why, and under what view of that abuse? As a mode of luxury, it is replied, pressing upon the general health; and for a second reason, as pressing seriously upon the national energies. This last we put down in candour as a separate consideration; because, though all unwhole. some luxuries must be supposed indirectly to operate upon the cheerfulness and industry of those who use them, with respect to opium, in particular, it

must be allowed, that this secondary action is often the main one, and takes place in a far larger proportion than simply according to the disturbances of health. There is a specific effect known to follow the habitual use of opium, by which it speedily induces a deadly torpor and disrelish of all exertion, and in most cases long before the health is deranged, and even in those constitutions which are by nature so congenially predisposed to this narcotic, as never to be much shaken by its uttermost abuse.

Thus far, and assuming all for truth which the Chinese tell us, we have before us the spectacle of a wise and paternal Government; and it recommends such wisdom powerfully to a moral people like ours, that we seem to see it exerting itself unpopularly; nobly stemming a tide of public hatred, and determined to make its citizens happy in their own despite. Fresh from this contemplation of dis interested virtue, how shocked we all feel on seeing our own scamps of sailors working an immense machinery for thwarting so beneficent a Govern ment! A great conflagration is undermining all the social virtues in China: the Emperor and Commissioner Lin are working vast fire-engines for throwing water upon the flames; and, on the other hand, our people are discharging columns of sulphur for the avowed purpose of feeding the combustion.

"Scandalous!" we all exclaim; but, as the loveliest romances are not always the truest, let us now hear the other party. Plaintiff has spoken: Defendant must now have his turn.

For the defendant then it is urged,That the Chinese Government, having long connived at the opium trade, has now found three purely selfish reasons against it.

1st, As having at length a rival interest of its own; Lin and others are said to have some thousands of acres laid down as poppy-plantations. Now, the English opium, and that of Malwa, as an old concern, is managed much more cheaply. To exclude the foreign growth is essential, therefore, as the first step towards a protection to the infancy of the home growth. On this view of the case we would recommend a sliding duty, such as that of our corn-laws, to the Celestial opiumgrowers.