and pleasing reflection, that so great a Poet should commence his beautiful and sublime career by fondly enwreathing his first flowers around the tomb of an admired and beloved brother.

April, 1822.

MUSIPHILUS.

AN EPITAPH

On the Admirable Dramitque Poet

MR. WM. SHAKSPEARE.

Autore Jo: Milton, Coll: Christ. Cant. 1630.

What needs my Shakspeare for his honour'd, boncs

The labour of an age in piled stones,

Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid Under a star-ypointing Pyramid?

Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame, What need'st Thou such weak witness of thy

name!

Thou in our wonder and astonishment

Hast built thyself a live-long monument.

For whilst, to th' shame of slow endeavour

ing Art,

Thy easie numbers flow; and that each

heart

Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued Book Those Delphic lines with deep impression

took;

Then thou our Fancy of itself bereaving, Dost make us marble with too much conceiving ;

And so sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lia, That Kings for such a tomb would wish to die,

NO. VII.

In the magnificent structure of Melrose abbey, "there is one cloister in particular, along the whole length of which there runs a cornice of flowers and plants entirely unrivalled by anything elsewhere extant.-I do not say in Gothic Architecture merely, but in any whatever. Roses, lilies, thistles, ferns and heaths, in all their varietics, oak-leaves, and ash-leaves, and a thousand beautiful shapes beside, are chisselled with such inimitable truth, and such grace of nature, that the finest botanist in the world could not desire a better hortus siccus, so far as they go. The wildest productions of the forest, and the most delicate of the garden, are represented with equal fidelity and taste-and they are all arranged and combined in such a way, that it is evident they are placed there under the eye of some skilful admirer of all the beauties of external nature Nay, there is a human hand in another part, holding a garland loosely in the fingers, which, were it cut off, and placed among the Elgin marbles, would be kissed by the cognoscenti as one of the finest of them all.-Nothing can be more simply-more genuinely easy-more full of expression."

Dr. Johnson, with more of flippancy than fact, observes that "Milton never Jearned the art of doing little things with a grace; he overlooked the milder excellence of suavity and softness; he was a Lion that had no skill in dandling the kid." The Doctor ought to have been the last person to have made such a remark; for they whose house is built of glass, should not be the first to throw stones. I might as flippantly reply that Milton did never learn the art, he had it by Nature, (as Dogberry got the VANITY of reading and writing)-for the fact is, that through all the works of this great Poet there are numberless little touches of the most graceful suavity. To strike out in contour, and finish in sharp relief, such characters as Satan or Sampson, is indeed to "cut a colossus out of a rock;" as surely as to write Sonnets is to carve heads on cherry-stones." Yet even of his Sonnets, cramped as they are, by a rigid adherence to the legitimate Italian standard, none can be pronounced absolutely bad (the one Dr. Johnson spitefully selects in his Dictionary, was written in fun), and many are exquisitely beautiful. Who shall deny the praise of loveliness to L'Allegro and Il Penseroso? two of the sweetest little poems in any Language. Lycidas and

worse

Arcades are abundant in beauties. Comus is ALL beauty; and his Songs are wholesome sweetness. But even throughout his great works are scattered profusely, the flowers of Eden and of after-Earth---the innocent delights of pastoral and domestic life---and the decorated suavities of rural repose.--But Dr. Johnson, (of learning, power, and prejudice "all compact") however ill-disposed by nature to judge of "the milder excellencies" of any poetry, was disposed to applaud that of a republican and democrats nor had he the honest can. dour of Hotspur to allow that even the Devil might be a good musician. And I shall be told from as keen, tho' a kinder quarter (my learned friend of the "URN"), that Milton has stolen many of his sweetest passages from the Greek, Latin, and Italian poets. It may be so; but the aforesaid Doctor remarks, that Milton stole from Pride, Dryden from Indolence, and Pope from Poverty. Yet in the very passages borrowed, he has shewn his Judgment in selecting, and his Genius in improving them: and after all, plucked of his borrowed plumes, he will be found no Jack-Daw, but a sweet nightingale of Paradise, that sings darkling and endeared.---The Architect of the Acropolis or Ephesian Dome,

ponderous in their parts, and perfect in their symmetry, omitted not to ornament the frieze of his architrave with groupes of Fancy, nor to cap his massive columns with the graceful Ionic volute, or the rich foliage of the Corinthian acanthus.—Nor did our Milton in all his Power of Song, tho' Master of the fullest Choir of Clarions, Shawns, and Cymbals, omit at times to touch the Doric reed, the Lydian measure, the cheerful mountain Pipe, or the sorrowing Harp of the willows.

As I have run to an unusual length (tho still unwilling to stop) I shall fling, for the season, one of the lightest of his labours, and fearlessly affirm it to be a little thing of grace, mild excellence, suavity, and soft

ness.

29th April, 1822.

MUSIPHILUS,

SONG, ON MAY MORNING.

Now the bright Morning-star, Day's harbinger,

Comes dancing in the East, and leads with her The flowery May; who from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip, and the pale primsose. Hail, beauteous May that dost inspire Mirth, and Youth, and warm Desire;