University of Virginia Library

Some notes are added to illustrate the poem.

To strew the laureate herse, where Lycid lies. MILTON'S LYCIDAS.

The ingenious author asserts, that there never was a man in his situation more universally beloved than the last Head-Master of Winchester. In addition to that general tribute of gratitude paid him at all times, the particular testimony which he received from the Scholars of the College, at the time of his quitting them in 1793, cannot but be considered as highly honourable to him and them. It was a testimony, which no doubt was the source of gratification to him till the day of his death.

Paradise Lost, book 2.

Warton might have described his own mingled fondness for the Greek, Latin, and Italian poets, in the words which he has quoted from Milton. Nec me tam ipsæ Athenæ Atticæ cum illo suo pellucido Ilisso, nec illa vetus Roma sua Tiberis ripa retinere valuerunt, quin sæpe Arnum vestrum et Fæsulanos illos colles invisere amem. —Essay on Pope, i. 265.

Fortunate senex. Virg. E. 1.

Warton's enthusiastic admiration of the poets specified above is well known; and the mention of them in this place is not foreign from the purpose, as they are not only the subjects of those elegant critical papers, with which he enriched the Adventurer, but are frequently brought forward by him, with all the warmth of an ardent lover, in his Essay on Pope.

TEMPEST.

Chaucer is obscure to those persons only who neglect him; the difficulty, which attends the first reading of him, soon vanishes; and surely the conquest must be worth the trouble, when we consider the advantages to be derived from it. Whoever can be satisfied with masculine and simple poetry; whoever can be amused with humour, too often through the nature of the times in which he wrote alloyed with ribaldry, but frequently pure and sterling; whoever thinks it desirable to become acquainted with the manners of his ancestors, and (I may add) to gain a more distinct view of his own language, will be amply rewarded by the repeated perusal of Chaucer. —I consider his Knightes Tale, which Dryden has so nobly modernised, as the poem of Chivalry: the names, indeed, are clasical; but the images, the sentiments, the characters, the very action of the poem itself, are all wild, and fanciful, and chivalrous. But all this is fully illustrated, and powerfully confirmed by a writer, who has devoted much time and talent, and no less zeal to this our first poetic parent. Mr. Godwin has afforded “ample room and verge enough” to this great poet, who is certainly entitled to the best attentions of his historian.

Mr. Mant says, I have taken the liberty of adopting this pronunciation, notwithstanding Milton's authority to the contrary. The word as it frequently occurs in the Squieres Tale, is necessarily and uniformly Càmbuscàn: e. g.

(C. T. 10343.) Milton was, in all probability, not aware of the title of Khan of Tartary.

Wharton was remarkably partial to Longinus's treatise on the Sublime, and in his choice of that interesting writer he seems to have been directed by a congeniality of sentiment. He was, indeed, the critic of taste and feeling.

Mr. Mant alludes to a part of Moschus's Elegy on Bion, which he transcribes. Any one, who may have happened not to have read it, will thank him for introducing him to one of the most beautiful and pathetic poems of antiquity; and those who have read it, can never think the reperusal of it to be tedious.

He then mentions a resemblance between these verses and some lines in Dr. Beattie's “Hermit:” it appears more striking from the consideration, that the earliest copies of that poem contained only the first four stanzas. And the two concluding stanzas seem to have been added by the elegant and amiable author, or (as has been stated) by Johnson, with a view of correcting the false sentiment conveyed in the preceding.