che la maldicenza fia cofa onefta, allora io converrò the importa molto poco il modo, con cui fi attacca la riputazione del proffimo: e aggiungo che il farcafmo e l'infulto fono la peggior maniera di mormorare, e di biafimare donde risulta sempre il maggior danno a chi lo ufa.-Opere di Mengs, tomo primo, p. 243.

These admonitions are excellent, and want only the good example of the monitor to make them complete; but Mengs, unfortunately, in his profeffional writings, has fpoken of Reynolds in a manner that grofsly violates his own doctrine; fo difficult is it, my good Doctor, to find a pacific preacher and his practice in perfect harmony with each other.

To feeling and fervent spirits there can hardly be any provocation more apt to excite afperity of language, than an infult offered to an object of their esteem and veneration. In writing upon Mil

and those who, to my apprehenfion, have infulted his name with contumelious severity, I may have been hurried beyond the bias of my temper, which is, I truft, neither irafcible nor cenforious; but I will imitate some well meanimg

catholic writers, and making you, my dear Warton, my inquifitor as well as my patron, I will here very honeftly say to you," Si quid dixerim contra fpiritum caritatis evangelice indictum

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Let me now haften to apologize to you, as I think I ought, for fuch deficiencies as your nice difcernment cannot fail to observe in the work I address to you. You remember that Plutarch, the. amiable prince of ancient biographers, has very justly mentioned the advantage arifing to a writer from refiding in a city amply furnished with books; it is my lot, you know, to live in a little fequeftered village, and I chufe to do fo for the reason which attached the good-natured Plutarch to his native Cheronæa, that it may not become lefs. Had it fuited me to devote much time and labor to extenfive researches in the public and private libraries of London, it is possible that I might have discovered fome latent anecdotes relating to Milton; yet after the patient inquiries of the intelligent and indefatigable Dr. Birch, and after the fignal discovery of your more successful brother, little novelty could be expected to reward

the toil of such inveftigation; and perhaps a writer too eager to make new discoveries on this beaten ground, might be hurried by fuch eagerness into the cenfurable temerity of Peck the antiquarian, who, in his memoirs of the great poet, has affixed the name of Milton to a portrait and a poem that do not belong to him.

Though my work has been executed in a retired village of England, my inquiries have extended far beyond the limits of our own country, by the aid of fome intelligent and obliging friends, who had the kindness to search for me the great libraries of Paris and Rome, in the hope of dif covering fome neglected compofition, or latent anecdote, that might be useful to a biographer of Milton. The fuccefs of these researches has not been equal to the kindnefs and the zeal of the intelligent inquirers; but an unexpected favor from a literary friend, who is known to me only by his writings, has enabled me to throw, perhaps, a new ray of light on that inviting fubject of conjecture, the real origin of Milton's greatest performance.

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rival in excellence the poetry they difcufs? Affuredly but little; yet there remains, perhaps, one method of giving a degree of intereft and illuftration to the life of Milton, which it has not hitherto received; a method which his accomplished friend of Italy, the Marquis of Villa, in fome measure adopted in his interefting life of Taffo; and which two engaging biographers of later date, the Abbé de Sade and Mr. Mason, have carried to greater perfection in their respective memoirs of Petrarch and of Gray. By weaving into their narrative selections of verfe and profe from the various writings of those they wished to commemorate, each of these affectionate memorialists may be said to have taught the poet he loved" to become his own biographer;" an experiment that may, perhaps, be tried on Milton with the happieft effect! as in his works, and particularly in those that are at present the least known, he has fpoken frequently of himfelf.-Not from vanity, a failing too cold and low for his ardent and elevated mind; but, in advanced life, from motives of juftice and honor, to defend himself against the poisoned arrows of flander; and, in his younger days, from that tenderness and fimplicity of heart, which lead a youthful poet to make his own affections and amusements the chief fubjects of his song.

The great aim of the fubfequent account is to render full and perfect juftice to the general character of Milton. His manners and caft of mind,

in various periods of life, may appear in a new and agreeable light, from the following collection. and arrangement of the many little fketches, which his own hand has occafionally given us, of his pallions and purfuits. Several of thefe, indeed, have been fondly affembled by Toland or Richardfon; men, who, different as they were in their general fentiments and principles, yet fympathized completely in their zeal for the renown of Milton; delighting to dwell on his character with that fhadow of friendfhip, . that compla66 cency and ardor of attachment, which, as Pope "has observed in speaking of Homer, we naturally feel for the great geniuses of fornier time.” - But those who have endeavoured to illuftrate the personal hiftory of the great English Author, by exhibiting paffages from fome of his neglected works, have almoft confined themselves to felections from his profe.

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There is an ampler field for the fudy of his early temper and turn of mind in his Latin and Italian Poetry: here the heart and spirit of Milton are displayed with all the frankness of youth. I felect what has a peculiar tendency to fhow, in the cleareft light, his native difpofition, because his character as a man appears to have been greatly mistaken: I am under no fear that the frequency or length of fuch citations may he exposed to cenfure, having the pleasure and advantage of presenting them to the English reader in the elegant and spirited verfion of a poet and a friend-with