the Middle Temple. Poor fellow! he could play the violin beautifully; but as for Coke and Selden, and such people-he troubled them not. Well, sir, I occasionally visited my young relation, and by his kind offices with the very precise lady who holds the key of the Temple gardens, I was admitted whenever I chose to walk in that green retreat. I had seated myself, one warm summer's evening, on one of the benches at the back of the western alcove, when two learned young friends meeting at the entrance and adjourning into the arbour, I had the good fortune to be an auditor of the following dialogue. What, Styles, my good fellow! Why I didn't know you were back from sessions.How did you get on ?"" Infernally, infernally! Only got four souptickets at, and a single prosecution at. Do you know of a small set of sky-parlours to let, for, by heavens, I shall be ruined!" "What, you are determined then to rise in your profession! ha, ha, not so bad!" Why you see, my dear Vidian, I don't make quite enough to pay Danby for dressing my wig, which is rather distressing. But come-let's sit down." (Here the learned gentlemen seated themselves.) "By the by, Styles, have you heard of Gillebrand's nonsuit?-all owing to bad spelling. He put an s too much in the plaintiff's name, which has cost that unfortunate gentleman about one hundred and twenty pounds. Good fun that.-Gillebrand argued, that it was idem sonans, but the judge would not believe him

#

And for ever must he dwell

In the spirit of that spell.

But come cheer up, my good fellow, and shew that you have some of the blood of the Styles' in your veins. I dare say if you can't get upon the Bench, you may get into it-Not so bad, eh?-Oh, have you heard the new anecdote of Mr. Justice Spark, which is flying about the Temple? I told it myself to nine men this morning. You must know that when the learned Judge was on his last circuit, an unfortunate dog was tried before him for some offence that was not capital: however, as soon as the jury had brought in their verdict, Rhadamanthus seized hold of the black cap, and was pulling it over his terrific brows, when the officer of the court interfered, My lord! my lord! the offence isn't a capital one.' 'Oh yes! very true,' said his lordship, but-but-you know, it's a good thing to terrify the prisoner a little. Very ingenious that of his lordship.-But why don't you laugh, Styles?"" In fact, my dear Vidian, I am not altogether in a laughing mood. There is a cursed fellow of a tailor in New Bond Street, who threatens to maintain assumpsit against me for goods sold and delivered -then the stable-keeper in Carey Street presented me the other day with a Declaration, in which I find that I am charged with the hire of fifty horses, fifty mares, fifty stanhopes, fifty tilburys, and fifty dennets: and to crown all, a well-dressed man who resides in Chancery-lane has got a present for me, which you and I know by the name of a Special Original. Oh what a special fool was I to give those bills to

* Upon enquiry, I find that soup-tickets are vocabula artis, signifying briefs given indiscriminately by the town clerks, &c. at sessions.

The genealogical tree of this noble family may be seen fully set out in the second volume of Blackstone's Commentaries.

that rascal Samuels! Heigh oh! all my perambulations are now confined to this lawyers' paradise. I have instructed the angel at the gate stoutly to deny admittance to all suspicious strangers, which she promises me."-" I am really sorry, Styles, that I can't accommodate you with a hundred or two, or any fractional part thereof; for though my grandfather died the beginning of the year, yet I plead riens par déscente. Walter, you know, is heir in tail, secundum formam doni, being filius primogenitus; and to tell you the truth, I am somewhat in the shallows myself. I confess I have of late been studying the law of Debtor and Creditor, which appears to me to require amendment exceedingly. Such have been my professional studies. In my hours of relaxation I have been conjugating the verb to dun-no, the passive, to be dunned-I am dunned, I was dunned, I shall be dunned-I am about to be dunned. But see, they have opened the gates to the publicgood number to-night that's a gentlemanlike-looking fellow that's coming towards us-who is he?" "Good God! don't you know? Call a boat and help me into it-I must get into Surrey-" Here the two friends brushing hastily past me, called a boat, and as the tide was high, they easily got into it: the stranger all the while approaching with rapid strides. Poor Styles sate dejected in the boat; but Vidian politely bowed, and "hoped he should be better acquainted with the gentleman."

There is a peculiar richness and high-flavour in the confidential communications of a couple of merchants. "Cottons look lively."-" Yes, but ashes are very black."-" Pray do you hold much rum?". "Dreadful storm last night-Poor Jones! he underwrote 70007. last week-I met him this morning looking very ill-said he couldn't sleep last night for the wind. By the way have you heard that Khas been flying kites lately?"-"Yes, I fear he will be illustrated by the King's Printer, poor K!"

There is no small-talk more necessary in the present age than the Literary, which is essentially requisite at all routs, conversaziones, balls, dances, tea-drinkings, and petit-soupers. I believe there is not the difficulty in this branch of the art, which is generally thought to exist. There is a certain set of names and phrases which may be eternally varied, and from which the most elegant literary conversation may be framed. For the benefit of my readers, I shall present them with a catalogue of the materials, which I once made for my own use. Poetry-novels-heart-imagination-distinction-severer sciencesancients chivalry-Waverley-beauty-truth-nature- sublimitysimplicity--attractive--brilliant-elegant-Lord Byron-power-pathos

-tears

-passion-sentiment sensibility-sweetness-Thyrza-HaideeThyrza!--enchanting--lovely-Don Juan-dark-depraved-perversion -abuse-like the splendours of the infernal regions-poetical yourself! a sonnet-a stanza-scribble verse-Richardson-Miss AustinCaptain Wentworth--Clarissa--Persuasion-Eliza Rivers-hateful young clergyman quite differ with you-Isabella heart-weep Don Carlos German- Goethe-languages-Italy-scenes of antiquity-associations-Cicero-" Sunny Florence"- Rossini - Di tanti palpiti-ah!-Scotch airs-Burns-Allan Cunningham-magazines-New Monthly-excellent-wit-politeness-fancy-depth-superiorQuarterly-Edinburgh-Madame de Stael-arm-beauty-eyes.

Such are the subjects upon which I usually attempt to ring the changes, when any fair nymph is unfortunate enough to be introduced to me at a ball; and here let me mention one very great advantage at such places. According to the modern fashion, you are compelled to change your partner every quadrille, so that you may repeat what you have already said to the former lady, observing whether she is sufficiently distant not to hear you. At a dinner-party you can seldom repeat yourself thus. But as, in case I proceed, there may be considerable danger of my playing the same trick with the reader, I shall make a timely retreat, and bid him farewell! R.

MILTON'S COMUS.

IT has been a cause of surprise to many that some of the minor works of Milton are not more popular. Of these even Comus appears, except among scholars, never to have received the share of regard due to its unequalled merit. That this might have happened under what is denominated the Augustan age of English literature, is not matter for wonder. During that inflated period, for which "Gallic" would be a more correct appellative, a poem which had been written in a style semibarbarous to ears attuned to the monotony of French poetry, the kind then sanctioned by all-governing fashion, however rich in sentiment and imagery, lofty in conception, or moral in object, was likely to be neglected. In the year 1750, Comus was performed for the benefit of Milton's grandaughter; but this being the only one of his writings adapted to a performance on the modern stage, its exhibition then affords us no criterion of the state of popular estimation in which it was held. It wanted the saving virtue requisite to the perfection of the poetic art, in a more rigid adherence to the arbitrary rules which the French critics had introduced, and which their successful example had made the invariable law of poetical composition. It would have been little short of heresy to have denied their authority, and thus the reading part of the public suffered the perusal of the works of our earlier class of writers to go into temporary desuetude. It remained for those who lived under the reign of a better taste, from the later years of the eighteenth century to the present day, to appreciate justly the excellence of our old writers, and to feel the freshness and beauty of works that display an unreined fancy, and an enthusiasm for truth, nature, and feeling. The bard of Twickenham, however, was a poet of too high an order to be insensible to the merit of Comus, which he has acknowledged by exhibiting what he borrowed from it. His obligations to Milton may be traced in several places in his works. "Lowthoughted care," and "grots and caverns shagg'd with horrid thorn,” are in his Epistle to Abelard. The latter quotation exhibits a sad falling off from Milton. Pope did not here transmute what he borrowed into gold, for the line in Comus "grots and caverns shagg'd with horrid shades" is sublime, while "horrid thorn" is a mere commonplace expression. The present is the time best adapted for enjoying our loftier and more independent writers. Men think now for themselves upon every subject; and can venture to examine without prejudice all that will pleasure or profit them.

When I take up Comus I know not how to lay it down again. Its

delicious music is breathed over me "like a steam of soft distilled perfumes." There is a mixture of the supernatural, the classic, and even romantic, linked together in it by a mysterious union. Its characters partake of the moral of the poem; they are almost unmoved by human passion, chaste, and severely drawn. Nothing gaudy or flaunting appears any where; all is kept down except the

great argument" in view. The images, save those belonging to the mythology, are taken from nature. The virtue of the lady is that of reason and reflection; not that dwelling in unsuspecting innocence, like Juliet's, such as we most love in woman. It is a lucid purity of heart, that commands our notice, and surrounds her with a severe grace, exciting respect rather than engendering affection. Love would not have suited the design of Milton, and therefore it has nothing to do in his poem. This has rendered it less attractive; for all are awake to the witchery of that soft feeling, but all are not susceptible of the excellence of virtue. Thus while the latter is respected as belonging to reason, love captivates the heart even in its more unholy forms, partly because it belongs to the imagination rather than to reason, and partly because our passions are more dear to our natures, than the agent by which we circumscribe them. Johnson has dismissed Comus with negative praise. He tells us that the fiction was derived from Homer's Circe. This is doubtful, because a Comus written by Erycius Puteanus was published not long before Milton wrote his, and the "Old Wives Tale" of George Peel has a very similar machinery.* Lady Alice Egerton and her two brothers had encountered an adventure in Haywood Forest, similar to that of the lady and her two brothers in Comus; Lawes the musician, and friend of the poet, at whose request it was written, acquainted him with the incident, and hence, simply enough, the real origin and plot of the piece. This bijou in our poetry is criticised by Johnson in a series of paragraphs. Each of these begins with praise and ends with censure, as if the last were intended to neutralise the effect of the first. Truth forced from him what he said in favour of Comus, while his careless disregard of the author's lofty design, together with his own personal dislike to Milton's independence in politics, made him resolve to diminish the effect of his praises, or at least to limit the influence of those which he conceded reluctantly. The only unqualified good thing he says of the poem is, "that the dawn or twilight of Paradise Lost may be discovered in it."

If I were asked for a specimen of our best poetry, as respects fine imagery and real inspiration, even for the poetry of poesy itself in my view, I should recommend Comus. There is in it a concentration of poetical beauties; a little world of sweets that never pall upon the sense, a well-sustained march of glowing thoughts, and an elevation of sentiment, that aims at something far above mortal passion, speaking the ardour of the poet, and his desire "with no middle flight" to soar, and to pursue things unattempted yet in prose or rhime." All the vigour and youthiness of his muse animates his lines; for the edge of her sensibilities had not been blunted, when he penned it, by politics or polemics. Why, then, is this poem not more frequently spoken of? Why is it not for ever on our lips? These queries may

66

* See Notes to the Lives of the Poets.

be answered, perhaps, by its want of incident, and the sanctity of its character, both obstacles to popularity. It was, moreover, written for music, and did not admit of intricacy in the plot. The world too often feels greater sympathy with hardy and savage vice in suffering, than with heroic virtue. Now the glory of Milton was the promotion of virtue; and the purity of his mind breathes throughout Comus in a stronger degree, if possible, than through his other works. He stands a great pole-star for posterity, to direct it to virtue and freedom-to shame the political renegadoes and prostituted hirelings of later times, that like the swinish herd of the enchanter

"Not once perceive their frail dismemberment,

But boast themselves more coinely than before!"

The machinery of Comus is simple, and it labours under the defect of not interesting the heart enough, but it would be extremely difficult for Milton to have executed his task differently. It is probable that the author was confined as to subject by the incident Lady Alice Egerton and her brothers met with in the wood, which forbad any use of the common modes of affecting the mind in tragedy. Milton only gave the tale as it was, adding a machinery which left the adventure in the forest untouched, while it interwove with it a beautiful moral. It is plain, by Lady Alice and her brothers being the principal performers, that there were certain restrictions which limited the writer, and he could not do better, where he had no room for delineating passion, than hold up some great virtue to admiration: the virtue he chose was chastity. Lastly, had he drawn characters difficult to sustain, it is possible that Lawes would not have succeeded in filling them up at Ludlow, in the family circle of the Earl of Bridge

water.

Let Comus, then, be taken as we find it,-rich in an exuberance of the rarest flowers of poesy, and full of gems sparkling with immortal colours. In sanctity of character and vigour of description we have nothing in our language that equals it. It is like a sumptuous repast, in which all the different dishes are so matched in flavour and so judiciously selected, that though they abound in lusciousness they do not produce satiety. There is no poem of equal length from whence such exquisite quotations may be drawn, filled with moral sentiment, highly poetical, and exquisitely harmonious. The author aimed in Comus at shewing the excellence of goodness, and, to give it the most interesting personification, he chose a heroine as most agreeable to our sympathies. Unfortunately the nature of the lady's rejoinders to Comus, as well as some of her sentiments, are too masculine. The way in which she resists the solicitations of Comus robs her character of interest. Perhaps Shakspeare would have armed her with tears, and made her touch the enchanter's heart with pity during her thraldom, while she still resisted the proffered bowl. Her boldness prevents our feeling so much for her distress as a less confident demeanour would infallibly attract from us. We love the idea of fragility. in woman; her helplessness of herself, her reliance upon us for support, is almost as necessary to our love of her as her beauty. There is a love of the sex in some hearts that lives upon its feebleness, and that would be extinguished if it did not seem to demand support. But