and they were no longer able to laugh, because they were no longer able either to hear or to see. I had now ascended another scale in the climax; and was acknowledged by all who knew me, to be a Joyous Spirit. "After all these topics of merriment were exhausted, and I had repeated my tricks, my stories, my jokes, and my songs, till they grew insipid, I became mischievous; and was continually devising and executing frolics, to the unspeakable delight of my companions, and the injury of others. For many of them I was prosecuted, and frequently obliged to pay large damages; but I bore all these losses with an air of jovial indifference, I pushed on in my career, I was more desperate in proportion as I had less to lose; and, being deterred from no mischief by the dread of its consequences, I was said to run at all, and complimented with the name of Buck. My estate was at length mortgaged for more than it was worth; my creditors were importunate; I became negligent of myself and of others; I made a desperate effort at the gaming-table, and lost the last sum that I could raise; my estate was seized by the mortgagee; I learned to pack cards and to cog a die; became a bully to whores; passed my nights in a brothel, the street, or the watch-house; was utterly insensible of shame, and lived upon the town as a beast of prey in a forest. Thus I reached the summit of modern glory, and had just acquired the distinction of a Blood, when I was arrested for an old debt of three hundred pounds, and thrown into the King's Bench prison. "These characters, Sir, though they are distinct, yet do not at all differ, otherwise than as shades of the same colour. And though they are stages of a regular progression, yet the whole progress is not made by every individual: some are so soon initiated in the mysteries of the town, that they are never publicly known in their Greenhorn state; others fix long in their Jemmyhood, others are Jessamies at fourscore, and some stagnate in each of the higher stages for life. But I request that they may never hereafter be confounded either by you or your correspondents. Of the Blood, your brother Adventurer, Mr. Wildgoose, though he assumes the character, does not seem to have a just and precise idea as distinct from the Buck, in which class he should be placed, and will probably die, for he seems determined to shoot himself, just at the time when his circumstances will enable him to assume the higher distinction. "But the retrospect upon life, which this letter has made necessary, covers me with confusion, and aggravates despair. I cannot but reflect, that among all these characters, I have never assumed that of a Man. Man is a reasonable being, which he ceases to be who disguises his body with ridiculous fopperies, or degrades his mind by detestable brutality. These thoughts would have been of great use to me, if they had occurred seven years ago. If they are of use to you, I hope you will send me a small gratuity for my labour, to alleviate the misery of hunger and nakedness; but, dear Sir, let your bounty be speedy, lest I perish before it arrives. "I am your "Common side, King's Bench, Oct. 18, 1753." humble servant, 66 NOMENTANUS." "IF we consider the high rank which Milton has deservedly obtained among our few English classics, we cannot wonder at the multitude of commentaries and criticisms of which he has been the subject. To these I have added some miscellaneous remarks; and if you should at first be inclined to reject them as trifling, you may perhaps determine to admit them, when you reflect that they are new. "The description of Eden in the fourth book of the Paradise Lost, and the battle of the angels in the sixth, are usually selected as the most striking examples of a florid and vigorous imagination; but it requires much greater strength of mind to form an assemblage of natural objects, and range them with propriety and beauty, than to bring together the greatest variety of the most splendid images, without any regard to their use or congruity; as in painting, he who, by the force of his imagination, can delineate a landscape, is deemed a greater master than he who, by heaping rocks of coral upon tesselated pavements, can only make absurdity splendid, and dispose gaudy colours so as best to set off each other. Sapphire fountains that, rolling over orient pearl run nectar, roses without thorns, trees that bear fruit 6 of vegetable gold, and that weep odorous gums and balms,' are easily feigned, but having no relative beauty as pictures of nature, nor any absolute excellence as derived from truth, they can only please those who, when they read, exercise no faculty but fancy, and admire because they do not think. "If I shall not be thought to digress wholly from my subject, I would illustrate this remark, by comparing two passages, written by Milton and Fletcher, on nearly the same subject. The spirit in Comus thus pays his address of thanks to the waternymph Sabrina: May thy brimmed waves for this, line 924. Thus far the wishes are most proper for the welfare of a river goddess: the circumstance of summer not scorching her tresses, is highly poetical and elegant ; but what follows, though it is pompous and majestic, is unnatural and far-fetched: May thy billows roll ashore The beryl and the golden ore: ib. 932. The circumstance in the third and fourth lines is happily fancied; but what idea can the reader have of an English river rolling gold and the beryl ashore, or of groves of cinnamon growing on its banks? The images in the following passage of Fletcher are all simple and real, all appropriated and strictly natural: For thy kindness to me shown, Cross thy stream to stop thy course; "The glaring picture of Paradise is not, in my opinion, so strong an evidence of Milton's force of imagination, as his representation of Adam and Eve when they left it, and of the passions with which they were agitated on that event. 66 Against his battle of the angels, I have the same objections as against his garden of Eden. He has endeavoured to elevate his combatants, by giving them the enormous stature of giants in romances, books of which he was known to be fond; and the prowess and behaviour of Michael as much resemble the feats of Ariosto's knight, as his two-handed sword does the weapons of chivalry: I think the sublimity of his genius much more visible in the first appearance of the fallen angels; the debates of the infernal peers; the passage of Satan through the dominions of Chaos, and his adventure with Sin and Death; the mission of Raphael to Adam; the conversations between Adam and his wife; the creation; the account which Adam gives of his first sensations, and of the approach of Eve from the hand of her Creator; the whole behaviour of Adam and Eve after the first transgression; and the prospect of the various states of the world, and history of man exhibited in a vision to Adam. "In this vision, Milton judiciously represents |