I have, indeed, often wondered how Milton, 'an acrimonious and surly Republican[151],'—'a man who in his domestick relations was so severe and arbitrary[152],' and whose head was filled with the hardest and most dismal tenets of Calvinism[153], should have been such a poet; should not only have written with sublimity, but with beauty, and even gaiety; should have exquisitely painted the sweetest sensations of which our nature is capable; imaged the delicate raptures of connubial love; nay, seemed to be animated with all the spirit of revelry. It is a proof that in the human mind the departments of judgement and imagination, perception and temper, may sometimes be divided by strong partitions; and that the light and shade in the same character may be kept so distinct as never to be blended[154].
In the Life of Milton, Johnson took occasion to maintain his own and the general opinion of the excellence of rhyme over blank verse, in English poetry[155]; and quotes this apposite illustration of it by 'an ingenious critick,' that it seems to be verse only to the eye[156]. The gentleman whom he thus characterises, is (as he told Mr. Seward) Mr. Lock[157], of Norbury Park, in Surrey, whose knowledge and taste in the fine arts is universally celebrated; with whose elegance of manners the writer of the present work has felt himself much impressed, and to whose virtues a common friend, who has known him long, and is not much addicted to flattery, gives the highest testimony.
Various Readings in the Life of MILTON.
'I cannot find any meaning but this which [his most bigotted advocates] even kindness and reverence can give.
'[Perhaps no] scarcely any man ever wrote so much, and praised so few.
'A certain [rescue] perservative from oblivion.
'Let me not be censured for this digression, as [contracted] pedantick or paradoxical.
'Socrates rather was of opinion, that what we had to learn was how to [obtain and communicate happiness] do good and avoid evil.
'Its elegance [who can exhibit?] is less attainable.'
I could, with pleasure, expatiate upon the masterly execution of the Life of DRYDEN, which we have seen[158] was one of Johnson's literary projects at an early period, and which it is remarkable, that after desisting from it, from a supposed scantiness of materials, he should, at an advanced age, have exhibited so amply.