. He was fallen, indeed, on _evil days_; the time
was come in which regicides could no longer boast their wickedness. But
of _evil tongues_ for Milton to complain, required impudence at least
equal to his other powers; Milton, whose warmest advocates must allow,
that he never spared any asperity of reproach, or brutality of
insolence[150].'

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 ex