ich disappointed Authors are fond of
railing at, under the names of Flippancy, Arrogance, Conceit,
Misrepresentation, and Malevolence: reproaches which you will only regard
as so many acknowledgments of success in your undertaking; and infallible
tests of an established fame, and [a] rapidly increasing circulation.

_L'Allegro_. A Poem.

By JOHN MILTON.

No Printer's name.

It has become a practice of late with a certain description of people,
who have no visible means of subsistence, to string together a few trite
images of rural scenery, interspersed with vulgarisms in dialect, and
traits of vulgar manners; to dress up these materials in a Sing-Song
jingle; and to offer them for sale as a Poem. According to the most
approved recipes, something about the heathen gods and goddesses; and the
schoolboy topics of Styx and Cerberus, and Elysium; are occasionally
thrown in, and the composition is complete. The stock in trade of these
Adventurers is in general scanty enough; and their Art therefore consists
in disposing it to the best advantage. But if such be the aim of the
Writer, it is the Critic's business to detect and defeat the imposture;
to warn the public against the purchase of shop-worn goods and tinsel
wares; to protect the fair trader, by exposing the tricks of needy Quacks
and Mountebanks; and to chastise that forward and noisy importunity with
which they present themselves to the public notice.

How far Mr. MILTON is amenable to this discipline, will best appear from
a brief analysis of the Poem before us.

In the very opening he assumes a tone of authority which might better
suit some veteran Bard than a raw candidate for the Delphic bays: for,
before he proceeds to the regular process of Invocation, he clears the
way, by driving from his presence (with sundry hard names; and bitter
reproaches on her father, mother, and all the family) a venerable
Personage, whose age at least and staid matron-like appearance, might
have entitled her to more civil language.

Hence, loathed Melancholy!
Of CERBERUS and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn, &c.

There is no giving rules, however, in these matters, without a knowledge
of the case. Perhaps the old lady had been frequently warned off before;
and provoked this violence by continuing still to lurk about the Poet's
dwelling. And, to say the truth, the Reader will have but too good reason
to remark, before he gets through the Poe