Nine years before the death of Shakespeare, Milton was born, and early in life he published several small poems, which, though on their first appearance they were praised by a few of the judicious, were afterwards neglected to that degree, that Pope in his youth could borrow from them without risk of its being known.  Whether these poems are at this day justly appreciated, I will not undertake to decide nor would it imply a severe reflection upon the mass of readers to suppose the contrary, seeing that a man of the acknowledged genius of Voss, the German poet, could suffer their spirit to evaporate, and could change their character, as is done in the translation made by him of the most popular of these pieces.  At all events, it is certain that these Poems of Milton are now much read, and loudly praised, yet were they little heard of till more than 150 years after their publication, and of the Sonnets, Dr. Johnson, as appears from Boswell’s Life of him, was in the habit of thinking and speaking as contemptuously as Steevens wrote upon those of Shakespeare.

About the time when the Pindaric odes of Cowley and his imitators, and the productions of that class of curious thinkers whom Dr. Johnson has strangely styled metaphysical Poets, were beginning to lose something of that extravagant admiration which they had excited, the Paradise Lost made its appearance.  ‘Fit audience find though few,’ was the petition addressed by the Poet to his inspiring Muse.  I have said elsewhere that he gained more than he asked, this I believe to be true, but Dr. Johnson has fallen into a gross mistake when he attempts to prove, by the sale of the work, that Milton’s Countrymen were ‘just to it’ upon its first appearance.  Thirteen hundred Copies were sold in two years, an uncommon example, he asserts, of the prevalence of genius in opposition to so much recent enmity as Milton’s public conduct had excited.  But be it remembered that, if Milton’s political and religious opinions, and the manner in which he announced them, had raised him many enemies, they had procured him numerous friends, who, as all personal danger was passed away at the time of publication, would be eager to procure the master-work of a man whom they revered, and whom they would be proud of praising.  Take, from the number of purchasers, persons of this class, and also those who wished to possess the Poem as a religious work, and but few I fear would be left who sought for it on account of its poetical merits.  The demand did not immediately increase; ‘for,’ says Dr. Johnson, ‘many more readers’ (he means persons in the habit of reading poetry) ’than were supplied at first the Nation did not afford.’  How careless must a writer be who can make this assertion in the face of so many existing title-pages to belie it!  Turning to my own shelves, I find the folio of Cowley, seventh edition, 1681.  A book near it is Flatman’s Poems, fourth edition, 1686, Waller, fifth edition,