Joseph Warton, writing in 1756,[6] after quoting copiously from the “Nativity Ode,” which, he says, is “not sufficiently read nor admired,” continues as follows:  “I have dwelt chiefly on this ode as much less celebrated than ‘L’Allegro’ and “Il Penseroso,"[7] which are now universally known,; but which, by a strange fatality, lay in a sort of obscurity, the private enjoyment of a few curious readers, till they were set to admirable music by Mr. Handel.  And indeed this volume of Milton’s miscellaneous poems has not till very lately met with suitable regard.  Shall I offend any rational admirer of Pope, by remarking that these juvenile descriptive poems of Milton, as well as his Latin elegies, are of a strain far more exalted than any the former author can boast?”

The first critical edition of the minor poems was published in 1785, by Thomas Warton, whose annotations have been of great service to all later editors.  As late as 1779, Dr. Johnson spoke of these same poems with an absence of appreciation that now seems utterly astounding.  “Those who admire the beauties of this great poem sometimes force their own judgment into false admiration of his little pieces, and prevail upon themselves to think that admirable which is only singular.”  Of Lycidas he says:  “In this poem there is no nature, for there is no truth; there is no art, for there is nothing new.  Its form is that of a pastoral, easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting. . .  Surely no man could have fancied that he read ‘Lycidas’ with pleasure, had he not known its author.”  He acknowledges that “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” are “noble efforts of imagination”; and that, “as a series of lines,” “Comus” “may be considered as worthy of all the admiration with which the votaries have received it.”  But he makes peevish objections to its dramatic probability, finds its dialogues and soliloquies tedious, and unmindful of the fate of Midas, solemnly pronounces the songs—­“Sweet Echo” and “Sabrina fair”—­“harsh in their diction and not very musical in their numbers”!  Of the sonnets he says:  “They deserve not any particular criticism; for of the best it can only be said that they are not bad."[8] Boswell reports that, Hannah More having expressed her “wonder that the poet who had written ’Paradise Lost’ should write such poor sonnets,” Johnson replied:  “Milton, madam, was a genius that could cut a colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry stones.”

The influence of Milton’s minor poetry first becomes noticeable in the fifth decade of the century, and in the work of a new group of lyrical poets:  Collins, Gray, Mason, and the brothers Joseph and Thomas Warton.  To all of these Milton was master.  But just as Thomson and Shenstone got original effects from Spenser’s stanza, while West and Cambridge and Lloyd were nothing but echoes; so Collins and Gray—­immortal names—­drew fresh music from Milton’s organ pipes, while for the others he set the tune.  The Wartons, indeed,