to the theatre, with which it was not always easy to comply, might have been desirous to shorten his own labour, by adopting the story sentiments, and language of a poem, which he so highly esteemed and which might probably have been new to the generality of his audience.  But the costume of our first parents, had there been no other objection, must have excluded the “State of Innocence” from the stage, and accordingly it was certainly never intended for representation.  The probable motive, therefore, of this alteration, was the wish, so common to genius, to exert itself upon a subject in which another had already attained brilliant success, or, as Dryden has termed a similar attempt, the desire to shoot in the bow of Ulysses.  Some circumstances in the history of Milton’s immortal poem may have suggested to Dryden the precise form of the present attempt.  It is reported by Voltaire, and seems at length to be admitted, that the original idea of the “Paradise Lost” was supplied by an Italian Mystery, or religious play, which Milton witnessed when abroad[1]; and it is certain, that he intended at first to mould his poem into a dramatic form[2].  It seems, therefore, likely, that Dryden, conscious of his own powers, and enthusiastically admiring those of Milton, was induced to make an experiment upon the forsaken plan of the blind bard, which, with his usual rapidity of conception and execution, he completed in the short space of one month.  The spurious copies which got abroad, and perhaps the desire of testifying his respect for his beautiful patroness, the Duchess of York, form his own apology for the publication.  It is reported by Mr Aubrey that the step was not taken without Dryden’s reverence to Milton being testified by a personal application for his permission.  The aged poet, conscious that the might of his versification could receive no addition even from the flowing numbers of Dryden, is stated to have answered with indifference—­“Ay, you may tag my verses, if you will.”

The structure and diction of this opera, as it is somewhat improperly termed, being rather a dramatic poem, strongly indicate the taste of Charles the Second’s reign, for what was ingenious, acute, and polished, in preference to the simplicity of the true sublime.  The judgment of that age, as has been already noticed, is always to be referred rather to the head than to the heart; and a poem, written to please mere critics, requires an introduction and display of art, to the exclusion of natural beauty.—­This explains the extravagant panegyric of Lee on Dryden’s play: 

  —­Milton did the wealthy mine disclose,
  And rudely cast what you could well dispose;
  He roughly drew, on an old-fashioned ground,
  A chaos; for no perfect world was found,
  Till through the heap your mighty genius shined: 
  He was the golden ore, which you refined. 
  He first beheld the beauteous rustic maid,
  And to a place of strength the prize conveyed: