of Eurydice, of whom solemn sounds procured only a conditional
release.

For the old age of Cheerfulness he makes no provision: but
Melancholy he conducts with great dignity to the close of life. His
Cheerfulness is without levity, and his Pensiveness without
asperity.

Through these two poems the images are properly selected and nicely
distinguished; but the colours of the diction seem not sufficiently
discriminated. I know not whether the characters are kept
sufficiently apart. No mirth can, indeed, be found in his
melancholy; but I am afraid that I always meet some melancholy in
his mirth. They are two noble efforts of imagination.

The greatest of his juvenile performances is the "Mask of Comus," in
which may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of
"Paradise Lost." Milton appears to have formed very early that
system of diction, and mode of verse, which his maturer judgment
approved, and from which he never endeavoured nor desired to
deviate.

Nor does Comus afford only a specimen of his language; it exhibits
likewise his power of description and his vigour of sentiment,
employed in the praise and defence of virtue. A work more truly
poetical is rarely found; allusions, images, and descriptive
epithets, embellish almost every period with lavish decoration. As
a series of lines, therefore, it may be considered as worthy of all
the admiration with which the votaries have received it.