The history of an author is very little more than the history of his works; and a reference to our General Index will enable our readers to indulge any curiosity which they may entertain as to our opinion of their respective merits and defects. As the best of Hayley's poems is his "Triumphs of Temper," so perhaps the best of his prose-works is his "Life of Milton." His motives for undertaking that biography were so. praiseworthy that, had the execution been of an inferior cast, we should have touched on its defects with great reluctance: but Hayley was really fired with his subject, and has written on this occasion with more vigor than on any other. Every body knows that Milton had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Philistine Dr. Samuel Johnson. Even with him, an attempt to depreciate the poetical merits of the great bard would too surely and speedily have recoiled on the critic, and a reluctant homage is consequently paid to his exalted genius: but Milton was a republican, and Johnson indulged an inverate hatred towards every thing allied to republicanism. With malicious perversity, therefore, he labored to tarnish the lustre of his reputation; lending a greedy ear to any tale which could bring his virtues into suspicion, or throw a shade over his character. Every thing that is illiberal, every thing that is of ill report, every thing that is insidious, and which could by misconstruction dishonor Milton, was seized with avidity. Mr. Hayley earned the honor of tearing open the veil of obloquy which Johnson had cast over this immortal poet; and every person who admires the genius of Milton, and his high patriotic virtues, must feel himself under an obligation for the achievement. Mr. H.'s work, indeed, is not faultless: but, if he indulged in too ardent a panegyric on the personal and domestic virtues of Milton, as well as in a just and honest panegyric on his political merits, the error is venial. He was engaged in a struggle with a powerful opponent: he had to overcome a mighty resistance: he was obliged to put every nerve and every muscle on its full stretch; and it was necessary to employ the language of warm and animated commendation, in order to neutralize the effects of cold-blooded obloquy and bitter invective. Hayley was in habits of familiar intercourse with Gibbon : "I only read him a few detached passages from the second part after finishing the first, and upon hearing my vindication of our divine bard from the charge of servility and adulation, he said, 'It is so able a defence, that I seriously do not think the two chancellors, Thurlow and Loughborough united, could have produced a better, had they been employed professionally; but I still think it the defence of an advocate; intimating, that had he been on a jury to try the poet on the charge, he must ཝཱ have pronounced him guilty. No! I replied, it is not the defence of an advocate; but the simple dictates of truth and affection. Thurlow and Loughborough might have argued for him more eloquently, but they could not love him so well; and I am afraid that Milton, were he living, might despise them both.” 9 It is worthy of notice that the first introduction of Hayley to Cowper was occasioned by some apprehensions which the former entertained, of a collision between his "Life of Milton" and a similar undertaking in which it was rumoured that the latter was engaged. The history of this we shall give in his own words: It happened, that when the benevolent enthusiast, Dr. Warner, arrived at Eartham, Hayley had been induced, by some paragraphs in a newspaper, to write the following letter and sonnet to the poet of Weston : "Dear Sir, Feb. 7. 1792, Eartham, near Chichester. "I have often been tempted by affectionate admiration of your poetry to trouble you with a letter; but I have repeatedly checked myself, in recollecting that the vanity of believing ourselves distantly related in spirit to a man of genius, is but a sorry apology for intruding on his time. "Though I resisted my desire of professing myself your friend, that I might not disturb you with intrusive familiarity, I cannot resist a desire equally affectionate, of disclaiming an idea which I am told is imputed to me, of considering myself, on a recent occasion, as an antagonist to you. Allow me, therefore, to say, I was solicited to write a Life of Milton, for Boydell and Nicol, before I had the least idea that you and Mr. Fuseli were concerned in a project similar to theirs. When I first heard of your intention, I was apprehensive that we might undesignedly thwart each other; but on seeing your proposals, I am agreeably persuaded, that our respective labours will be far from clashing; as it is your design to illustrate Milton with a series of notes, and I only mean to execute a more candid life of him than his late biographier has given us, upon a plan that will, I flatter myself, be particularly pleasing to those who love the author as we do. "As to the pecuniary interest of those persons who venture large sums in expensive decorations of Milton, I am persuaded his expanding glory will support them all. Every splendid edition, where the merits of the pencil are in any degree worthy of the poet, will, I think, be secure of success. I wish it cordially to all; as I have great affection for the arts, and a sincere regard for those whose talents reflect honour upon them. "To you, my dear Sir, I have a grateful attachment, for the infinite delight which your writings have afforded me; and if, in the course of your work, I have any opportunity to serve or oblige you, I shall seize it with that friendly spirit which has impelled me at present to assure you both in prose and rhyme, that I am your very cordial admirer, W. HAYLEY. "P. S. "P. S.—I wrote the enclosed sonnet on being told that our names had been idly printed together, in a newspaper, as hostile competitors. Pray forgive its poetical defects, for its affectionate sincerity. "From my ignorance of your address, I send this to your booksellers, by a person commissioned to place my name in the list of your subscribers; and let me add, if you ever wish to form a new collection of names for any similar purpose, I entreat you to honour me so far as to rank mine, of your own accord, among those of your sincerest friends. - Adieu!" • SONNET. TO WILLIAM COWPER, Esq. On hearing that our Names had been idly mentioned in a Newspaper, as Competitors in a Life of Milton. Cowper! delight of all who justly prize The splendid magic of a strain divine, That sweetly tempts th' enlightened soul to rise! His harp of highest tone, his sanctity of song. When Hayley had prepared the letter and verses to attend it, his natural reserve made him hesitate whether he should thus intrude on the retired poet of Weston or not. The warm hearted Dr. Warner decided the point by saying, he was confi dent that Cowper would be highly pleased with the packet; and by offering to convey it immediately, in person, to his bookseller, Johnson, of St. Paul's. The incidents that followed his prompt execution of that friendly office, the singular detention of the packet in the hands of the bookseller, and all the reciprocal kindness and intimacy, that rapidly grew between the poet of Weston and the recluse of Eartham, from their frequent letters and subsequent visits to each other, are so circumstantially displayed in Hayley's Life of Cowper, that it is unnecessary to expatiate in this work on the particulars of their intercourse. It will be sufficient to notice, as they occur, the times of their meeting, and the cordial admiration and love with which Hayley described his incomparable friend of Weston to his various correspondents.' So far from clashing with each other, it is very well known that they co-operated in their work; that is to say, Cowper, who was at the time engaged in making a complete transla tion of Milton's Latin and Italian poetry, permitted Hayley to insert any passages and poems that he chose in his biography; and Hayley did himself credit in profiting by the permission: he paid a just homage to the superior genius of his friend, and improved his own production, by interspersing the elegant and spirited version of Cowper. The Life of Milton was published in 1794. Here we must pause for the present, intending to resume the subject in a future Number. [To be continued.] ART. IV. Narrative of a Voyage round the World, in the Uranie and Physicienne Corvettes, commanded by Captain Freycinet, during the Years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820; on a scientific Expedition undertaken by Order of the French Government. In a Series of Letters to a Friend, by J. Arago, Draftsman to the Expedition. With Twenty-six Engravings. To which is prefixed, the Report made to the Academy of Sciences, on the general Results of the Expedition. 4to. pp. 616. 21. 13s. 6d. Boards. Treuttel and Co. 1823. WITH the names of Freycinet and Arago, we naturally associate the pursuits of geographical and nautical science. On the present occasion, however, we are honestly forewarned to expect no records of winds and currents, longitudes and latitudes, variations of the compass, and such barbarous and tiresome details; and, in strict accordance with this startling premonition, we are, throughout the narrative, very completely debarred not only from technical phraseology, but from those professional details, and from most of that physical information, which the circumnavigation of the globe may be fairly presumed to suggest. This lack of useful and important knowlege is but poorly compensated by pages of rash or exaggerated statements, by strained antithesis, sickly sentimentality, and reiterated lamentations over absence from home; or by occasional passages which render the letters very unfit for the drawing-room table. These remarks, however, it may well be conceived, do not apply to the prefixed report, which is drawn up by Messrs. De Humboldt, Desfontaines, De Roesel, Biot, Thenard, Gay-Lussac, and Arago (the author's brother); for these gentlemen have ably acquitted themselves of their commission, by stating in clear and unaffected language the principal objects and results of the voyage. Their highly favorable anticipations of Captain Freycinet's own relation of his expedition induce us to waive any farther notice of their very succinct analysis; and M. Arago's loose and rambling rambling correspondence scarcely deserves profound discussion or lengthened commentary. His letters, in number 164, are addressed to M. Battle, 'the friend of his boyish days.' The first four, when divested of mournful adieus to his native country, present us with a few very general and superficial remarks on Lyons, Marseilles, and Toulon. The Champ de Bataille, in the last-mentioned town, is said to be adorned by the handsome houses which border it, and by alleys of elms and plantains, of prodigious height.' The word in italics is, possibly, an inadvertent translation of platanes: but, not having the original at hand, we are uncertain whether the blunder be attributable to the author or to his translator. We were, also, not a little startled to learn that people in authority frequently select their servants from among the galley-slaves; nay, that these convicts are employed as tutors to young ladies! Over such depravity of the parental feelings, we were prepared for a flood of briny tears: but the letter-writer is satisfied with assuring us that he can never fall in love with a girl who has submitted to such tuition. The Uranie appears to have taken her departure from Toulon on the 17th of September, 1817; to have encountered some boisterous weather at the outset ; and, in a few days afterward, to have reached Majorca and Minorca. She then proceeded to Gibraltar; where the interview with its governor, General Don, has quite the air of a mysterious caricature, for, if a faint smile played on the lips' of that gentleman, how could the author divine that it was the first for these ten years?' He leaves the fortifications, however, with the most decided conviction of their impregnability. His ac count of the Canary islands presents us with nothing new, and closes with a reference to the more ample recitals of Bory de Saint-Vincent and Humboldt. The writer's emotions, on coming in sight of Rio Janeiro, must have been of a very mingled and complex description; for he went on deck with a heavy heart,'' a smile of satisfaction played on his lips,' - the thoughts of his native country were dispelled,'a tear hung on his eye-lashes,' — and he called aloud for the valleys of the Pyrénées, for his family, and for the friends of his juvenile years. Here he accidentally encountered M. Hogendorp, once a French General, and Aide-de-camp to Napoleon, but now a tiller of the ground, and a manufacturer of charcoal; who had fled from the hatred of men, the tumult of cities, and the intrigues of courts. The upper classes of Portuguese in Brazil are represented as dull and monotonous in society, never venturing to talk of politics, but addicted to cabal and rivalships, covetous of t e A |