Note 584 — PART THE SECOND. (continued 13)

Johnson's remark on Milton's Latin poems is as follows: "The Latin pieces are lusciously elegant; but the delight which they afford is rather by the exquisite imitation of the ancient writers, by the purity of the diction and the harmony of the numbers, than by any power of invention or vigour of sentiment. They are not all of equal value; the elegies excel the odes; and some of the exercises on gunpowder treason might have been spared."

He, however, quotes with approbation the remark of Hampton, the translator of Polybius, that "Milton was the first Englishman who, after the revival of letters, wrote Latin verses with classic elegance."—See Johnson's Life of Milton.