THE LIFE or MILTON. 423 Opera called the Rate of innocence and Fall ofman ; to tag his lines, as Milton himfelf exprelTed it, alluding to the falbion then of wearing tags of metal at the end of their ribbons. We are told indeed by Mr. Richardfon, that Sir George Hungerford, an ancient member of par- liament, told him, that Sir John Denham came into the houfe one morning with a fheet of Paradife Loft wet from the prefs in his hand ; and being afked what he had there, faid that he had part of the nobleft poem that ever was written in any language or in any age. However it is certain that the book was unknown till about two years after, when the Earl of Dorfe,t produced it, as Mr. Richardfon was informed by Dr. Tancred Robinfon the phyfician, who had heard the Rory often from Fleetwood Shephard himfelf, that the Earl, in company with Mr. Shephard, looking about for books in Little Britain, accidentally met with Paradife Loft ; and being furprifed at fume paffages in dipping here and there, he bought it The book- feller begged his Lordfhip to fpeak in its favor if he liked it, for the imprefEon lay on his hands as wafte paper. The Earl having read it fent it to Dryden, who in a fhort time returned it with this anfwer, " This man cuts us all out, and the Ancients too!' Dryden's epigram upon Milton is too well known to be repeated ; and thofe Latin verfes by Dr. Barrow the phyfician, and the Engiifh ones by Andrew Marvel, Efq; ufually prefixed to the Paradife Loft, were written before the fecond edition, and were publifhed with it. But !till the poem was not generally known and efteemed, nor met, with the deferved applaufe, till after the edition in folio, which was publifhed in 1688 by fubfcription. The Duke of Buckingham in his Effay on poetry prefers Taffo and Spenfer to Milton : and it is related in the life of the witty Earl of Rochefter, that he had no notion of a better poet than Cowley. In 1686, or thereabout, Sir William Temple publifhed the fecund part of his Mifcellanies, and it may furprife any reader, that in his Effay on poetry he taketh no notice at all of Milton ; nay he faith exprefsly that after Ariofto, Taffo, and Spenfer, he knoweth none of the Moderns who have made any achievements in heroic poetry worth recording. And what can we think, that he had not read or heard of the Paradife Loft, or that the
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