Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 1.djvu/226

216 cation, or some musick played by aërial performers.

Both Mirth and Melancholy are solitary, silent inhabitants of the breast, that neither receive nor transmit communication; no mention is therefore made of a philosophical friend, or a pleasant companion. The seriousness does not arise from any participation of calamity, nor the gaiety from the pleasures of the bottle.

The man of chearfulness, having exhausted the country, tries what towered cities will afford, and mingles with scenes of splendor gay assemblies and nuptial festivities; but he mingles a mere spectator, as, when the learned comedies of Jonson, or the wild dramas of Shakspeare, are exhibited, he attends the theatre. The pensive man never loses himself in crowds, but walks the cloister, or frequents the cathedral. Milton probably had not yet forsaken the Church.

Both his characters delight in musick; but he seems to think that chearful notes would have obtained from Pluto a complete dismission of Eurydice, of whom solemn sounds only procured a conditional release. Rh