England were ignorant of the treasures contained in
them: and if he had not, moreover, shared the too common propensity of
human nature to exult over a supposed fall into the mire of a genius
whom he had been compelled to regard with admiration, as an inmate of
the celestial regions--'there sitting where he durst not soar.'

[11] This flippant insensibility was publicly reprehended by Mr.
Coleridge in a course of Lectures upon Poetry given by him at the Royal
Institution. For the various merits of thought and language in
Shakspeare's Sonnets, see Numbers 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 54, 64, 66, 68,
73, 76, 86, 91, 92, 93, 97, 98, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 113, 114, 116,
117, 129, and many others.

Nine years before the death of Shakspeare, Milton was born: and early in
life he published several small poems, which, though on their first
appearance they were praised by a few of the judicious, were afterwards
neglected to that degree, that Pope in his youth could borrow from them
without risk of its being known. Whether these poems are at this day
justly appreciated, I will not undertake to decide: nor would it imply a
severe reflection upon the mass of readers to suppose the contrary;
seeing that a man of the acknowledged genius of Voss, the German poet,
could suffer their spirit to evaporate; and could change their
character, as is done in the translation made by him of the most popular
of those pieces. At all events, it is certain that these Poems of Milton
are now much read, and loudly praised; yet were they little heard of
till more than 150 years after their publication; and of the Sonnets,
Dr. Johnson, as appears from Boswell's Life of him, was in the habit of
thinking and speaking as contemptuously as Steevens wrote upon those of
Shakspeare.

About the time when the Pindaric odes of Cowley and his imitators, and
the productions of that class of curious thinkers whom Dr. Johnson has
strangely styled metaphysical Poets, were beginning to lose something of
that extravagant admiration which they had excited, the 'Paradise Lost'
made its appearance. 'Fit audience find though few,' was the petition
addressed by the Poet to his inspiring Muse. I have said elsewhere that
he gained more than he asked; this I believe to be true; but Dr. Johnson
has fallen into a gross mistake when he attempts to prove, by the sale
of the work, that Milton's Countrymen were '_just_ to it' upon its first
appearance. Thirteen hundred Copies were sold i