[Footnote 99: The peasants of the Ober-Ammergau, a village in the
Bavarian Alps, still perform, at intervals of ten years, a long miracle
play, detailing the chief incidents of the Passion of our Saviour from
his entrance into Jerusalem to his ascension. It is done in fulfilment
of a vow made during a pestilence in 1633. The performance lasted twelve
hours in 1850, when it was last performed. The actors were all of the
peasant class.]

"CRITICAL SAGACITY," AND "HAPPY CONJECTURE;" OR, BENTLEY'S MILTON.

----BENTLEY, long to wrangling schools confined,
And but by books acquainted with mankind----
To MILTON lending sense, to HORACE wit,
He makes them write, what never poet writ.

DR. BENTLEY'S edition of our English Homer is sufficiently known by
name. As it stands a terrifying beacon to conjectural criticism, I shall
just notice some of those violations which the learned critic ventured
to commit, with all the arrogance of a Scaliger. This man, so deeply
versed in ancient learning, it will appear, was destitute of taste and
genius in his native language.

Our critic, to persuade the world of the necessity of his edition,
imagined a fictitious editor of Milton's Poems: and it was this
ingenuity which produced all his absurdities. As it is certain that the
blind bard employed an amanuensis, it was not improbable that many words
of similar sound, but very different signification, might have
disfigured the poem; but our Doctor was bold enough to conjecture that
this amanuensis _interpolated_ whole verses of his own composition in
the "Paradise Lost!" Having laid down this fatal position, all the
consequences of his folly naturally followed it. Yet if there needs any
conjecture, the more probable one will be, that Milton, who was never
careless of his future fame, had his poem _read_ to him after it had
been published. The first edition appeared in 1667, and the second in
1674, in which all the faults of the former edition are continued. By
these _faults_, the Doctor means what _he_ considers to be such: for we
shall soon see that his "Canons of Criticism" are apocryphal.

Bentley says that he will _supply_ the want of manuscripts to collate
(to use his own words) by his own "SAGACITY," and "HAPPY CONJECTURE."

Milton, after the conclusion of Satan's speech to the fallen angels,
proceeds thus:--

1. He spake: and to confirm his words out flew
2. Millions of flaming _swords_, drawn fr