But Milton, it is well known, proposed some classical model to himself
in all his productions. The Paradise Lost is almost in every page an
imitation of Virgil, or Homer. The Lycidas treads closely in the steps
of the Daphnis and Gallus of Virgil. The Sampson Agonistes is formed
upon the model of Sophocles. Even the little pieces, L'Allegro and Il
Penseroso have their source in a song of Fletcher, and two beautiful
little ballads that are ascribed to Shakespeare. But the classical model
upon which Comus was formed has not yet been discovered. It is
infinitely unlike the Pastoral Comedies both of Italy and England. And
if we could allow ourselves in that licence of conjecture, which is
become almost inseparable from the character of an editor, we should
say: That Milton having written it upon the borders of Wales, might have
had easy recourse to the manuscript whose contents are now first given
to the public: And that the singularity of preserving the name of the
place where it was first performed in the title of his poem, was
intended for an ingenuous and well-bred acknowledgement of the source
from whence he drew his choicest materials.
But notwithstanding the plausibility of these conjectures, we are now
inclined to give up our original opinion, and to ascribe the performance
to a gentleman of Wales, who lived so late as the reign of king William
the third.
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