If our hypothesis respecting the date of the present performance is
admitted, it must be acknowleged that the ingenious Mr. Thomas has
taken the Masque of Milton for a model; and the reader with whom Comus
is a favourite, will certainly trace some literal imitations. With
respect to any objections that may be made on this score to the Pastoral
Romance, we will beg the reader to bear in mind, that the volumes before
him are not an original, but a translation. Recollecting this, we may,
beside the authority of Milton himself, and others as great poets as
ever existed who have imitated Homer and one another at least as much as
our author has done Comus, suggest two very weighty apologies. In the
first place, imitation in a certain degree, has ever been considered as
lawful when made from a different language: And in the second, these
imitations come to the reader exaggerated, by being presented to him in
English, and by a person who confesses, that he has long been conversant
with our greatest poets. The translator has always admired Comus as much
as the Pastoral Romance; he has read them together, and been used to
consider them as illustrating each other. Any verbal coincidences into
which he may have fallen, are therefore to be ascribed where they are
due, to him, and not to the author.
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