by other tribes. The first colony of Frenchmen was massacred by Spaniards, and these Spaniards were massacred by Frenchmen. St. Augustine was founded in 1565, to be pillaged by the licensed plunderer, Drake. Early in the 18th century, and about the middle, the English, and Indians in their interest, overran the land. In 1763, the Spaniards left, because it was ceded to England. Twenty years afterwards, the English (who had introduced many improvements, and agriculture upon an extended scale,) left, because it was receded to Spain. At the beginning of this century, the Indians again possessed the country. In 1812, the so-called "patriot war," an invasion from Georgia, broke up all the planters. In 1821, the cession to the United States again changed the inhabitants. To crown all, in 1835, when all was onward and flourishing, what should be designated the "preposterous" war, commenced. A mere handful of Indians, who, all united, could not have withstood a single regiment, reversing the maxim that "wars to be short, must be vigorous and terrible," by a skilful, terrible and bold beginning, worthy of the greatest masters in the art of war, (the end, not the means,) acquired a confidence, which enabled them for more than six years to elude and harrass armies, and threaten destruction to every isolated household, till monuments of fire and blood marked their ferocity in every quarter.

These tragedies are now ended. Government, in 1842, granted 200,000 acres of land, in lots of 160 acres each, to new settlers, to be selected where they choose, any where south of latitude 29.30, and hundreds from this and neighboring States have wended their way, not as of yore, embodied in arms, to carry war and devastation, but clothed in the habiliments of peace, to advance that common prosperity which men once went to destroy. East Florida, to which this article particularly bears relation, is somewhat larger than the State of South-Carolina, and though the quantity of land fit for cultivation is comparatively small, still there is abundance for a large population, and the remainder will furnish perpetual pasture for immense herds, which can multiply without any cost to the owner. Nearly surrounded by coast, and peculiarly covered by water, fish and shell-fish are as abundant and various, as though never disturbed by the hand of man. Game must continue plentiful, for immense open pine forests will long remain untouched by the

woodman's axe. With salt water on both sides, and constant breezes, heat is moderate in summer; and though sickness ever attends the first settlement of a new country, probably no Southern State is equally salubrious. Attracted by the bounty of land, many of the settlers of this year have gone scantily provided with necessaries, but it is believed they are only pioneers of others with more extended means, who cannot fail to benefit by a tropical climate, under our own government and laws, capable of producing nearly all the fruits of the earth. The abundance of ports and landing-places, forbids that East Florida should ever contain any one town of much magnitude, (unless a ship-canal should ever create a commercial centre,) concentrating point for large speculations, or field for sudden wealth; but to the man of moderate desires, who would fulfil his destiny on earth in the enjoyment of the best gifts which Nature bestows on those who seek her favor, this region of balmy airs and nearly perpetual summer, offers every reasonable inducement. May that which has thus far been the gladiatorial arena of carnage and discord, become, henceforth, the permanent abode of calm security and tranquil happiness.

ART, V.-MILTON'S GENIUS-IMITATION AND USE OF THE MODERNS.

1. An Essay on Milton's imitation and use of the Moderns. By WM. LANDER. 1750.

2. Sarcotis. Carmen. Auctore P. JACOBO MASENIO. Cologne: 1644. Londini; et venit Pariis, Apud J. BARBOU: 1771.

3. Poemata Sacra Andrea Ramsæi Pastoris Edinburgeni. Edinburgi: 1633. Gentlemen's Magazine: 1747. 4. Hugonis Grotii Adamus exul. Tragœdia. Edition of the Hague: 1601. Gentleman's Magazine: 1747.

5. The Life of Milton: with conjectures on the origin of Paradise Lost. By WM. HAYLEY, Esq. London: 1796. 6. Remarks on the Character and Writings of John Milton. By WM. ELLERY CHANNING. Boston: 1826.

7. Milton's Paradise Lost, Newton's edition. Article on Mr. Prendeville's Milton,-Blackwood's Magazine, May, 1840.

THE topic before us is one of familiar interest; and though it has in itself little of novelty, and may, by some, be thought too stale for the reviewer's pen, at this late day, when the public attention is more occupied by literary productions and controversies of recent date, and while the present of fers such ample materials wherefrom to cater for the public taste; yet we flatter ourselves that we shall be able to extract from it something to render it pleasing, and, it may be, instructive; while at the same time we express the opinion, that as a subject for fair and impartial criticism, interesting speculation, and literary controversy, it presents still a wide and open field of observation and research, with its doubts and perplexities, conjectures and differences of opinion, piquing our curiosity, though, perhaps, casting an overshadowing cloud, for a time, on the glorious horizon of our early enthusiasm: until, standing on a higher eminence, in a purer light of criticism, it again opens upon us with a more extended view; and the sentiment of the sublime once more awakening in us fresh feelings and new ideas, while we imbibe in some degree the inspiration it imparts, we can expatiate, without exhausting the theme, upon the beauties, the triumphs, the infinite universe of genius. Enough of this for the present.

Having introduced the subject generally, let us commence by particularizing it. A glance at our title and table of contents, might mislead as to its real merits; so we leave them, in the first place, to hint plainly that we have no intention of nibbling at the fame of Milton. That, in his great poem, he imitated, or, in other words, borrowed some of his ideas and language from certain of the modern as well as ancient writers, is known to all who have read his commentators, or who are tolerably versed in ancient and modern. literature. This is an undisputed fact. There are too many instances in which the similarity of conception, or expression, is so very striking, that, to contend for their being the result of accidental coincidence, would be to substitute the doctrine of chances in the room of that of cause and effect. We never believe in the former, while we can trace, though ever so slightly, the operation of the latter. Now, the fact that there is no such thing as pure originality of ideas,—all minds depending, for what ideas they have, upon acquisitions through the senses, and by the innate faculties of the brain, which acquisitions are, for the most part, made directly from the ideas of others, or at least rendered distinct to the mind's capacity, and intelligible to other minds, through conventional signs of language,-these signs themselves constituting ideas which never would have entered the mind without them, and the accumulation of which through the medium of impressions made upon some sense, through speech, or written language, being what we call education. The fact that these ideas in books are clothed in certain forms of expression, which fix themselves in the memory and lurk there, when they might be supposed to have been totally forgotten; associating themselves often, without effort on our part, dimly and without our consciousness, with the subjects of thought with which they are connected; as often thrusting themselves forward familiarly in our way, like certain clever, good fellows of our acquaintance in society, who put us in the shade, and are somewhat of a bore to us with their easy impertinence, (or here, rather, we should say pertinence,) their ready wit, and apparently greater originality; out of whose atmosphere, for the moment, our selflove would gladly escape to shine in a sphere of its own; but whom we do not hesitate to make profitable to us on some future occasion, drawing upon them to assist our chitchat, and getting credit for our story or joke, although we

should unfortunately commence or conclude with an as soand-so says: but should we have the boldness to pass off our wit as original, without risk of a detection, provided we have sufficient discretion,-sufficient variety in the sources whence we draw, and our conversation be not the mere ricochet of another's,-if it have stamina of its own to support it, and we are not insipid Flaneurs, or professed and recognized raconteurs of others' stale sayings,-who blames ? who accuses of thefts? Have we not honestly set about à faire l'amiable? Have we not lawfully attained our end, which was to please by the best possible means? Have we not succeeded? Or should we, which is certainly yet more desirable, possess the tact to improve upon these our acquisitions, by means of others,-to make a good story out of an indifferent one,-to embellish a striking idea or phrase by some additional manufacture or process of our own,—does not this constitute our felicity-establish our reputation? Verily, he would be a dummy, who did not avail himself of some such helps through books and men: his speech would freeze down into a Lapland winter; the circle of his ideas would be diminished precisely two-thirds! If he must confine himself to simple observation,-to a vocabulary of words, to a form of language of his own invention, in order to be original, he would be an original indeed! Such a one as the world has not yet seen. Should any one so aspire, we would recommend him to mount, on some foggy night when sound travels well, upon Thomas Carlyle's back, and ascend the highest peak of the Hartz mountains, whence he may catch some original ideas and phrases from the moon, and escape the charge of plagiarism, at least until some ballooning adventurer, a century or two hence, shall expose his thefts to the world. The fact is, we are essentially imitative in every thing. We effect every thing after models which we have before us, combining more or less judgment in our selections, aiming at perfection by the study of the best,-at novelty or originality, in general, through the power which acquaintance with a large circle of facts or materials gives, either of simply choosing and making known such as others are not familiar with, or of making available in combination such as are more common, but which assume an individuality from the accretion of fresh ingredients. We attain to greatness or sublimity through the infusion of intense feelings or lofty conceptions, in the