Shirley is spoken of with contempt in _Mac Flecknoe_; but his Imagination is sometimes fine to an extraordinary degree. I recollect a passage in the fourth book of the _Paradise Lost_, which hath been suspected of _Imitation_, as a _prettiness_ below the Genius of Milton: I mean, where _Uriel_ glides _backward and forward_ to Heaven on a _Sunbeam_. Dr. Newton informs us that this might possibly be hinted by a Picture of Annibal Caracci in the King of France’s Cabinet: but I am apt to believe that Milton had been struck with a Portrait in Shirley. Fernando, in the Comedy of the _Brothers_, 1652, describes Jacinta at _Vespers_: Her eye did seem to labour with a tear, Which suddenly took birth, but overweigh’d With it’s own swelling, drop’d upon her bosome; Which, by reflexion of her light, appear’d As nature meant her sorrow for an ornament: After, her looks grew chearfull, and I saw A smile shoot gracefull upward from her eyes, As if they had gain’d a victory o’er grief, And with it many _beams_ twisted themselves, Upon whose _golden threads_ the _Angels_ walk _To and again from Heaven_.—— You must not think me infected with the spirit of Lauder, if I give you another of Milton’s Imitations: ——The Swan _with arched neck_ Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows Her state with oary feet.—B. 7. V. 438, &c. “The ancient Poets,” says Mr. Richardson, “have not hit upon this beauty; so lavish as they have been in their descriptions of the _Swan_. Homer calls the Swan _long-necked_, δουλιχοδείρον; but how much more _pittoresque_, if he had _arched_ this length of neck?” For _this beauty_, however, Milton was beholden to Donne; whose name, I believe, at present is better known than his writings: ——Like a Ship in her full trim, A _Swan_, so white that you may unto him Compare all whitenesse, but himselfe to none, Glided along, and as he glided watch’d, And with his _arched neck_ this poore fish catch’d.—_Progresse of the Soul_, St. 24. Those highly finished Landscapes, the _Seasons_, are indeed copied from Nature: but Thomson sometimes recollected the hand of his Master: ——The stately-sailing Swan Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale; _And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet_ Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier Isle, Protective of his young.——