The poet can then follow wherever the spirit of admiration leads him, unchecked by such suggestions as will be too apt to cross his way if all that he is prompted to utter is to be tested by fact.

Something in this spirit I have written in the note attached to the Sonnet on the King of Sweden; and many will think that in this poem, and elsewhere, I have spoken of the author of 'Paradise Lost' in a strain of panegyric scarcely justifiable by the tenour of some of his opinions, whether theological or political, and by the temper he carried into public affairs, in which, unfortunately for his genius, he was so much concerned.
[Among the printed Notes is this--The name of Milton is pleasingly connected with Vallombrosa in many ways.

The pride with which the Monk, without any previous question from me, pointed out his residence, I shall not readily forget.

It may be proper here to defend the Poet from a charge which has been brought against him, in respect to the passage in 'Paradise Lost' where this place is mentioned.

It is said, that he has erred in speaking of the trees there being deciduous, whereas they are, in fact, pines.