gil here lets his fable stand still for the sake of the following remark. How is the mind of man ignorant of futurity, and unable to bear prosperous fortune with moderation? The time will come when Turnus shall wish that he had left the body of Pallas untouched, and curse the day on which he dressed himself in these spoils.' As the great event of the Eneid, and the death of Turnus, whom Eneas slew because he saw him adorned with the spoils of Pallas, turns upon this incident, Virgil went out of his way to make this reflection upon it, without which so small a circumstance might possibly have slipped out of his reader's memory. Lucan, who was an injudicious poet, lets drop his story very frequently for the sake of his unnecessary digressions, or his Diverticula, as Scaliger calls them. If he gives us an account of the prodigies which preceded the civil war, he declaims upon the occasion, and shews how much happier it would be for man, if he did not feel his evil fortune before it comes to pass, and suffer not only by its real weight, but by the apprehension of it. Milton's complaint for his blindness, his panegyric on marriage, his reflections on Adam and Eve's going naked, of the angels eating, and several other passages in his poem, are liable to the same exceptions, though I must confess there is so great a beauty in these very digressions, that I would not wish them out poem.

of his

I have, in a former paper, spoken of the characters of Milton's Paradise Lost, and declared my opinion, as to the allegorical persons who are introduced in it.1

If we look into the sentiments, I think they are sometimes defective under the following heads; first, as there are several of them too much pointed, and some that degenerate even into puns. Of this last kind, I am afraid is that in the first book, where speaking of the pigmies, he calls them

1 No. 278.-C.

-The small infantry

Warr'd on by cranes

Another blemish that appears in some of his thoughts, is his frequent allusion to heathen fables, which are not certainly of a piece with the divine subject of which he treats. I do not find fault with these allusions, where the poet himself represents them as fabulous, as he does in some places, but where he mentions them as truths and matters of fact. The limits of my paper will not give me leave to be particular in instances of this kind: the reader will easily remark them in his perusal of the poem.

A third fault in his sentiments, is an unnecessary ostentation of learning, which likewise occurs very frequently. It is certain that both Homer and Virgil were masters of all the learning of their times, but it shews itself in their works, after an indirect and concealed manner. Milton seems ambitious of letting us know, by his excursions on free-will and predestination, and his many glances upon history, astronomy, geography, and the like, as well as by the terms and phrases he sometimes makes use of, that he was acquainted with the whole circle of arts and sciences.

If, in the last place, we consider the language of this great poet, we must allow what I have hinted in a former paper, that it is often too much laboured, and sometimes obscured by old words, transpositions, and foreign idioms. Seneca's objection to the style of a great author, Riget ejus oratio, nihil in ea placidum, nihil lene, is what many critics make to Milton: as I cannot wholly refute it, so I have already apologized for it in another paper; to which I may further add, that Milton's sentiments and ideas were so wonderfully sublime, that it would have been impossible for him to have represented them in their full strength and beauty, without having recourse to these foreign assistances. Our language sunk under him, and was unequal to

that greatness of soul which furnished him with such glorious conceptions.

A second fault in his language is, that he often affects a kind of jingle in his words, as in the following passages, and many

others:

And brought into the world a world of woe.

-Begirt th' Almighty throne

Beseeching or besieging

This tempted our attempt

At one slight bound high over-leapt all bound.

I know there are figures for this kind of speech, that some of the greatest ancients have been guilty of it, and that Aristotle himself has given it a place in his rhetoric among the beauties of that art. But as it is in itself poor and trifling, it is I think at present universally exploded by all the masters of polite writing.

The last fault which I shall take notice of in Milton's style, is the frequent use of what the learned call technical words, or terms of art. It is one of the great beauties of poetry, to make hard things intelligible, and to deliver what is abstruse of itself in such easy language as may be understood by ordinary readers: besides, that the knowledge of a poet should rather seem born with him, or inspired, than drawn from books and systems. I have often wondered, how Mr. Dryden could translate a passage out of Virgil, after the following manner,

Tack to the larboard, and stand off to sea,

Veer starboard sea and land.

Milton makes use of larboard in the same manner. When he is

a Such easy language, as may. Such is regularly succeeded by as, just as talis is by qualis, in Latin. But when such is joined to an adjectivesuch easy-it has only the sense and force of "so," the correlative of which is "that." He might have said—such language as may be understood,—or -such easy language that it may be understood.-But not,-such easy language as may be understood.-H.

upon building, he

Freeze, Architrave. with Ecliptic, and

mentions Doric Pillars, Pilasters, Cornice, When he talks of heavenly bodies, you meet Eccentric, the Trepidation, Stars dropping

from the Zenith, Rays culminating from the Equator. To which might be added many instances of the like kind in several other arts and sciences.

I shall in my next papers give an account of the many particular beauties in Milton, which would have been too long to insert under those general heads I have already treated of, and with which I intend to conclude this piece of criticism.

L.'

No. 303.

same nature.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16.

volet hæc sub luce videri,

Judicis argutum quæ non formidat acumen.

HOR. Ars Poet. 363.

-Some choose the clearest light,

And boldly challenge the most piercing eye.

ROSCOMMON.

I HAVE seen in the works of a modern philosopher, a map of the spots in the sun. My last paper of the faults and blemishes in Milton's Paradise Lost, may be considered as a piece of the To pursue the allusion: as it is observed, that among the bright parts of the luminous body above-mentioned, there are some which glow more intensely, and dart a stronger light than others; so, notwithstanding I have already shewn Milton's poem to be very beautiful in general, I shall now proceed to take notice of such beauties as appear to be more exquisite

1 The folio has S instead of L, which, as the editions of 1812 read L, is supposed to have been an error of print.-G.

than the rest. Milton has proposed the subject of his poem in

the following verses.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world, and all our woe
With loss of Eden, 'till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heav'nly muse-

These lines are perhaps as plain, simple, and unadorned, as any of the whole poem, in which particular the author has conformed himself to the example of Homer, and the precept of Horace.

His invocation to a work which turns in a great measure upon the creation of the world, is very properly made to the muse who inspired Moses in those books from whence our author drew his subject, and to the holy spirit who is therein represented as operating after a particular manner in the first production of nature. This whole exordium rises very happily into noble language and sentiment, as I think the transition to the fable is exquisitely beautiful and natural.

The nine-days astonishment, in which the angels lay entranced after their dreadful overthrow," and fall from heaven, before they could recover either the use of thought or speech, is a noble circumstance, and very finely imagined. The division of hell into seas of fire, and into firm ground impregnated with the same furious element, with that particular circumstance of the exclusion

From whence. From, is included in whence, and is, therefore, redundant; but is, sometimes, as here, inserted on account of the rhythm, those -books, whence, that is, three long syllables coming together would have dragged heavily, if the short syllable from had not intervened. It may seem that he might, in this place, with equal convenience, have said, “from which;” but he had just before said—work, which—and therefore said, from whence-to avoid the monotony.-H.

b Vid. Hesiod.-H.