rivers, rainbows, and the like dead pieces of nature, are justly cenfured in an heroic poem, when they run out into an unnecellary length; the defeription of Paradife would have been faulty, had not the poet been very particular in it, not only as it is the fcene of the principal action, but as it is requifite to give us an idea of that happinets from which our first parents fell. The plan of it is wonderfully beautiful, and formed upon the fhort fketch which we have of if in holy wit. Milton's exuberance of imagination has poured forth tuch a redundancy of ornaments on this feat of happinets and innocence, that it would be endless to point out each particular. must not quit this head, without further obferving, that there is fcarce a fpeech of Adam or Eve in the whole poem, wherein the fentiments and alÎnfions are not taken from this their delightful habitation. The reader, during their whole course of action, always finds himself in the walks of Paradife. In fhort, as the critics have remarked, that in those poems wherein thepherds are actors, the thoughts ought always to take a tincture from the woods, fields, and rivers, fo we may obferve, that our frit parents feldom lole fight of their happy ftation in any thing they speak or do, and, if the reader will give me leave to use the expreffion, that their thoughts are always Paradifiacal. We are in the next place to confider the machines of the fourth book. Satan being now within prospect of Eden, and looking round upon the glories of the creation, is filled with fentiments different from thofe which he difcovered whilft he was in hell. The place infpires him with thoughts more adapted to it: he reflects upon the happy condition from whence he fell, and breaks forth into a fpeech that is foftened with feveral tranfient touches of remorfe and felf-accufation: but at length he confioms himself in impenitence, and in his design of drawing man into his own tate of guilt and mifery. This conflict of paffions is raifed with a great deal of art, as the opening of his peech to the Sun is very bold and noble. O thou that with furpaffing glory crown'd, Lo kit from thy fole domision like the God Of this new world; at whofe fight all the ftars Hide their diminish'd heads; to thee I call, But with no fiendly voice; and add thy name O fun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what ftate I fell, how glorious once above thy fphere. This fpeech is, I think, the finest that is afcribed to Satan in the whole poem. The evil fpirit afterwards proceeds to make his discoveries concerning our first parents, and to learn after what manner they may be beft attacked. His bounding over the walls of Paradife; his fitting in the hape of a cormorant upon the tree of life, which flood in the center of it, and overtopped all the other trees of the garden; his alighting among the herd of animals, which are fo beauti fully reprefented as playing about Adam and Eve, together with his transforming himself into different thapes, in order to hear their converfation; are circumftances that give an agreeable furprife to the reader, and are devifed with great art, to connect that feries of adventures in which the poet has engaged this artificer of fraud. The thought of Satan's transformation into a cormorant, and placing himfelt on the tree of life, feems raifed upon that pallage in the Iliad, where two deities are defcribed, as perching on the top of an oak in the fhape of vultures. His planting himself at the ear of Eve under the form of a toad, in order to produce vain dreams and imaginations, is a circumftance of the fame nature; as his ftarting up in his own form is wonderfully fine, both in the literal defcription, and in the moral which is concealed under it. His answer upon his being difcovered, and demanded to give an account of himself, is conformable to the pride and intrepidity of his character.. Know ye not then,' faid Satan, fill'd with fcorn, Know ye not me! ye knew me once no mate For you, there fitting where you durft not foar; Not to know me argues yourself unknown, The loweft of your throng.". Zephon's rebuke, with the influence it had on Satan, is exquifitely graceful and moral. Satan is afterwards led away to Gabriel, the chief of the guardian angels, who kept watch in Paradite. His difdaful behaviour on this occafion is fo remarkable a beauty, that the molt ordinary reader cannot but take notice of it. Gabriel's difcovering his approach approach at a distance, is drawn with great strength and liveliness of imagination. O friends, I hear the tread of nimble feet, The conference between Gabriel and Satan abounds with fentiments proper for the occafion, and fuitable to the perfons of the two fpeakers. Satan cloath. ing himself with terror when he prepares for the combat is truly fublime, and at leaft equal to Homer's defcription of Difcord celebrated by Longinus, or to that of Fame in Virgil, who are both reprefented with their feet ftanding upon the earth, and their heads reaching above the clouds. While thus he fpake, th' angelic fquadron Turn'd fiery red, fharp'ning in mooned horns -On th' ether fide Satan alarm'd, I must here take notice, that Milton is every where full of hints, and sometimes literal tranflations, taken from the greatest of the Greek and Latin poets. But this I may referve for a difcourfe by itself, becaufe I would not break the thread of thefe fpeculations, that are defigned for English readers, with fuch reflections as would be of no ufe but to the learned. I must however obferve in this place, that the breaking off the combat between Gabriel and Satan, by the hanging out of the golden fcales in heaven, is a refinement upon Homer's thought, who tells us, that before the battle between Hector and Achilles, Jupiter weighed the event of it in a pair of fcales. The reader may fee the whole paffage in the 22d Iliad. Virgil, before the last decifive combat, defcribes Jupiter in the fame manner, as weighing the fates of Turnus and Æneas. Milton, though he fetch ed this beautiful circumftance from the Iliad and neid, does not only infert it as a poetical embellishment, like the authors above-mentioned; but makes an artful use of it for the proper carrying on of his fable, and for the breaking off the combat between the two warriors, who were upon the point of engaging. To this we may further add, that Milton is the more juftified in this paffage, as we find the fame noble allegory in holy writ, where a wicked prince, fome few hours becaufe he was alfaulted and flain, is faid to have been weighed in the fcales, and to have been found 'wanting.' I must here take notice, under the head of the machines, that Uriel's gliding down to the earth upon a fun-beam, with the poet's device to make him-defcend, as well in his return to the fun as in his coming from it, is a prettiness that might have been admired in a little fanciful poet, but feems below the genitis of Milton. The defcription of the hoft of armed angels walking their nightly round in Paradife, is of another spirit. So faving, on he led his radiant files, Dazzling the moon; as that account of the hymns which our first parents used to hear them fing in thefe their midnight walks, is altogether divine, and inexpreflibly amufing to the imagination. We are, in the last place, to confider the parts which Adam and Eve act in the fourth book. The defcription of them, as they first appeared to Satan, is exquifitely drawn, and fufficient to make the fallen angel gaze upon them with all that aftonishment, and thofe emotions of envy, in which he is reprefented. Two of far nobler fhape, erect and tall, She, as a veil, down to a flender waist Her unadorned golden treffes wore So hand in hand they pafs'd, the loveliest pair That ever fince in love s embraces met. There is a fine spirit of poetry in the lines which follow, wherein they are defcribed as fitting on a bed of flowers by the fide of a fountain, amidst a mixt affembly of animals. The fpeeches of these two firft lovers flow equally from paffion and fincerity. The profeffions they make to one another are full of warmth; but at the fame time founded on truth. In a word, they are the gallantries of Paradife. in The remaining part of Eve's fpeech, in which the gives an account of hertelf upon her first creation, and the manner in which he was brought to Adam, is, I think, as beautiful a paffage as any Milton, or perhaps in any other poet whatfoever. Thefe paffages are all worked off with fo much art, that they are capable of pleafing the most delicate reader, without offending the most severe. That day I oft remember, when from fleep, &c. A poet of lefs judgment and invention than this great author, would have found it very difficult to have filled these tender parts of the poem with fentiments proper for a ftate of innocence; to have defcribed the warmth of love, and the profeffions of it, without artifice or hyperbole; to have made the man speak the most endearing things, without de fcending from his natural dignity, and the woman receiving them without deracter; in a word, to adjust the prero. parting from the modelty of her chagatives of wisdom and beauty, and make. each appear to the other in it's proper force and loveliness. This mutual fu bordination of the two fexes is wonder fully kept up in the whole poem, as par- So fpake our general mother, and with eyes The poet adds, that the devil turned away with envy at the fight of so much happiness. rents in their evening difcourfes, which We have another view of our first pais full of pleafing images and fentiments fuitable to their condition and characters. The fpeech of Eve, in particu. lar, is dreffed up in fuch a foft and natural turn of words and fentiments, as cannot be fufficiently a 'mired. I fhall close my reflections upon this book, with obferving the masterly tran fition which the poet makes to their evening worship, in the following lines. Thus at their fhady lodge arriv`d, both stood, Both turn'd, and under open fky, ador d The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav'n, Which they beheld, the moon's refplendent globe, And ftarry pole: 'Thou also mad the might, 4 Maker omnipotent, and thou the day,' &c. Most of the modern heroic poets have imitated the ancients in beginning a fpeech without premifing, that the perfon faid thus or thus; but as it is eafy to imitate the ancients in the omiffion of two or three words, it requires judgment to do it in fuch a manner as they fhall not be miffed, and that the speech may begin naturally without them. There is a fine inftance of this kind out of Homer, in the twenty-third chapter of Longinus. END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME, L BIGAILS, male, in fashion among the ladies, Number 55. A Abfence in converfation, a remarkable inftance of it in Will Honeycomb, N. 77. The occafion of this abfence, ibid. and means to conquer it, ibid. Acroftic, a piece of falfe wit, divided into fimple and compound, N. 60. Act of deformity, for the ufe of the Ugly Club, N. 17. Advertisements, of an Italian chirurgeon, N. 22. From St. James's Coffee-house, Advice; no order of perfons too confiderable to be advised, N. 34. Affectation, a greater enemy to a fine face than the finall-pox, N. 33. it deforms beauty, and turns wit into abfurdity, 38. The original of it, ibid. found in Alexander the Great, wry-necked, N. 32. Ambition never fatisfied, N. 27. Americans, their opinion of fouls, N. 56. exemplified in a vision of one of their Ample, Lady, her uneafinefs, and the reason of it, N. 32. Anagram, what, and when firit produced, N. 60. Andromache, a great fox-hunter, N. 57. April, the first of, the merrieft day in the year, N. 47. Aretine made all the princes of Europe his tributaries, N. 23. Arietta, her character, N. 11. her fable of the lion and the man, in answer to the Avarice, the original of it, N. 55. operates with luxury, ibid. at war with luxury, Aurelia, her character, N. 15. Author, the neceffity of his readers being acquainted with his fize, complexion, B. BACON, Sir Francis, his comparison of a book well written, N. 10. his obfervation upon envy, 19. Bags of money, a fudden transformation of them into sticks and paper, N. 3. Bawdry, never writ but where there is a dearth of invention, N. 51. Beaver, the haberdasher, a great politician, N. 49. 4 K Beauties, Beauties, when plagiaries, Number 4. The true fecret how to improve beauty, Bell, Mr. his ingenious device, N. 28. Bell-Savage, it's etymology, ibid. Birds, a cageful for the opera, N. 5. Biters, their business, N. 47. Blackmore, Sir Richard, his obfervation, N. 6. Blanks of fociety, who, N. 10. Blank verfe proper for tragedy, N. 39. Bohours, Monfieur, a great critic among the French, N. 62. Breeding, fine breeding diftinguished from good, N. 66. Brunetta and Phillis, their adventures, N. 80. Bruyere, Monfieur, his character of an abfent man, N. 77. Bullock and Norris, differently habited, prove great helps to a filly play, N. 44. 1 C. CESAR, Julius, his behaviour to Catullus, who had put him into a lam- Caligula, his wish, N. 16. Camilla, a true woman in one particular, N. 15. Carbuncle, Dr. his dye, what, N. 52. Cenfor of fmall wares, an officer to be appointed, N. 16. Charles I. a famous picture of that prince, N. 58. Chevy-Chace, the Spectator's examen of it, N. 70, 74. Chronogram, a piece of falfe wit, N. 60. Cicero, a punter, N. 61. The entertainment found in his philofophic writings, Clarinda, an idol, in what manner worshipped, N. 73. Cleanthe, her story, N. 15. Several names of clubs, and their Clergyman, one of the Spectator's club. N. 2. Commerce, the extent and advantage of it, N. 69. Confcioufnefs, when called affectation, N. 38. Converfation moft ftraitened in numerous affemblies, N. 68. Coquettes, the prefent numerous race, to what owing, N. 66. Coverley, Sir Roger de, a member of the Spectator's club, his character, N. 2. Courtiers habit, on what occafions hieroglyphical, N. 64. Cowley, abounds in mixt wit, N. 62. Crab, of King's College, in Cambridge, chaplain to the Club of Ugly Faces, N. 78. Crofs, Mifs, wanted near half a ton of being as handsome as Madam Van Brisket, D. DANCING, a difcourfe on it, defended, N. 67. Death, the time and manner of our death not known to us, N. 7. Deformity, no caufe of fhame, N. 17. Delight and furprize, properties effential to wit, N. 62. Dignitaries |