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ftand all the purlieus of this game the better, and to illustrate this fubject in future difcourfes, I muft venture myfelf, with my friend Will, into the haunts of beauty and gallantry; from pampered vice in the habitations of the wealthy, to diftreffed indigent wickedness expelled the harbours of the brothel.

T

N° 267

Saturday, January 5.

Cedite Romani fcriptores, cedite Graii.

Propert. El. 34. lib. 2. ver. 65.

Give place, ye Roman, and ye Grecian wits.

THERE is nothing in nature fo irksome as general difcourfes, efpecially when they turn chiefly upon words. For this reafon I fhall wave the difcuffion of that point which was started fome years fince, whether Milton's Paradife Loft may be called an heroic poem? Those who will not give it that title, may call it, if they please, a divine poem. It will be fufficient to its perfection, if it has in it all the beauties of the higheft kind of poetry; and as for those who alledge it is not an heroic poem, they advance no more to the diminution of it, than if they should say Adam is not Æneas, nor Eve Helen.

I shall therefore examine it by the rules of epic poetry, and fee whether it falls fhort of the Iliad or Æneid, in the beauties which are effential to that kind of writing. The first thing to be confidered in an epic poem, is the fable, which is perfect or imperfect, according as the action which it relates is more or lefs fo. This action fhould have three qualifications in it. First, it fhould be but one action. Secondly, it should be an entire action; and, thirdly, it should be a great action. To confider the action of the Iliad, Æneid, and Paradise Loft, in thefe three feveral lights. Homer to preferve the unity of his action haftens into the midft of things, as Horace has obferved: had he gone up to Leda's egg,

or

or begun much later, even at the rape of Helen, or the invefting of Troy, it is manifeft that the ftory of the poem would have been a series of feveral actions. He therefore opens his poem with the difcord of his princes, and art fully interweaves, in the feveral fucceeding parts of it,. an account of every thing material which relates to them, and had paffed before that fatal diffenfion. After the fame manner Æneas makes his first appearance in. the Tyrrhene feas, and within fight of Italy, because the action propofed to be celebrated was that of his fettling himfelf in Latium. But because it was neceffary for the reader to know what had happened to him in the taking of Troy, and in the preceding parts of his voyage, Virgil makes his hero relate it by way of epifode in the fecond and third books of the Eneid. The contents of both. which books come before thofe of the first book in the thread of the ftory, though for preferving of this unity of action they follow them in the difpofition of the poem. Milton, in imitation of these two great poets, opens his Paradife Loft, with an infernal council plotting the fall of man, which is the action he propofed to celebrate; and as for thofe great actions, which preceded in point of time, the battle of the angels, and the creation of the world, which would have intirely destroyed the unity of his principal action, had he related them in the fame order they happened, he caft them into the fifth, fixth, and feventh books, by way of epifode to this noble poem.

Ariftotle himself allows, that Homer has nothing to boast of as to the unity of his fable, though at the fame time that great critic and philofopher endeavours to palliate this. imperfection in the Greek poet by im-. puting it in fome meafure to the very nature of an epic. poem. Some have been of opinion, that the Æneid also Labours in this particular, and has epifodes. which may be looked upon as excrefcences rather than as parts of the action. On the contrary, the poem, which we have now under our confideration, hath no other epifodes than fuch as naturally arife from the fabject, and yet is filled with fuch a multitude of astonishing incidents, that it gives us at the fame time a pleasure. of the greatest variety, and of the greateft fimpli

city ;,

'city; uniform in its nature, though diverfified in the

execution.

I must obferve alfo, that as Virgil, in the poem which 'was defigned to celebrate the original of the Roman em pire, has described the birth of its great rival, the Carthaginian commonwealth: Milton, with the like art in his poem on the fall of man, has related the fall of thofe angels who are his profeffed enemies. Befides the many other beauties in fuch an epifode, its running parallel with the great action of the poem hinders it from breaking the unity fo much as another epiföde would have 'done, that had not fo great an affinity with the principal fubject. In fhort, this is the fame kind of beauty which the critics admire in the Spanish Friar, or the Double Discovery, where the two different plots look like counterparts and copies of one another.

The fecond qualification required in the action of an epic poem, is, that it fhould be an entire action: af action is entire when it is complete in all its parts; or, as Ariftotle defcribes it, when it confifts of a beginning, a middle, and an end. Nothing fhould go before it, be intermixed with it, or follow after it, that is not related to it. As on the contrary, no fingle step should be omitted in that juft and regular procefs which it must be fuppofed to take from its original to its consummation. Thus we fee the anger of Achilles in its birth, its continuance and effects; and Æneas's fettlement in Italy, carried on through all the oppofitions in his way to it both by fea and land. The action in Milton excels, I think, both the former in this particular: we see it contrived in hell, executed upon earth, and punished by heaven. The parts of it are told in the most diftinct manner, and grow out of one another in the most natural method.

The third qualification of an epic poem is its greatnefs. The anger of Achilles was of fuch confequence, that it embroiled the kings of Greece, deftroyed the heroes of Troy, and engaged all the gods in factions. Eneas's fettlement in Italy produced the Cæfars, and gave birth to the Roman empire. Milton's fubject was ftill greater than either of the former; it does not determine the fate of fingle perfons or nations, but of a

4

whole

whole fpecies. The united powers of hell are joined together for the deftruction of mankind, which they effected in part, and would have completed, had not Omnipotence itself interpofed. The principal actors are man in his greatest perfection, and woman in her highest beauty. Their enemies are the fallen angels: the Meffiah their friend, and the Almighty their protector. In fhort, every thing that is great in the whole circle of being, whether within the verge of nature, or out of it, has a proper part affigned it in this noble poem.

In poetry, as in architecture, not only the whole, but the principal members, and every part of them, should be great. I will not prefume to fay, that the book of games in the Æneid, or that in the Iliad are not of this nature, nor to reprehend Virgil's fimile of the top, and many other of the fame kind in the Iliad, as liable to any cenfure in this particular; but I think we may say,without derogating from thofe wonderful performances, that there is an unquestionable magnificence in every part of Paradife Loft, and indeed a much greater than could have been formed upon any pagan system.

But Ariftotle, by the greatness of the action, does not only mean that it should be great in its nature, but also in its duration, or in other words that it should have a due length in it, as well as what we properly call greatnefs. The juft measure of this kind of magnitude, he explains by the following fimilitude. An animal, no bigger than a mite, cannot appear perfect to the eye, because the fight takes it in at once, and has only a confufed idea of the whole, and not a diftinct idea of all its parts; if on the contrary you fhould fuppofe an animal of ten thousand furlongs in length, the eye would be fo filled with a fingle part of it, that it could not give the mind an idea of the whole. What these animals are to the eye, a very fhort or a very long action would be to the memory. The firft would be, as it were, loft and swallowed up by it, and the other difficult to be contained in it. Homer and Virgil have fhewn their principal art in this particular; the action of the Iliad, and that of the Æneid, were in themselves exceeding short, but are fo beautifully extended and diverfified

..

verfified by the invention of episodes, and the machinery of gods, with the like poetical ornaments, that they make up an agreeable ftory, fufficient to employ the memory without overcharging it. Milton's action is enriched with fuch a variety of circumftances, that I have taken as much pleasure in reading the contents of his books, as in the best invented ftory I ever met with. It is poffible, that the traditions, on which the Iliad and Æneid were built, had more circumstances in them, than the hiftory of the Fall of Man, as it is related in fcripture. Befides, it was easier for Homer and Virgil to dash the truth with fiction, as they were in no danger of offending the religion of their country by it. But as for Milton, he had not only a very few circumftances upon which to raise his poem, but was also obliged to proceed with the greateft caution in every thing that he added out of his own invention. And, indeed, notwithstanding all the restraints he was under, he has filled his ftory with fo many furprising incidents, which bear so close an analogy with what is delivered in holy writ, that it is capable of pleafing the most delicate reader, without giving offence to the most scru-, pulous.

The modern critics have collected from feveral hints in the Iliad and Æneid the space of time, which is taken. up by the action of each of thofe poems; but as a. great part of Milton's story was tranfacted in regions. that lie out of the reach of the fun and the sphere of day, it is impoffible to gratify the reader with fuch a calculation, which indeed would be more curious than instructive; none of the critics, either ancient or mo-. dern, having laid down rules to circumfcribe the action of an epic poem with any determined number of years, days, or hours.

This piece of criticism on Milton's Paradife Loft shall. be carried on in the following Saturday's papers.

L.

Monday,

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