it is in those parts of his Poem, where the Divine Perfons are introduced as speakers. One may, I think, obferve, that the author proceeds with a kind of fear and trembling, whilst he describes the fentiments of the Almighty. He dares not give his imagination its full play, but chooses to confine himself to fuch thoughts as are drawn from the books of the moft orthodox divines, and to fuch expreffions as may be met with in Scripture. The beauties, therefore, which we are to look for in these fpeeches, are not of a poetical nature; nor fo proper to fill the mind with sentiments of grandeur, as with thoughts of devotion. The paffions, which they are defigned to raise, are a divine love and religious fear. The particular beauty of the fpeeches in the THIRD BOOK, confists in that shortness and perfpicuity of style, in which the poet has couched the greatest mysteries of Chriftianity, and drawn together, in a regular scheme, the whole difpenfation of Providence with respect to Man. He has reprefented all the abftrufe doctrines of predeftination, free-will, and grace; as alfo the great points of incarnation and redemption, (which naturally grow up in a as was to have been expected, has been moft unfuccefsful."Milton indeed was confcious that he had foared too high; and therefore, with exemplary humility, acknowledges, B. vii. 23. "Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole, Poem that treats of the Fall of Man,) with great energy of expreffion, and in a clearer and stronger light than I have ever met with in any other writer. As these points are dry in themselves to the generality of readers, the concise and clear manner, in which he has treated them, is very much to be admired; as is likewise that particular art which he has made use of in the in terfperfing of all those graces of poetry, which the fubject was capable of receiving. The furvey of the whole creation, and of every thing that is transacted in it, is a prospect worthy of Omnifcience; and as much above that, in which Virgil has drawn his Jupiter, as the Christian idea of the Supreme Being is more rational and fublime than that of the Heathens. The particular objects, on which he is defcribed to have caft his eye, are reprefented in the most beautiful and lively manner. Satan's approach to the confines of the creation is finely imaged in the beginning of the speech which immediately follows. The effects of this speech in the blessed Spirits, and in the Divine Perfon to whom it was addreffed, cannot but fill the mind of the reader with a fecret pleafure and complacency. I need not point out the beauty of that circum The furvey of the whole creation, &c.] See the Note, B. iii, 56. stance, wherein the whole host of Angels are reprefented as standing mute; nor fhow how proper the occafion was to produce fuch a filence in Heaven. The close of this divine colloquy, and the hymn of angels that follows upon it, are wonderfully beautiful and poetical. Satan's walk upon the outfide of the universe, which at a distance appeared to him of a globular form, but, upon his nearer approach, looked like an unbounded plain, is natural and noble: as his roaming upon the frontiers of the creation between that mass of matter, which was wrought into a world, and that shapeless unformed heap of materials, which still lay in chaos and confufion, ftrikes the imagination with fomething aftonishingly great and wild. I have before fpoken of the Limbo of Vanity, which the poet places upon this outermoft furface of the univerfe; and fhall here explain myself more at large on that, and other parts of the Poem, which are of the fame fhadowy nature. Aristotle obferves, that the fable of an epick poem fhould abound in circumstances that are both credible and astonishing; or, as the French criticks choose to phrase it, the fable should be filled with the probable and the marvellous. This rule is as fine and just as any in Ariftotle's whole art of poetry. If the fable is only probable, it differs nothing from a true history; if it is only marvellous, it is no better than a romance. The great fecret, therefore, of heroick poetry is to relate fuch circumstances as may produce in the reader at the fame time both belief and astonishment. This is brought to pass, in a well chofen fable, by the account of fuch things as have really happened, or at least of such things as have happened according to the received opinions of mankind. Milton's fable is a mafter-piece of this nature; as the War in Heaven, the Condition of the fallen Angels, the State of Innocence, the Temptation of the Serpent, and the Fall of Man, though they are very astonishing in themselves, are not only credible, but actual points of faith. The next method of reconciling miracles with credibility, is by a happy invention of the poet; as, in particular, when he introduces agents of a fuperiour nature, who are capable of effecting what is wonderful, and what is not to be met with in the ordinary courfe of things. Ulyffes's ship being turned into a rock, and Æneas's fleet into a shoal of water-nymphs, though they are very surprising accidents, are nevertheless probable when we are told that they were the gods who thus transformed them. It is this kind of machinery which fills the poems both of Homer and Virgil with such circumstances as are wonderful, but not impoffible; and fo frequently produce in the reader the most pleasing paffion H VOL. I. that can rife in the mind of man, which is admiration. If there be any instance in the Æneid liable to exception upon this account, it is in the beginning of the third book, where Æneas is reprefented as tearing up the myrtle that dropped blood. To qualify this wonderful circumstance, Polydorus tells a ftory from the root of the myrtle; that, the barbarous inhabitants of the country having pierced him with fpears and arrows, the wood which was left in his body took root in his wounds, and gave birth to that bleeding tree. This circumftance feems to have the marvellous without the probable, because it is reprefented as proceeding from natural causes, without the interpofition of any god, or other fupernatural power capable of producing it. The fpears and arrows grow of themfelves without fo much as the modern help of an enchantment. If we look into the fiction of Milton's fable, though we find it full of furprifing incidents, they are generally fuited to our notions of the things and perfons described, and tempered with a due measure of probability. I must only make an exception to the Limbo of Vanity, with his epifode of Sin and Death, and fome of the imaginary perfons in his Chaos. These paffages are astonishing, but not credible; the reader cannot fo far impofe upon himself as to fee a poffibility in them; they are the defcrip |