tion for her; for this "estranged look," and "altered style," proves that whatever might have been his former attachment to her, he now became cold and indifferent. This however was impossible, for human nature is so constituted, that a lover can no more become indifferent about his mistress in a moment, than a virtuous man can become a reprobate. When Adam therefore commences his quarrel with "estranged look," he was either a hypocrite in doing so, or he never felt that ardent affection for her which he so frequently professed. If he had felt it, he could not instantaneously divest himself of it, however criminal Eve might have appeared to him at the moment, for human nature is not endowed with that strength which can throw off without a struggle, influences to which it has long yielded. How unnatural then would Adam's "estranged look" be, even if Eve had sinned alone, for however he might detest the crime, he could not still divest himself of his attachment to the unhappy criminal; but how much more unnatural is it, when he was himself a participator in the crime. Lovers indeed may very naturally quarrel; but it is certain that no effort of theirs will enable them to assume an air of coldness and indifference in the very height of their dispute. On the contrary, a judge of the human heart will be able to ascertain with greater certainty, the extent of their affection for each other at this moment than at any other.

There is therefore a total want of passion, which is the very soul of poetry, in the " Paradise Lost," even where there is an opportunity of displaying it; and this opportunity very rarely occurs, as Adam and Eve are the only two human beings that appear in it from beginning to end. It appears to me, therefore, that Milton wanted that feeling which identifies itself with the feelings of others, and which becomes acquainted through sympathy with the operations of the human heart, and the mental sources of human actions; and that being sensible of this want, he judiciously took up a subject adapted to his genius, where he should seldom have occasion to trace what he was incapable of tracing," the varying aspect which different passions assume in different characters, under the diversified influences of times and situa

tions." In a word, if the view which I have taken of poetry in my Reply to Mr. Bowles be correct, Milton, so far from ranking at the head of his profession, ranks not so high as Pope himself, a fact which will more evidently appear when I come to treat of his poetical genius. At present I shall only observe, that Pope has always more natural passion and unaffected sentiment than Milton, wherever he has an opportunity of displaying it, though I doubt not but both of them had more learning and philosophy than was necessary to attain poetic excellence, for if

-Works may have more wit than does 'em good,

As bodies perish through excess of blood,

so may poetry also, have more learning than is consistent with its nature, and enthusiastic character.

Want of feeling, want of passion, and an imperfect acquaintance with the human heart, seem therefore to be radical deficiencies in the " Paradise Lost.” Next to these may be ranked want of probability, for we know that Milton was as ignorant as we are ourselves of the true nature of spiritual beings, and that consequently the qualities and characters ascribed to them are purely fictitious. We know that human understanding (and Milton's understanding was surely not more than human) can form no idea of spiritual existences; and we know also that he is full of contradictions in his account of the angels. His contradictions, in fact, are met with in every page. In one place he describes the weakest of the rebel angels, a being who "could wield these elements and arm him with the force of all their regions:" he describes Satan Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremov'd:

His stature reach'd the sky, and on his crest Sat horrour plum'd;

and yet he describes this very Satan climbing up the middle tree of Paradise "for prospect," that he might take a full survey of every thing around him. Surely he whose "stature reached the sky" wanted not to climb up a tree" for prospect." But the number of discrepancies to be met with in "Paradise Lost," are in fact so great, that to enumerate and shew at the same time that they are discrepancies, would require a longer work than the " Paradise Lost”

itself. "Paradise Lost," then, may afford us all the pleasure which obvious fiction can impart; but it can excite no real, unaffected passion; for the moment we perceive a description to be fictitious, we can feel no passion but what is absolutely affected. Imagination, indeed, may delight and amuse us, but he who confounds pleasure and delight with passion, has paid little attention to the nature of the human heart, or to the character of the emotions, affections, and sympathies to which it is subject. If it should be said, that I oppose myself to the general voice of mankind in asserting that we are not moved to real passion in reading the "Paradise Lost," I deny the assertion. That all the readers of Milton profess to admire him, I admit; but that all his readers return to the work with new feelings of delight, I deny, and I am fortified in my denial by the opinion of the ablest critics;-a proof that admiration and passion are very distinct affections of mind, and that we may be struck with admiration when our passions are perfectly dormant. In fact a common juggler or cheat may excite an admiration; but truth and nature alone, or a faithful representation of them, can elicit our passions; but as there can be no representation given of angels, the description of them must want that sort of truth and nature which can alone awaken the affections that slumber in the human breast.

There are many other reasons why the "Paradise Lost" should be devoid of interest; and I believe it will generally be found, that whenever a thing is liable to one objection it is liable to many, though it does not always happen that we can find the many out. The characters which Milton has introduced into it, are all good, or all evil; and therefore neither the one nor the other can excite the least interest. We know that the former are as good as good can be, and that the latter are as bad as bad can be. Neither of them, therefore, are what we wish them to be, because the natures of both are different from our own. With the good angels we cannot sympathize, because we know we have our frailties and imperfections, and can therefore never hope to equal them to the bad angels we have still a greater repugnance, because frail and imperfect as we are, we abhor that malignity which belongs to their charac

ter. We take no interest, therefore, in their contentions, because they are beings who have nothing in common with us.

In rectitude of intention, perhaps, we may equal the good angels themselves; but in rectitude of conduct we can never approach them, because our passions generally set the original purity of our intentions at nought. We wish to be good, but we frequently find that our wishes are vain, that our nature is imperfect, and that the predominance of our passions generally baffles our approach to that perfection which exists only in idea. But to whatever extremes our passions may lead us, we cannot be pleased with any virtue that does not associate with passion in some of its degrees. The action which we know to be unaccompanied by any internal emotion, can never excite sympathy or emotion in ourselves, whether it be good or evil, nor will even an internal emotion affect us, though it should rise to the highest passion, if we know it to be a passion incapable of a change. A being endowed with such a passion appears to us to have no passion at all, because he has no volition. He cannot be otherwise than he is, and therefore we could witness his passion with as great indifference as we could boiling metals in the furnace. We look upon a madman in the greatest rage with perfect unconcern: his passion produces no corresponding emotion in us because we know that he acts without volition. At least if we experience any sensations, they arise from our reflections on the unknown cause of the effects which we perceive, and the possibility of their acting at one time or other upon ourselves. If, then, we cannot be interested where there is no appearance of passion, and if a passion that appears unchangeable be equally incapable of exciting our sympathy, it follows, that the angels of Milton, in whatever point of view they are considered, can excite no sympathy at all. We look upon the good angels as incapable of doing any thing evil, upon the bad angels as incapable of doing any thing good; and therefore we know before hand what each of them will do, and when it is done, it creates no interest, because we know the agent by which it is performed could not do otherwise. There is

nothing therefore to excite expectation, because we know that every thing happens necessarily, and therefore it

excites no emotion in us when it does happen. How differently do we feel ourselves affected by the characters of the Iliad. We know not what either of them will do the next moment from what he does at this, because their actions are not governed by unavoidable necessity. At one time they are governed by reason, at another by passion, and our expectations are always kept alive to know which will prevail. When Agamemnon says to Achilles, Haste, launch thy vessels, fly with speed away,

Rule thy own realms with arbitrary sway: I heed thee not, but prize at equal rate Thy short-liv'd friendship, and thy groundless hate.

But then prepare, imperious prince, pre.

pare,

Fierce as thou art, to yield thy captive fair:

E'en in thy tent I'll seize the blooming prize,

Thy loved Briseis with the radiant eyes. Heuce thou shalt prove my might, and curse the hour

'Thou stood'st a rival of imperial power. Our expectations are raised to the greatest possible height, to know in what manner Achilles will endure this

insult. Acquainted as we are with the impetuosity of his temper, we know not whether his reason will prove sufficiently powerful to prevent Agamemnon from falling a sacrifice to it. Homer, sensible of the interesting situation in which he places us, instead of immediately gratifying our curiosity, keeps up the interest, by still keeping us in the same state of anxious concern with re

gard to the uncertain event, and judiciously describes that conflict of reason and passion in the breast of Achilles which we had anticipated ourselves from the threats of Agamemnon. therefore we are told that

When

we are still in the same state of expectation we were in when Agamemnon concluded his threats, and we feel ourselves almost as much interested as Achilles and Agamemnon themselves. We do not wish, indeed, to see the latter fall a sacrifice to the wrath of Achilles, though we could almost wish to see him punished by the hands of the insulted warrior. But if Homer had represented Achilles as never listening to the suggestions of reason at all; if we knew him to be a man who instinctively aimed at the life of every person who insulted him, we could no longer feel any interest in him, we would see him insulted with indifference, and we would snatch Agamemnon from his grasp, however deserving he might be of punishment, or however willingly we might see it inflicted by other hands.

It is obvious, then, that there can be no interest where there is nothing to excite expectation, and where there is not that diversity of contending emotions which always leaves us in ignorance of what will happen till it actuIn the Paradise ally takes place. Lost," we know every thing at setting out: we know the good angels will always act well, and the bad angels always ill. There can be therefore no discrimination of character, because out,-good and evil; there are only two characters throughand these admit of

no diversity, because the good are all bad, both being unavoidably placed in equally good, and the bad all equally the two extremes of good and evil. However successful Milton has been in the rebel host, he neither has nor could painting the malignity of Satan and paint them as black as our own imagination conceives it to be already; and therefore he could have no chance of surprising us by the deformity of the portrait: on the contrary, it was impossible that he could ever succeed in equalling our expectations. Indeed the substance of all he has said, or could say, is contained in Satan's description of himself and his compeers in the beginning of the first book, where he says,

To do aught good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to his high will
Whom we resist.

Here we are told all that can be told us; to describe them worse than this is impossible; and therefore we know the

whole tribe of characters we have to deal with at once. Milton, indeed, has occasionally ventured to represent Satan in a more amiable light, merely because he felt there could be no interest where there was no diversity of character, but in doing so, he not only contradicts the Scriptures on which he professes to found his "Paradise Lost," but contradicts himself perpetually, because it is obvious from many parts of Satan's character, that he was incapable even of thinking well, much less of acting well. There is, therefore, a total want of consistency in his character, and where there is no consistency, there can be no interest excited. Homer's greatest excellence is universally allowed to be the consistency of his characters. We know them wherever we meet them, and it is impossible to mistake one of them for another. Without inconsistency, however, all Milton's good characters must be mistaken for each other, because there is not the least mixture of evil in any of them, and without equal inconsistency all his bad characters must be mistaken for each other, because there is not, or at least there should not be, the least mixture of good in any of them. Hence it is, that Milton, endeavouring to surmount by the mere force of genius, what even the genius of angels themselves could not surmount, the difficulties which the unmanageable nature of his characters had placed in his way, frequently attributes both to his good and bad angels, passions and feelings of which we know intuitively they were utterly incapable. He describes Michael, the prince of the angelic host, with "visage all inflamed,” and he puts sentiments into the mouth of Satan which rendered him worthy the forgiveness of the Almighty, though other parts of his character manifestly prove him incapable of them. It was surely absurd to put sentiments of repentance into the mouth of him who "only in destroying could find ease to his relentless thoughts;" and yet relentless and bent as he was on destruction, Milton makes him relent, when philophizing on his rebellion against the Deity, he says,

Ah, wherefore! he deserved no such return
From me whom he created what I was,
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none.

These are hallowed sentiments, and so

worthy the forgiveness of heaven, that we find some difficulty in believing the Deity all-merciful, when he could not. forgive the unfortunate Angel by whom they were expressed. If such sentiments were natural, they would be divine; and their not being divine only proves they were not natural. The Rev. H. Boyd, in his "Remarks on the Fallen Angels of Milton," endeavours to defend this mixture of good and evil in the character of Satan. Alluding to this and similar passages, he says, "the poet has represented him in somewhat of a new light, and I think very judiciously, as there appears a novelty in his situation. He seems here at first to have lost much of that ferocious pride and obdurate spirit which distinguished him at his first introduction; he had since that been engaged in the contemplation of the works of the Almighty, and the proofs of his beneficence. This seems to have made an impression on his mind, transient indeed, but so far at least, conducive to the ends of poetry, as that by reflection we may say, it enhances the impression made upon us by the objects presented to us.'

This is the criticism of a baby. It suits those who cannot look an inch beyond the immediate object which engages their attention; and to them, no doubt, it appears extremely sensible. But if we examine, for a moment, the reasons which he assigns, we shall find them mere shadows. His first reason

for justifying Milton, in placing Satan in a new light, is because "there appears a novelty in his situation." This is mere matter of fact, but no defence of the propriety of the fact. If Milton has placed Satan in a new light, he is not defended in doing so by telling us that "there appears a novelty in his situation;" for there is a novelty in the situation of every person placed in "a new light." To vindicate Milton for placing Satan in a new light, by telling us he did place him so, is not less absurd than to say, that sin is a virtue because it is sin. We know that sin is sin, and that "a new light is novelty," but what we wish to know, is how sin can be a virtue, or why a thing should be proper, merely because God was the most novel occurrence it is novel. Satan's rebellion against which ever took place in heaven; but, at the same time, it was the most im