καὶ μὴν Σίσυφον ειςἔιδον, κρατέρ' ἀλγὲ ἐχοντά, It would be endless to quote verses out of Virgil which have this particular kind of beauty in the numbers; but I may take an occasion in a future paper to show several of them which have escaped the observation of others. 5 I cannot conclude this paper without taking notice, that we have three poems in our tongue, which are of the same nature, and each of them a masterpiece in its kind; the Essay on Translated Verse, the Essay on the Art of Poetry, and the Essay upon 10 Criticism. No. 267. SATURDAY, JANUARY 5. [1712.] Cedite Romani scriptores, cedite Graii.-PROPert. THERE is nothing in nature more irksome than 1 general discourses, especially when they turn chiefly upon words. For this reason I shall waive the discussion of that point which was started some 15 years since, whether Milton's Paradise Lost 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 sufficient to its perfection, if it has in it all the beauties of the highest kind 20 of poetry; and as for those who allege2 it is not 21712, those who say. 1 1712, so irksome as. 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 5 poetry, and see whether it falls short of the Iliad or Eneid, in the beauties which are essential to that kind of writing. The first thing to be considered in an epic poem, is the fable, which is perfect or imperfect, according as the action which Io it relates is more or less so. This action should First, it should be should be an entire have three qualifications in it. but one action. Secondly, it action; and thirdly, it should be a great action. To consider the action of the Iliad, Eneid, and Para15 dise Lost, in these three several lights. Homer to preserve the unity of his action hastens into the midst of things, as Horace has observed: Had he gone up to Leda's egg, or begun much later, even at the rape of Helen, or the investing of Troy, it 20 is manifest that the story of the poem would have been a series of several actions. He therefore opens his poem with the discord of his princes, and artfully interweaves, in the several succeeding parts of it, an account of everything material which 25 relates to them, and had passed before this fatal dissension. After the same manner Æneas makes his first appearance in the Tyrrhene seas, and within sight of Italy, because the action proposed to be celebrated was that of his settling himself in Latium. 3o But because it was necessary for the reader to know what had happened to him in the taking of Troy, 5 192 and in the preceding parts of his voyage, Virgil makes his hero relate it by way of episode in the second and third books of the Æneid. The contents of both which books come before those of the first book in the thread of the story, though for preserv- 5 ing of this unity of action, they follow it in the disposition of the poem. Milton, in imitation of these two great poets, opens his Paradise Lost with an infernal council plotting the fall of man, which is the action he proposed to celebrate; and 10 as for those great actions, the battle of the angels, and the creation of the world (which preceded in point of time, and which, in my opinion, would have entirely destroyed the unity of his principal action, had he related them in the same order that 15 they happened) he cast them into the fifth, sixth and seventh books, by way of episode to this noble poem. 7 Aristotle himself allows, that Homer has nothing to boast of as to the unity of his fable, though at 20 the same time that great critic and philosopher endeavours to palliate this imperfection in the Greek poet, by imputing it in some measure to the very nature of an epic poem. Some have been of opinion, that the Eneid, also labours in this particular, 25 and has episodes which may be looked upon as excrescences rather than as parts of the action. On the contrary, the poem which we have now under our consideration, hath no other episodes than such as naturally arise from the subject, and yet is filled 30 6 1712, follow them. 7 1712, actions which preceded in point of time the battle, etc. 8 1712, (which would have entirely destroyed the unity etc. with such a multitude of astonishing incidents,10 that it gives us at the same time a pleasure of the greatest variety, and of the greatest simplicity; 11 uniform in its nature, though diversified in the exe5 cution. I must observe also, that as Virgil in the poem which was designed to celebrate the original of the Roman empire, has described the birth of its great rival, the Carthaginian commonwealth: Milton 10 with the like art in his poem on the fall of man, has related the fall of those angels who are his professed enemies. Besides the many other beauties in such an episode, its running parallel with the great action of the poem, hinders it from breaking 15 the unity so much as another episode would have done, that had not so great an affinity with the principal subject. In short, this is the same kind of beauty which the critics admire in The Spanish Friar or The Double Discovery, where the two 20 different plots look like counterparts and copies of one another. The second qualification required in the action of an epic poem is that it should be an entire action: An action is entire when it is complete in all its 25 parts; or as Aristotle describes it, when it consists of a beginning, a middle, and an end. Nothing should go before it, be intermixed with it, or follow after it, that is not related to it. As on the contrary, no single step should be omitted in that just 30 and regular process 12 which it must be supposed to take from its original to its consummation. Thus we see the anger of Achilles in its birth, its continuance and effects; and Æneas's settlement in Italy, carried on through all the oppositions in his way to it both by sea and land. The action in Milton ex- 5 cels (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 distinct manner, and grow out of one another in the most natural order.13 15 The third qualification of an epic poem is its greatness. The anger of Achilles was of such consequence, that it embroiled the kings of Greece, destroyed the heroes of Asia,14 and engaged all the gods in factions. The settlement of Æneas 15 in Italy produced the Cæsars, and gave birth to the Roman empire. Milton's subject was still greater than either of the former; it does not determine the fate of single persons or nations, but of a whole species. The united powers of hell are joined to- 20 gether for the destruction of mankind, which they effected in part, and would have completed, had not Omnipotence itself interposed. The principal actors are man in his greatest perfection, and woman in her highest beauty. Their enemies are the fallen 25 angels: the Messiah their friend, and the Almighty their protector. In short, 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 assigned it in this admirable poem.16 In poetry, as in architecture, not only the whole, 3C |