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Heliodorus in the Ethiopics acquaints us, that the motion of the gods differs from that of mortals, as the former do not stir their feet, nor proceed step by step, but slide over the surface of the earth by an uniform swimming of the whole body. The reader may observe with how poetical a description Milton has attributed the same kind of motion to the angels who were to take possession of Paradise :

So spake our mother Eve; and Adam heard
Well pleas'd, but answer'd not; for now too nigh
Th' archangel stood; and from the other hill
To their fixed station, ali in bright array
The cherubim descended; on the ground
Gliding meteorous, as evening mist
Ris'n from a river, o'er the marish glides,
And gathers ground fast at the lab'rer's heel
Homeward returning. High in front advanc'd,
The brandish'd sword of God before them blaz'd
Fierce as a comet-

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The author helped his invention in the following passage, by reflecting on the behaviour of the angel who in holy writ has the conduct of Lot and his family. The circumstances drawn from that relation are very gracefully made use of on this occasion:

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In either hand the hast'ning angel caught
Our ling'ring parents, and to th' eastern gate
Led them direct; and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappear'd,
They looking back,' &c.

The scene which our first parents are surprised with, upon their looking back on Paradise, wonder. fully strikes the reader's imagination, as nothing can be more natural than the tears they shed on that ocçasion:

They looking back, all th' eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,

Wav'd over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces throng'd and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropp'd but wip'd them soon
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.❜

If I might presume to offer at the smallest alte. ration in this divine work, I should think the poem would end better with the passage here quoted, than with the two verses which follow:

• They_hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.'

These two verses, though they have their beauty, fall very much below the foregoing passage, and renew in the mind of the reader that anguish which was pretty well laid by that consideration :

The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.'

The number of books in Paradise Lost is equal to those of the Æneid. Our Author in his first edition had divided his poem into ten books, but afterwards broke the seventh and the eleventh each of them into two different books, by the help of some small addi tions. This second division was made with great judgment, ás any one may see who will be at the pains of examining it. It was not done for the sake of such a chimerical beauty as that of resembling Virgil in this particular, but for the more just and regular disposition of this great work.

Those who have read Bossu, and many of the critics who have written since his time, will not pardon me if I do not find out the particular moral which is inculcated in Paradise Lost. Though I can by no means think, with the last-mentioned French author, that an epic writer first of all pitches upon a certain moral, as the ground-work and foundation

of his poem, and afterwards finds out a story to it; I am however of opinion, that no just heroic poem ever was or can be made, from whence one great moral may not be deduced. That which reigns in Milton is the most universal and most useful that can be imagined. It is in short this, that obedience to the will of God makes men happy, and that disobe dience makes them miserable. This is visibly the moral of the principal fable, which turns upon Adam and Eve, who continued in Paradise while they kept the command that was given them, and were driven out of it as soon as they had transgressed. This is likewise the moral of the principal episode, which shows us how an innumerable multitude of angels fell from their disobedience. Besides this great moral, which may be looked upon as the soul of the fable, there are infinity of under-morals which are to be drawn from the several parts of the poem, and which make this work more useful and instructive than any other poem in any language.

Those who have criticised on the Odyssey, the Iliad, and Æneid, have taken a great deal of pains to fix the number of months and days contained in the action of each of those poems. If any one thinks it worth his while to examine this particular in Milton, he will find, that from Adam's first appearance in the fourth book, to his expulsion from Paradise in the twelfth, the author reckons ten days. As for that part of the action which is described in the three first books, as it does not pass within the regions of nature, I have before observed that it is not subject to any calculations of time.

I have now finished my observations on a work which does an honour to the English nation. I have taken a general view of it under these four heads— the fable, the characters, the sentiments, and the language, and made each of them, the subject of a

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particular paper. I have in the next place spoke of the censures which our author may incur under each of these heads, which I have confined to two papers, though I might have enlarged the number if I had been disposed to dwell on so ungrateful a subject. I believe, however, that the severest reader will not find any little fault in heroic poetry, which this anthor has fallen into, that does not come under one of those heads among which I have distributed his several blemishes. After having thus treated at large of Paradise Lost, I could not think it sufficient to have celebrated this poem in the whole without descending to particulars. I have therefore bestowed a paper upon each book, and endeavoured not only to prove that the poem is beautiful in general, but to point out its particular beauties; and, to determine wherein they consist, I have endeavoured to show how some passages are beautiful by being sublime, others by being soft, others by being natural; which of them are recommended by the passion, which by the moral, which by the sentiment, and which by the expression. I have likewise endeavoured to show how the genius of the poet shines by a happy invention, a distant allusion, or a judicious imitation; how he has copied or improved Homer or Virgil, and raises his own imaginations by the use which he has made of several poetical passages in Scripture. I might have inserted also several passages in Tasso, which our author has imitated: but, as I do not look upon Tasso to be a sufficient voucher, I would not perplex my reader with such quotations as might do more honour to the Italian than to the English poet. In short, I have endeavoured to particularise those innumerable kinds of beauty which it would be tedious to recapitulate, but which are essential to poetry, and which may be met with in the works of this great author, Had I thought, at my first engaging

in this design, that it would have led me to so great length, I believe I should never have entered upon it; but the kind reception which it has met with among those whose judgment I have a value for, as well as the uncommon demands which my bookseller tells me have been made for these particular discourses, give me no reason to repent of the pains I have been at in composing them.

L.

N° 370. MONDAY, MAY 5, 1712.

Totus mundus agit bistrionem.

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

SHAKSPEARE.

well as very gay

MANY of my fair readers, as and well-received persons of the other sex, are extremely perplexed at the Latin sentences at the head of my speculations. I do not know whether I ought not to indulge them with translations of each of them however, I have to-day taken down from the top of the stage in Drury-lane a bit of Latin which often stands in their view, and signifies, that

The whole world acts the player.' It is certain that if we look all round us, and behold the different employments of mankind, you hardly see one who is not, as the player is, in an assumed character. The lawyer who is vehement and loud in a cause wherein he know he has not the truth of the question on his side, is a player as to the personated part, but incomparably meaner than he as to the prostitution of himself for hire; because the pleader's falsehood introduces injustice; the player feigns for no other end but to divert or instruct you. The

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