Did, as thou saw'st, receive, to walk with God He look'd, and saw the face of things quite chang’d; Το dded on this occafion ; even in his from great authorities. I fhal pro. elebrated lines on Milton it is to duce one from Shakespear, je met with, this to me Greece, Italy, and England did In dreadful secrecy impart they did. adorn. The auxiliary verb is here very proIn his translation of the Æneid there perly made use of; and it would be are many instances of the same na a great loss to English poetry, if it ture, one of which I will mention, were to be wholly laid afide.. See The queen of Heav'n did thus her Letters concerning poetical translations fury vent. &c. p. 8, 9, 10. The meter of this line, as the words 711. Which now direlt tbine gges are here rang'd, is not bad, as the and soon behold.] The fyntax ear can judge; but it would have is remarkable. Which govern'd not been extreinely so, if he had writ by the verb next following, but by it chus, the last in the sentence. The queen of Heav'n her fury thus 712. He look’d, and saw the face of did vent. things quite chang'd;} Milton, From whence it appears that the to keep up an agreeable variety in auxiliary verb is not to be rejected his vifions, after having raised in the at all times; besides it is a particular idiom of the English language, and of terror which are conformable to has a majefty in it fuperior to the the description of war, passes on to Latin or Greek tongue, and I be those softer images of triumphs and lieve to any other language what festivals, in that vision of lewdress and luxury, which ushers in the soever. Many instances might be flood. Addison. brought to support this affertion 723. - preach'd Аа 3 1 72 To luxury and riot, feast and dance, 708 Marrying or prostitúting, as befel, 3 Rape or adultery, where paffing fair Allur'd them; thence from cups to civil broils. At length a reverend fire among them came, IC. And of their doings great dislike declar'd, 720 FC And testify'd against their ways; he oft 0 Frequented their assemblies, wherefo met, C Triumphs or festivals, and to them preach'd T! Conversion and repentance, as to souls In prison under judgments imminent : But all in vain : which when he saw, he ceas'd Con723 preach'd breadth of it fifty cubits, and the fight Conversion and repentance, as to fouls of it thirty cubits. A cubit is the In prison] This account of Noah's measure from the elbow to the les preaching is founded chiefly upon gers ends, and is reckon'd a litt St. Peter, 2 Pet. II. 5. Noah a and a half, or (according to Bihor preacher of righuuufness, and Pet. Cumberland) 21 inches 888 decimals III. 19, 20. By which also be went 731. Smear'dround with pites, and and preached unto the spirits in prison, in the fide a deer &c.] Ge which sometime were disobedient, VI. 14. Thou falt pitch ir zida when once the long-fuffering of God and witbout with pitch; and the bar waited in the days of Noah: As what of the ark fall i bou set in the file follows of Noah's defifting when he thereof. ver. 16. And take i bra att found his preaching ineffectual, and thet of all food ebat is eater, and isa removing into another country, is fhalt gather it to thee; and it fealda taken from Josephus, Antiq. Lib. 1. for food for thee and for tbem. c. 3. 732. and of provifiors laida 730. Measur'd by cubit, length, and large] He uses the adjective breadıb, and hightb] The adverbially here and elsewhere, ad dimensions of the ark are given common in Latin. Magnumque & Gen. VI. 15. The length of the ark entem Nilum. Virg. Georg. I. 28. fall be three hundred cubits, the Sole recens orto. Georg. IIl.i .186. 735. Cool Contending, and remov'd his tents far off ; 729 Measur'd by cubit, length, and breadth, and highth, ömear'd round with pitch, and in the side a door Contriv'd, and of provisions laid in large or man and beast; when lo a wonder strange! Of every beast, and bird, and insect small Same fev'ns, and pairs, and enter'd in, as taught 735 Their order : last the fire, and his three fons With their four wives; and God made fast the door. Mean while the fouthwind rose, and with black wings Wide 735. Camefow'ns, and pairs,) Sevens such a light as to incar the cenfure of clean creatures, and pairs of un- which critics have passed upon it. clean. For this and other particulars The latter part of that verse in Ovid here mention'd, See Gen. VII. is idle and fuperflubas, but juft and 738. Mean while the southwind beautiful in Milton: rofe, &c.] As it is visible Jamque mare et tellus nullum difthat the poet had his eye upon Ovid's crimen habebant, account of the universal deluge, the Nil nifi pontus erat, deerant qabreader may observe with how much que littora ponto. judgment he has avoided every thing Sea cover d fea, that is redundant or puerile in the Sea without fore, Latin poet. We do not see here the wolf swimming among the sheep, In Milton the former part of the nor any of those wanton imagina description does not forestall the lat tions, which Seneca found fault ter. How much more great and with, as unbecoming the great ca folemn on this occafion is that which taftrophe of nature. If our poet has follows in our English poet, imitated that verse in which Ovid -- and in their palaces tells us that there was nothing but Where luxury Jate reign’d, seafea, and that this fea had no Thore monsters whelp'd to it, he has not set the thought in And fabled A a 4 than Wide hovering, all the clouds together drove up amain ; and now the thicken'd sky Like a dark cieling stood ; down rulh'd the rain than that in Ovid, where we are book of Paradise Loft, because it's told that the sea-calfs lay in those not generally reckon'd among the places where the goats were used to most shining books of this poen; browze? The reader may find seve: for which reason the reader Dugi ral other parallel passages in the Latin be apt to overlook those many para and English description of the de- sages in it which deserve our we luge, wherein our poet has visibly ration. The eleventh and twelfde the advantage. The sky's being over are indeed built upon that linge charged with clouds, the descending circumstance of the removal of Ox of the rains, the rifing of the seas, first parents from Paradise ; but the and the appearance of the rainbow, this is not in itself so great a subject are such descriptions as every one as that in most of the foregoing must take notice of. The circum- books, it is extended and diverted stance relating to Paradise is so finely with so many surprising incidents and imagin'd, and suitable to the opini- pleasing episodes, that these two late ons of many learned authors, that I books can by no means be looked cannot forbear giving it a place in upon as unequal parts of this divine poem. I mult farther add, that bad then shall this mount not Milton represented our first Of Paradise by might of waves be fall of man would not have been rents` as driven out of Paradie, is mov'd Esc. complete, and consequently his action The transition which the poet makes would have been imperfect . from the vigon of the deluge, to the concern it occafion'd in Adam, is The reader may farther compare exquisitely graceful, and copied after the following paffages with Milen , Virgil , though the firft thought it and he will easily see the fuperiority introduces is rather in the spirit of of the English poet. Ovid. Met . I Ovid, 264: How did it thou grieve then, Adam, Madidis rotus evolat alis: to behold &c Terribilem piceâ tectus caligine vultum. I have been the more particular in Utque manu latâ pendentia nubia my quotations out of the eleventh preffit, this paper ; T.petuous, and continued till the earth 745 Jolifted, and secure with beaked prow Đde tilting o'er the waves; all dwellings else lood overwhelm’d, and them with all their pomp Deep hinds away, it fragor; hinc densi funduntur ab Then rushing onwardswith a tweepy æthere nimbi. sway, Tuncia Junonis varios induta co Bear flocks and folds, and laboring lores 'oncipit Iris aquas, alimentaque Nor safe their dwellings were, for nubibus adfert. fapt by floods, xpatiata ruunt per apertos Aumina Their houses fell upon their houscampos ; hold Gods. Dryden. Cumque fatis arbusta fimul, pecu- Is it not juster and better to say, that desque, virosque, Te&aque, cumque suis rapiunt pe- ther from under Heaven, than that the fouth-wind blew all the clouds togenetralia Sacris. he squeez'd the clouds with bis broad hand? and is it not a more philoThe south he loos’d, who night and horror brings ; sophical account,' that the bills fent And fogs are shaken from his flaggy Tupply, than that the rainbow supplied up, vapor and exhalation to their wings; them with nourishment ? and is there Still as he swept along, with his clench'd fift not more majesty in this short and He squeez'd the clouds, th' im- whelm'd all dwellings, and then ruith full description, that the floods overprison'd clouds refift: The skies from pole to pole with all their pomp deep under water rollod, than in mentioning so particularly peals resound; And show'rs inlarg'd come pouring and minutely the fioods sweeping away corn, and trees, and cattel, and men, on the ground. Then, clad in colors of a various and boules, with their boufhold Gods and yet these are none of the least dye, Junonian Iris breeds a new supply Niining passages in the Latin poet. To feed the clouds: impetuous rain 743. Like a dark cieling food ;] descends Cieling may be thought too mean a Th' expanded waters gather on the word in poetry, but Milton had a plain : view to its derivation from Cælum They flote the fields, and overtop (Latin) Cielo (Italian) Heaven. the grain ; Richardson. 752.-of |
