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broken. That Sin and Death fhould have shewn the way to hell, might have been allowed; but they cannot facilitate the paffage by building a bridge, because the difficulty of Satan's paffage is defcribed as real and fenfible, and the bridge ought to be only figurative. The hell affigned to the rebellious fpirits is described as not lefs local than the refidence of man. It is placed in fome diftant part of space, feparated from the regions of harmony and order by a chaotick waste and an unoccupied vacuity; but Sin and Death worked up a mole of aggravated foil, cemented with afphalius; a work too bulky for ideal architects.

This unfkilful allegory appears to me one of the greatest faults of the poem; and to this there was no temptation, but the author's opinion of its beauty.

To the conduct of the narrative fome objections may be made. Satan is with great expectation brought before Gabriel in Paradife, and is fuffered to go away unmolefted. The creation of man is represented as the confequence of the vacuity left in heaven by the expulfion of the rebels; yet Satan mentions it as a report rife in heaven before his departure.

To find fentiments for the ftate of innocence, was very difficult; and fomething of anticipation perhaps is now and then difcovered. Adam's difcourfe of dreams feems not to be the fpeculation of a new-created being. I know not whether his anfwer to the angel's reproof for curiofity does not want fomething of propriety; it is the fpeech of a man acquainted with many other men. Some philofophical notions, especially when the philofophy is falfe, might have been better omitted. The angel, in a comparifon, fpeaks of timorous deer, before deer were yet timorous, and before Adam could understand the comparifon.

Dryden

Dryden remarks, that Milton has fome flats among his elevations. This is only to fay, that all the parts are not equal. In every work, one part must be for the fake of others; a palace must have paffages; a poem must have tranfitions. It is no more to be required that wit fhould always be blazing, than that the fun fhould always ftand at noon. In a great work there is a viciffitude of luminous and opaque parts, as there is in the world a fucceffion of day and night. Milton, when he has expatiated in the fky, may be allowed fometimes to revifit earth; for what other author ever foared fo high, or fuftained his flight fo long?

Milton, being well verfed in the Italian poets, appears to have borrowed often from them; and, as every man catches fomething from his companions, his defire of imitating Ariofto's levity has difgraced his work with the Paradife of Fools; a fiction not in itself ill-imagined, but too ludicrous for its place.

His play on words, in which he delights too often; his equivocations, which Bentley endeavours to defend by the example of the ancients; his unnecessary and ungraceful ufe of terms of art; it is not necessary to mention, because they are eafily remarked, and generally cenfured, and at laft bear fo little proportion to the whole, that they fcarcely deferve the attention of a critick.

Such are the faults of that wonderful performance Paradife Loft; which he who can put in balance with its beauties must be confidered not as nice but as dull, as lefs to be cenfured for want of candour, than pitied for want of fenfibility.

Of

D

Of Paradife Regained, the general judgement feems now to be right, that it is in many parts elegant, and' every-where instructive. It was not to be fuppofed that the writer of Paradife Loft could ever write without great effufions of fancy, and exalted precepts of wifdom. The basis of Paradife Regained is narrow; a dialogue without action can never please like an union of the narrative and dramatic powers. Had this poem been written not by Milton, but by fome imitator, it would have claimed and received univerfal praife.

If Paradife Regained has been too much depreciated, Sampfon Agonistes has in requital been too much admired. It could only be by long prejudice, and the bigotry of learning, that Milton could prefer the ancient tragedies, with their encumbrance of a chorus, to the exhibitions of the French and English stages; and it is only by a blind confidence in the reputation of Milton, that a drama can be praised in which the intermediate parts have neither caufe nor confequence, neither haften nor retard the catastrophe.

In this tragedy are however many particular beauties, many just fentiments and ftriking lines; but it wants that power of attracting the attention which a well-connected plan produces.

Milton would not have excelled in dramatic writing; he knew human nature only in the grofs, and had never ftudied the fhades of character, nor the combinations of concurring, or the perplexity of contending paffions. He had read much, and knew what books could teach; but had mingled little in the world, and was deficient in the knowledge which experience must confer.

Through

Through all his greater works there prevails an uni form peculiarity of Diction, a mode and caft of expreffion which bears little refemblance to that of any former writer, and which is fo far removed from common ufe, that an unlearned reader, when he first opens his book, finds himself furprised by a new language.

This novelty has been, by thofe who can find nothing wrong in Milton, imputed to his laborious endeavours after words fuitable to the grandeur of his ideas. Our language, fays Addison, funk under him. But the truth is, that, both in profe and verfe, he had formed his ftyle by a perverse and pedantick principle. He was defirous to ufe English words with a foreign idiom. This in all his profe is difcovered and condemned; for there judgement operates freely, neither foftened by the beauty, nor awed by the dignity of his thoughts; but fuch is the power of his poetry, that his call is obeyed without refiftance, the reader feels himself in captivity to a higher and a nobler mind, and criticism finks in admiration.

Milton's ftyle was not modified by his fubject: what is shown with greater extent in Paradife Loft, may be found in Comus. One fource of his peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tufcan poets: the difpofition of his words is, I think, frequently Italian; perhaps fometimes combined with other tongues. Of him, at laft, may be faid what Jonfon fays of Spenfer, that be wrote no language, but has formed what Butler calls a Babylonifh Dialect, in itself harsh and barbarous, but made by exalted genius, and extenfive learning, the vehicle of fo much inftruction and fo much plea

fure,

fure, that, like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity.

Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praife of copioufnefs and variety: he was mafter of his language in its full extent; and has felected the melodious words with fuch diligence, that from his book alone the Art of English Poetry might be learned.

After his diction, fomething must be faid of his verfification. The meafure, he fays, is the English heroick verfe without rhyme. Of this mode he had many examples among the Italians, and fome in his own country. The Earl of Surrey is faid to have tranflated one of Virgil's books without rhyme; and, befides our tragedies, a few short poems had appeared in blank verfe, particularly one tending to reconcile the nation to Raleigh's wild attempt upon Guiana, and probably written by Raleigh himself. Thefe petty performances cannot be fuppofed to have much influenced Milton, who more probably took his hint from Trifino's Italia Liberata; and, finding blank verse easier than rhyme, was defirous of perfuading himself that it is bet

ter.

Rhyme, he fays, and fays truly, is no necessary adjunct of true poetry. But perhaps, of poetry as a mental operation, metre or mufick is no neceffary adjunct: it is however by the mufick of metre that poetry has been difcriminated in all languages; and in languages melodiously constructed with a due proportion of long and fhort fyllables, metre is fufficient. But one language cannot communicate its rules to another: where metre is fcanty and imperfect, fome help is neceffary. The mufick of the English heroick line ftrikes the ear fo faintly that it is

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