poem; fublimity variously modified, fometimes defcriptive, fometimes argumentative.

The defects and faults of Paradife Loft, for faults and defects every work of man muft have, it is the business of impartial criticism to discover. As, in difplaying the excellence of Milton, I have not made long quotations, because of selecting beauties there had been no end, I fhall in the fame general manner mention that which feems to deferve cenfure; for what Englishman can take delight in tranfcribing paffages, which, if they leffen the reputation of Milton, diminish in fome degree the honour of our country?

The generality of my fcheme does not admit the frequent notice of verbal inaccuracies; which Bentley, better skilled in grammar than in poetry, has often found, though he fometimes made them, and which he imputed to the obtrufions of a revifer whom the author's blindness obliged him to employ. A fuppofition rafh and groundlefs, if he thought it true; and vile and pernicious, if, as is faid, he in private allowed it to be falfe.

The plan of Paradife Loft has this inconvenience, that it comprises neither human actions nor human manners. The man and woman who act and fuffer, are in a state which no other man or woman can ever know. The reader finds no tranfaction in which he can be engaged; beholds no condition in which he can by any effort of imagination place himfelf; he has, therefore, little natural curiosity or fympathy.

We all, indeed, feel the effects of Adam's difobedience; we all fin like Adam, and like

him must all bewail our offences; we have restlefs and infidious enemies in the fallen angels, and in the bleffed fpirits we have guardians and friends; in the Redemption of mankind we hope to be included; and in the defcription of heaven and hell we are surely interested, as we are all to refide hereafter either in the regions of horror or of bliss.

But these truths are too important to be new; they have been taught to our infancy; they have mingled with our folitary thoughts and familiar converfation, and are habitually interwoven with the whole texture of life. Being therefore not new, they raise no unaccuftomed emotion in the mind; what we knew before we cannot learn; what is not unexpect ed cannot surprise.

Of the ideas fuggefted by these awful scenes, from fome we recede with reverence, except when ftated hours require their affociation ; and from others we fhrink with horror, or admit them only as falutary inflictions, as counterpoifes to our interefts and paffions. Such images rather obftruct the career of fancy than incite it.

Pleasure and terrour are indeed the genuine fources of poetry; but poetical pleasure must be fuch as human imagination can at least conceive, and poetical terrour fuch as human ftrength and fortitude may combat. The good and evil of Eternity are too ponderous for the wings of wit; the mind finks under them in paffive helpleffness, content with calm belief and humble adoration.

Known truths, however, may take a different appearance, and be conveyed to the mind

by

by a new train of intermediate images. This Milton has undertaken, and performed with pregnancy and vigour of mind peculiar to himfelf. Whoever confider the few radical pofitions which the Scriptures afforded him, will wonder by what energetick operation he expanded them to fuch extent, and ramified them to fo much variety, restrained as he was by religious reverence from licentioufnefs of fiction.

Here is a full display of the united force of study and genius; of a great accumulation of materials, with judgement to digeft, and fancy to combine them: Milton was able to felect from nature, or from ftory, from ancient fable, or from modern fcience, whatever could illuftrate or adorn his thoughts. An accumulation of knowledge impregnated his mind, fermented by study, and fublimed by imagina

tion.

It has been therefore faid, without an indecent hyperbole, by one of his encomiafts, that in reading Paradife Loft we read a book of univerfal knowledge.

But original deficience cannot be fupplied. The want of human intereft is always felt. Paradife Loft is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. Its perufal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for inftruction, retire harraffed and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation; we defert our master, and seek for companions.

Another inconvenience of Milton's defign is, that it requires the defcription of what cannot be described, the agency of fpirits. He

faw

faw that immateriality fupplied no images, and that he could not show angels acting but by instruments of action; he therefore invefted them with form and matter. This, being neceffary, was therefore defenfible; and he should have secured the confiftency of his fyftem, by keeping immateriality out of fight, and enticing his reader to drop it from his thoughts. But he has unhappily perplexed his poetry with his philofophy. His infernal and celeftial powers are fometimes pure spirit, and fometimes animated body. When Satan walks with his lance upon the burning marle, he has a body; when in his paffage between hell and the new world, he is in danger of finking in the vacuity, and is fupported by a gust of rifing vapours, he has a body; when he animates the toad, he seems to be mere fpirit, that can penetrate matter at pleasure; when he ftarts up in his own fhape, he has at least a determined form; and when he is brought before Gabriel, he has a spear and field, which he had the power of hiding in the toad, though the arms of the contending angels are evidently material.

The vulgar inhabitants of Pandæmonium being incorporeal fpirits, are at large, though without number, in a limited space; yet in the battle, when they were overwhelmed by mountains, their armour hurt them, crushed in upon their fubftance, now grown grofs by finning. This likewife happened to the uncorrupted angels, who were overthrown the fooner for their arms, for unarmed they might easily as fpirits have evaded by contraction, or remove. Even as fpirits they are hardly fpiritual; for

3

contrac

contraction and remove are images of matter; but if they could have escaped without their armour, they might have escaped from it, and left only the empty cover to be battered. Uriel, when he rides on a fun-beam, is material:. Satan is material when he is afraid of the prowess of Adam.

The confufion of fpirit and matter which pervades the whole narration of the war of heaven fills it with incongruity; and the book, in which it is related, is, I believe, the favourite of children, and gradually neglected as knowledge is increased.

After the operation of immaterial agents, which cannot be explained, may be confidered that of allegorical perfons, which have no real existence. To exalt caufes into agents, to inveft abftract ideas with form, and animate them with activity, has always been the right of poetry. But fuch airy beings are, for the most part, fuffered only to do their natural office, and retire. Thus Fame tells a tale, and Victory hovers over a general, or perches on a standard; but Fame and Victory can do no more. To give them any real employment, or afcribe to them any material agency, is to make them allegorical no longer, but to fhock the mind by afcribing effects to non-entity. In the Prometheus of Æfchylus, we fee Violence and Strength, and in the Alceftis of Euripides, we fee Death brought upon the stage, all as active perfons of the drama; but no precedents can justify abfurdity.

Milton's allegory of Sin and Death is undoubtedly faulty. Sin is indeed the mother of Death, and may be allowed to be the portrefs

of