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of hell; but when they stop the journey of Sa tan, a journey defcribed as real, and when Death offers him battle, the allegory is broken. That Sin and Death fhould have fhewn 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 defcribed as not lefs local than the refidence of man. It is placed in some distant part of fpace, feparated from the regions of harmony and order by a chaotick wafte and an unoccupied vacuity; but Sin and Death worked up a mole of aggregated foil, cemented with afphaltus; a work too bulky for ideal architects.

This unskilful allegory appears to me the greatest faults of the poem; an there was no temptation, but the ar nion of its beauty.

To the conduct of the narr jections may be made. Satan pectation brought before Gal and is fuffered to go away: creation of man is represe quence of the vacuity left i pulfion of the rebels, yet a report rife in heaven befo To find fentiments fc cence, was very difficult anticipation perhaps is vered. Adam's difcourf to be the fpeculation I know not whether h reproof for curiosity

of propriety it is the fpeech of a man acquainted with many other men. Some philofophical notions, efpecially when the philofophy is falfe, might have been better omitted. The angel, in a comparison, speaks of timorous deer, before deer were yet timorous, and before Adam could understand the comparison.

Dryden remarks, that Milton has fome flats among his elevations. This is only to say 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 should 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 so high, or sustained his flight fo long?

Milton, being well verfed in the Italian poets, appears to have borrowed often from them; and, as every man learns fomething from his companions, his defire of imitating Ariofte's levity has difgraced his work with the Paradife of Fools; a fiction not in itfelf illimagined, 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 unneceffary and ungraceful use of terms of art, it is not neceffary to mention, because they are easily remarked, and generally cenfured, and at laft, bear fo little proportion

to the whole, that they scarcely deserve the attention of a critick.

Such are the faults of that wonderful per-. formance 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 Paradife Regained, the general judgment feems now to be right, that it is in many parts elegant, and every-where inftructive. It was not to be supposed that the writer of Paradife Loft could ever write without great effufions of fancy, and exalted precepts of wisdom. The bafis of Paradife Regained is narrow; a dialogue without action can never please like an union of the narrative and dramatick

ers.

powHad this poem been written not by Milton, but by fome imitator, it would have claimed and received univerfal praise.

If Paradife Regained has been too much depreciated, Samfon 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 ftages; 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 cause nor confequence, neither haften nor retard the catastrophe.

In this tragedy are however many particular beauties, many juft fentiments and striking lines; but it wants that power of attracting

the

the attention which a well-connected plan produces.

Milton would not have excelled in dramatick writing; he knew human nature only in the grofs, and had never studied 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 all his greater works there prevails an uniform peculiarity of Diction, a mode and caft of expreflion which bears little resemblance to that of any former writer, and which is so far removed from common ufe, that an unlearned reader, when he first opens his book, finds himself surprised by a new language.

This novelty has been, by those who can find nothing wrong in Milton, imputed to his laborious endeavours after words fuitable to the grandeur of his ideas. Our language, fays Addifon, funk under him. But the truth is, that, both in profe and verfe, he had formed his ftile by a perverfe 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 stile was not modified by his fubject: what is shown with greater extent in Paradife

Loft,

Loft, may be found in: Comus. One fource of his peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tuscan 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 Johnson fays of Spenfer, that he 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 pleasure, that, like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity.

Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praise of copioufness and variety he was master 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 measure, 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 Surry is faid to have translated one of Virgil's books without rhyme; and, befides our tragedies, a few fhort 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 supposed 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 better.

2

Rhyme,

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