wonderful a patience, that one may rather say she ceased to breathe, than she died at that hour. You, who had not the happiness to be personally known to this lady, have nothing but to rejoice in the honour you had of being related to so great merit; but we, who have lost her conversation, cannot so easily resign our own happiness by reflection upon hers. "I am, SIR,

"Your affectionate kinsman,

" and most obedient humble servant,

"Paris, April 18, 1712."

66

PAUL REGNAUD."

There hardly can be a greater instance of an heroic mind than the unprejudiced manner in which this lady weighed this misfortune. The regard of life itself could not make her overlook the contrition of the unhappy man, whose more than ordinary concern for her was all his guilt. It would certainly be of singular use to human society to have an exact account of this lady's ordinary conduct, which was crowned by so uncommon magnanimity. Such greatness was not to be acquired in her last article; nor is it to be doubted but it was a constant practice of all that is praiseworthy, which made her capable of beholding death, not as the dissolution, but consummation of her life.

T

No. 369. SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1712..

Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures,
Quàm quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.—

HOR. ARS POET. 180.

What we hear moves less than what we see.

ROSCOMMON,

MILTON, after having represented in vision the history of mankind to the first great period of nature, despatches the remaining part of it in narration. He has devised a very handsome reason for the angel's proceeding with Adam after this manner; though doubtless the true reason was the difficulty which the poet would have found to have shadowed out so mixed and complicated a story in visible objeets. I could wish, however, that the author had done it, whatever pains it might have cost him. To give my opinion freely, I thing that the exhibiting part of the history of mankind in vision, and part in narrative, is as if an history-painter should put in colours one half of his subject, and write down the remaining part of it. If Milton's poem flags any where, it is in this narration, where in some places the author has been so attentive to his divinity that he has neglected his poetry. The narration, however, rises very happily on several occasions, where the subject is capable of poetical ornaments, as particularly in the confusion which he describes among the builders of Babel, and in his short sketch of the plagues of Egypt: The storm of hail and fire, with the darkness that overspread the land for three days, are described with great strength. The beautiful passage which follows is raised upon noble hints in Scripture:

-Thus with ten wounds,

The river-dragon, tamed, at length submits
To let his sojourners depart; and oft
Humbles his stubborn heart; but still, as ice,
More harden'd after thaw: till, in his rage
Pursuing whom he late dismiss'd, the sea
Swallows him with his host; but them lets pass,
As on dry land, between two crystal walls;
Awed by the rod of Moses so to stand
Divided.-

xii. 190.

The river-dragon is an allusion to the crocodile, which inhabits the Nile, from whence Egypt derives her plenty. This allusion is taken from that sublime in Ezekiel: Thus saith the Lord God, Bepassage hold I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself." Milton has given us another very noble and poetical image in the same description, which is copied almost word for word out of the history of Moses:

All night he will pursue, but his approach
Darkness defends between till morning watch:
Then through the fiery pillar and the cloud
God looking forth will trouble all his host,

And craze their chariot wheels: when, by command,
Moses once more his potent rod extends
Over the sea: the sea his rod obeys :

On their embattell'd ranks the waves return
And overwhelm their war.-

ib. 206.

As the principal design of this episode was to give Adam an idea of the holy person who was to reinstate human nature in that happiness and perfection from which it had fallen, the poet confines himself to the line of Abraham, from whence the Messiah was to descend. The angel is described as seeing the patriarch actually travelling towards the land of promise, which gives a particular liveliness to this part of the narration:

I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith
He leaves his gods, his friends, and native soil,
Ur of Chaldea, passing now the ford
To Haran; after him a cumbrous train

Of herds, and flocks, and num'rous servitude;
Not wand'ring poor, but trusting all his wealth
With God, who call'd him in a land unknown.
Canaan he now attains; I see his tents

Pitch'd about Sechem, and the neighbouring plain
Of Moreh; there by promise he receives
Gift to his progeny of all that land;

From Hamath, northward, to the desert south;
Things by their names I call, though yet unnamed. ib. 128.

As Virgil's vision in the sixth Æneid probably gave Milton the hint of this whole episode, the last line is a translation of that verse where Anchises mentions the names of places, which they were to bear hereafter:

Hæc tum nomina erunt, nunc sunt sine nomine terræ. 776.

This poet has very finely represented the joy and gladness of heart which rises in Adam upon his discovery of the Messiah. As he sees his day at a distance through types and shadows, he rejoices in it ; but when he finds the redemption of man completed, and Paradise again renewed, he breaks forth in rapture and transport:

O goodness infinite, goodness immense!

That all this good of evil shall produce, &c. ib. 469.

I have hinted, in my sixth paper on Milton, that an heroic poem, according to the opinion of the best critics, ought to end happily, and leave the mind of the reader, after having conducted it through many doubts and fears, sorrows and disquietudes, in a state of tranquillity and satisfaction. Milton's fable, which had so many other qualifications to recommend it, was deficient in this particular. It is here, therefore, that the poet has shown a most exquisite judgement, as well as the finest invention, by finding

out a method to supply this natural defect in his subject. Accordingly, he leaves the adversary of mankind, in the last view which he gives us of him, under the lowest state of mortification and disappointment. We see him chewing ashes, grovelling in the dust, and loaden with supernumerary pains and torments. On the contrary, our two first parents are comforted by dreams and visions, cheered with promises of salvation, and in a manner raised to a greater happiness than that which they had forfeited. In short, Satan is represented miserable in the height of his triumphs, and Adam triumphant in the height of misery.

Milton's poem ends very nobly. The last speeches of Adam and the archangel are full of moral and instructive sentiments. The sleep that fell upon Eve, and the effects it had in quieting the disorders of her mind, produces the same kind of consolation in the reader, who cannot peruse the last beautiful speech, which is ascribed to the mother of mankind, without a secret pleasure and satisfaction:

Whence thou return'st, and whither went'st, I know;

For God is also in sleep, and dreams advise,

Which he hath sent propitious, some great good

Presaging, since with sorrow and heart's distress
Wearied I fell asleep; but now lead on;
In me is no delay; with thee to go,
Is to stay here; without thee here to stay,
Is to go hence unwilling: thou to me
Art all things under heaven, all places thou,
Who for my wilful crime art banish'd hence.
This further consolation yet secure
I carry hence; though all by me is lost,
Such favour I unworthy am vouchsafed,
By me the promised seed shall all restore.

ib. 610.

The following lines, which conclude the poem, rise in a most glorious blaze of poetical images and expressions.