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of the divine favour is forfeited by fin, and how hope of pardon may be obtained by penitence and prayer. A ftate of innocence we can only conceive, if indeed, in our prefent mifery, it be poffible to conceive it; but the fentiments and worship proper to a fallen and offending being, we have all to learn, as we have all to practise.

The poet, whatever be done, is always great. Our progenitors, in their first state, converfed with angels; even when folly and fin had degraded them, they had not in their humiliation the port of mean füitors; and they rife again to reverential regard, when we find that their prayers were heard.

As human paffions did not enter the world before the Fall, there is in the Paradife Loft little opportunity for the pathetick; but what little there is has not been loft. That paffion which is peculiar to rational nature, the anguish arifing from the consciousness of transgreffion, and the horrours attending the sense of the Divine Displeasure, are very justly defcribed and forcibly impreffed. But the paffions are moved only on one occasion; subli

mity is the general and prevailing quality in this poem; fublimity variously modified, fometimes descriptive, fometimes argumen

tative.

The defects and faults of Paradise Loft, for faults and defects every work of man' must have, it is the bufinefs of impartial crticism to discover. As, in difplaying the excellence of Milton, I have not made long quotations, because of felecting 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 transcribing paffages, which, if they leffen the reputation of Milton, diminish in fome degree the honour of our country?

The generality of my scheme does not admit the frequent notice of verbal inaccuracies; which Bentley, perhaps better skilled in grammar than in poetry, has often found, though he sometimes 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 groundless, if he thought it true; and vile and perni

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cious, if, as is faid, he in private allowed it

to be falfe.

The plan of Paradife Loft has this incon venience, that it comprises neither human actions nor human manners.

woman who act and suffer,

The man and

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 curiofity 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 reftlefs 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 in the description of heaven and hell we are furely interested, as we are all to refide hereafter either in the regions of horror of bliss.

But thefe truths are too important to be new; they have been taught to our infancy;

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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 unaccustomed emotion in the mind; what we knew before, we cannot learn; what is not unexpected, cannot furprise.

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Of the ideas fuggested by these awful fcenes, from fome we recede with reverence, except when stated hours require their affociation; and from others we shrink with hor rour, or admit them only as falutary inflic tions, 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 such 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 helpleffnefs, content with calm belief and humble adoration.

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Known truths, however, may take a different appearance, and be conveyed to the mind by a new train of intermediate images. This Milton has undertaken, and performed with pregnancy and vigour of mind peculiar to himself. Whoever confiders 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 select from nature, or from ftory, from ancient fable, or from modern science, whatever could illuftrate or adorn his thoughts. An accumulation of knowledge impregnated his mind, fermented by ftudy, and exalted by imagination.

It has been therefore faid, without an indecent hyperbole, by one of his encomiasts,

that

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