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6

• Mr. SPECTATOR, we are all very good Maids, but ⚫ are ambitious of Characters which we think more lau⚫dable, that of being very good Wives. If any of your Correfpondents enquire for a Spouse for an honeft Country Gentleman, whofe Eftate is not dipped, and wants a • Wife that can fave half his Revenue, and yet make a better Figure than any of his Neighbours of the fame Eftate, with finer bred Women, you shall have further notice from,

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E are now entring into the fixth Book of Para.

W dife Loft, in which the Poet defcribes the Battel

of the Angels; having raised his Reader's Expectation, and prepared him for it by feveral Paffages in the preceding Books. I omitted quoting these Paffages in my Obfervations on the former Books, having purposely referved them for the opening of this, the Subject of which gave occafion to them. The Author's Imagination was fo inflam'd with this great Scene of Action, that whereever he speaks of it, he rifes, if poffible, above himself. Thus where he mentions Satan in the beginning of his Poem:

Him

R

-Him the Almighty Power

Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomlefs Perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
Who durft defy th' Omnipotent to Arms.

WE have likewise several noble Hints of it in the Infer nal Conference.

O Prince! O Chief of many throned Powers,
That led th' imbattel'd Seraphim to War,
Too well I fee and rue the dire Event.
That with fad Overthrow and foul Defeat
Hath loft us Heav'n; and all this mighty Hoft
In horrible Deftruction laid thus low.
But fee! the angry Victor hath recall'd
His Minifters of Vengeance and Purfuit,
Back to the Gates of Heav'n: The fulph'rous Hail
Shot after us in Storm, o'erblown, hath laid
The fiery Surge, that from the Precipice
Of Heav'n receiv'd us falling: and the Thunder,
Wing'd with red Lightning and impetuous Rage,
Perhaps bath fpent his Shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.

THERE are feveral other very fublime Images on the fame Subject in the first Book, as also in the second.

What when we fled amain, purfu'd and ftrook
With Heav'n's afflicting Thunder, and befought
The Deep to fhelter us; this Hell then feem'd
A Refuge from thefe Wounds-

IN fhort, the Poet never mentions any thing of this Battel but in fuch Images of Greatnefs and Terror as are fuitable to the Subject. Among several others, I cannot forbear quoting that Paffage, where the Power, who is defcri bed as prefiding over the Chaos, speaks in the third Book.

Thus

Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old
With faultring Speech, and Visage incompos'd,
Anfwer'd, I know thee, Stranger, who thou art,
That mighty leading Angel, who of late
Made head against Heav'n's King, tho' overthrown.
I saw and heard, for fuch a numerous Hoft
Fled not in filence through the frighted Deep
With Ruin upon Ruin, Rout on Rout,

Confufion worfe confounded; and Heav'n's Gates.
Pour'd out by Millions her victorious Bands
Pursuing

IT requir'd great Pregnancy of Invention, and Strength of Imagination, to fill this Battel with fuch Circumftances as should raise and astonish the Mind of the Reader; and at the fame time an Exactness of Judgment, to avoid every thing that might appear light or trivial. Those who look into Homer, are furpriz'd to find his Battels ftill rifing one above another, and improving in Horrour, to the Conclufion of the Iliad. Milton's Fight of Angels is wrought up with the fame Beauty. It is ufher'd in with fuch Signs of Wrath as are fuitable to Omnipotence incenfed. The firft Engagement is carry'd on under a Cope of Fire, occafion'd by the Flights of innumerable burning Darts and Arrows which are discharged from either Hoft. The fecond Onfet is still more terrible, as it is filled with those artificial Thunders, which feem to make the Victory doubtful, and produce a kind of Confternation even in the good Angels. This is follow'd by the tearing up of Mountains and Promontories; till, in the laft place, the Meffiah comes forth in the Fulness of Majefty and Terror. The Pomp of his Appearance amidst the Roarings of his Thunders, the Flashes of his Lightnings, and the Noise of his Chariot-Wheels, is defcribed with the utmost Flights of human Imagination.

THERE is nothing in the first and laft Day's Engagement which does not appear natural, and agreeable enough to the Ideas most Readers would conceive of a Fight between two Armies of Angels.

THE

THE fecond Day's Engagement is apt to ftartle an Imagination, which has not been raised and qualify'd for fuch a Defcription, by the reading of the ancient Poets, and of Homer in particular. It was certainly a very bold Thought in our Author, to afcribe the firft Ufe of Artillery to the Rebel-Angels. But as fuch a pernicious Invention may be well fuppos'd to have proceeded from fuch Authors, fo it entered very properly into the Thoughts of that Being, who is all along afcrib'd as afpiring to the Majefty of his Maker. Such Engines were the only Inftruments he could have made ufe of to imitate thofe Thunders, that in all Poetry, both facred and profane, are reprefented as the Arms of the Almighty. The tearing up of the Hills, was not altogether fo daring a Thought as the former. We are, in fome measure, prepared for fuch an Incident by the Defcription of the Giants War, which we meet with among the ancient Poets. What ftill made this Circumstance the more proper for the Poet's Ufe, is the Opinion of many learned Men, that the Fable of the Giants War, which makes fo great a noife in Antiquity, and gave birth to the fublimeft Defcription in Hefiod's Works, was an Allegory founded upon this very Tradition of a Fight between the good and bad Angels.

IT may, perhaps, be worth while to confider with what Judgment Milton, in this Narration, has avoided every thing that is mean and trivial in the Description of the Latin and Greek Poets; and at the fame time improved every great Hint which he met within their Works upon this Subject. Homer in that Paffage, which Longinus has celebrated for its Sublimeness, and which Virgil and Ovid have copy'd after him, tells us, that the Giants threw Offa upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Offa. He adds an Epithet to Pelion (vooiquaλov) which very much fwells the Idea, by bringing up to the Reader's Imagination all the Woods that grew upon it. There is further a great Beauty in his fingling out by Name these three remarkable Mountains, fo well known to the Greeks. This laft is fuch a Beauty, as the Scene of Milton's War could not poffibly furnish him with. Claudian, in his Fragment upon the Giants War, has given full scope to that Wildness of Imagination which VOL. V.

D

was

was natural to him. He tells us, that the Giants tore up whole Iflands by the Roots, and threw them at the Gods. He defcribes one of them in particular taking up Lemnos in his Arms, and whirling it to the Skies, with all Vulcan's Shop in the midit of it. Another tears up Mount Ida, with the River Enipeus, which ran down the Sides of it; but the Poet, not content to describe him with the Mountain upon his Shoulders, tells us that the River flow'd down his Back, as he held it up in that Pofture. It is vifible to every judicious Reader, that fuch Ideas favour more of Burlefque, than of the Sublime. They proceed from a Wantonnefs of Imagination, and rather divert the Mind than aftonish it. Milton has taken every thing that is sublime in these several Paffages, and compofes out of them the following great Image.

From their Foundations loos'ning to and fro,

They pluck'd the feated Hills, with all their Load,
Rocks, Waters, Woods; and by the Shaggy Tops
Up-lifting bore them in their Hands

WE have the full Majefty of Homer in this fhort Defcription, improv'd by the Imagination of Claudian, without its Puerilities.

I need not point out the Description of the fallen Angels feeing the Promontories hanging over their Heads in fuch a dreadful manner, with the other numberlefs Beauties in this Book, which are fo confpicuous, that they cannot efcape the Notice of the moft ordinary Reader.

THERE are indeed fo many wonderful Strokes of Poetry in this Book, and fuch a variety of fublime Ideas, that it would have been impoffible to have given them a place within the bounds of this Paper. Befides that, I find it in a great measure done to my hand at the End of my Lord Rofcommon's Effay on tranflated Poetry. I fhall refer my Reader thither for fome of the Mafter-Strokes in the fixth Book of Paradife Loft, tho' at the fame time there are many others which that noble Author has not taken notice of.

MIL

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