eafily pardon the length of my difcourfe upon Milton. The Paradife Loft is looked upon by the beft judges, as the greatest production, or at leaft the nobleft work of genius, in our language; and therefore deferves to be fet before an English reader in its full beauty. For this reafon, though I have already endeavoured to give a general idea of its graces and imperfections, I thought myself obliged to confider every book in particular. The firft three books I have already difpatched, and am now entering upon the fourth. I need not acquaint my reader that there are multitudes of beauties in this great author, efpecially in the defcriptive parts of his Poem, which I have not touched upon; it being my intention to point out thofe only, which appear to me the inoft exquifite, or thofe which are not fo obvious to ordinary readers. Every one that has read the criticks who have written upon the Odyffey, the Iliad, and the Eneid, knows very well, that, though they agree in their opinions of the great beauties in those poems, they have neverthelefs each of them difcovered feveral mafter-ftrokes, which have efcaped the obfervation of the reft. In the fame manner, I queftion not but any writer, who fhall treat of this subject after me, may find feveral beauties in Milton, which I have not taken notice of. I muft likewife obferve, that as the greatest mafters of critical learning differ among one another, as to fome particular points in an epick poem, I have not bound myfelf ferupulously to the rules which any one of them has laid down upon that art, but have taken the liberty fometimes to join with one, and fometimes with

another, and fometimes to differ from all of them, when I have thought that the reafon of the thing fide.

was on my

We may confider the beauties of the FOURTH BOOK under three heads. In the first are thofe pictures of ftill-life, which we meet with in the defcription of Eden, Paradife, Adam's bower, &c. In the next are the machines, which comprehend the speeches and behaviour of the good and bad Angels. In the laft is the conduct of Adam and Eve, who are the principal actors in the Poem.

In the description of Paradise, the poet has obferved Ariftotle's rule of lavishing all the ornaments of diction on the weak unactive parts of the fable, which are not fupported by the beauty of fentiments and characters. Accordingly the reader may obferve, that the expreffions are more florid and elaborate in thefe defcriptions, than in moft other parts of the Poem. I muft further add, that, though the drawings of gardens, rivers, rainbows, and the like dead pieces of nature, are juftly cenfured in an heroick poem, when they run out into an unneceffary length; the defcription of Paradife would have been faulty, had not the poet been very particular in it; not only as it is the scene of the principal action, but as it is requifite to give us an idea of that happiness from which our first parents fell. The plan of it is wonderfully beautiful, and formed upon the fhort fketch which we have of it in Holy Writ. Milton's exuberance of imagination has poured forth fuch a redundancy of ornaments on this feat of happinefs and inno

cence, that it would be endless to point out cach particular.

I must not quit this head, without further obferving, that there is fcarce a fpeech of Adam or Eve in the whole Poem, wherein the fentiments and allufions are not taken from this their delightful habitation. The reader during their whole courfe of action, always finds himself in the walks of Paradife. In short, as the criticks have remarked, that, in those poems wherein thepherds are actors, the thoughts ought always to take a tincture from the woods, fields, and rivers; fo we may obferve, that our first parents feldom lofe fight of their happy station in any thing they speak or do; and, if the reader will give me leave to use the expreffion, that their thoughts are always Paradifiacal.

We are in the next place to confider the machines of the fourth book. Satan, being now within profpect of Eden, and looking round upon the glories of the creation, is filled with fentiments different from thofe which he discovered whilft he was in Hell. The place infpires him with thoughts more adapted to it. He reflects upon the happy condition from whence he fell, and breaks forth into a speech that is foftened with several tranfient touches of remorfe and felf-accufation: but at length he confirms himself in impenitence, and in his defign of drawing Man into his own ftate of guilt and mifery. This conflict of paffions is raised with a great deal of art, as the opening of his fpeech to the fun is very bold and noble.

This fpeech is, I think, the finest that is afcribed to Satan in the whole Poem. The evil Spirit af

terwards proceeds to make his difcoveries concerning our first parents, and to learn after what manner they may be beft attacked. His bounding over the walls of Paradife; his fitting in the fhape of a cormorant upon the tree of life, which ftood in the center of it, and overtopped all the other trees of the garden; his alighting among the herd of animals, which are fo beautifully reprefented as playing about Adam and Eve, together with his tranfforming himself into different fhapes, in order to hear their converfation; are circumftances that give an agreeable furprise to the reader; and are devifed with great art, to connect that feries of adventures in which the poet has engaged this great artificer of fraud.

W

The thought of Satan's transformation into a cormorant, and placing himfelf on the tree of life, feems raised upon that paffage in the Iliad, where two deities are defcribed, as perching on the top of an oak in the fhape of vultures.

His planting himself at the ear of Eve under the form of a toad, in order to produce vain dreams and imaginations, is a circumftance of the fame nature; as his starting up in his own form is wonderfully fine, both in the literal defcription, and in the moral which is concealed under it. His anfwer upon his being difcovered, and demanded to give an account of himfelf, is conformable to the pride and intrepidity of his character.

of Satan's transformation into a cormorant,] Pope fays, that the circumftance of Sleep's fitting in likeness of a bird on the fir-tree upon mount Ida, in the fourteenth Iliad, is the paffage to which Milton here alludes. TODD.

Zephon's rebuke, with the influence it had on Satan, is exquifitely graceful and moral. Satan is afterwards led away to Gabriel, the Chief of the guardian Angels, who kept watch in Paradise. His difdainful behaviour on this occafion is fo remarkable a beauty, that the most ordinary reader cannot but take notice of it. Gabriel's difcovering his approach at a diftance, is drawn with great ftrength and livelinefs of imagination.

The conference between Gabriel and Satan abounds with fentiments proper for the occafion, and suitable to the perfons of the two speakers. Satan clothing himself with terrour when he prepares for the combat is truly fublime, and at least equal to Homer's defcription of Difcord celebrated by Longinus, or to that of Fame in Virgil; who are both reprefented with their feet ftanding upon the earth, and their heads reaching above the clouds.

I muft here take notice, that Milton is every where full of hints, and fometimes literal tranflations, taken from the greateft of the Greek and Latin poets. But this I may referve for a dif courfe by itself, because I would not break the thread of thefe fpeculations, that are defigned fo English readers, with fuch reflections as would be of no ufe but to the learned.

I must however obferve in this place, that the breaking off the combat between Gabriel and Satan, by the hanging out of the golden fcales in Heaven, is a refinement upon Homer's thought, who tells us, that, before the battle between Hector and Achilles, Jupiter weighed the event of it in a pair