with the rudiments of narration, which he must improve and exalt by a nobler art, muft animate by dramatick energy, and diverfify by retrospection and anticipation; morality must teach him the exact bounds, and different fhades, of vice and virtue; from policy, and the practice of life, he has to learn the difcriminations of character, and the tendency of the paffions, either fingle or combined; and phyfiology muft fupply him with illuftrations and images. To put thefe materials to poetical ufe, is required an imagination capable of painting nature, and realizing fiction. Nor is he yet a poet till he has attained the whole extenfion of his language, diftinguished all the delicacies of phrase, and all the colours of words, and learned to adjust their different founds to all the varieties of metrical modulation.

Boffu is of opinion that the poet's firft work is to find 262 a moral, which his fable is afterwards to illuftrate and establish. This seems to have been the procefs only of Milton; the moral of other poems is incidental and confequent; in Milton's only it is effential and intrinsick. His purpose was the most useful and the moft arduous; to vindicate the ways of God to man; to fhew the reasonablenefs of religion, and the neceffity of obedience to the Divine Law.

To convey this moral, there must be a fable, a narration artfully conftructed, fo as to excite curiofity, and furprife expectation. In this part of his work, Milton muft be confeffed to have equalled every other poet. He has involved in his account of the Fall of Man the events which preceded, and those that were to follow it: he has interwoven the whole system of theology with fuch propriety, that every part appears to be neceffary; and fcarcely any recital is wished fhorter

for

210

for the fake of quickening the progrefs of the main

action.

The fubject of an epick poem is naturally an event of great importance. That of Milton is not the destruction of a city, the conduct of a colony, or the foundation of an empire. His fubject is the fate of worlds, the revolutions of heaven and of earth; rebellion, against the Supreme King, raised by the highest order of created beings; the overthrow of their hoft, and the punishment of their crime; the creation of a new race of reasonable creatures; their original happiness and innocence, their forfeiture of immortality, and their restoration to hope and peace.

Great events can be haftened or retarded only by perfons of elevated dignity. Before the greatnefs difplayed in Milton's poem, all other greatness fhrinks away. The weakest of his agents are the highest and noblest of human beings, the original parents of mankind; with whofe actions the elements confented; on whofe rectitude, or deviation of will, depended the state of terrestrial nature, and the condition of all the future inhabitants of the globe.

Of the other agents in the poem, the chief are fuch as it is irreverence to name on flight occafions. The reft were lower powers;

-of which the leaft could wield

Thofe elements, and arm him with the force
Of all their regions;

powers, which only the controul of Omnipotence re-
ftrains from laying creation wafte, and filling the vast
expanse of space with ruin and confufion. To difplay
the motives and actions of beings thus fuperiour, fo far
as human reason can examine them, or human imagina-

tion represent them, is the task which this mighty poet has undertaken and performed.

In the examination of epick poems much speculation 213 is commonly employed upon the characters. The characters in the Paradife Loft, which admit of examination, are those of angels and of man; of angels good and evil; of man in his innocent and finful state.

Among the angels, the virtue of Raphael is mild and placid, of eafy condefcenfion and free communication; that of Michael is regal and lofty, and, as may feem, attentive to the dignity of his own nature. Abdiel and Gabriel appear occasionally, and act as every incident requires; the folitary fidelity of Abdiel is very amiably painted.

Of the evil angels the characters are more diverfified. To Satan, as Addison obferves, fuch fentiments are given as fuit the most exalted and most depraved being. Milton has been cenfured, by Clarke, for the impiety which fometimes breaks from Satan's mouth. For there are thoughts, as he justly remarks, which no obfervation of character can juftify, because no good man would willingly permit them to pafs, however transiently, through his own mind. To make Satan

*

Effay on Study. Orig. Edit.

Dr.Johnson fhould have faid what Clarke, as that furname withoutan adjunct is now almoft appropriated by writers to Dr. Samuel Clarke. The per on here meant was a schoolmaster at Hull, the author of fundry tranflations of the claffics and other useful schoolbooks, and, befides th "Effay on ftudy" here referred to, of a tract in the controverfy about the foundations of morality, and the principle of action in the Divine Being, in which Dr. Clarke, Wollafton Hutchefon, Balguy, Grove, and others were engaged; a fummary of which controverfy is contained in "Dr. Price's Review of the principal questions and difficulties in morals, 1758," 8vo.

7

fpeak

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fpeak as a rebel, without any fuch expreffions as might taint the reader's imagination, was indeed one of the great difficulties in Milton's undertaking, and I cannot but think that he has extricated himself with great happiness. There is in Satan's fpeeches little that can give pain to a pious ear. The language of rebellion cannot be the fame with that of obedience. The malignity of Satan foams in haughtiness and obftinacy; but his expreffions are commonly general, and no otherwife offenfive than as they are wicked.

The other chiefs of the celeftial rebellion are very judicioufly defcriminated in the first and fecond books; and the ferocious character of Moloch appears, both in the battle and the council, with exact confiftency.

To Adam and to Eve are given, during their innocence, fuch fentiments as innocence can generate and utter. Their love is pure benevolence and mutual veneration; their repafts are without luxury, and their diligence without toil. Their addreffes to their Maker have little more than the voice of admiration and gratitude. Fruition left them nothing to afk, and Innocence left them nothing to fear.

But with guilt enter diftruft and difcord, mutual accufation, and stubborn felf-defence; they regard each other with alienated minds, and dread their Creator ás the avenger of their tranfgreffion. At laft they seek shelter in his mercy, soften to repentance, and melt in fupplication. Both before and after the Fall, the fuperiority of Adam is diligently fuftained.

Of the probable and the marvellous, two parts of a vulgar epic poem, which immerge the critick in deep confideration, the Paradife Loft requires little to be

faid. It contains the hiftory of a miracle, of Creation or Redemption; it difplays the power and the mercy of the Supreme Being; the probable therefore is marvellous, and the marvellous is probable. The fubftance of the narrative is truth; and as truth allows no choice, it is, like neceffity, fuperior to rule. To the accidental or adventitious parts, as to every thing human, fome flight exceptions may be made. But the main fabrick is immovably fupported.

It is juftly remarked by Addifon, that this poem has, 220 by the nature of its fubject, the advantage above all others, that it is univerfally and perpetually interefting. All mankind will, through all ages, bear the fame relation to Adam and to Eve, and muft partake of that good and evil which extend to themfelves.

Of the machinery, fo called from Θεὸς ἀπὸ μηχανῆς, by which is meant the occafional interpofition of fupernatural power, another fertile topic of critical remarks, here is no room to fpeak, because every thing is done under the immediate and vifible direction of Heaven; but the rule is fo far obferved, that no part of the action could have been accomplished by any other means.

Of epifodes, I think there are only two, contained in Raphael's relation of the war in heaven, and Michael's prophetic account of the changes to happen in this world. Both are clofely connected with the great action; one was neceffary to Adam as a warning, the other as a confolation.

To the compleatness or integrity of the defign nothing can be objected; it has diftinctly and clearly what Ariftotle requires, a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is perhaps no poem, of the fame length, from which fo little can be taken without apparent mutila

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