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nature, the anguish arifing from the conscioufnefs of tranfgreffion, and the horrours attending the fenfe of the Divine Displeasure, are very justly described and forcibly impreffed. But the paffions are moved only on one occafion; fublimity is the general and prevailing quality in this poem; fublimity varioufly modified, fometimes defcriptive, fometives argumentative.

The defects and faults of Paradife Loft, for faults 201 and defects every work of man must have, it is the business of impartial criticism to discover. As, in displaying the excellence of Milton, I have not made long quotations, because of selecting 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 fometimes made them, and which he imputed to the obtrufions of a revifer whom the author's blindness obliged him to employ. A fuppofition rash and groundless, if he thought it true; and vile and pernicious, if, as is faid, he in private allowed it to be falfe.

The plan of Paradife Loft has this inconvenience, that it comprises neither human actions nor human manners. The man and woman who act and fuffer, 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

M 3

can

can by any effort of imagination place himself; 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 defcription of heaven and hell we are furely interested, as we are all to refide hereafter either in the regions of horrour or blifs.

But thefe truths are too important to be new; they have been taught to our infancy; 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 raife no unaccustomed emotion in the mind; what we knew before, we cannot learn; what is not unexpected, cannot furprife.

Of the ideas fuggefted by these awful scenes, from fome we recede with reverence, except when ftated hours require their affociation; and from others we fhrink with horrour, or admit them only as falutary inflictions, 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 fuch as human imagination can at leaft 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

paffive helplessnefs, content with calın belief and hum

ble adoration.

Known truths, however, may take a different ap- 2448 pearance, 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 pecu, liar to himself. Whoever confiders the few radicalpofitions which the Scriptures afforded him, will wonder by what energetick operation he expanded them to fuch extent, and ramified them to fo much variety, reftrained as he was by religious reverence from licen tioufnefs of fiction..

Here is a full difplay 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 felect from nature, or from story, from an ancient fable, or from modern fcience, what ever could illuftrate or adorn his thoughts. An accumulation of knowledge impregnated his mind, fermented by study, and exalted by imagination.

It has been therefore faid, without an indecent hyperbole, by one of his encomiafts, that in reading Paradife Loft we read a book of univerfal knowledge.

But original deficience cannot be supplied. The want of human intereft is always felt. Paradife Loft is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wifhed it longer than it is. Its perufal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for inftruction, retire harraffed, and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation; we defert our mafter, and feek for companions.

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Another inconvenience of Milton's defign is, that it requires the description of what cannot be defcribed, the agency of spirits. He saw that immateriality fupplied no images, and that he could not show angels acting but by inftruments of action; he therefore invefted them with form and matter. This, being neceffary, was therefore defenfible; and he should have fecured the confiftency of his fyftem, by keeping im materiality out of fight, and enticing his reader to drop it from his thoughts. But he has unhappily perplexed his poetry with his philofophy. His infernal and celeftial powers are fometimes pure fpirit, and fometimes animated body. When Satan walks with his lance upon the burning marle, he has a body; when, in his paffage between hell and the new world, he is in danger of finking in the vacuity, and is fupported by a guft of rifing vapours, he has a body; when he animates the toad, he feems to be mere fpirit, that can penetrate matter at pleasure; when he farts up in his own fhape, he has at least a determined form; and when he is brought before Gabriel, he has a spear and a fhield, which he had the power of hiding in the toad, though the arms of the contending angels are evidently material.

The vulgar inhabitants of Pandæmonium, being incorporeal spirits, are at large, though without number, in a limited space; yet in the battle, when they were overwhelmed by mountains, their armour hurt them, crushed in upon their fubftance, now grown grofs by fin ning. This likewife happened to the uncorrupted angels, who were overthrown the fooner for their arms, for unarmed they might eafily as fpirits have evaded by contraction or remove. Even as fpirits they are hardly

fpiritual;

fpiritual; for contraction and remove are images of mat, ter; but if they could have escaped without their ar, mour, they might have efcaped from it, and left only the empty cover to be battered. Uriel, when he rides on a fun-beam, is material; Satan is material when he is afraid of the prowess of Adam.

The confusion of spirit and matter which pervades 29 the whole narration of the war of heaven fills it with incongruity; and the book, in which it is related, is, I believe, the favourite of children, and gradually neglected as knowledge is increased.

After the operation of immaterial agents, which cannot be explained, may be confidered that of allegorical perfons, which have no real existence. To exalt causes into agents, to invest abstract ideas with form, and animate them with activity, has always been the right of poetry. But fuch airy beings are, for the most part, fuffered only to do their natural office, and retire. Thus Fame tells a tale, and Victory hovers over a general, or perches on a standard; but Fame and Victory can do more. To give them any real employment, or ascribe to them any material agency, is to make them allegorical no longer, but to fhock the mind by afcribing effects to non-entity. In the Prometheus of Æfchylus, we fee Violence and Strength, and in the Alceftis of Euripides, we fee Death, brought upon the stage, all as active perfons of the drama; but no precedents can juftify abfurdity.

Milton's allegory of Sin and Death is undoubtedly faulty. Sin is indeed the mother of Death, and may be allowed to be the portrefs of hell; but when they ftop the journey of Satan, a journey described as real, and when Death offers him battle, the allegory is

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broken,

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