The review which the leader makes of his infernal army:— -He through the armed files Darts his experienced eye, and soon traverse Their number last he sums; and now his heart Distends with pride, and hardening in his strength The flash of light which appeared upon the drawing of their swords : He spake and to confirm his words outflew Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs Far round illumined hell_2 The sudden production of the Pandemonium : Anon out of the earth a fabric huge Rose like an exhalation, with the sound The artificial illuminations made in it : -From the arched roof Pendent by subtle magic, many a row There are also several noble similes and allusions in the first book of Paradise Lost.' And here I must observe, that when Milton alludes either to things or persons, he never quits his simile till it rises to some very great idea, which is often foreign to the occasion that gave birth to it. The resemblance does not, perhaps, last above a line or two, but the poet runs on with the hint till he has raised out of it some glorious image or sentiment, proper to inflame the mind of the reader, and to give it that sublime kind of entertainment which is suitable to the nature of an heroic poem. Those who are acquainted with Homer's and Virgil's way of writing cannot but be pleased with this kind of structure in Milton's similitudes. I am the more particular on this head, because ignorant readers, who have formed their taste upon the quaint similes and little turns of wit which are so much in vogue among modern poets, cannot relish these beauties which are of a much higher nature, and are therefore apt to censure Milton's comparisons, in which they do not see any surprising points of likeness. Monsieur Perrault was a man of this vitiated relish, and for that very reason has endeavoured to turn into ridicule several of Homer's similitudes, which he calls Comparaisons à longue queue' ('Long-tailed comparisons'). I shall conclude this paper on the first book of Milton with the answer which Monsieur Boileau makes to Perrault on this occasion: "Com 1 Charles Perrault's fame now rests on his Fairy Tales. The four volumes of his Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes, published in 1692-1696, included the good general idea of human progress, but worked it out badly, dealing irreverently with Plato as well as Homer and Pindar, and exalting among the moderns not only Molière and Corneille, but also Chapelain, Scudéri, and Quinault. The battle had begun with a debate in the Academy: Racine having ironically complimented Perrault on the ingenuity with which he had elevated little men above the ancients in his poem (published 1687), Le Siècle de Louis le Grand. Fontenelle touched the matter lightly, as Perrault's ally, in his Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes, but afterwards drew back, saying, I do not belong to the party which claims me for its chief.' The leaders on the respective sides, unequally matched, were Perrault and Boileau (Morley). Réflexions critiques sur Longin, 6. parisons,' says he, 'in odes and epic poems are not introduced only to illustrate and embellish the discourse, but to amuse and relax the mind of the reader by frequently disengaging him from too painful an attention to the principal subject, and by leading him into other agreeable images. Homer,' says he, 'excelled in this particular, whose comparisons abound with such images of nature as are proper to relieve and diversify his subjects. He continually instructs the reader, and makes him take notice, even in objects which are every day before our eyes, of such circumstances as we should not otherwise have observed.' To this he adds, as a maxim universally acknowledged, that it is not necessary in poetry for the points of the comparison to correspond with one another exactly, but that a general resemblance is sufficient, and that too much nicety in this particular favours of the rhetorician and epigrammatist.' In short, if we look into the conduct of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, as the great fable is the soul of each poem, so to give their works an agreeable variety, their episodes are so many short fables and their similes so many short episodes; to which you may add, if you please, that their metaphors are so many short similes. If the reader considers the comparisons in the first book of Milton, of the sun in an eclipse, of the sleeping leviathan, of the bees swarming about their hive, of the fairy dance,' in the view wherein I have here placed them, he will easily discover the great beauties that are in each of those passages. 1 'Paradise Lost,' i. 594, 200, 768, 781. L. No. 304. Monday, Feb. 18, 1712 TH [STEELE. Vulnus alit venis et cæco carpitur igni. -VIRG., En. iv. 2. HE circumstances of my correspondent, whose letter I now insert, are so frequent that I cannot want compassion so much as to forbear laying it before the town. There is something so mean and inhuman in a direct Smithfield bargain1 for children, that if this lover carries his point and observes the rules he pretends to follow, I do not only wish him success, but also that it may animate others to follow his example. I know not one motive relating to this life which would produce so many honourable and worthy actions as the hopes of obtaining a woman of merit; there would ten thousand ways of industry and honest ambition be pursued by young men, who believed that the persons admired had value enough for their passion to attend the event of their good fortune in all their applications, in order to make their circumstances fall in with the duties they owe to themselves, their families, and their country: all these relations a man should think of who intends to go into the state of marriage, and expects to make it a state of pleasure and satisfaction: 1 There was much sharp practice in the cattle and horse markets; hence this phrase. Swift wrote to Arbuthnot on Nov. 30, 1727, that Gay had made a pretty good bargain (that is a Smithfield) for a little place in the Custom-House.' 'Mr. SPECTATOR, 'I HAVE for some years indulged a passion for a young lady of age and quality suitable to my own, but very much superior in fortune. It is the fashion with parents (how justly I leave you to judge) to make all regards give way to the article of wealth. From this one consideration it is that I have concealed the ardent love I have for her; but I am beholden to the force of my love for many advantages which I reaped from it towards the better conduct of my life. A certain complacency to all the world, a strong desire to oblige wherever it lay in my power, and a circumspect behaviour in all my words and actions, have rendered me more particularly acceptable to all my friends and acquaintance. Love has had the same good effect upon my fortune; and I have increased in riches in proportion to my advancement in those arts which make a man agreeable and amiable. There is a certain sympathy which will tell my mistress from these circumstances that it is I who write this for her reading, if you will please to insert it. There is not a downright enmity, but a great coldness between our parents; so that if either of us declared any kind sentiments for each other, her friends would be very backward to lay an obligation upon our family, and mine to receive it from hers. Under these delicate circumstances it is no easy matter to act with safety. I have no reason to fancy my mistress has any regard for me, but from a very disinterested value which I have for her. If from any hint in any future paper of yours she gives me the least encouragement, I doubt not but I shall surmount all other difficulties; and inspired by so |