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should not hear a discourse from him: “But you
may," auswered Possidonius; and immediately
entered into the point of stoical philosophy, which
says, pain is not an evil. During the discourse,
upon every puncture he felt from his distemper,
he smiled and cried out, Pain, pain, be as im-
pertinent and troublesome as you please, I shall
never own that thou art an evil.”
"MR. SPECTATOR,

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less sensible of his own misery, and are inclined | sick bed, he bewailed the misfortune that he to despise him who sinks under the weight of his distresses. On the other hand, without any touch of envy, a temperate and well governed mind looks down on such as are exalted with success, with a certain shame for the imbecility of human nature, that can so far forget how liable it is to calamity as to grow giddy with only the suspense of sorrow, which is the portion of all men. He, therefore, who turns his face from the unhappy man, who will not look again when his eye is cast upon modest sorrow, who shuns affliction like a conta- Having seen in several of your papers a congion, does but pamper himself up for a sacrifice, cern for the honor of the clergy, and their doing and contract in himself a greater aptitude to mis- everything as becomes their character, and parery by attempting to escape it. A gentleman, ticularly performing the public service with a due where I happened to be last night, fell into a dis-zeal and devotion; I am the more encouraged to course which I thought showed a good discerning lay before them, by your means, several expres in him. He took notice, that wherever men have sions used by some of them in their prayers belooked into their heart for the idea of true excel- fore sermon, which I am not well satisfied in. lence in human nature, they have found it to con As their giving some titles and epithets to great sist in suffering after a right manner, and with a men, which are indeed due to them in their sev good grace. Heroes are always drawn bearing eral ranks and stations, but not properly used, I sorrows, struggling with adversities, undergoing think, in our prayers. Is it not contradiction to all kinds of hardships, and having, in the service say, illustrious, right reverend, and right honoraof mankind, a kind of appetite to difficulties and ble poor sinners? These distinctions are suited dangers. The gentleman went on to observe that only to our state here, and have no place in heav it is from this secret sense of the high merit which en; we see they are omitted in the liturgy; which, there is in patience under calamities, that the I think, the clergy should take for their pattern in writers of romances, when they attempt to furnish their own forms of devotion.* There is another out characters of the highest excellence, ransack na-expression which I would not mention, but that I ture for things terrible; they raise a new creation have heard it several times before a learned conof monsters, dragons, and giants; where the dan-gregation, to bring in the last petition of the ger ends, the hero ceases: when he has won an empire, or gained his mistress, the rest of his story is not worth relating. My friend carried his discourse so far as to say, that it was for higher beings than men to join happiness and greatness in the same idea; but that in our condition we have no conception of superlative excellence, or heroism, but as it is surrounded with

a shade of distress.

T.

"Your humble Servant,

"J. O."

prayer in these words, O let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak but this once;' as if there was no difference between Abraham's interceding for Sodom, for which he had no warrant, as we can find, and our asking those things which we are required to pray for; they would therefore have much more reason to fear his anger if they did not make such petitions to him. There is another pretty fancy. When a young man has a It is certainly the proper education we should mind to let us know who gave him his scarf, he give ourselves, to be prepared for the ill events speaks a parenthesis to the Almighty, Bless, as and accidents we are to meet with in a life seu- I am in duty bound to pray, the right-honorable tenced to be a scene of sorrow; but instead of the countess is not that as much as to say, this expectation, we soften ourselves with pros-Bless her, for thou knowest I am her chaplain? pects of constant delight, and destroy in our ininds the seeds of fortitude and virtue, which should support us in hours of anguish. The constant pursuit of pleasure has in it something insolent and improper for our being. There is a pretty sober liveliness in the Ode of Horace to Delius, where he tells him, loud mirth, or immoderate sorrow, inequality of behavior either in adversity or prosperity, are alike ungraceful in man that is born to die. Moderation in both circumstances is peculiar to generous minds. Men of that sort ever taste the gratifications of health, and all other advantages of life, as if they were liable to part with them, and when bereft of them, resign them with a greatness of mind which shows they know their value and duration. The contempt of pleasure is a certain preparatory for the contempt of pain. Without this, the mind is, as [Another expression which I take to be improper, is this, it were, taken suddenly by an unforeseen event; for rare signifies lineage or descent; and if the race of man"the whole race of mankind," when they pray for all men; but he that has always, during health and pros-kind may be used for the present generation (though, I think, perity, been abstinent in his satisfactions, enjoys, in the worst of difficulties, the reflection, that his anguish is not aggravated with the comparison of past pleasures which upbraid his present condition. Tully tells us a story after Pompey, which gives us a good taste of the pleasant manner the men of wit and philosophy had in old times, of alleviating the distresses of life by the force of reason and philosophy. Pompey, when he came to Rhodes, had a curiosity to visit the famous philosopher Possidonius; but finding him in his

No. 313.] THURSDAY, FEB. 28, 1711-12.
Exigite ut mores teneros ceu pollice ducat,
Ut si quis cera vultum facit- -Juv., Sat. vii, 227.
Bid him beside his daily pains employ,
To form the tender manners of the boy,
And work him, like a waxen babe, with art,
To perfect symmetry in every part.-CH. DRYDEN.
I SHALL give the following letter no other re-
commendation than by telling my readers that

In the original publication of this paper in folio, there was the following passage, left out when the papers were printed in volumes in 1712

not very fitly), the whole race takes in all from the beginning to the end of the world. I don't remember to have met with that expression, in their sense, anywhere but in the old version of Psalm xiv, which those men, I suppose, have but little esteem for. And some, when they have prayed for all schools and nurseries of good learning, and true religion, especially the two universities, add these words, Grant that from them, and all other places dedicated to thy worship and service, may come forth such persons," etc. But what do they mean by all other places? It seems to me, that this is either a tautology, as being the same with all schools and nurseries before expressed, or else it runs too far; for there are several places dedicated to the divine service, which can not properly be intended here,]-Spectator in folio.

it comes from the same hand with that of last
Thursday.
"SIR,

"I send you, according to my promise, some further thoughts on the education of youth, in which I intend to discuss that famous question, "Whether the education of a public school, or under a private tutor, is to be preferred?'

"It must, however, be confessed, that a person at the head of a public school has sometimes sơ many boys under his direction, that it is impos sible he should extend a due proportion of his: care to each of them. This is however, in reality the fault of the age, in which we often see twentyparents, who, though each expects his son should be made a scholar, are not contented all together to make it worth while for any man of liberal education to take upon him the care of their in

"As some of the greatest men in most ages have been of very different opinions in this mat-struction. ter. I shall give a short account of what I think may be best urged on both sides, and afterward leave every person to determine for himself.

"It is certain from Suetonius, that the Romans thought the education of their children a business properly belonging to the parents themselves; and Plutarch, in the Life of Marcus Cato, tells us, that as soon as his son was capable of learning, Cato would suffer nobody to teach him but himself, though he had a servant named Chilo, who was an excellent grammarian, and who taught a great many other youths.

"On the contrary, the Greeks seemed more inclined to public schools and seminaries.

“A private education promises, in the first place, virtue and good breeding; a public school, inanly assurance, and an early knowledge in the ways of the world.

Mr. Locke, in his celebrated treatise on education, confesses that there are inconveniences to be feared on both sides: If,' says he, I keep my son at home, he is in danger of becoming my young master; if I send him abroad; it is scarce possible to keep him from the reigning contagion of rudeness and vice. He will perhaps be more innocent at home, but more ignorant of the world, and more sheepish when he comes abroad.' However, as this learned author asserts that virtue is much more difficult to be obtained than a knowledge of the world, and that vice is a more stubborn, as well as a more dangerous fault than sheepishness, he is altogether for a private education; and the more so, because he does not see why a youth, with right management, might not attain the same assurance in his father's house, as at a public school. To this end, he advises parents to accustom their sons to whatever strange faces come to the house to take them with them when they visit their neighbors, and to engage them in conversation with men of parts and breeding.

"It may be objected to this method, that conversation is not the only thing necessary: but that unless it be a conversation with such as are in some measure their equals in parts and years, there can be no room for emulation, contention, and several of the most lively passions of the mind which, without being sometimes moved by these means, may possibly contract a dullness and insensibility.

"One of the greatest writers our nation ever produced observes, that a boy who forms parties, and makes himself popular in a school or a college, would act the same part with equal ease in a sonate or a privy-council; and Mr. Osborne, speaking like a man versed in the ways of the world affirms, that the well laying and carrying on of a design to rob an orchard, trains up a youth insensibly to caution, secrecy, and circumapection, and fits him for matters of greater importance.

"In short, a private education seems the most natural method for the forming of a virtuous man; public education for making a man of business. The first would furnish out a good subject for Plato's republic, the latter a member for a community overrun with artifice and corruption.

"In our great schools, indeed, this fault has been of late years rectified, so that we have at present not only ingenious men for the chief masters, but such as have proper ushers and assistants. under them. I must nevertheless own, that for want of the same encouragement in the country, we have many a promising genius spoiled and abused in those little seminaries.

"I am the more inclined to this opinion, hav-ing myself experienced the usage of two rural masters, each of them very unfit for the trust they took upon them to discharge. The first imposed! much more upon me than my parts, though none of the weakest, could endure; and used me barbarously for not performing impossibilities The latter was of quite another temper; and a boy who would run upon his errands, wash his coffee-pot, or ring the bell, might have as little conversation with any of the classics as he thought fit. I have known a lad at this place excused his exercise for assisting the cook-maid; and remember a neighboring gentleman's son was among us five years, most of which time he employed in airing and watering our master's gray pad. I scorned to compound for my faults by doing any of these elegant offices, and was accordingly the best scholar, and the worst used of any boy in the school.

"I shall conclude this discourse with an advantage mentioned by Quintilian, as accompanying a public way of education, which I have not yet taken notice of; namely, that we very often. contract such friendships at school, as are a service to us all the following parts of our lives.

"I shall give you under this head, a story very well known to several persons, and which may depend upon as real truth.

you

"Every one, who is acquainted with Westminster-school, knows that there is a curtain which used to be drawn across the room, to separate the upper school from the lower. A youth happened, by some mischance, to tear the above-mentioned curtain. The severity of the master* was too well known for the criminal to expect any pardon for such a fault; so that the boy, who was of a meek temper, was terrified to death at the thoughts of his appearance, when his friend who sat next to him bade him be of good cheer, for that he would take the fault on himself. He kept his word accordingly. As soon as they were grown up to be men, the civil war broke out, in which our two friends took the opposite sides; one of them followed the parliament, the other the royal party.

"As their tempers were different, the youth who had torn the curtain endeavored to raise himself on the civil list, and the other, who had borne the blame of it, on the military. The first succeeded so well, that he was in a short time made a judge under the protector. The other was engaged in the unhappy enterprise of Penruddock and Groves in the West. I suppose, Sir, I need not acquaint you with the event of that undertaking. Every one knows that the royal party was routed, and all the heads of them,

* Busby.

386

"MR. SPECTATOR,

among whom was the curtain champion, impri- | shall continue in her confinement, until he has soned at Exeter. It happened to be his friend's found out which word in his letter is not rightly* lot at that time to go the western circuit. The spelt. trial of the rebels, as they were then called, was very short, and nothing now remained but to pass sentence on them; when the judge hearing the "I shall ever own myself your obliged, humble name of his old friend, and observing his face servant, for the advice you gave me concerning more attentively, which he had not seen for many my dancing; which, unluckily, came too late: for years, asked him if he was not formerly a West- as I said, I would not leave off capering until I minster scholar? By the answer, he was soon had your opinion of the matter. I was at our convinced that it was his former generous friend: famous assembly the day before I received your and without saying anything more at that time, papers, and there was observed by an old gentlemade the best of his way to London, where em- who was informed I had a respect for his ploying all his power and interest with the pro-daughter. He told me I was an insignificant tector, he saved his friend from the fate of his un-little fellow, and said, that for the future he would take care of his child, so that he did not doubt happy associates. The gentleman whose life was thus preserved but to cross my amorous inclinations. The lady by the gratitude of his school-fellow, was after-is confined to her chamber, and for my part, I am ward the father of a son, whom he lived to see ready to hang myself with the thoughts that I promoted in the church, and who still deservedly have danced myself out of favor with her father. fills one of the highest stations in it."* I hope you will pardon the trouble I give; but shall take it for a mighty favor, if you will give me a X. little more of your advice to put me in a right way to cheat the old dragon and obtain my mistress.

man,

No. 314.] FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 1711-12. I am once more, Sir,

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"MR. SPECTATOR,

February 7, 1711-12.

"Your obliged, humble Servant,

"JOHN TROT."

"York, Feb. 23, 1711-12. "Let me desire you to make what alterations you please, and insert this as soon as possible Pardon mistakes by haste."

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I never do pardon mistakes by haste.

'SIR,

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THE SPECTATOR.

you will Your very humble Servant,

"N. B."

"I AM a young man about eighteen years of age, and have been in love with a young woman of the same age about this half year. I go to see her Feb. 27, 1711-12. six days in the week, but never could have the happiness of being with her alone. If any of her "Pray be so kind as to let me know what you friends are at home, she will see me in their com-esteem to be the chief qualification of a good poet, pany; but if they be not in the way, she flies to her especially of one who writes plays; and chamber. I can discover no signs of her aversion: very much oblige, Sir, but either a fear of falling into the toils of matri mony, or a childish timidity, deprives us of an interview apart, and drives us upon the difficulty of languishing out our lives in fruitless expectation. Now, Mr. Spectator, if you think us ripe for economy, persuade the dear creature, that to pine away into barrenness and deformity under a mother's shade, is not so honorable, nor does she appear so amiable, as she would in full bloom. [There is a great deal left out before he concludes.]

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Mr. Spectator, your humble Servant,
"BOB HARMLESS."

If this gentleman be really no more than eighteen, I must do him the justice to say, he is the most knowing infant I have yet met with. He does not, I fear, yet understand, that all he thinks of is another woman; therefore, until he has given a further account of himself, the young lady is hereby directed to keep close to her mother.

THE SPECTATOR.

I cannot comply with the request in Mr. Trot's letter but let it go just as it came to my hands for being so familiar with the old gentleman, as rough as he is to him. Since Mr. Trot has an ambition to make him his father-in-law, he ought to treat him with more respect; beside, his style to me might have been more distant than he has thought fit to afford me: moreover, his mistress

The gentleman here alluded to was Colonel Wake, father to Dr. Wake, bishop of Lincoln, and afterward Archbishop of Canterbury. As Penruddock in the course of the trial takes occasion to say, "he sees Judge Nicholas on the bench," it is most likely that he was the judge of the assize, who tried this cavalier.

To be a very well-bred man.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

THE SPECTATOR.

"You are to know that I am naturally brave and love fighting as well as any man in England. This gallant temper of mine makes me extremely delighted with battles on the stage. I give you this trouble to complain to you that Nicolini refused to gratify me in that part of the opera for which I have most taste. I observe it is become a custom, that whenever any gentlemen are particularly pleased with a song, at their crying out, Encore,' or 'Altro Volto,' the performer is so obliging as to sing it over again. I was at the opera the last time Hydaspes was performed. At that part of it where the hero engages with the lion, the graceful manner with which he put that terrible monster to death gave me so great a pleasure, and at the same time so just a sense of that gentleman's intrepidity and conduct, that I could not forbear desiring a repetition of it, by crying out

Altro Volto,' in a very audible voice; and my friends flatter me that I pronounced those words with a tolerable good accent, considering that was but the third opera I had ever seen in my life. Yet, notwithstanding all this, there was so little regard had to me, that the lion was carried off, and went to bed, without being killed any more that night. Now, Sir, pray consider that I did not understand a word of what Mr. Nicolini said to this cruel creature; beside, I have no ear for

*In the original publication in folio, it is printed "wright ly," ," the mis-spelt word probably in Mr. Trot's letter.

music; so that, during the long dispute between them, the whole entertainment I had was from my eyes. Why then have not I as much right to have a graceful action repeated as another has a pleasing sound, since he only hears, as I only see, and we neither of us know that there is any reasonable thing a-doing? Pray, Sir, settle the business of this claim in the audience, and let us know when we may cry Altro Volto,' Anglicé, 'Again, Again,' for the future. I am an Englishman, and expect some reason or other to be given me, and perhaps an ordinary one may serve; but I expect your

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Nov. 29.

"MR. SPECTATOR, "You must give me leave, among the rest of your female correspondents, to address you about an affair which has already given you many a speculation; and which, I know, I need not tell you has had a very happy influence over the adult part of our sex; but as many of us are either too old to learn, or too obstinate in the pursuit of the vanities which have been bred up with us from our infancy, and all of us quitting the stage while you are prompting us to act our part well; you ought, methinks, rather to turn your instructions for the benefit of that part of our sex who are yet in their native innocence, and ignorant of the vices and that variety of unhappiness that reign among us. "I must tell you, Mr. Spectator, that it is as much a part of your office to oversee the education of the female part of the nation, as well as of the male; and to convince the world you are not partial, pray proceed to detect the mal-administration of governesses as successfully as you have exposed that of pedagogues; and rescue our sex from the prejudice and tyranny of education as well as that of your own, who, without your seasonable interposition, are like to improve upon the vices that are now in vogue.

"I who know the dignity of your post, as Spectator, and the authority a skillful eye ought to bear in the female world, could not forbear consulting you, and beg your advice in so critical a point, as is that of the education of young gentlewomen. Having already provided myself with a very convenient house in a good air, I am not without hope but that you will promote this generous design. 1 must further tell you, Sir, that all who shall be committed to my conduct, beside the usual accomplishments of the needle, dancing, and the French tongue, shall not fail to be your constant readers. It is therefore my humble petition, that you will entertain the town on this important subject, and so far oblige a stranger, as to raise a curiosity and inquiry in my behalf, by publishing the following advertisement.

"Iam, Sir,

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The Boarding-School for young Gentlewomen, which was formerly kept on Mile-End-Green, being laid down, there is now one set up almost opposite to it, at the two Golden Balls, and much more convenient in every respect; where beside the common instructions given to young gentle women, they will be taught the whole art of pastry and preserving, with whatever may render them ccomplished. Those who please to make trial of the vigilance and ability of the persons concerned, may inquire at the Two Golden Balls on Mile-End-Green, near Stepney, where they will receive further satisfaction.

This is to give notice, that the Spectator has taken upon him to be visitant of all boarding; schools where young women are educated; and designs to proceed in the same office after the same manner that the visitants of colleges do in the two famous universities of this land.

All lovers who write to the Spectator, are desired to forbear one expression which is in most of the letters to him, either out of laziness o want of invention, and is true of not above two thousand women in the whole world: viz. "She has in her all that is valuable in woman."-T.

No. 315.] SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1711-12
Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit-
HOR., Ars. Poet., ver. 191
Never presume to make a god appear,

But for a business worthy of a god.-ROSCOMMON. HORACE advises a poet to consider thoroughly the nature and force of his genius. Milton seems to have known perfectly well wherein his strength lay, and has therefore chosen a subject entirely conformable to those talents of which he was master. As his genius was wonderfully turned to the sublime, his subject was the noblest that could have entered into the thoughts of man. Everything that is truly great and astonishing has a place in it. The whole system of the intellectual world; the chaos, and the creation; heaven, earth, and hell; enter into the constitution of his poem.

Having in the first and second books represented the infernal world with all its horrors, the thread of his fable naturally leads him into the opposite regions of bliss and glory.

The

If Milton's majesty forsakes him anywhere, it is in those parts of his poem where the divine persons are introduced as speakers. One may, I think, observe, that the author proceeds with a kind of fear and trembling, while he describes the sentiments of the Almighty. He dares not give his imagination its full play, but chooses to confine himself to such thoughts as are drawn from the books of the most orthodox divines, and to such expressions as may be met with in Scripture, the beauties, therefore, which we are to look for in these speeches, are not of a poetical nature, nor so proper to fill the mind with sentiments of grandeur, as with thoughts of devotion. passions which they are designed to raise, are a divine love and religious fear. The particular beauty of the speeches in the third book, consists in that shortness and perspicuity of style, in which the poet has couched the greatest mysteries of Christianity, and drawn together in a regular scheme, the whole dispensation of Providence with respect to man. He has represented all the abstruse doctrines of predestination, free-will and grace, as also the great points of the incarnation and redemption (which naturally grow up in a poem that treats of the fall of man), with great energy of expression, and in a clearer and stronger light than I ever met with in any other writer. As these points are dry in themselves to the generality of readers, the concise and clear manner in which he has treated them is very much to be admired, as is likewise that particular art which he has made use of in the interspersing of all those graces of poetry which the subject was capable of receiving.

The survey of the whole creation, and of everything that is transacted in it, is a prospect worthy of Omniscience, and as much above that in which Virgil has drawn his Jupiter, as the Christian

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idea of the Supreme being is more rational and
sublime than that of the Heathens. The particu-
lar objects on which he is described to have cast
his eye, are represented in the most beautiful and
lively manner:-

"Now had th' Almighty Father from above
(From the pure empyrean where he sits
High thron'd above all height) bent down his eye,
His own works and their works at once to view.
About him all the sanctities of heaven
Stood thick as stars, and from his sight receiv'd
Beatitude past utt'rance. On his right
The radiant image of his glory sat,
His only Son. On earth he first beheld
Our two first parents, yet the only two
Of mankind, in the happy garden plac'd,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love;
Uninterrupted joy, unrival'd love,

In blissful solitude. He then survey'd
Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of heav'n on this side night,
In the dull air sublime; and ready now
To stoop with varied wings and willing feet
On the bare outside of this world, that seem'd
Firm land imbosom'd without firmament;
Uncertain which, in ocean, or in air,
Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future, he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake."
Satan's approach to the confines of the creation
is finely imaged in the beginning of the speech
which immediately follows. The effects of this
speech in the blessed spirits, and in the divine
person to whom it was addressed, cannot but fill
the mind of the reader with a secret pleasure and
complacency:

"Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill'd
All heav'n, and in the blessed spirits elect
Sense of new joy ineffable diffus'd.
Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious; in him all his Father shone
Substantially expressed; and in his face

Divine compassion visibly appear'd,

Love without end, and without measure grace."

from a true history; if it is only marvelous, it fa no better than a romance. The great secret, therefore, of heroic poetry, is to relate such circumstances as may produce in the reader at the same time both belief and astonishment. This is brought to pass in a well-chosen fable, by the account of such things as have really happened, or at least of such things as have happened according to the received opinions of mankind. Milton's fable is a masterpiece of this nature: as the war in heaven, the condition of the fallen angels, the state of innocence, the temptation of the serpent and the fall of man; though they are very astonishing in themselves, and are not only credible, but actual points of faith.

The next method of reconciling miracles with credibility, is by a happy invention of the poet as in particular, when he introduces agents of a superior nature, who are capable of effecting what is wonderful, and what is not to be met with in the ordinary course of things. Ulysses' ship being turned into a rock, and Eneas's fleet into a shoal of water-nymphs, though they are very surprising accidents, are nevertheless probable when we are told, that they were the gods who thus transformed them. It is this kind of machinery which fills the poems both of Homer and Virgil with such circumstances as are wonderful but not impossible, and so frequently produce in the reader the most pleasing passion that can rise in the mind of man, which is admiration. If there be any instance in the Eneid liable to exception upon this account, it is in the beginning of the third book, where Eneas is represented as tearing up the myrtle that dropped blood. To qualify this wonderful circumstance, Polydorus tells a story from the root of the myrtle, that the barbarous inhabitants of the country having pierced him with spears and arrows, the wood

and gave birth to that bleeding tree. This circumstance seems to have the marvelous without the probable, because it is represented as proceeding from natural causes, without the interposition of any god, or other supernatural power capable of producing it. The spears and arrows grow of themselves without so much as the modern help

I need not point out the beauty of that circum-which was left in his body took root in his wounds, stance wherein the whole host of angels are represented as standing mute; nor show how proper the occasion was to produce such a silence in heaven. The close of this divine colloquy, with the hymn of angels that follows upon it, are so wonderfully beautiful and poetical, that I should not forbear inserting the whole passage, if the bounds of my paper would give me leave:

"No sooner had the Almighty ceas'd but all
The multitude of angels with a shout!
(Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
As from blest voices) utt'ring joy, heav'n rung
With jubilee, and loud hosannas fill'd
Th' eternal regions," etc., etc.-

Satan's walk upon the outside of the universe, which at a distance appeared to him of a globular form, but upon his nearer approach looked like an unbounded plain, is natural and noble; as his roaming upon the frontiers of the creation, between that mass of matter which was wrought into a world, and that shapeless, unformed heap of materials which still lay in chaos and confusion, strikes the imagination with something astonishingly great and wild. I have before spoken of the Limbo of Vanity, which the poet places upon this outermost surface of the universe, and shall here explain myself more at large on that and other parts of the poem, which are of the same shadowy nature.

Aristotle observes that the fable of an epic poem should abound in circumstances that are both credible and astonishing; or, as the French critics choose to phrase it, the fable should be filled with the probable and the marvelous. This rule is as fine and just as any in Aristotle's whole Art of Poetry.

If the fable is only probable, it differs nothing

of enchantment. If we look into the fiction of Milton's fable, though we find it full of surprising incidents, they are generally suited to our notions of the things and persons described, and tempered with a due measure of probability. I must only make an exception to the Limbo of Vanity, with his Episode of Sin and Death, and some of the imaginary persons in his chaos. These passages are astonishing, but not credible; the reader cannot so far impose upon himself as to see a possibility in them; they are the description of dreams and shadows, not of things or persons. I know that many critics look upon the stories of Circe, Polypheme, the Sirens, nay the whole Odyssey and Iliad, to be allegories: but allowing this to be true, they are fables, which, considering the opinions of mankind that prevailed in the age of the poet, might possibly have been according to the letter. The persons are such as might have acted what is ascribed to them, as the circumstances in which they are represented might possibly have been truths and realities. This appearance of probability is so absolutely requisite in the greater kinds of poetry, that Aristotle observes the ancient tragic writers made use of the names of such great men as had actually lived in the world, though the tragedy proceeded upon adventures they were never engaged in, on purpose to make the subject more credible. In a word, beside the hidden meaning

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