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greeably impofed upon, and fancied that it was Cato, and not he himfelf, who uttered his thoughts on that fubject.

If the reader would be at the pains to fee how the story of the Iliad and Æneid is delivered by thofe perfons who act in it, he will be furprifed to find fo little in either of thefe poems proceeds from the authors. Milton has, in the general difpofition of his fable, very finely obferved this great rule; infomuch, that there is scarce a third part of it which comes from the poet; the reft is fpoken either by Adam and Eve, or by fome good or evil Spirit who is engaged either in their deftruction or defense.

From what has been here obfer ved, it appears that digreffions are by no means to be allowed of in an epic poem. If the poet, even in the ordinary course of his narration, fhould fpeak as little as poffible, he should certainly never let his narra tion fleep for the fake of any reflec, tions of his own. I have often obferved, with a fecret admiration, that the longest reflection in the Æneid is in that paffage of the tenth book, where Turnus is reprefented as dreffing himself in the fpoils of Pallas, whom he had lain. Virgil here lets his fable ftand fill for the fake of the following remark. How is the mind of man ignorant of futurity, and unable to bear profperous fortune with modera• tion? The time will come when • Turnus fhall wish that he had left the body of Pallas untouched, and curie the day on which he dreffed himself in thefe fpoils.' As the great event of the Æneid, and the death of Turnus, whom Encas flew, because he law him adorned with the spoils of Pallas,

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turns upon this incident, Virgil went out of his way to make this reflection upon it, without which fo fmall a circumftance might poffibly have flipped out of his reader's memory. Lucan,who was an injudicious poet, lets drop his story very frequently for the fake of his unneceffary digreflions, or his diverticula, as Scaliger calls them. If he gives us an account of the prodigies which preceded the civil war, he declames upon the occafion, and fhows how much happier it would be for man, if he did not feel his evil fortune before it comes to pafs, and fuffer not only by its real weight, but by the apprehenfion of it. Milton's complaint of his blindness, his panegyric on marriage, his reflections on Adam and Eve's going naked, of the Angel's eating, and feveral other paflages in his poem, are liable to the fame exception, tho' I must confefs, there is fo great a beauty in thefe very digreffions that I would not wish them out of his poem.

I have, in a former paper, spoken of the characters of Milton's Paradife Loft, and declared my opinion, as to the allegorical perfons who are introduced in it.

If we look into the fentiments, I think they are fometimes defective under the following heads; First, as there are feveral of them too much pointed, and fome that dege. nerate even into punns. Of this last kind, I am afraid is that in the first book, where fpeaking of the pigmies, he calls them,

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allufion to heathen fables, which are not certainly of a piece with the divine fubject, of which he treats. I do not find fault with thefe allufions, where the poet himfelf reprefents them as fabulous, as he does in fome places, but where he mentions them as truths and matters of fact. The limits of my paper will not give me leave to be particular in inflances of this kind: The reader will eafily remark them in his perufal of the poem.

A third fault in his fentiments, is an unneceflary oftentation of learning, which likewife occurs very frequently. It is certain, that both Homer and Virgil were mafters of all the learning of their times, but it fhows itself in their works, after an indire and concealed manner. Milton feems ambitious of letting us know, by his excurfions on free will and predeftination, and his many glances upon hiftory, aftronomy, geography, and the like, as well as by the terms and phrafes he fometimes makes ufe of, that he was acquainted with the whole circle of arts and sciences.

If, in the laft place, we confider the language of this great poet, we must allow what I have hinted in a former paper, that it is often too much labored, and fametimes obfcured by old words, tranfpofitions, and foreign idioms. Seneca's objection to the ftile of a great author, Riget ejus oratio, nihil in ea placidum, nihil lene, is what many critics make to Milton: As I cannot wholly refute it, fo I have already apologized for it in another paper; to which I may farther add, that Milton's fentiments and ideas were fo wonderfully fublime, that it would have been impoffible for him to have reprefented them in their full ftrength and beauty, without having recourfe

to thefe foreign affiftances. Our language funk under him, and was unequal to that greatness of foul, which furnished him with fuch glo rious conceptions.

A fecond fault in his language is, that he often affects a kind of jingle in his words, as in the following paffages, and many others:

That brought into this world a world of woe.

Begirt th' almighty throne Befeeching or befieging This tempted our attempt At one flight bound high over-leapt all bound.

I know there are figures for this kind of fpeech, that fome of the greatest Ancients have been guilty of it, and that Ariftotle himself has given it a place in his Rhetoric_among the beauties of that art. But as it is in itself poor and trifling, it is I think at prefent univerfally exploded by all the matters of polite writing.

The laft fault which I fhall take notice of in Milton's ftile, is the frequent ufe of what the learned call technical words, or terms of art. It is one of the great beauties of poetry, to make hard things intelligible, and to deliver what is abftrufe of itfelf in fuch eafy language as may be understood by ordinary readers: Befides that the knowledge of a poet fhould rather feem born with him, or infpired, than drawn from books and fyllems. I have often wondered, how Mr. Dryden could tranflate a paffage out of Virgil in the following manner,

Tack to the larboard, and stand off to fea.

Veer ftar board fea and land.

Milton makes use of larboard in the fame manner. When he is upon building, he mentions Doric pillars, pilafires, cornice, freeze, architrave. When he talks of heavenly bodies, you meet with ecliptic, and eccentric, the trepidation, fars dropping from the zenith, rays culminating from the equator. To which might be added many inftances of the like kind in feveral other arts and sciences.

I fhall in my next papers give an account of the many particular beauties in Milton, which would have been too long to infert under those general heads I have already treated of, and with which I intend to conclude this piece of criticism.

I HAVE feen in the works of a modern philofopher, a map of the fpots in the fun. My laft paper of the faults and blemishes in Milton's Paradife Loft, may be confidered as a piece of the fame nature. To purfue the allufion: As it is obferved, that among the bright parts of the luminous body above-mentioned, there are fome which glow more intensely, and dart a ftronger light than others; fo, notwithstanding I have already fhown Milton's poem to be very beautiful in general, I shall now proceed to take notice of fuch beauties as appear to me more exquifite than the rest.

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