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No. 315.] Saturday, March 1, 1711-12.

Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindic nodus
Inciderit
Hor. Ars Poet. v. 191.

Never presume to make a god appear
But for a business worthy of a god.-Roscommon.

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 HORACE advises a poet to consider thorough- likewise that particular art which he has made ly the nature and force of his genius. Milton use of in the interspersing of all those graces seems to have known perfectly well wherein of poetry which the subject was capable of re his strength lay, and has therefore chosen a ceiving.

subject entirely conformable to those talents The survey of the whole creation, and of of which he was master. As his gebius was every thing that is transacted in it, is a proswonderfully turned to the sublime, his subject pect worthy of Omniscience, and as much is the noblest that could have entered into the above that in which Virgil has drawn his Juthoughts of man. Every thing that is truly piter, as the Christian idea of the Supreme Begreat and astonishing has a place in it. The ing is more rational and sublime than that whole system of the intellectual world; the of the Heathens. The particular objects on chaos, and the creation: heaven, earth, and which he is described to have cast his eye, hell; enter into the constitution of his poem. are represented in the most beautiful and liveHaving in the first and second books re- ly manner: presented the infernal world with all its horrors, the thread of his fable naturally leads him into the opposite regions of bliss and glory.

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 utterance. 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, unrivall'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 uight,
In the dun air sublime; and ready now
To stoop with wearied 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.

If Milton's majesty forsakes him any where, 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, whilst 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 ortho-j dox 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. The passions which they are designed to raise, are a divine love and religious fear. The particular beauty of Satan's approach to the confines of the creathe speeches in the third book, consists in that tion is finely imaged in the beginning of the shortness and perspicuity of style, in which speech which immediately follows. The etthe poet has couched the greatest mysteries of fects of this speech in the blessed spirits, and Christianity, and drawn together, in a regular in the divine person to whom it was addressed, scheme, the whole dispensation of Providence cannot but fill the mind of the reader with a with respect to man. He has represented all secret pleasure and complacency: the abstruse doctrines of predestination, freewill and grace, as also the great points of incarnation and redemption, (which naturally grow up in a poem that treats of the fall of VOL. II.

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
I

Most glorious; in him all his Father shone,

Substantially express'd; and in his face

Divine compassion visibly appoar'd,

Love without end, and without measure grace.

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 im

I need not point out the beauty of that possible, and so frequently produce in the reacircumstance, wherein the whole host of angels der the most pleasing passion that can rise in If are represented as standing mute; nor show the mind of man, which is admiration. how proper the occasion was to produce such there be any instance in the Eneid liable to a silence in heaven. The close of this divine exception upon this account, it is in the begincolloquy, with the hymn of angels that follows ning of the third book, where Æneas is repreupon it, are so wonderfully beautiful and po-sented as tearing up the myrtle that dropped etical, that I should not forbear inserting the whole passage, if the bounds of my paper would give me leave:

No sooner had th' 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, &c. &c.

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 which was left in his body took root in his wounds, and gave birth to that bleeding tree. This circumstance seems to have the marvellous without the probable because it is represented as proceeding from Satan's walk upon the outside of the uni- natural causes, without the interposition of verse, which at a distance appeared to him of any god, or other supernatural power capable a globular form, but upon his nearer approach of producing it. The spears and arrows grow looked like an unbounded plain, is natural and of themselves without so much as the modern noble; as his roaming upon the frontiers of help of enchantment. If we look into the ficthe creation, between that mass of matter tion of Milton's fable, though we find it full of which was wrought into a world, and that surprising incidents, they are generally suited shapeless unformed heap of materials which to our notions of the things and persons destill lay in chaos and confusion, strikes the scribed, and tempered with a due measure of imagination with something astonishingly great probability. I must only make an exception to and wild. I have before spoken of the Limbo the Limbo of vanity, with his episode of Sin and 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.

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; theyare the description of dreams and shadows Aristotle observes, that the fable of an epic not of things or persons. I know that many cripoem should abound in circumstances that tics look upon the stories of Circe, Polypheme, are both credible and astonishing; or, as the French critics choose to phrase it, the fable should be filled with the probable and the marvellous. This rule is as fine and just as any in Aristotle's whole Art of Poetry.

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 If the fable is only probable, it differs nothing to the letter. The persons are such as might from a true history; if it is only marvellous, have acted what is ascribed to them, as the it is no better than a romance. The great circumstances in which they are represented secret, therefore, of heroic poetry is to relate might possibly have been truths and realities. such circumstances as may produce in the rea- This appearance of probability is so absolutely der at the same time both belief and astonish-requisite in the greater kinds of poetry, that ment. This is brought to pass in a well chosen Aristotle observes the ancient tragic writers fable, by the account of such things as have made use of the names of such great men as really happened, or at least of such things as had actually lived in the world, though the have happened according to the received opi- tragedy proceeded upon adventures they were nions of mankind. Milton's fable is a master-never engaged in, on purpose to make the subpiece of this nature; as the war in heaven, the ject more credible. In a word, besides the condition of the fallen angels, the state of in-hidden meaning of an epic allegory, the plain nocence, the temptation of the serpent, and literal sense ought to appear probable. -The the fall of man, though they are very astonish-story should be such as an ordinary reader ing in themselves, are not only credible, but may acquiesce in, whatever natural, moral, or actual points of faith. political truth may be discovered in it by men of greater penetration.

The next method of reconciling miracles with credibility, is by a happy invention of the Satan, after having long wandered upon the poet; as in particular, when he introduces surface or outermost wall of the universe, dis agents of a superior nature, who are capable covers at last a wide gap in it, which led into of effecting what is wonderful, and what is not the creation, and is described as the opening to be met with in the ordinary course of things. through which the angels pass to and fro into Ulysses's ship being turned into a rock, and the lower world, upon their errands to manEneas's fleet into a shoal of water nymphs, kind. His sitting upon the brink of this pas though they are very surprising accidents, are sage, and taking a survey of the whole face of nevertheless probable when we are told, that nature, that appeared to him new and fresh

in all its beauties, with the simile illustrating plaints, this may have reason to hope for a this circumstance, fills the mind of the reader favourable acceptance; and if time be the with as surprising and glorious an idea as any most irretrievable loss, the regrets which folthat arises in the whole poem. He looks down into that vast hollow of the universe with the eye, or (as Milton calls it in his first book) with the ken of an angel. He surveys all the wonders in this immense amphitheatre that he between both the poles of heaven, and takes in at one view the whole round of the

creation.

low will be thought, I hope, the most justifiable. The regaining of my liberty from a long state of indolence and inactivity, and the desire of resisting the farther incroachments of idle ness, make me apply to you; and the uneasiness with which I recollect the past years, and the apprehensions with which I expect the future, soon determined me to it. Idleness is His flight between the several worlds that so general a distemper, that I cannot but imashined on every side of him, with the particular gine a speculation on this subject will be of description of the sun, are set forth in all the universal use. There is hardly any one person wantonness of a luxuriant imagination. His without some allay of it; and thousands beshape, speech, and behaviour upon his trans-sides myself spend more time in an idle uncerforming himself into an angel of light, are tainty which to begin first of two affairs, than touched with exquisite beauty. The poet's would have been sufficient to bave ended them thought of directing Satan to the Sun, which, both. The occasion of this seems to be the in the vulgar opinion of mankind, is the most want of some necessary employment, to put conspicuous part of the creation, and the plac- the spirits in motion, and awaken them out of ing in it an angel, is a circumstance very finely their lethargy. If I had less leisure, I should contrived, and the more adjusted to a poetical have more; for I should then find my time probability, as it was a received doctrine among distinguished into portions, some for business, the most famous philosophers, that every orb and others for the indulging of pleasures; had its intelligence; and as an apostle in sa- but now one face of indolence overspreads the cred writ is said to have seen such an angel in whole, and I have no land-mark to direct mythe sun. In the answer which this angel re-self by. Were one's time a little straitened turns to the disguised evil spirit, there is such by business, like water enclosed in its banks, a becoming majesty as is altogether suitable it would have some determined course; but to a superior being. The part of it in which unless it be put into some channel it has no he represents himself as present at the creation, current but becomes a deluge without either is very noble in itself, and not only proper use or motion. where it is introduced, but requisite to prepare the reader for what follows in the seventh book:

I saw when at his word the formless mass,
This world's material mould, came to a heap:
Confusion heard his voice, and wild Uproar
Stood rul'd, stood vast infinitude confin'd;
Till at his second bidding Darkness fled,
Light shone, &c.

In the following part of the speech he points out the earth with such circumstances, that the reader can scarce forbear fancying himself employed on the same distant view of it:

Look downward on that globe, whose hither side
With light from hence, though but reflected, shines;
That place is earth, the seat of man, that light
His day, &c.

I must not conclude my reflections upon this third book of Paradise Lost, without taking notice of that celebrated complaint of Milton with which it opens, and which certainly deserves all the praises that have been given it; though, as I have before hinted, it may rather be looked upon as an excrescence than as an essential part of the poem. The same observation might be applied to that beautiful digression upon hypocrisy in the same book. L.

No. 316.] Monday, March 3, 1711-12.
Libertas; quæ sera, tamen respexit inertem.

Virg. Ecl. i. 28.
Freedom, which came at length, though slow to come.
Dryden.

MR. SPECTATOR,

'If you ever read a letter which is sent with the more pleasure for the reality of its con

"When Scanderbeg, Prince of Epirus, was dead, the Turks, who had but too often felt the force of his arm in the battles he had won from them, imagined that by wearing a piece of his bones near their heart, they should be animated with a vigour and force like to that which inspired him when living. As I am like to be but of little use whilst I live, I am reand have accordingly ordered my bones to be solved to do what good I can after my decease; disposed of in this manner for the good of my countrymen, who are troubled with too exorbitant a degree of fire. All fox-hunters, upon wearing me, would in a short time be brought to endure their beds in a morning, and perhaps even quit them with regret at ten. Instead of hurrying away to tease a poor animal, and run away from their own thoughts, a chair or a chariot would be thought the most desirable means of performing a remove from one place to another. I should be a cure for the unnatural desire of John Trott for dancing, and a specific to lessen the inclination Mrs. Fidget has to motion, and cause her always to give her approbation to the present place she is in. In fine, no Egyptian mummy was ever half so useful in physic, as I should be to these feverish constitutions, to repress the violent sallies of youth, and give each action its proper weight and repose

'I can stifle any violent inclination, and oppose a torrent of anger, or the solicitations of revenge, with success. Indolence is a stream which flows slowly on, but yet undermines the foundation of every virtue. A vice of a move lively nature were a more desirable tyrant than this rust of the mind, which gives a tincture

of ifs nature to every action of one's life. It since the good will not be confined to me alone, were as little hazard to be lost in a storm, as but will be of universal use. For there is no to lie thus perpetually becalmed and it is to hope of amendment where men are pleased no purpose to have within one the seeds of a with their ruin, and whilst they think laziness thousand good qualities, if we want the vigour is a desirable character; whether it be that and resolution necessary for the exerting them. they like the state itself, or that they think it Death brings all persons back to an equality; gives them a new lustre when they do exert and this image of it, this slumber of the mind, themselves, seemingly to be able to do that leaves no difference between the greatest ge- without labour and application, which others nius and the meanest understanding. A faculty attain to but with the greatest diligence. of doing things remarkably praise-worthy, thus I am, Sir, concealed, is of no more use to the owner, than a heap of gold to the man who dares not use it.

Your most obliged humble servant,
'SAMUEL SLACK."

'MADAM,

Clytander to Cleone.

To-morrow is still the fatal time when all is to be rectified. To-morrow comes, it goes, and still I please myself with the shadow, whilst I lose the reality: unmindful that the 'Permission to love you is all that I desire, present time alone is ours, the future is yet to conquer all the difficulties those about you unborn, and the past is dead, and can only live place in my way, to surmount and acquire all (as parents in their children) in the actions it those qualifications you expect in him whe has produced. pretends to the honour of being, Madam,

'The time we live ought not to be computed by the number of years, but by the use that has been made of it; thus, it is not the extent of ground, but the yearly rent, which gives the

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-Fruges consumere nati.
-Born to drink and eat.

Hor. Ep. ii. Lib. 1. 27-
Creech.

value to the estate. Wretched and thought No. 317.] Tuesday, March 4, 1711-12. less creatures, in the only place where covetousness were a virtue, we turn prodigals! Nothing lies upon our hands with such uneasiness, nor have there been so many devices for any one thing, as to make it slide away impercep- AUGUSTUS, a few minutes before his death, tibly and to no purpose. A shilling shall be asked his friends who stood about him, if they hoarded up with care, whilst that which is thought he had acted his part well; and upon above the price of an estate is flung away with receiving such an answer as was due to his disregard and contempt. There is nothing extraordinary merit, 'Let me then,' says he now-a-days, so much avoided, as a solicitous go off the stage with your applause;' using improvement of every part of time; it is a re- the expression with which the Roman actors port must be shunned as one tenders the name made their exit at the conclusion of a draof a wit and a fine genius, and as one fears thematic piece. I could wish that men, while dreadful character of a laborious plodder: but they are in health, would consider well the notwithstanding this, the greatest wits any nature of the part they are engaged in, and age has produced thought far otherwise; for what figure it will make in the minds of those who can think either Socrates or Demosthenes they leave behind them, whether it was worth lost any reputation, by their continual pains coming into the world for; whether it be suitboth in overcoming the defects and improving able to a reasonable being; in short, whether the gifts of nature? All are acquainted with it apears graceful in this life, or will turn to the labour and assiduity with which Tully ac- an advantage in the next. Let the sycophant, quired his eloquence. Seneca in his letters to or the buffoon, the satirist or the good comLucilius assures him, there was not a day in panion consider with himself, when his body which he did not either write something, or shall be laid in the grave, and his soul pass read and epitomize some good author; and I into another state of existence, how much it remember Pliny in one of his letters, where he will redound to his praise to have it said of gives an account of the various methods he him, that no man in England ate better, that used to fill up every vacancy of time, after he had an admirable talent at turning his several employments which he enumerates; friends into ridicule, that nobody out-did him "Sometimes," says he, "I hunt: but even at an ill-natured jest, or that he never went then I carry with me a pocket-book, that to bed before he had despatched his third whilst my servants are busied in disposing of bottle. These are, however, very common futhe nets and other matters, I may be employed neral orations, and eulogiums on deceased perin something that may be useful to me in my sons who have acted among mankind with studies; and that if I miss of my game, I may some figure and reputation. at the least bring home some of my own But if we look into the bulk of our species, thoughts with me, and not have the mortification of having caught nothing all day."

Thus, sir, you see, how many examples I recall to mind, and what arguments I use with myself, to regain my liberty: but as I am afraid it is no ordinary persuasion that will be of service, I shall expect your thoughts on this subject with the greatest impatience, especially

they are such as are not likely to be remembered a moment after their disappearance. They leave behind them no traces of their existence, but are forgotten as though they had never been. They are neither wanted by the poor, regretted by the rich, nor celebrated

* Vos valete et plaudite.

by the learned.

They are neither missed in news. A dish of twist. Grand vizier stran

the common-wealth, nor lamented by private gled.
persons. Their actions are of no significancy
to mankind, and might have been performed account of the great Turk.

From six to ten. At the club. Mr. Nisby's

Ten. Dream of the grand vizier. Broken

by creatures of much less dignity than those
who are distinguised by the faculty of reason. sleep.
An eminent French author speaks somewhere
to the following purpose: I have often seen
from my chamber window two noble creatures, shoe-buckle broke. Hands but not face.

both of them of an erect countenance and
endowed with reason. These two intellectual
beings are employed from morning to night
in rubbing two smooth stones one upon ano-
ther; that is, as the vulgar phrase is, in po-
lishing marble.

WEDNESDAY, eight o'clock. Tongue of my

Nine. Paid off the butcher's bill. Mem. to be allowed for the last leg of mutton.

Ten, eleven. At the Coffee-house. More

work in the north. Stranger in a black wig

asked me how stocks went.

From twelve to one. Walked in the fields. Wind to the south.

From one to two. Smoked a pipe and a half.

Two. Dined as usual. Stomach good. Three. Nap broke by the falling of a pewter dish. Mem. cook-maid in love, and grown careless.

My friend, Sir Andrew Freeport, as we were sitting in the club last night, gave us an account of a sober citizen, who died a few days since. This honest man being of greater consequence in his own thoughts than in the eye of the world, had for some years past kept a journal of his life. Sir Andrew showed us one week of it. Since the occurrences set down in it mark out such a road of action as that I have been speaking of, I shall present my reader with a faithful copy of it; after having first informed him, that the deceased persons Six o'clock in the evening. Was half an had in his youth been bred to trade, but find-hour in the club before any body else came. ing himself not so well turned for business, Mr. Nisby of opinion that the grand vizier he had for several years last past lived altogewas not strangled the sixth instant. ther upon a moderate annuity."

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One. Took a pot of Mother Cob's mild. Between two and three. Returned, dined on a knuckle of veal and bacon. Mem. sprouts wanting.

Three. Nap as usual.

From four to six. At the coffee-house. Advice from Smyrna that the grand vizier was first of all strangled, and afterwards beheaded.

Ten at night. Went to bed. Slept without waking until nine the next inorning.

THURSDAY, nine o'clock. Staid within until two o'clock for Sir Timothy; who did not bring me my annuity according to his pro

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for the head.
Six o'clock. At the club as steward. Sat
late.

Twelve o'clock. Went to bed, dreamt that
I drank small beer with the grand vizier.
SATURDAY. Waked at eleven, walked in the

From four to six. Coffee-house Read the fields, wird N. E.

It has been conjectured that this journal was intended to ridicule a gentleman who was a member of the congregation named Independents, where a Mr. Nesbit officiated as minister. See. John Dunton's account of his Life, Errors, and Opinions.

Twelve. Caught in a shower.

One in the afternoon. Returned home and dried myself.

Two. Mr. Nisby dined with me. First course, marrow-bones; second, ox-cheek, with a bottle of Brooks and Hellier.

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