⚫vided my felf with a very convenient House in a good Air, I'm not without Hope but that you will promote this generous Defign. I must farther tell you, Sir, that all who shall be committed to my Conduct, befide the ⚫ ufual Accomplishments of the Needle, Dancing, and the • French Tongue, fhall not fail to be your conftant Readers. It is therefore my humble Petition, that you will ⚫ entertain the Town in this important Subject, and fo far oblige a Stranger, as to raife a Curiofity and Inquiry in my Behalf, by publishing the following Advertisement. I am, S IR, 6 Your conftant Admirer. ADVERTISEMENT. THE Boarding-School for young Gentlewomen, which was formerly kept on Mile-End-Green, being laid down, there is now one fet up almoft oppofite to it at the two Golden Balls, and much more convenient in every Refpe&t; where, befide the common Inftructions given to young Gentlewomen, they will be taught the whole Art of PaAry and Preferving, with whatever may render them accomplished. Those who pleafe to make Tryal of the Vigilance and Ability of the Perfons 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 Vifitant of all Boarding-Schools, where young Women are educated; and defigns to proceed in the faid Office after the fame Manner that the Vifitants of Colleges do in the two famous Universities of this Land. ALL Lovers who write to the SPECTATOR, are defired to forbear one Expreffion which is in most of the Letters to him either out of Laziness, or want of Invention, and is true of not above two thousand Women in the whole World's viz. She has in her all that is valuable in Woman. T Saturday, N° 315. Saturday, March 1. Nec deus interfit, nifi dignus vindice nodus H Hor. ORACE advifes a Poet to confider thoroughly the Nature and Force of his Genius. Milton feems to have known perfectly well, wherein his Strength lay, and has therefore chosen a Subject entirely conformable to thofe Talents, of which he was Mafter. As his Genius was wonderfully turned to the Sublime, his Subject is the nobleft that could have entered into the Thoughts of Man. Every thing that is truly great and aftonishing, has a Place in it. The whole Syftem of the intellectual World; the Chaos, and the Creation; Heaven, Earth and Hell; enter into the Conftitution of his Poem. HAVING in the First and Second Books reprefented the Infernal World with all its Horrors, the Thread of his Fable naturally leads him into the oppofite Regions of Blifs and Glory. IF Milton's Majefty for fakes him any where, it is in thofe Parts of his Poem, where the Divine Perfons are introduced as Speakers. One may, I think, obferve, that the Author proceeds with a kind of Fear and Trembling, whilft he defcribes the Sentiments of the Almighty. He dares not give his Imagination its full Play, but chufes to confine himself to fuch Thoughts as are drawn from the Books of the moft Orthodox Divines, and to fuch Expreffions as may be met with in Scripture. The Beauties therefore, which we are to look for in thefe Speeches, are not of a Poetical Nature, nor fo proper to fill the Mind with Sentiments of Grandeur, as with Thoughts of Devotion. The Paffions, which they are defigned to raise, are a Divine Love and Religious Fear. The Particular Beauty of the Speeches in the Third Book, confifts in that Shortnefs and Perfpicuity of Style, in which the Poet has couched the greatest Myfteries of Christianity, and drawn drawn together, in a regular Scheme, the whole Difpenfation of Providence, with refpect to Man. He has reprefented all the abftrufe Doctrines of Predeftination, Free-Will and Grace, as alfo the great Points of Incarnation and Redemption, (which naturally grow up in a Poem that treats of the Fall of Man) with great Energy of Expreffion, and in a clearer and ftronger Light than I ever met with in any other Writer. As thefe Points are dry in themselves to the Generality of Readers, the concife and clear manner in which he has treated them, is very much to be admired, as is likewife that particular Art which he has made use of in the interfperfing of all thofe Graces of Poetry, which the Subject was capable of receiving. THE Survey of the whole Creation, and of every thing that is tranfacted in it is a Profpect worthy of Omniscience; and as much above that, in which Virgil has drawn his Jupiter, as the Chriftian Idea of the Supreme Being is more Rational and Sublime than that of the Heathens. The particular Objects on which he is defcribed to have caft his Eye, are reprefented in the most beautiful and lively Manner. Now had th' Almighty Father from above, High thron'd above all height) bent down his Eye, Stood thick as Stars, and from his Sight receiv'd To floop with wearied wings, and willing feet Firm land imbofom'd without firmament; 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 bleffed Spirits, and in the Divine Perfon to whom it was addreffed, cannot but fill the Mind of the Reader with a fecret Pleasure and Complacency. Thus while God fpake, ambrofial fragrance fill'd Beyond Compare the Son of God was feen Love without end, and without measure Grace. I need not point out the Beauty of that Circumstance, wherein the whole Hoft of Angels are reprefented as standing Mute; nor fhew how proper the Occafion was to produce fuch a Silence in Heaven. The Clofe of this Divine Colloquy, with the Hymn of Angels that follows upon it, are fo wonderfully Beautiful and Poetical, that I fhould not forbear inferting the whole Paffage, if the Bounds of my Paper would give me leave. No fooner had th' Almighty ceas'd, but all (Loud as from numbers without number, fweet Th' eternal regions ; &c. &c. SATAN'S Walk upon the Outfide of the Univerfe, 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 Mafs of Matter, which was wrought into a World, and that shapeless unformed Heap of Materials, which ftill lay in Chaos and Con Confufion, ftrikes the Imagination with fomething aftonishingly great and wild. I have before fpoken of the Limbo of Vanity, which the Poet places upon this outermoft Surface of the Univerfe, and fhall here explain my felf more at large on that, and other Parts of the Poem, which are of the fame Shadowy Nature. ARISTOTLE obferves, that the Fable of an Epic Poem fhould abound in Circumftances that are both credible and astonishing; or as the French Criticks chufe to phrase it, the Fable fhould be filled with the Probable and the Marvellous. This Rule is as fine and just as any in Ariftotle's whole Art of Poetry. IF the Fable is only Probable, it differs nothing from a true History; if it is only Marvellous, it is no better than a Romance. The great Secret therefore of Heroic Poetry is to relate fuch Circumftances as may produce in the Reader at the fame time both Belief and Astonishment. This is brought to pafs in a well-chofen Fable, by the Account of fuch things as have really happened, or at leaft of fuch things as have happened according to the received Opinions of Mankind. Milton's Fable is a Mater-piece 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 aftonishing in themfelves, 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 fuperior Nature, who are capable of effecting what is wonderful, and what is not to be met with in the ordinary courfe of things. Ulyffes's Ship being turned into a Rock, and Eneas's Fleet into a Shoal of Water-Nymphs, though they are very furprizing 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 fuch Circumftances as are wonderful, but not impoffible, and fo frequently produce in the Reader the moft pleafing Paffion that can rise in the Mind of Man, which is Admiration. If there be any Inftance in the Eneid liable to Exception upon this Account, it is in the Beginning of the Third Book, where Eneas |