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No. 294.] WEDNESDAY, FEB. 6, 1711-12. Difficile est plurimum virtutem revereri qui semper secunda fortuna sit usus.-TULL. ad Herennium.

The man who is always fortunate, cannot easily have much reverence for virtue.

INSOLENCE is the crime of all others which every man is apt to rail at; and yet there is one respect in which almost all men living are guilty of it, and that is in the case of laying a greater value upon the gifts of fortune than we ought. It is here in England come into our very language as a propriety of distinction, to say, when we would speak of persons to their advantage, "They are people of condition." There is no doubt but the proper use of riches implies, that a man should exert all the good qualities imaginable; and if we mean by a man of condition or quality, one who, according to the wealth he is master of, shows himself just, beneficent, and charitable, that term ought very deservedly to be had in the highest veneration; but when wealth is used only as it is the support of pomp and luxury, to be rich is very far from being a recommendation to honour and respect. It is indeed the greatest insolence imaginable, in a creature who would feel the extremes of thirst and hunger, if he did not prevent his appetites, before they call upon him, to be so forgetful of the common necessities of human nature, as never to cast an eye upon the poor and needy. The fellow who escaped from a ship which struck upon a rock in the west, and joined with the country people to destroy his brother sailors, and make her a wreck, was thought a most execrable creature; but does not every man who enjoys the possession of what he naturally wants, and is unmindful of the unsupplied distress of other men, betray the same temper of mind? When a man looks about him, and, with regard to riches and poverty, beholds some drawn in pomp and equipage, and they, and their very servants, with an air of scorn and triumph, overlooking the multitude that pass by them; and in the same street a creature of the same make, crying out, in the name of all that is good and sacred, to behold his misery, and give him some supply against hunger and nakedness; who would believe these two beings were of the same species? But so it is, that the consideration of fortune has taken up all our minds, and as I have often complained, poverty and riches stand in our imaginations in the places of guilt and innocence. But in all seasons there will be some instances of persons who have souls too large to be taken with popular prejudices, and, while the rest of mankind are contending for superiority in power and wealth, have their thoughts bent upon the necessities of those below them. The charity schools, which have been erected of late years, are the greatest instances of public spirit the age has produced. But, indeed, when we consider how long this sort of beneficence has been on foot, it is rather from the good management of those institutions, than from the number or value of the benefactions to them, that they make so great a figure. One would think it impossible that in the space of fourteen years there should not have been five thousand pounds bestowed in gifts this way, nor sixteen hundred children, including males and females, put out to methods of industry. It is not allowed me to speak of luxury and folly with the severe spirit they deserve; I shall only therefore say, I shall very readily, compound with any lady in a hooped petticoat, if she give the price of one

half yard of the silk towards clothing, feeding, and
instructing an innocent helpless creature of her own
sex, in one of these schools. The consciousness of
such an action will give her features a nobler life
on this illustrious day, than all the jewels that can
hang in her hair, or can be clustered in her bosom.
It would be uncourtly to speak in harsher words to
the fair, but to men one may take a little more free-
dom. It is monstrous how a man can live with so
little reflection, as to fancy he is not in a condition
very unjust and disproportioned to the rest of man-
kind, while he enjoys wealth, and exerts no bene-
volence or bounty to others. As for this particular
occasion of these schools, there cannot any offer
more worthy a generous mind. Would you do a
handsome thing without return; do it for an infant
that is not sensible of the obligation. Would you
do it for public good; do it for one who will be an
honest artificer. Would you do it for the sake of
heaven; give it to one who shall be instructed in
the worship of him for whose sake you gave it. It
is, methinks, a most laudable institution this, if it
were of no other expectation than that of producing
a race of good and useful servants, who will have
more than a liberal, a religious education. What
would not a man do in common prudence, to lay
out in purchase of one about him, who would add
to all his orders he gave, the weight of the com-
mandments, to enforce an obedience to them? for
one who would consider his master as his father, his
friend, and benefactor, upon easy terms, and in
expectation of no other return, but moderate wages
and gentle usage? It is the common vice of chil-
dren, to run too much among the servants; from
such as are educated in these places they would see
nothing but lowliness in the servant, which would
not be disingenuous in the child. All the ill offices
and defamatory whispers, which take their birth
from domestics, would be prevented, if this charity
could be made universal: and a good man might
have a knowledge of the whole life of the persons
he designs to take into his house for his own ser-
vice, or that of his family or children, long before
they were admitted. This would create endearing
dependencies; and the obligation would have a
paternal air in the master, who would be relieved
from much care and anxiety by the gratitude and
diligence of a humble friend, attending him as his
servant. I fall into this discourse from a letter
sent to me, to give me notice that fifty boys would
be clothed, and take their seats (at the charge of
some generous benefactors) in St. Bride's church,
on Sunday next. I wish I could promise to my-
self any thing which my correspondent seems to
expect from a publication of it in this paper; for
there can be nothing added to what so many excel-
lent and learned men have said on this occasion.
But that there may be something here which would
move a generous mind, like that of him who wrote
to me, I shall transcribe a handsome paragraph o.
Dr. Snape's sermon on these charities, which my
correspondent enclosed with his letter.

"The wise Providence has amply compensated the disadvantages of the poor and indigent, in wanting many of the conveniences of this life, by a more abundant provision for their happiness in the next. Had they been higher born, or more richly endowed, they would have wanted this manner of education, of which those only enjoy the benefit,

The birth-day of her majesty Queen Anne, who was boug Feb. 6, 1665, and died Aug. 1, 1714, aged 49.

who are low enough to submit to it; where they have such advantages without money, and without price, as the rich cannot purchase with it. The learning which is given, is generally more edifying to them, than that which is sold to others. Thus do they become exalted in goodness, by being depressed in fortune, and their poverty is, in reality, their preferment.'

T.

himself, and in a manner becoming accessary to his own dishonour. We may, indeed, generally observe, that in proportion as a woman is more or less beautiful, and her husband advanced in years, she stands in need of a greater or less number of pins, and, upon a treaty of marriage, rises or falls in her demands accordingly. It must likewise be owned, that high quality in a mistress does very much inflame this article in the marriage-reckoning. But where the age and circumstances of both

No. 295.] THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1711-12. parties are pretty much upon a level, I cannot but

Prodiga non sentit pereuntem fœmina censum:
At velut exhausta redivivus pullulet arca
Nummus, et e pleno semper tollatur acervo,
Non unquam reputat, quanti sibi gaudia constent.

Juv. Sat. vi. 361.

But womankind, that never knows a mean,
Down to the dregs their sinking fortunes drain.
Hourly they give, and spend, and waste, and wear,
And think no pleasure can be bought too dear.-DRYDEN

"MR. SPECTATOR,

a-year

"I AM turned of my great climacteric, and am naturally a man of a meek temper. About a dozen years ago I was married, for my sins, to a young woman of good family, and of a high spirit; but could not bring her to close with me, before I had entered into a treaty with her, longer than that of the grand alliance. Among other articles, it was therein stipulated, that she should have 400. for pin-money, which I obliged myself to pay quarterly into the hands of one who acted as her plenipotentiary in that affair. I have ever since religiously observed my part in this solemn agreement. Now, Sir, so it is, that the lady has had several children since I married her; to which, if I should credit our malicious neighbours, her pin-money has not a little contributed. The education of these my children, who, contrary to my expectation, are born to me every year, straitens me so much, that I have begged their mother to free me from the obligation of the above-mentioned pin-money, that it may go towards making a provision for her family. This proposal makes her noble blood swell in her veins, insomuch that, finding me a little tardy in my last quarter's payment, she threatens ine every day to arrest me; and proceeds so far as to tell me that if I do not do her justice, I shall die in a gaol. To this she adds, when her passion will let her argue calmly, that she has several play-debts on her hands, which must be discharged very suddenly, and that she cannot lose her money as becomes a woman of fashion, if she makes me any abatement in this article. I hope, Sir, you will take an occasion from hence to give your opinion upon a subject which you have not yet touched, and inform us if there are any precedents for this usage among our ancestors; or whether you find any mention of pinmoney in Grotius, Puffendorf, or any other of the civilians.

"I am ever the humblest of your Admirers, "JOSIAH FRIBBLE, Esq" As there is no man living who is a more professed advocate for the fair sex than myself, so there is none that would be more unwilling to invade any of their ancient rights and privileges; but as the doctrine of pin-money is of a late date, unknown to our great-grandmothers, and not yet received by many of our modern ladies, I think it is for the interest of both sexes to keep it from spreading.

Mr. Fribble may not, perhaps, be much mistaken where he intimates, that the supplying a man's wife with pin-money, is furnishing her with arms against

think the insisting upon pin-money is very extraordinary; and yet we find several matches broken off upon this very head. What would a foreigner, or one who is a stranger to this practice, think of a lover that forsakes his mistress, because he is not willing to keep her in pins? But what would he think of the mistress, should he be informed that she asks five or six hundred pounds a year for this use? Should a man unacquainted with our customs be told the sums which are allowed in Great Britain, under the title of pin-money, what a prodigious consumption of pins would he think there was

in this island?

"A pin a day," says our frugal proverb, " is a groat a year;" so that, according to this calculation, my friend Fribble's wife must every year make use of eight million six hundred and forty thousand new pins.

I am not ignorant that our British ladies allege they comprehend under this general term several for the honour of my countrywomen, that they had other conveniences of life; I could therefore wish, rather called it needle-money, which might have implied something of good housewifery, and not have given the malicious world occasion to think, that dress and trifles have always the uppermost place in a woman's thoughts.

fence of this practice, that it is but a necessary proI know several of my fair readers urge in devision they make for themselves, in case their husband proves a churl, or miser; so that they consider this allowance as a kind of alimony, which they may lay their claim to, without actually separating from their husbands. But, with submission, I think a woman who will give up herself to a man in marriage, where there is the least room for such an apwill not rely on for the common necessaries of life, prehension, and trust her person to one whom she may very properly be accused (in the phrase of a homely proverb) of being " penny wise and pound

foolish."

It is observed of over-cautious generals, that they in case the event should not answer their expectanever engage in battle without securing a retreat, have burnt their ships, or broke down the bridges tions; on the other hand, the greatest conquerors behind them, as being determined either to succeed or die in the engagement. In the same manner I should very much suspect a woman who takes such precautions for her retreat, and contrives methods how she may live happily, without the affection of one to whom she joins herself for life. Separate purses between man and wife are, in my opinion, as unnatural as separate beds. A marriage cannot be happy, where the pleasures, inclinations, and interests of both parties are not the same. There is no greater incitement to love in the mind of man, than the sense of a person's depending upon him for her ease and happiness; as a woman uses all her endeavours to please the person whom she looks upon as her honour, her comfort, and her support.

For this reason, I am not very much surprised at

character more likely to be prevalent in this re
quest, than if I should subscribe myself by my pro-
per name.
"J. M.

"I desire you may insert this in one of your speculations, to show my zeal for removing the dissatisfaction of the fair sex, and restoring you to

their favour."

SIR,

the behaviour of a rough country 'squire, who, being not a little shocked at the proceeding of a young widow that would not recede from her demands of pin-money, was so enraged at her mercenary tem per, that he told her in great wrath, "As much as she thought him her slave, he would show all the world he did not care a pin for her." Upon which he flew out of the room, and never saw her more. Socrates in Plato's Alcibiades, says he was informed by one who had travelled through Persia, "I was some time since in company with a that as he passed over a great tract of land, and in-young officer, who entertained us with the conquest quired what the name of the place was, they told he had made over a female neighbour of his : when him it was the Queen's Girdle: to which he adds, a gentleman who stood by, as I suppose, envying that another wide field which lay by it, was called the captain's good fortune, asked him what reason the Queen's Veil; and that in the same manner he had to believe the lady admired him? Why,' there was a large portion of ground set aside for says he, my lodgings are opposite to hers, and she every part of her majesty's dress. These lands is continually at her window either at work, readmight not be improperly called the Queen of Per-ing, taking snuff, or putting herself in some toying sia's pin-money.

I remember my friend Sir Roger, who, I dare say, never read this passage in Plato, told me some time since, that upon his courting the perverse widow (of whom I have given an account in former papers) he had disposed of a hundred acres in a diamond ring, which he would have presented her with, had she thought fit to accept it; and that upon her wedding-day, she should have carried on her head fifty of the tallest oaks upon his estate. He further informed me, that he would have given her a coal-pit to keep her in clean linen, that he would have allowed her the profits of a windmill for her fans, and have presented her once in three years with the shearing of his sheep for her under-petticoats. To which the knight always adds, that though he did not care for fine clothes himself, there should not have been a woman in the country better dressed than my Lady Coverley. Sir Roger, perhaps, may in this, as well as in many other of his devices, appear somewhat odd and singular; but if the humour o. pin-money prevails, I think it would be very proper for every gentleman of an estate to mark out so many acres of it under the title of "The Pins."-L

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posture, on purpose to draw my eyes that way.' The confession of this vain soldier made me reflect on some of my own actions; for you must know, Sir, I am often at a window which fronts the apartments of several gentlemen, who I doubt not have the same opinion of me. I must own I love to look at them all, one for being well dressed, a second for his fine eye, and one particular one, because he is the least man I ever saw; but there is something so easy and pleasant in the manner of my little man, that I observe he is a favourite of all his acquaintance. I could go on to tell you of many others, that I believe think I have encouraged them from my window: but pray let me have your opinion of the use of a window, in the apartment of a beautiful lady; and how often she may look out at the same man, without being supposed to have a mind to jump out to him.

"Yours,

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I have for some time made love to a lady, who received it with all the kind returns I ought to expect: but, without any provocation that I know of,

No. 296.] FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1711-12. she has of late shunned me with the utmost abhor

-Nugis addere pondus. HOR. I Ep. xix. 42.

Add weight to trifles.

"DEAR SPEC.,

your

"HAVING lately conversed much with the fair sex on the subject of your speculations (which, since their appearance in public, have been the chief exercise of the female loquacious faculty), I found the fair ones possessed with a dissatisfaction at your prefixing Greek mottos to the frontispieces of late papers; and as a man of gallantry, I thought it a duty incumbent on me to impart it to you in hopes of a reformation, which is only to be effected by a restoration of the Latin to the usual dignity in your papers, which of late the Greek, to the great displeasure of your female readers, has usurped; for though the Latin has the recommendation of being as unintelligible to them as the Greek, yet being written in the same character with their mother tongue, by the assistance of a spelling-book it is legible; which quality the Greek wants: and since the introduction of operas into this nation, the ladies are so charmed with sounds abstracted from their ideas, that they adore and honour the sound of Latin, as it is old Italian. I am a solicitor for the fair sex, and therefore think myself in that

rence, insomuch that she went out of church last
Sunday in the midst of divine service, upon my
coming into the same pew. Pray, Sir, what must
I do in this business?
"Your Servant,

"EUPHUES."

Let her alone ten days.

York, Jan. 20, 1711-12.

"MR. SPECTATOR, "We have in this town a sort of people who pretend to wit, and write lampoons; I have lately been the subject of one of them. The scribbler had not genius enough in verse to turn my age, as indeed I am an old maid, into raillery, for affecting a youthier turn than is consistent with my time of day; and therefore he makes the title of his madrigal, the character of Mrs. Judith Lovebane, born in the year 1680. What I desire of you is, that you disallow that a coxcomb, who pretends to write verse, should put the most malicious thing he can say in prose. This I humbly conceive will disable our country wits, who indeed take a great deal of pains to say any thing in rhyme, though they say it very ill. "I am, Sir, your humble Servant,

"SUSANNA LOVEBANE,“

"MR. SPECTATOR,

The most taking tragedies among the ancients were built on this last sort of implex fable, particularly the tragedy of Edipus, which proceeds upon a

"We are several of us, gentlemen and ladies, who board in the same house, and after dinner one of our company (an agreeable man enough other-story, if we may believe Aristotle, the most proper wise) stands up and reads your paper to us all. We are the civilest people in the world to one another, and therefore I am forced to this way of desiring our reader when he is doing this office, not to stand afore the fire. This will be a general good to our family this cold weather. He will, I know, take it to be our common request when he comes to these words, Pray, Sir, sit down ;' which I desire you to insert, and you will particularly oblige "Your daily Reader, "CHARITY FROST."

"SIR,

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for tragedy that could be invented by the wit of man. I have taken some pains in a former paper to show, that this kind of implex fable, wherein the event is unhappy, is more apt to affect an audience than that of the first kind; notwithstanding many excellent pieces among the ancients, as well as most of those which have been written of late years in our own country, are raised upon contrary plans. I must however own, that I think this kind of fable, which is the most perfect in tragedy, is not so proper for an heroic poem.

Milton seems to have been sensible of this imperfection in his fable, and has therefore endeavoured

"I am a great lover of dancing, but cannot per- to cure it by several expedients; particularly by form so well as some others; however, by my out-the mortification which the great adversary of manof-the-way capers, and some original grimaces, I do not fail to divert the company, particularly the ladies, who laugh immoderately all the time. Some, who pretend to be my friends, tell me they do it in derision, and would advise me to leave it off, withal that I make myself ridiculous. I do not know what to do in this affair, but I am resolved not to give over upon any account, until I have the opinion of the Spectator.

"Your humble Servant,

"JOHN TROTT."

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kind meets with upon his return to the assembly of infernal spirits, as it is described in a beautiful passage of the third book; and likewise by the vision wherein Adam, at the close of the poem, sees his offspring triumphing over his great enemy, and himself restored to a happier paradise than that from

which he fell.

There is another objection against Milton's fable, which is indeed almost the same with the former, though placed in a different light, namely-That the hero in the Paradise Lost is unsuccessful, and by no means a match for his enemies. This gives occasion for Mr. Dryden's reflection, that the devil was in reality Milton's hero. I think I have obviated this objection in my first paper. The Paradise Lost is an epic, or a narrative poem, and he that looks for a hero in it, searches for that which Milton never intended; but if he will indeed fix the name of a hero upon any person in it, it is cer

No. 297.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1711-12. tainly the Messiah who is the hero, both in the

-velut si

Egregio inspersos reprendas corpore nævos. HOR. I Sat. vi. 66. As perfect beauties somewhere have a mole.-CREECH. AFTER what I have said in my last Saturday's paper, I shall enter on the subject of this without further preface, and remark the several defects which appear in the fable, the characters, the sentiments, and the language of Milton's Paradise Lost; not doubting but the reader will pardon me, if I allege at the same time whatever may be said for the extenuation of such defects. The first imperfection which I shall observe in the fable is, that the event of it is unhappy.

The fable of every poem is, according to Aristotle's division, either simple or implex. It is called simple when there is no change of fortune in it: implex, when the fortune of the chief actor changes from bad to good, or from good to bad. The implex fable is thought the most perfect: I suppose, because it is more proper to stir up the passions of the reader, and to surprise him with a great variety of accidents.

principal action and in the chief episodes. Pagan-
ism could not furnish out a real action for a fable
greater than that of the Iliad or Eneid, and there-
fore a heathen could not form a higher notion of a
poem than one of that kind which they call an he-
roic. Whether Milton's is not of a sublimer nature
I will not presume to determine; it is sufficient
that I show there is in the Paradise Lost all the
greatness of plan, regularity of design, and masterly
beauties which we discover in Homer and Virgil.
I must in the next place observe, that Milton has
interwoven in the texture of this fable some parti-
culars which do not seem to have probability enough
for an epic poem, particularly in the actions which
he ascribes to Sin and Death, and the picture which
he draws of the "Limbo of Vanity," with other
passages in the second book. Such allegories ra-
ther savour of the spirit of Spenser and Ariosto,
than of Homer and Virgil.

In the structure of his poem he has likewise admitted too many digressions. It is finely observed by Aristotle, that the author of an heroic poem should seldom speak himself, but throw as much of The implex fable is therefore of two kinds: in his work as he can into the mouths of those who are the first, the chief actor makes his way through a his principal actors. Aristotle has given no reason long series of dangers and difficulties, until he ar- for this precept: but I presume it is because the rives at honour and prosperity, as we see in the mind of the reader is more awed, and elevated, stories of Ulysses and Æneas; in the second, the when he hears Æneas or Achilles speak, than when chief actor in the poem falls from some eminent Virgil or Homer talk in their own persons. Bepitch of honour and prosperity, into misery and dis-sides that, assuming the character of an eminent grace. Thus we see Adam and Eve sinking from a state of innocence and happiness, into the most abject condition of sin and sorrow. SPECTATOR.-Nos. 43 & 44.

man is apt to fire the imagination, and raise the ideas of the author. Tully tells us, mentioning his dialogue of old age, in which Cato is the chief

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speaker, that upon a review of it he was agreeably imposed upon, and fancied that it was Cato, and not he himself, who uttered his thoughts on that subject.

If the reader would be at the pains to see how the story of the Iliad and the Æneid is delivered by those persons who act in it, he will be surprised to find how little either of these poems proceeds from the authors. Milton has, in the general disposition of his fable, very finely observed this great rule; insomuch that there is scarce a tenth part of it which comes from the poet; the rest is spoken either by Adam or Eve, or by some good or evil spirit who is engaged, either in their destruction, or defence.

From what has been here observed, it appears, that digressions are by no means to be allowed of in an epic poem. If the poet, even in the ordinary course of his narration, should speak as little as possible, he should certainly never let his narration sleep for the sake of any reflections of his own. I have often observed with a secret admiration, that the longest reflection in the Æneid is in that passage of the tenth book, where Turnus is represented as dressing himself in the spoils of Pallas, whom he had slain. Virgil here lets his fable stand still, for the sake of the following remark. "How is the mind of man ignorant of futurity, and unable to bear prosperous fortune with moderation! The time will come when Turnus shall wish that he had left the body of Pallas untouched, and curse the day on which he dressed himself in these spoils." As the great event of the Æneid, and the death of Turnus, whom Eneas slew because he saw him adorned with the spoils of Pallas, turns upon this incident, Virgil went out of his way to make this reflection upon it, without which so small a circumstance might possibly have slipt out of his reader's memory. Lucan, who was an injudicious poet, lets drop his story very frequently for the sake of his unnecessary digressions, or his diverticula, as Scaliger calls them. If he gives us an account of the prodigies which preceded the civil war, he declaims upon the occasion, and shows how much happier it would be for man, if he did not feel his evil fortune before it comes to pass and suffer not only by its real weight, but by the apprehension of it. Milton's complaint for his blindness, his panegyric on marriage, his reflections on Adam and Eve's going naked, of the angels' eating, and several other passages in his poem, are liable to the same exception, though I must confess there is so great a beauty in these very digressions, that I would not wish them out of his poem.

them as fabulous, as he does in some places, out where he mentions them as truths and matters of fact. The limits of my paper will not give me leave to be particular in instances of this kind; the reader will easily remark them in his perusal of the poem.

A third fault in his sentiments is an uneasy ostentation of learning, which likewise occurs very frequently. It is certain that both Homer and Virgil were masters of all the learning of their times, but it shows itself in their works after an indirect and concealed manner. Milton seems ambitious of letting us know, by his excursions on free will and predestination, and his many glances upon history, astronomy, geography, and the like, as well as by the terms and phrases he sometimes makes use of, that he was acquainted with the whole circle of arts and sciences.

If in the last place we consider the language of this great poet, we must allow what I have hinted in a former paper, that it is often too much laboured, and sometimes obscured by old words, transpositions, and foreign idioms. Seneca's objection to the style 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, so I have already apologised for it in another paper: to which I may further add, that Milton's sentiments and ideas were so wonderfully sublime, that it would have been impossible for him to have represented them in their full strength and beauty, without having recourse to these foreign assistances. Our language sunk under him, and was unequal to that greatness of soul which furnished him with such glorious conceptions.

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

And brought into the world a world of woe.
Begirt th' Almighty throne

Beseeching or besieging

This tempted our attempt

At one slight bound high over leapt all bound.

I know there are figures for this kind of speech; that some of the greatest ancients have been guilty of it, and that Aristotle 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 present universally exploded by all the masters of polite writing.

The last fault which I shall take notice of in Milton's style, is the frequent use of what the learned call technical words, or terms of art. It is one of the greatest beauties of poetry, to make hard things I have in a former paper spoken of the charac-intelligible, and to deliver what is abstruse of itself ters of Milton's Paradise Lost, and declared my in such easy language as may be understood by opinion as to the allegorical persons who are intro-ordinary readers; besides that the knowledge of a duced in it.

If we look into the sentiments, I think they are sometimes defective under the following heads; first, as there are several of them too much pointed, and some that degenerate even into puns. Of this last kind I am afraid is that in the first book, where, speaking of the pigmies, he calls them

The small infantry
Warr'd on by cranes-

Another blemish that appears in some of his thoughts, is his frequent allusion to heathen fables, which are not certainly of a piece with the divine subject of which he treats. I do not find fault with these allusions where the poet himself represents

poet should rather seem born with him, or inspired, than drawn with books and systems. I have often wondered how Mr. Dryden could translate a passage out of Virgil after the following manner:

Tack to the larboard and stand off to sea,
Veer starboard sea and land.-

Milton makes use of larboard in the same manner. When he is upon building, he mentions doric pillars, pilasters, cornice, frieze, architravé. When he talks of heavenly bodies, you meet with ecliptic and eccentric, the trepidation, stars dropping from the zenith, rays culminating from the equator: to which might be added many instances of the like kind in several other arts and sciences.

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