tuled Paradife Loft only a poem, yet calls it himfelf heroick fong. Dryden, petulantly and indecently, denies the heroifm of Adam, because he was overcome; but there is no reason why the hero fhould not be unfortu nate, except established practice, since success and virtue do not go neceflarily together. Cato is the hero of Lucan; but Lucan's authority will not be fuffered by Quintilian to decide. However, if fuccefs be neceffary, Adam's deceiver was at laft crufhed; Adam was reftored to his Maker's favour, and therefore may fecurely refume his human rank.

After the fcheme and fabrick of the poem, must be confidered its component parts, the fentiments and the diction.

The fentiments, as expreffive of manners, or appropriated to characters, are, for the greater part, unexceptionably juft.

Splendid paffages, containing leffons of morality, or precepts of prudence, occur feldom. Such is the original formation of this poem, that as it admits no human manners till the Fall, it can give little affiftance

to

to human conduct. Its end is to raise the thoughts above fublunary cares or pleasures. Yet the praise of that fortitude, with which Abdiel maintained his fingularity of virtue against the scorn of multitudes, may be accommodated to all times; and Raphael's reproof of Adam's curiofity after the planetary motions, with the anfwer returned by Adam, may be confidently oppofed to any rule of life which any poet has delivered.

The thoughts which are occafionally called forth in the progrefs, are fuch as could only be produced by an imagination in the highest degree fervid and active, to which materials were fupplied by inceffant ftudy and unlimited curiofity. The heat of Milton's mind might be faid to fublimate his learning, to throw off into his work the spirit of science, unmingled with its groffer parts.

He had confidered creation in its whole extent, and his defcriptions are therefore learned. He had accustomed his imagination to unre ftrained indulgence, and his conceptions therefore were extenfive. The characteristick quality of his poem is fublimity. He fomeR 4 times

times defcends to the elegant, but his element He can occafionally invest

is the great.

himself with grace; but his natural port is

gigantick loftiness *. pleasure is required; power to astonish.

He can please when

but it is his peculiar

He feems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to know what it was that Nature had beftowed upon him more bountifully than upon others; the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the splendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful; he therefore chose a subject on which too much could not be faid, on which he might tire his fancy without the cenfure of extravagance,

The appearances of nature, and the occurrences of life, did not fatiate his appetite of greatnefs. To paint things as they are, requires a minute attention, and employs the memory rather than the fancy. Milton's delight was to fport in the wide regions of poffibility; reality was a fcene too narrow for his mind. He fent his faculties out upon difcovery, into worlds where only imagina* Algarotti terms it gigantesca fublimità Miltoniana. Dr. J.

tion can travel, and delighted to form new modes of exiftence, and furnish fentiment and action to fuperior beings, to trace the counfels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven.

But he could not be always in other worlds; he muft fometimes revifit earth, and tell of things vifible and known. When he cannot raise wonder by the fublimity of his mind, he gives delight by its fertility.

Whatever be his fubject, he never fails to fill the imagination. But his images and defcriptions of the fcenes or operations of Nature do not seem to be always copied from original form,, nor to have the frefhnefs, racinefs, and energy of immediate obfervation. He saw Nature, as Dryden expreffes it, through the fpectacles of books; and on most occafions calls learning to his affiftance. The garden of Eden brings to his mind the vale of Enna, where Proferpine was gathering flowers. Satan makes his way through fighting elements, like Argo between the Cyanean rocks, or Ulyffes between the two Sicilian whirlpools, when he fhunned Charybdis on the larboard. The mythological allufions have been juftly

cen

cenfured, as not being always used with notice of their vanity; but they contribute variety to the narration, and produce an alternate exercife of the memory and the fancy.

His fimilies are lefs numerous, and more various, than thofe of his predeceffors. But he does not confine himfelf within the limits of rigorous comparifon: his great excellence is amplitude, and he expands the adventitious image beyond the dimenfions which the occafion required. Thus comparing the fhield of Satan to the orb of the Moon, he crowds the imagination with the difcovery of the telescope, and all the wonders which the telescope difcovers.

Of his moral fentiments it is hardly praise to affirm that they excel thofe of all other poets; for this fuperiority he was indebted to his acquaintance with the facred writings. The ancient epick poets, wanting the light of Revelation, were very unfkilful teachers of virtue: their principal characters may be great, but they are not amiable. The reader may rife from their works with a greater

degree