degree of active or paffive fortitude, and fometimes of prudence; but he will be able to carry away few precepts of justice, and none of mercy.

From the Italian writers it appears, that the advantages of even Chriftian knowledge may be poffeffed in vain. Ariofto's pravity is generally known; and though the Deliverance of Jerufalem may be confidered as a facred fubject, the poet has been very sparing of moral instruction.

In Milton every line breathes fanctity of thought, and purity of manners, except when the train of the narration requires the introduction of the rebellious fpirits; and even they are compelled to acknowledge their fubjection to God, in fuch a manner as excites reverence, and confirms piety.

Of human beings there are but two; but those two are the parents of mankind, venerable before their fall for dignity and innocence, and amiable after it for repentance and sub. miffion. In their firft ftate their affection is tender without weakness, and their piety

fublime

fublime without prefumption. When they have finned, they fhew how difcord begins in mutual frailty, and how it ought to cease in mutual forbearance, how confidence of the divine favour is forfeited by fin, and how hope of pardon may be obtained by penitence and prayer. A state of innocence we can only conceive, if indeed, in our prefent misery, it be poffible to conceive it; but the sentiments and worship proper to a fallen and offending Being, we have all to learn, as we have all to practise.

The poet, whatever be done, is always great. Our progenitors, in their first state, converfed with angels; even when folly and fin had degraded them, they had not in their humiliation the port of mean fuitors; and they rife again to reverential regard, when we find that their prayers were heard.

As human paffions did not enter the world before the Fall, there is in the Paradife Loft little opportunity for the pathetick; but what little there is has not been loft. That paffion which is peculiar to rational nature, the anguifh arifing from the confcioufness of tranf

greffion,

greffion, and the horrors attending the fenfe of the Divine Displeasure, are very juftly defcribed and forcibly impreffed. But the paffions are moved only on one occafion; fublimity is the general and prevailing quality of this poem; fublimity variously modified, fometimes defcriptive, fometimes argumentative.

The defects and faults of Paradife Loft, for faults and defects every work of man must have, it is the business of impartial cri ticifm to discover, As, in difplaying the excellence of Milton, I have not made long quotations, becaufe of felecting beauties there had been no end, I fhall in the fame general manner mention that which feems to deferve cenfure; for what Englishman can take delight in tranfcribing paffages, which, if they leffen the reputation of Milton, diminish in fome degree the honour of our country?

The generality of my scheme does not admit the frequent notice of verbal inaccura cies; which Bentley, perhaps better killed in grammar than poetry, has often found, though he fometimes made them, and which he imputed to the obtrufions of a reviser, whom the author's blindness obliged him to employ;

employ a fuppofition rafh and groundless, if he thought it true, and vile and pernicious, if, as is faid, he in private allowed it to be falfe.

The plan of Paradife Loft has this inconvenience, that it comprifes neither human actions nor human manners. The man and woman who act and fuffer, are in a ftate which no other man or woman can ever know. The reader finds no transaction in which he can by any effort of imagination place himfelf; he has, therefore, little natural curiofity or fympathy.

We all, indeed, feel the effects of Adam's difobedience; we all fin like Adam, and like him muft all bewail our offences; we have reftlefs and infidious enemies in the fallen angels, and in the bleffed fpirits we have guardians and friends; in the Redemption of mankind we hope to be included; in the defcription of heaven and hell we are furely inter efted, as we are all to refide hereafter either in the regions of horrour or bliss.

But

But these truths are too important to be new; they have been taught to our infancy; they have mingled with our folitary thoughts and familiar converfation, and are habitually interwoven with the whole texture of life. Being therefore not new, they raise no unaccustomed emotion in the mind; what we knew before, we cannot learn; what is not unexpected, cannot furprise.

Of the ideas suggested by these awful scenes, from fome we recede with reverence, except when stated hours require their affociation ; and from others we fhrink with horrour, or admit them only as falutary inflictions, as counterpoifes to our interefts and paffions. Such images rather obstruct the career of fancy than incite it.

Pleasure and terrour are indeed the genuine fources of poetry; but poetical pleasure must be fuch as human imagination can at least conceive, and poetical terrours fuch as human ftrength and fortitude may combat. The good and evil of Eternity are too ponderous for the wings of wit; the mind finks under