AT THE RECEPTION OF HIS PAPERS. 13 nary Care not to give Offence to those who appear in the higher Figures of Life, I would not make my self merry even with a Piece of Pasteboard that is invested with a publick Character; for which Reason I have never glanced upon the late defigned Proceffion of his Holinefs and his Attendants, notwithstanding it might have afforded Matter to many ludicrous Speculations. Among thofe Advantages which the Publick may reap from this Paper, it is not the least, that it draws Mens Minds off from the Bitterness of Party, and furnishes them with Subjects of Discourse that may be treated without Warmth or Paffion. This is faid to have been the first Design of those Gentlemen who set on Foot the Royal Society; and had then a very good Effect, as it turned many of the greatest Genius's of that Age to the Disquisitions of natural Knowledge, who, if they had engaged in Politicks with the fame Parts and Application, might have set their Country in a Flame. The Air-Pump, the Barometer, the Quadrant, and the like Inventions, were thrown out to those busy Spirits, as Tubs and Barrels are to a Whale, that he may let the Ship fail on without Disturbance, while he diverts himself with those innocent Amusements. I have been so very scrupulous in this Particular of not hurting any Man's Reputation, that I have forborn mentioning even fuch Authors as I could not name with Honour. This I must confefs to have been a Piece of very great Self-denial: For as the Publick relishes nothing better than the Ridicule which turns upon a Writer of any Eminence, fo there is nothing which a Man that has but a very ordinary Talent in Ridicule may execute with greater Ease. One might raise Laughter for a Quarter of a Year together upon the Works of a Person who has published but a very few Volumes. For which Reasons I am aftonished, that those who have appeared against this Paper have made so very little of it. The Criticisms which I have hitherto published, have been made with an Intention rather to discover Beauties and Excellencies in the Writers of my own Time, than to publish any of their Faults and Imperfections. In the mean while I should take it for a very great Favour from fome of my under-' hand Detractors, if they would break all Measures with me fo far, as to give me a Pretence for examining their Performances with an impartial Eye: Nor fhall I look upon it as any Breach of Charity to criticise the Author, fo long as I keep clear of the Perfon. In the mean while, till I am provoked to fuch Hoftilities, I shall from Time to Time endeavour to do Justice to those who have diftinguished themselves in the politer Parts of Learning, and to point out fuch Beauties in their Works as may have escaped the Obfervation of others. As the first Place among our English Poets is due to Milton, and as I have drawn more Quotations out of him than from any other, I fhall enter into a regular Criticism upon his Paradife loft, which I fhall publish every Saturday till I have given my Thoughts upon that Poem. I fhall not however presume to impose upon others my own particular Judgment on this Author, but only deliver it as my private Opinion. Criticism is of a very large Extent, and every particular Master in this Art has his favourite Paffages in an Author, which do not equally ftrike the best Judges. It will be fufficient for me if I difcover many Beauties or Imperfections which others have not attended to, and I should be very glad to fee any of our eminent Writers publish their Discoveries on the fame Subject. In fhort, I would always be understood to write my Papers of Criticism in the Spirit which Horace has expreffed in those two famous Lines, -Si quid novifti rectius iftis Candidus imperti, fi non his utere mecum. If you have made any better Remarks of your own, communicate them with Candour; if not, make use of these I present you with. The SPECTATOR. Propert. Cedite Romani Scriptores, cedite Graii. Saturday, January, 5. 1712. THERE is nothing in Nature so irksom[e] as general Discourses, especially when they turn chiefly upon Words. For this Reason I fhall wave the Difcuffion of that Point which was started fome Years fince, Whether Milton's Paradife Loft may be called an Heroick Poem? Those who will not give it that Title, may call it (if they please) a Divine Poem. It will be fufficient to its Perfection, if it has in it all the Beauties of the highest kind of Poetry; and as for those who fay [alledge] it is not an Heroick Poem, they advance no more to the Diminution of it, than if they fhould fay Adam is not Æneas, nor Eve Helen. I shall therefore examine it by the Rules of Epic Poetry, and fee whether it falls fhort of the Iliad or Eneid, in the Beauties which are effential to that kind of Writing. The first Thing to be considered in an Epic Poem, is the Fable, which is perfect or imperfect, according as the Action which it relates is more or lefs fo. This Action fhould have three Qualifications in it. First, It should be but one Action. Secondly, It should be an entire Action; and Thirdly, It should be a great Action. To confider the Action of the Iliad, Æneid, and Paradife Loft in these three feveral Lights. Homer to preserve the Unity of his Action haftens into the midst of things, as Horace has obferved: Had he gone up 16 THE FABLE PERFECT OR IMPERFECT AS IS THE ACTION. to Leda's Fgg, or begun much later, even at the Rape of Helen, or the Invefting of Troy, it is manifest that the Story of the Poem would have been a Series of feveral Actions. He therefore opens his Poem with the Difcord of his Princes, and with great Art interweaves in the feveral fucceeding parts of it, an account of every thing [material] which relates to the Story [them], and had paffed before that fatal Diffenfion. After the fame manner Æneas makes his first appearance in the Tyrrhene Seas, and within fight of Italy, because the Action propofed to be celebrated was that of his Settling himself in Latium. But because it was neceffary for the Reader to know what had happened to him in the taking of Troy, and in the preceding parts of his Voyage, Virgil makes his Hero relate it by way of Episode in the second and third Books of the Eneid. The Contents of both which Books come before those of the first Book in the Thread of the Story, tho' for preferving of this Unity of Action, they follow them in the Disposition of the Poem. Milton, in Imitation of these two great Poets, opens his Paradife Loft with an Infernal Council plotting the Fall of Man, which is the Action he propofed to celebrate; and as for those great Actions, which preceded in point of time, the Battel of the Angels, and the Creation of the World, (which would have entirely destroyed the Unity of his Principal Action, had he related them in the fame Order that they happened) he caft them into the fifth, fixth and seventh Books, by way of Episode to this noble Poem. Ariftotle himself allows, that Homer has nothing to boast of as to the Unity of his Fable, tho' at the same time that great Critick and Philofopher endeavours to palliate this Imperfection in the Greek Poet, by imputing it in fome Measure to the very Nature of an Epic Poem. Some have been of Opinion, that the Eneid labours alfo in this particular, and has Episodes which may be looked upon as Excrefcencies rather than as Parts of the Action. On the contrary, the THE ACTION MUST BE ONE, ENTIRE, AND GREAT. 17 Poem which we have now under our Confideration, hath no other Episodes than fuch as naturally arise from the Subject, and yet is filled with fuch a multitude of astonishing Circumstances [Incidents], that it gives us at the fame time a Pleasure of the greatest Variety, and of the greatest Simplicity. {uniform in its Nature, though diverfified in the Execution.} I must observe also, that as Virgil in the Poem which was defigned to celebrate the Original of the Roman Empire, has described the Birth of its great Rival, the Carthaginian Commonwealth. Milton with the like Art in his Poem on the Fall of Man, has related the Fall of those Angels who are his profeffed Enemies. Besides the many other Beauties in fuch an Episode, it's running Parallel with the great Action of the Poem, hinders it from breaking the Unity so much as another Epifode would have done, that had not fo great an Affinity with the principal Subject. In short, this is the same kind of Beauty which the Criticks admire in the Spanish Fryar, or the Double Difcovery, where the two different Plots look like Counterparts and Copies of one another. The fecond Qualification required in the Action of an Epic Poem is, that it fhould be an entire Action: An Action is entire when it is compleat in all its Parts; or as Ariftotle describes it, when it confifts of a Beginning, a Middle, and an End. Nothing fhould go before it, be intermix'd with it, or follow after it, that is not related to it. As on the contrary, no fingle Step should be omitted in that juft and regular Progrefs [Procefs] which it must be suppofed to take from its Original to its Confummation. Thus we see the Anger of Achilles in its Birth, its Continuance and Effects; and Eneas's Settlement in Italy, carried on through all the Oppofitions in his way to it both by Sea and Land. The Action in Milton excels (I think) both the former in this particular; we fee it contrived in Hell, executed upon Earth, and punished by Heaven. The parts of it are told in the most distinct manner, B |