keep to the text as much as the preacher, For want of this, I have found by experience a great deal of mifchief; for when the preacher has often, with great piety and art enough, handled his fubject, and the judicious clerk has with the utmoft diligence culled out two ftaves proper to the difcourfe, and I have found in my felf and in the rest of the pew good thoughts and difpofitions, they have been all in a moment diffipated by a merry jigg from the organ-loft, One knows not what further ill effects the epilogues I have been fpeaking of may in time produce; but this I am credibly informed of, that Paul Lorrain has refolved upon a very fudden reformation in his tragical dramas; and that at the next monthly performance, he defigns, instead of a penitential psalm, to difmifs his audience with an excellent new ballad of his own compofing. Pray, Sir, do what you can to put a stop to thefe growing evils, and you will very much oblige your humble fervant, PHYSIBULUS, N° CCCXXXIX. SATURDAY, MARCH 29. ————ỰT HIS EXORDIA PRIMIS OMNIA, ET IPSE TENER MUNDI CONCREVERIT ORBIS. VIRG. ECL. VI. V.39. HE SUNG THE SECRET SEEDS OF NATURE'S FRAME; ONGINUS has obferved, that ments where there is no paffion, and brings instances out of ancient authors to fupport this his opinion. The pathetic, as that great critic obferves, may animate and inflame the fublime, but is not effential to it. Accordingly, as he further remarks, we very often find that thefe, who exeel moft in stirring up the paffions, very often want the talent of writing in the great and fublime manner, and fo on the contrary. Milton has thewn himself a matter in both thefe ways of writing. The feventh book, which we are now entering upon, is an intance of that fublime which is not mixed and worked up with paffion. The author appears in a kind of compofed and fedate majefty; and though the fentiments do not give fo great an emotion as thofe in the former book, they abound with as magnificent ideas. The fixth book, like a troubled ocean, represents greatness in confufion; the feventh affects the imagination like the ocean in a calm, and fills the mind of the reader, without producing in it any thing like tumult or agitation. The critic above-mentioned, among DRYDEN. the rules which he lays down for fuc propofes to his reader, that he should imitate the most celebrated authors who have gone before him, and have been engaged in works of the fame nature; as in particular, that, if he writes on a poetical fubject, he should confider how Homer would have spoken on such an cccafion. By this means one great genius often catches the flame from another, and writes in his fpirit, without copying fervilely after him. There are a thousand fhining paffages in Virgil, which have been lighted up by Ho mer. Milton, though his own natural strength of genius was capable of furnishing out a perfect work, has doubtlefs very much raifed and ennobled his conceptions by fuch an imitation as that which Longinus has recommended. In this book, which gives us an account of the fix days works, the poet received but very few affiftances from Heathen writers, who are ftrangers to the wonders of creation. But as there are many glorious ftrokes of poetry upon this fubject in holy writ, the author has numberleis allufions to them thro I MR. SPECTATOR, Had the happiness the other night of fitting very near you and your worthy friend Sir Roger, at the acting of the new tragedy, which you have in a late paper or two fo justly recommended. I was highly pleafed with the advantageous fituation fortune had given me in placing me fo near two gentlemen, from one of which I was fure to hear fuch reflections on the feveral incidents of the play, as pure nature fuggefted, and from the other fuch as flowed from the exactelt art and judginent: though I must confefs that my curiofity led me fo much to obferve the knight's reflections, that I was not fo well at leifure to mprove myself by yours. Nature, I found played her part in the knight pretty well, till at the laft concluding lines the entirely for fook him. You must know, Sir, that it is always my custom, when I have been well entertained at a new tragedy, to make my retreat before the facetious epilogue enters; not but that thofe pieces are often very well writ, but having paid down my half-crown, and made a fair purchafe of as much of the pleafing melancholy as the poet's art can afford me, or my own nature admit of, I am willing to carry fome of it home with me; and cannot endure to be at once tricked out of all, though by the wittieft dexterity in the world. However, I kept my feat the other night, in hopes of find. ing my own fentiments of this matter favored by your friend's; when to my great furprife, I found the knight entering with equal pleafure into both parts, and as much fatisfied with Mrs. Oldfield's gaiety, as he had been before with Andromache's greatnefs. Whether this were no other than an effect of the knight's peculiar humanity, plea.ed to find at last, that after all the tragical doings every thing was fafe and well, I don't know. But for my own part, I must confefs I was fo diffatisfied, that I was forry the poet had faved Andromache, and could heartily have withed that he had left her ftone-dead upon the ftage. For you cannot imagine, Mr. Spectator, the mischief she was referved to do me. I found my foul, during the action, gradually worked up to the highest pitch; and felt the exalted paf fion, which all generous minds conceive at the fight of virtue in diftrefs. The impreflion, believe me, Sir, was fo ftrong upon me, that I am perfuaded if I had been let alone in it, I could at an extremity have ventured to defend yourself and Sir Roger against half a fcore of the fierceft Mohocs: but the ludicrous epilogue in the close extinguished all my ardour, and made me look upon all fuch noble atchievements as downright filly and romantic. What the rest of the audience felt, I cannot fo well tell: for myfelf I must declare, that at the end of the play I found my foul uniform, and all of a piece; but at the end of the epilogue, it was fo jumbled together and divided between jest and earnett, that if you will forgive me an extravagant fancy, I will here fet it down. I could not but fancy, if my foul had at that moment quitted my body, and defcended to the poetical fhades in the pofture it was then in, what a ftrange figure it would have made among them. They would not have known what to have made of my motley fpectre, half comic and half tragic, all over refembling a ridiculous face, that at the fame time laughs on one fide and cries on the other. The only defence, I think, I have ever heard made for this, as it feems to me the mott unnatural tack of the comic tail to the tragic head, is this, that the minds of the au dience must be refreshed, and gentlemen and ladies not fent away to their own homes with too difmal and melancholy thoughts about them: for who knows the confequence of this? We are much obliged indeed to the poets for the great tenderness they exprefs for the fafety of our perfons, and beartily thank them for it. But if that be all, pray, good Sir, affure them, that we are none of us like to come to any great harm; and that, let them do their beft, we fhall in all probability live out the length of our days, and frequent the theatres more than ever. What makes me more defirous to have fome information of this matter, is, becaufe of an ill confequence or two attending it: for a great many of our church muficians being related to the theatre, they have, in imitation of thefe epilogues, introduced in their farewell voluntaries a fort of mufic quite foreign to the defign of church-fervices, to the great prejudice of well-difpofed people. Thofe fingering gentlemen hould be informed that they ought to fuit their airs to the place and bufpefs; and that the musician is obliged to keep keep to the text as much as the preacher, For want of this, I have found by experience a great deal of mifchief; for when ⚫ the preacher has often, with great piety and art enough, handled his fubject, and the judicious clerk has with the utmost diligence culled out two ftaves proper to the difcourfe, and I have found in my felf and in the rest of the pew good thoughts and difpofitions, they have been all in a moment diffipated by a merry jigg from the organ-loft, One knows not what further ill effects the epilogues I have been fpeaking of may in time produce; but this I am credibly informed of, that Paul Lorrain has refolved upon a very fudden reformation in his tragical dramas; and that at the next monthly performance, he defigns, inftead of a penitential pfalm, to difmifs his audience with an excellent new ballad of his own compofing. Pray, Sir, do what you can to put a stop to thefe growing evils, and you will very much oblige your humble fervant, PHYSIBULUS N° CCCXXXIX. SATURDAY, MARCH 29. -UT HIS EXORDIA PRIMIS OMNIA, ET IPSE TENER MUNDI CONCREVERIT ORBIS. VIRG. ECL. VI. V.39. HE SUNG THE SECRET SEEDS OF NATURE'S FRAME; ONGINUS has obferved, that there may be a loftinefs in fentiments where there is no paffion, and brings inftances out of ancient authors to fupport this his opinion. The pathetic, as that great critic obferves, may animate and inflame the fublime, but is not effential to it. Accordingly, as he further remarks, we very often find that thofe, who excel moft in ftirring up the paffions, very often want the talent of writing in the great and fublime manner, and fo on the contrary. Milton has fhewn himself a matter in both thefe ways of writing. The feventh book, which we are now entering upon, inftance of that fublime which is not mixed and worked up with paffion. The author appears in a kind of compofed and fedate majefty; and though the fentiments do not give fo great an emotion as thofe in the former book, they abound with as magnificent ideas. The fixth book, like a troubled ocean, reprefents greatnefs in confufion; the feventh affects the imagination like the ocean in a calm, and fills the mind of the reader, without producing in it any thing like tumult or agitation. is an The critic above-mentioned, among DRYDEN. the rules which he lays down for fucceeding in the fublime way of writing, propofcs to his reader, that he should imitate the most celebrated authors who have gone before him, and have been engaged in works of the fame nature; as in particular, that, if he writes on a poetical fubject, he should confider how Homer would have fpoken on fuch an cccafion. By this means one great genius often catches the flame from another, and writes in his fpirit, without copying fervilely after him. There are a thousand fhining paffages in Virgil, which have been lighted up by Ho mer. Milton, though his own natural strength of genius was capable of furnishing out a perfect work, has doubtless very much raifed and ennobled his conceptions by fuch an imitation as that which Longinus has recommended. In this book, which gives us an account of the fix days works, the poet received but very few affiftances from Heathen writers, who are strangers to the wonders of creation. But as there are many glorious ftrokes of poetry upon this fubject in holy writ, the author has numberlefs allufions to them through through the whole courfe of this book. The great critic I have before mentioned, though an heathen, has taken notice of the fublime manner in which the lawgiver of the Jews has described the creation in the first chapter of Genefis ; and there are many other paffages in Scripture, which rife up to the fame majefty, where this fubject is touched upon. Milton has fhewn his judgment very remarkably, in making ufe of fuch of thefe as were proper for his poem, and in duly qualifying thofe high trains of eastern poetry, which were fuited to readers whofe imaginations were set to an higher pitch than thofe of colder climates. Adam's fpeech to the angel, wherein he defires an account of what had paffed within the regions of nature before the creation, is very great and folemn. The following lines, in which he tells him, that the day is not too far fpent for him to enter upon fuch a fubject, are exqui. fite in their kind. And the great light of day yet wants to run Held by thy voice; thy potent voice, he hears, The angel's encouraging our first parents in a modeft puriuit after knowledge, with the caufes which he affigns for the creation of the world, are very jut and beautiful. The Meffiah, by whom, as we are told in Scripture, the heavens were made, comes forth in the power of his Father, furrounded with an host of angels, and cloathed with fuch a majefty as becomes his entering upon a work, which, according to our conceptions, appears the utmost exer. tion of Omnipotence. What a beautiful defcription has our author raifed upon that hint in one of the prophets! And behold there came four chariots < out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of • brass.. About his chariot numberlefs were pour'd From th armory of God, where ftand of old Attendant on their Lord: heav'n open'd wide I have before taken notice of thefe chariots of God, and of thefe gates of Homer gives us the fame idea of the heaven; and shall here only add, that latter, as opening of themselves; though ing us, that the hours first of all rehe afterwards takes off from it, by tellmoved those prodigious heaps of clouds which lay as a barrier before them. I do not know any thing in the whole poem more fublime than the description reprefented at the head of his angels, which follows, where the Meffiah is ing it's confufion, riding into the midft as looking down into the chaos, calmof it, and drawing the first outline of the creation. On heav'nly ground they flood, and from the shore They view'd the vaft immeafurable abyfs Silence, ye troubled waves, and thou Said then th'omnific word,' your discord end' Far into chaos, and the world unborn ; This be thy juft circumference, O world!" The thought of the golden compaffes is conceived altogether in Homer's fpirit, and is a very noble incident in this wonderful defcription. Homer, when he fpeaks of the gods, afcribes to them feveral arms and inftruments with the reader only perufe the defcription of fame greatness of imagination. Let the Minerva's Ægis, or buckler, in the fifth book, with her fpear, which would overturn whole squadrons, and her helmet that was fuñicient to cover an army drawn out of an hundred cities. The golden compaffes in the abovementioned mentioned paffage appear a very natural inftrument in the hand of him, whom Plato fomewhere calls the divine Geometrician. As poetry delights in cloathing abftracted ideas in allegories and fenfible images, we find a magnificent defcription of the creation formed after the fame manner in one of the prophets, wherein he describes the almighty Architect as measuring the waters in the hollow of his hand, meting out the heavens with his fpan, comprehending the duft of the earth in a measure, weighing the mountains in fcales, and the hills in a balance. Another of them, describing the Supreme Being in this great work of creation, represents him as laying the foundations of the earth, and ftretching a line upon it: and in another place as garnishing the heavens, ftretching out the north over the empty place, and hanging the earth upon nothing. This laft noble thought Milton has expreffed in the following verse: And earth felf-balanc'd on her centre hung. The beauties of defcription in this book lie fo very thick, that it is impoffible to enumerate them in this paper. The poet has employed on them the whole energy of our tongue. The feveral great scenes of the creation rife up to view one after another, in fuch a manner, that the reader feems prefent at this wonderful work, and to affist among the choirs of angels, who are the fpectators of it. How glorious is the conclufion of the first day! -Thus was the first day ev'n and morn: fhout The hollow univerfal orb they fill'd. We have the fame elevation of thought in the third day, when the mountains were brought forth, and the deep was made. Immediately the mountains huge appear lato the clouds, their tops afcend the sky: We have alfo the rifing of the whole vegetable world defcribed in this day's work, which is filled with all the graces that other poets have lavished on their defcription of the fpring, and leads the reader's imagination into a theatre equally furprising and beautiful. The feveral glories of the heavens Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danc'd, But oppofite in levell'd weft was fet Spangling the hemifphere.. One would wonder how the poet could be fo concife in his defcription of the fix days works, as to comprehend them within the bounds of an epifade; and at the fame time fo particular, as to give us a lively idea of them. This is till more remarkable in his account of the fifth and fixth days, in which he has drawn out to our view the whole animal creation, from the reptile to the Behemoth. As the Lion and the Levia. than are two of the nobleft productions in the world of living creatures, the reader will find a most exquifite fpirit of poetry in the account which our author gives us of them. The fixth day concludes with the formation of man, upon which the angel takes occafion, as he did after the battle in heaven, to remind Adam of his obedience, which was the principal defign of this his vifit. The poet afterwards reprefents the Meffiah returning into heaven, and taking a furvey of his great work. There is fomething inexpreffibly fublime in this part of the poem, where the author defcribes that great period of time, filled with fo many glorious circumftances; when the heavens and earth were finished; when the Meffiah afcended up in triumph through the everlasting gates; when he looked down with pleafure upon his new creation; when every part of nature feemed to rejoice in it's exiftence; when the morning-stars fang together, |