eminent pitch of honour and profperity, into mifery and difgrace. Thus we fee Adam and Eve finking, from a state of innocence and happiness, into the most abject condition of fin and forrow.

The most taking tragedies among the ancients, were built on this last fort of implex fable; particularly the tragedy of Oedipus, which proceeds upon a story, if we may believe Aristotle, the most proper for tragedy that could be invented by the wit of man. I have already taken fome pains to show, that this kind of implex fablé, 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 fo proper for an heroick poem.

Milton feems to have been fenfible of this imperfection in his fable, and has therefore endeavoured to cure it by several expedients; particularly by the mortification which the great Adversary of mankind meets with upon his return to the assembly of infernal Spirits, as it is defcribed in a beautiful passage of the tenth book; and likewife by the vision wherein Adam,

at the close of the Poem, fees his offspring triumphing over his great enemy, and himself restored to a happier Paradife 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 unfuccefsful, and by no means a match for his enemies. This gave occafion to Mr. Dryden's reflection, that the devil was in reality Milton's hero. I think I have already obviated this objection. The Paradise Loft is an epick, or a narrative, poem; and he, that looks for an hero in it, searches for that which Milton never intended; but if he will needs fix the name of an hero upon any person in it, it is certainly the MESSIAH who is the hero, both in the principal action, and in the chief episodes. Paganism could not furnish out a real action for a fable greater than that of the Iliad or Eneid; and therefore an heathen could not form an higher notion of a poem than one of that kind, which they call an heroick. Whether Milton's is not of a fublimer nature I will not prefume to determine: it is sufficient that I show there is in the Paradise Loft 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 his fable, fome particulars which do not feem to have probability enough for an epick 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 rather favour 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 obferved by Aristotle, that the author of an heroick poem should feldom speak himself, but throw as much of his work as he can into the mouths of those who are his principal actors. Aristotle has given no reason for this precept: but I prefume it is because the mind of the reader is more awed, and elevated, when he hears Æneas or Achilles speak, than when Virgil or Homer talk in their own persons. Besides that affuming the character of an eminent 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 speaker, that upon a review of it he was agreeably impofed upon, and fancied that it was Cato, and not he himself, who uttered his thoughts on that fubject.

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 furprised to find how little, in either of these poems, proceeds from the authors. Milton has, in the general disposition of his fable, very finely observed this great rule; infomuch, 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 deftruction, or defence.

From what has been here observed it appears, that digressions are by no means to be allowed of, in an epick 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 fleep for the fake of any reflection of his own. I have often observed, with a fecret admiration, that the longest reflection in the Eneid, is in that passage of the tenth book, where Turnus is represented as dressing himself in the spoils of Pallas, whom he had flain. Virgil here lets his fable stand still, for the sake

1

"How is the mind

of the following remark.
of man ignorant of futurity, and unable to bear
profperous 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 Æneas flew because he faw
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 flipt
out of his reader's memory. Lucan, who was
an injudicious poet, lets drop his story very fre-
quently for the fake of his unnecessary digref-
sions, or his diverticula, as Scaliger calls them.
If he gives us an account of his prodigies which
preceded the civil war, he declaims upon the
occafion, 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 apprehenfion of it.
Milton's complaint for his blindness, his pane-
gyrick on marriage, his reflections on Adam
and Eve's going naked, of the Angels eating,
and feveral other passages in his Poem, are
liable to the fame exception, though I must
confefs there is fo great a beauty in these very