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them, than a much longer description would

have done.

"Nature breeds,

"Perverse, all monftrous, all prodigious things,
" Abominable, inutterable, and worfe
"Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,
"Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire."

This episode of the fallen Spirits, and their place of habitation, comes in very happily to unbend the mind of the reader from its attention to the debate. An ordinary poet would indeed have spun out so many circumstances to a great length, and by that means have weakened, instead of illustrated, the principal fable.

The flight of Satan to the gates of Hell is finely imaged.

I have already declared my opinion of the allegory concerning Sin and Death, which is however a very finished piece in its kind, when it is not confidered as a part of an epick poem. The genealogy of the several perfons is contrived with great delicacy. Sin is the daughter of Satan, and Death the offspring of Sin. The incestuous mixture between Sin and Death produces those monsters and hell-hounds which from time to time enter into their mother, and tear the bowels of her who gave them birth. These are the terrours of an evil confcience, and the proper fruits of Sin, which naturally rise from the apprehenfions of Death. This last beautiful moral is, I think, clearly intimated in the speech of Sin, where, complaining of this her dreadful iffue, she adds,

9 is however a very finished piece in its kind, &c.] The allegory of Sin and Death has been censured, perhaps faftidiously, by Voltaire, and some English criticks, as abounding with nauseous and difgusting images. It was, however, a favourite passage with Atterbury; whose tafte in polite literature, as doctor Newton has observed, was never questioned. " I return you," says Atterbury in a letter to Pope, "your MILTON; and I protest to you, this laft perusal of him has given me such new degrees, I will not fay of pleasure, but of admiration and astonishment, that I look upon the fublimity of Homer, and the majesty of Virgil, with fomewhat less reverence than I used to do. I challenge you, with all your partiality, to show me, in the first of these, any thing equal to the allegory of Sin and Death, either as to the greatness and justness of the invention, or the height and beauty of the colouring."

"Before mine eyes in opposition fits.

"Grim Death, my fon and foe; who fets them on,

" And me his parent would full foon devour
" For want of other prey, but that he knows
"His end with mine involv'd

"

Milton, indeed, in painting Sin, has selected, with his usual skill, such circumstances as exhibit the fair-appearing monster in a true light; and raife, in confequence, a detestation of an object so specious and so deformed. I have fometimes thought that part of his defcription might be suggested by Shakspeare, K. Rich. III, A. iv. S. iv.

"From forth the kennel of thy womb bath crept
"A bell-bound, that doth hunt us all to death."

* the terrours of an evil confcience,) See the Note on B. iv. 20.

I need not mention to the reader the beautiful circumstance in the last part of this quotation, He will likewife observe how naturally the three perfons, concerned in this allegory, are tempted, by one common interest, to enter into a confederacy together; and how properly Sin is made * the portress of Hell, and the only Being that can open the gates to that world of tortures.

The defcriptive part of this allegory is likewife very strong, and full of fublime ideas. The figure of Death, the regal crown upon his head, his menace of Satan, his advancing to the combat, the outcry at his birth, are circumstances too noble to be passed over in filence, and extremely suitable to this King of Terrours. I need not mention the justness of thought, which is obferved in the generation of these several fsymbolical perfons; that Sin was produced upon the first revolt of Satan, that Death appeared foon after he was cast into Hell, and that the terrours of confcience were conceived at the gate of this place of torments. The defcription of the gates is very poetical, as the opening of them is full of Milton's spirit.

In Satan's voyage through the Chaos there are * several imaginary perfons described, as refiding in that immenfe waste of matter. This may perhaps be conformable to the taste of those criticks, who are pleased with nothing in a poet which has not life and manners ascribed to it; but, for my own part, I am pleased most with those passages in this description which carry in them a greater measure of probability, and are such as might possibly have happened. Of this kind is his first mounting in the smoke that rifes from the infernal pit; his falling into a cloud of nitre, and the like combustible materials, that by their explosion still hurried him forward in his voyage; his springing upward like a pyramid of fire; with his laborious passage through that confufion of elements, which the poet calls

* the portress of Hell,] See the Note on B. ii. 746.

Several imaginary perfons &c.] Dr. Newton has obferved that Addison seems to disapprove of these fictitious beings, thinking

۱۰

"The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave."

them perhaps, like Sin and Death, improper for an epick poem : But he contends that Milton may be allowed to place such ima. ginary persons in the regions of Chaos, as Virgil defcribes similar beings within the confines of Hell, Æn. vi. 273-281; a passage of acknowledged beauty: And it is impossible, he adds, to be pleased with Virgil, and to be difpleased with Milton. In further juftification of Milton, doctor Newton also refers to the intro. duction of fimilar shadowy beings in Seneca, Herc. Fur. 686, in Statius, Theb. vii. 47, in Claudian, In Rufin. i. 30, and in Spenfer, Faer. Qu. ii. vii. 21, &c. To these instances might be added the beautiful personifications of Sackville in the Mirrour for Magistrates. See Note on Par. Loft, B. xi. 489. In Masenius's infernal council, Death, Diseases, Cares, Labour, Grief, Poverty, and Hunger, are persons. Sarcotis, B. i. But Milton has intro. duced, with much fublimity, long before this author, many shadowy beings, in his poem In Quintum Novembris.

The glimmering light which shot into the Chaos from the utmost verge of the creation, and the distant discovery " of the earth that hung close by the moon, are wonderfully beautiful and poetical.

Horace advises a poet to confider thoroughly the nature and force of his genius. Milton feems to have known perfectly well, wherein his strength lay, and has therefore chosen a subject entirely conformable to those talents, of which he was master. As his genius was wonderfully turned to the fublime, his subject is the noblest that could have entered into the thoughts of man. Every thing that is truly great, and astonishing, has a place in it. The whole system of the intellectual world; the Chaos, and the Creation; Heaven, Earth, and Hell; enter into the constitution of his Poem.

Having in the first and second books represented the infernal world with all its horrours; the thread of his fable naturally leads him into the opposite regions of bliss and glory.

* If Milton's majesty forsakes him any where,

of the earth &c.] This is a mistake, into which Dr. Bentley also fell; and is corrected in the Note on v. 1052.

If Milton's majesty forsakes him any where, &c.] It has been often observed, that Milton's chief deficiency is in the THIRD BOOK. "The attempt to defcribe God Almighty himself, and to recount dialogues between the Father and the Son," says Dr. Blair, "was too bold and arduous; and is that wherein the poet,

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