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Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and torneament; then marshall'd feast
Serv'd up in hall with sewers, and seneschals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,

Not that which justly gives heroic name
To person or to poem. Me of these
Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument
Remains, sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold

shield, the motto imported that the wearer would win by his valour wherewith to adorn it. Bases from bas (French) they fall low to the ground; they are also called the housing from houssé, bedaggled. Sewers from asseoir (French) to set down; for those officers set the dishes on the table; in old French asseours. Seneschals from two German words signifying a servant of a family; and was applied by way of eminence to the

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of spelling obliges us to print it
in both places alike; and we
prefer torneament, because we
suppose the Italian to have been
the original word; as we write
impresses according to the Latin,
because that word is originally
derived from the Latin. Shake-
speare too uses the word impress
as a substantive in the same
sense, Richard II. act iii.

From mine own windows torn my
household coat,
Ras'd out my impress.

principal servant, the steward. And Fairfax in Tasso, cant. xx.

Richardson.

We may observe that Milton spells the word impreses after the Italian impresa, and not as we commonly do impresses, as if it was of Latin extraction: but as he has used the words impressed, iii. 388. and in other places, and impress, iv. 558. we have caused it to be printed impresses out of regard to the uniformity of spelling. And so torneament he spells here after the Italian torneamento, though in xi. 652. he writes it tournament, which seems to be after the French tournoy: but the same regard to the uniformity

st. 28.

Their arms, impresses, colours, gold and stone.

41. -me of these

Nor skill'd nor studious, higher
argument
Remains,]

See Mr. Dunster's note, b. ii.
443. on the Latinism me higher
argument remains. E.

44. unless an age too late or
cold
Climate,]

He has a thought of the same
kind in his Prose Works. The
Reason of Church Government,
Book the second, p. 60. Edit.

Climate, or years damp my intended wing
Depress'd, and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring
Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter

'Twixt day and night, and now from end to end
Night's hemisphere had veil'd th' horizon round:
When Satan who late fled before the threats

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1739. "As Tasso gave to a prince "of Italy his choice, whether "he would command him to "write of Godfrey's expedition against the infidels, or Beli"sarius against the Goths, or Charlemagne against the Lom"bards; if to the instinct of "nature and the imboldening "of art ought may be trusted, "and that there be nothing ad"verse in our climate, or the fate of this age, it haply would be no rashness from an equal di"ligence and inclination to pre"sent the like offer in our own "ancient stories." Or years damp &c. for he was near sixty when this poem was published. And it is surprising, that at that time of life, and after such troublesome days as he had passed through, he should have so much poetical fire remaining.

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50. short arbiter 'Twixt day and night,] This expression was probably borrowed from the beginning of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, where, speaking of the sun about the time of the equinox, he calls him an indifferent arbiter between the night and the day.

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53. When Satan who late fled &c.] If we look into the three great heroic poems which have appeared in the world, we may observe that they are built upon very slight foundations. Homer lived near three hundred years after the Trojan war; and, as the writing of history was not then in use among the Greeks, we may very well suppose, that the tradition of Achilles and Ulysses had brought down but very few particulars to his knowledge; though there is no question but he has wrought into his two poems such of their remarkable adventures, as were still talked of among his contemporaries. The story of Æneas, on which Virgil founded his poem, was likewise very bare of circumstances, and by that means afforded him an opportunity of embellishing it with fiction, and giving a full range to his own invention. We find however that he has interwoven in the course of his fable the principal particulars which were generally believed among the Romans of Eneas's voyage and settlement in Italy. The reader may find

Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd In meditated fraud and malice, bent

an abridgment of the whole story as collected out of the ancient historians, and as it was received among the Romans, in Dionysius Halicarnasseus. Since none of the critics have considered Virgil's fable, with relation to this history of Æneas; it may not perhaps be amiss to examine it in this light, so far as regards my present purpose. Whoever looks into the abridgment above mentioned, will find that the character of Eneas is filled with piety to the gods, and a superstitious observation of prodigies, oracles, and predictions. Virgil has not only preserved this character in the person of Æneas, but has given a place in his poem to those particular prophecies, which he found recorded of him in history and tradition. The poet took the matters of fact as they came down to him, and circumstanced them after his own manner, to make thein appear the more natural, agreeable, or surprising. I believe very many readers have been shocked at that ludicrous prophecy which one of the Harpies pronounces to the Trojans in the third book, namely, that before they had built their intended city, they should be reduced by hunger to eat their very tables. But when they hear that this was one of the circumstances that had been transmitted to the Romans in the history of Æneas, they will think the poet did very well in taking notice of it. The historian above mentioned acquaints us, a pro

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phetess had foretold Æneas, that he should take his voyage westward, till his companions should eat their tables; and that accordingly, upon his landing in Italy, as they were eating their flesh upon cakes of bread, for want of other conveniences, they afterwards fed on the cakes themselves; upon which one of the company said merrily, We are eating our tables. They immediately took the hint, says the historian, and concluded the prophecy to be fulfilled. As Virgil did not think it proper to omit so material a particular in the history of Eneas, it may be worth while to consider with how much judgment he has qualified it, and takes off every thing that might have appeared improper for a passage in an heroic poem. The prophetess who foretells it is an hungry Harpy, as the person who discovers it is young Ascanius:

Heus etiam mensas consumimus, inquit Iülus.

Such an observation, which is beautiful in the mouth of a boy, would have been ridiculous from any other of the company. I am apt to think that the changing of the Trojan fleet into waternymphs, which is the most violent machine in the whole Æneid, and has given offence to several critics, may be accounted for the same way. Virgil himself, before he begins that relation, premises, that what he was going to tell appeared incredible, but that it was justified by tradition.

On man's destruction, maugre what might hap Of heavier on himself, fearless return'd.

What farther confirms me that this change of the fleet was a celebrated circumstance in the history of Æneas is, that Ovid has given a place to the same metamorphosis in his account of the heathen mythology. None of the critics I have met with having considered the fable of the Eneid in this light, and taken notice how the tradition, on which it was founded, authorizes those parts in it which appear most exceptionable; I hope the length of this reflection will not make it unacceptable to the curious part of my readers. The history, which was the basis of Milton's poem, is still shorter than either that of the Iliad or Æneid. The poet has likewise taken care to insert every circumstance of it in the body of his fable. The ninth book, which we are here to consider, is raised upon that brief account in Scripture, wherein we

are

told that the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, that he tempted the woman to eat of the forbidden fruit, that she was overcome by this temptation, and that Adam followed her example. From these few particulars, Milton has formed one of the most entertaining fables that invention ever produced. He has disposed of these several circumstances among so many beautiful and natural fic tions of his own, that his whole story looks only like a comment upon sacred writ, or rather seems to be a full and complete rela

VOL. II.

tion of what the other is only an epitome. I have insisted the longer on this consideration, as I look upon the disposition and contrivance of the fable to be the principal beauty of the ninth book, which has more story in it, and is fuller of incidents, than any other in the whole poem. Satan's traversing the globe, and still keeping within the shadow of the night, as fearing to be discovered by the angel of the sun, who had before detected him, is one of those beautiful imaginations, with which he introduces this his second series of adventures. Having examined the nature of every creature, and found out one which was the most proper for his purpose, he again returns to Paradise; and to avoid discovery, sinks by night with a river that ran under the garden, and rises up again through a fountain that issued from it by the tree of life. The poet, who, as we have before taken notice, speaks as little as possible in his own person, and after the example of Homer fills every part of his work with manners and characters, introduces a soliloquy of this infernal agent, who was thus restless in the destruction of man. He is then described as gliding through the garden, under the resemblance of a mist, in order to find out that creature in which he designed to tempt our first parents. This description has something in it very poetical and surprising. Addison.

I

By night he fled, and at midnight return'd
From compassing the earth, cautious of day,
Since Uriel regent of the sun descried

His entrance, and forewarn'd the cherubim
That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,
The space of sev'n continued nights he rode
With darkness, thrice the equinoctial line
He circled, four times cross'd the car of night
From pole to pole, traversing each colure;
On th' eighth return'd, and on the coast averse
From entrance or cherubic watch, by stealth
Found unsuspected way. There was a place,

63. The space of sev'n continued

nights he rode With darkness, &c.] It was about noon that Satan came to the earth, and having been discovered by Uriel, he was driven out of Paradise the same night, as we read in book the fourth. From that time he was a whole week in continual darkness for fear of another discovery. Thrice the equinoctial line he circled; he travelled on with the night three times round the equator; he was three days moving round from east to west as the sun does, but always on the opposite side of the globe in darkness. Four times crossed the car of night from pole to pole; did not move directly on with the night as before, but crossed over from the northern to the southern, and from the southern to the northern pole. Traversing each colure. As the equinoctial line or equator is a great circle encompassing the earth from east to west and from west to east

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again; so the colures are two great circles, intersecting each other at right angles in the poles of the world, and encompassing the earth from north to south, and from south to north again: and therefore as Satan was moving from pole to pole, at the same time the car of night was moving from east to west, if he would keep still in the shade of night as he desired, he could not move in a straight line, but must move obliquely, and thereby cross the two colures. We have expressed ourselves plainly as we can for the sake of those readers, who are not acquainted with these astronomical terms; and the fact in short is, that Satan was three days compassing the earth from east to west, and four days from north to south, but still kept always in the shade of night; and after a whole week's peregrination in this manner, on the eighth night returned by stealth into Paradise.

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