Milton's verses, and the collocation of his words, as Erythræus and other critics have written upon Virgil. We have taken notice of several beauties of this kind in the course of these remarks, and particularly of the varying of the pauses, which is the life and soul of all versification in all languages. It is this chiefly which makes Virgil's verse better than Ovid's, and Milton's superior to any other English poet's: and it is for want of this chiefly that the French heroic verse has never, and can never, come up to the English. There is no variety of numbers, but the same pause is preserved exactly in the same place in every line for ten or ten thousand lines together: and such a perpetual repetition of the same pause, such an eternal sameness of verse, must make any poetry tedious, and either offend the ear of the reader, or lull him asleep and this in the opinion of several French writers themselves. There can be no good poetry without music, and there can be no music without variety. The number of books in Paradise Lost is equal to those of the Æneid. Our author in his first edition had divided his poem into ten books, but afterwards broke the seventh and the tenth each of them into two different books, by the help of some small additions. This second division was made with great judgment, as any one may see, who will be at the pains of examining it. It was not done for the sake of such a chimerical beauty as that of resembling Virgil in this par ticular, but for the more just and regular disposition of this great work. Those who have read Bossuet, and many of the critics who have written since his time, will not pardon me if I do not find out the particular moral which is inculcated in Paradise Lost. Though I can by no means think, with the last mentioned French author, that an epic writer first of all pitches upon a certain moral, as the ground-work and foundation of his poem, and afterwards finds out a story to it: I am however of opinion, that no just heroic poem ever was or can be made, from whence one great moral may not be deduced. That which reigns in Milton, is the most universal and most useful that can be imagined; it is in short this, That obedience to the will of God makes men happy, and that disobedience makes them miserable. This is visibly the moral of the principal fable, which turns upon Adam and Eve, who continued in Paradise, while they kept the command that was given them, and were driven out of it as soon as they had transgressed. This is likewise the moral of the principal episode, which shows us how an innumerable multitude of angels fell from their state of bliss, and were cast into hell upon their disobedience. Besides this great moral, which may be looked upon as the soul of the fable, there are an infinity of under morals, which are to be drawn from the several parts of the poem, and which make this work more useful and instructive than any other poem in any language. Those who have cri ticised on the Odyssey, the Iliad, and Eneid, have taken a great deal of pains to fix the number of months and days contained in the action of each of those poems. If any one thinks it worth his while to examine this particular in Milton, he will find that from Adam's first appearance in the fourth book, to his expulsion from Paradise in the twelfth, the author reckons ten days. As for that part of the action which is described in the three first books, as it does not pass within the regions of nature, I have before observed that it is not subject to any calculations of time. I have now finished my observations on a work, which does an honour to the English nation. I have taken a general view of it under these four heads, the fable, the characters, the sentiments, and the language, and made each of them the subject of a particular paper. I have in the next place spoken of the censures which our author may incur under each of these heads, which I have confined to two papers, though I might have enlarged the number, if I had been disposed to dwell on so ungrateful a subject. I believe however that the severest reader will not find any little fault in heroic poetry, which this author has fallen into, that does not come under one of those heads, among which I have distributed his several blemishes. After having thus treated at large of Paradise Lost, I could not think it sufficient to have celebrated this poem in the whole, without descending to particulars. I have therefore bestowed a paper upon only to prove that the poem is beautiful in general, but to point out its particular beauties, and to determine wherein they consist. I have endeavoured to show how some passages are beautiful by being sublime, others by being soft, others by being natural; which of them are recommended by the passion, which by the moral, which by the sentiment, and which by the expression. I have likewise endeavoured to show how the genius of the poet shines by a happy invention, a distant allusion, or a judicious imitation; how he has copied or improved Homer or Virgil, and raised his own imaginations by the use which he has made of several poetical passages in Scripture. I might have inserted also several passages of Tasso, which our author has imitated; but as I do not look upon Tasso to be a sufficient voucher, I would not perplex my reader with such quotations, as might do more honour to the Italian than the English poet. In short, I have endeavoured to particularize those innumerable kinds of beauty, which it would be tedious to recapitulate, but which are essential to poetry, and which may be met with in the works of this great author. Had I thought at my first engaging in this design, that it would have led me to so great a length, I believe I should never have entered upon it; but the kind reception which it has met with among those whose judgments I have a value for, as well as the uncommon demands which my bookseller tells me have been made for me no reason to repent of the pains I have been at in composing them. Addison. And thus have we finished our collections and remarks on this divine poem. The reader probably may have observed, that these two last books fall short of the sublimity and majesty of the rest: and so likewise do the two last books of the Iliad, and for the same reason, because the subject is of a different kind from that of the foregoing ones. The subject of these two last books of the Paradise Lost is history rather than poetry. However, we may still discover the same great genius, and there are intermixed as many ornaments and graces of poetry, as the nature of the subject, and the author's fidelity and strict attachment to the truth of Scripture history, and the reduction of so many and such various events into so nar row a compass, would admit. It is the same ocean, but not at its highest tide; it is now ebbing and retreating. It is the same sun, but not in its full blaze of meridian glory; it now shines with a gentler ray as it is setting. Throughout the whole, the author appears to have been a most critical reader, and a most passionate admirer, of holy Scripture. He is indebted to Scripture infinitely more than to Homer and Virgil, and all other books whatever. Not only his principal fable, but all his episodes are founded upon Scripture. The Scripture hath not only furnished him with the noblest hints, raised his thoughts, and fired his imagination, but hath also very much enriched his language, given a certain solemnity and majesty to his diction, and supplied him with many of his choicest happiest expressions. POSTSCRIPT. A VERY extraordinary attempt having been lately made to undermine and destroy the reputation of Milton as a poet, it may be proper for the sake of truth, and for the sake of a favourité author, to give a short history of it, here in the conclusion of this work. Soon after I had published my proposals for printing a new edition of the Paradise Lost with notes of various authors, Mr. William Lauder, a Scotchman, came to me, exclaiming horribly of John Milton, and inveighing most bitterly against him for the worst and greatest of all plagiaries; he could prove that he had borrowed the substance of whole books together, and there was scarcely a single thought or sentiment in his poem which he had not stolen from some author or other, notwithstanding his vain pretence to things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. And then in confirmation of his charge he recited a long roll of Scotch, German, and Dutch poets, and affirmed that he had brought the books along with him which were his vouchers, and appealed particularly to Ramsay, a Scotch Divine, and to Masenius, a German Jesuit: but upon producing his authors he could not find Masenius, he had dropped the book somewhere or other in the way, and expressed much surprise and concern for the loss of it; Ramsay he left with me, and my opinion of Milton's imitations of that author I have given in a note on ix. 513. I knew very well that Milton was an universal scholar, as famous for his great reading as for the extent of his genius; and I thought it not improbable, that Mr. Lauder, having the good fortune to meet with these German and Dutch poems, might have traced out there some of his imitations and allusions, which had escaped the researches of others: and it was my advice to him then, and as often as I had opportunities of seeing him afterwards, that if he had really made such notable discoveries as he boasted, he would do well to communicate them to the public; an ingenious countryman of his had published an Essay upon Milton's imitations of the Ancients, and he would equally deserve the thanks of the learned world by writing an Essay upon Milton's imitations of the moderns: but at the same time I recommended to him a little more modesty and decency, and urged all the arguments I could to persuade him to treat Milton's name with more respect, and not to write of him with the same acrimony and rancour with which he spoke of him; it would weaken his cause instead of strengthening it, and would hurt himself more than Milton in the opinion of all candid readers. He began with publishing some specimens of his work in a monthly pamphlet entitled the Gentleman's Magazine: and I was sorry to find that he had no better regarded my advice in his manner of writing; for his papers were much in the same strain and spirit as his conversation, his assertions strong, and his proofs weak. However, to do him justice, several of the quotations which he had made from Adamus Exul, a tragedy of the famous Hugo Grotius, I thought so exactly parallel to several passages in the Paradise Lost, that I readily adopted them, and inserted them without scruple in my notes, esteeming it no reproach to Milton, but rather a commendation of his taste and judgment, to have gathered so many of the choicest flowers in the gardens of others, and to have transplanted them with improvements into his own. At length, after I had published my first edition of the Paradise Lost, came forth Mr. Lauder's Essay on Milton's use and imitation of the Moderns: but except the quotations from Grotius, which I had already inserted in my |