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The SPECTATOR.

Cedite Romani Scriptores, cedite Graii.

Propert.

{Give place, ye Roman, and ye Grecian Wits.}

Saturday, January, 5. 1712.

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HERE is nothing in Nature fo irkfom[e] as general Difcourfes, especially when they turn chiefly upon Words. For this Reason I fhall wave the Difcuffion of that

Point which was started fome Years fince, Whether Milton's Paradife Loft may be called an Heroick Poem? Thofe who will not give it that Title, may call it (if they please) a Divine Poem. It will be fufficient to its Perfection, if it has in it all the Beauties of the highest kind of Poetry; and as for those who fay [alledge] it is not an Heroick Poem, they advance no more to the Diminution of it, than if they fhould fay Adam is not Æneas, nor Eve Helen.

I fhall therefore examine it by the Rules of Epic Poetry, and fee whether it falls fhort of the Iliad or Eneid, in the Beauties which are effential to that kind of Writing. The first Thing to be confidered in an Epic Poem, is the Fable, which is perfect or imperfect, according as the Action which it relates. is more or lefs fo. This Action fhould have three Qualifications in it. First, It should be but one Action. Secondly, It fhould be an entire Action; and Thirdly, It fhould be a great Action. To confider the Action of the Iliad, Eneid, and Paradife Loft in these three feveral Lights. Homer to preserve the Unity of his Action haftens into the midft of things, as Horace has obferved: Had he gone up

16 THE FABLE PERFECT OR IMPERFECT AS IS THE ACTION.

to Leda's Egg, or begun much later, even at the Rape of Helen, or the Investing of Troy, it is manifest that the Story of the Poem would have been a Series of feveral Actions. He therefore opens his Poem with the Discord of his Princes, and with great Art interweaves in the several succeeding parts of it, an account of every thing [material] which relates to the Story [them], and had paffed before that fatal Diffenfion. After the fame manner Æneas makes his firft appearance in the Tyrrhene Seas, and within fight of Italy, because the Action proposed to be celebrated was that of his Settling himself in Latium. But because it was neceffary for the Reader to know what had happened to him in the taking of Troy, and in the preceding parts of his Voyage, Virgil makes his Hero relate it by way of Episode in the second and third Books of the Eneid. The Contents of both which Books come before those of the first Book in the Thread of the Story, tho' for preferving of this Unity of Action, they follow them in the Difpofition of the Poem. Milton, in Imitation of these two great Poets, opens his Paradife Loft with an Infernal Council plotting the Fall of Man, which is the Action he proposed to celebrate; and as for thofe great Actions, which preceded in point of time, the Battel of the Angels, and the Creation of the World, (which would have entirely deftroyed the Unity of his Principal Action, had he related them in the fame Order that they happened) he cast them into the fifth, fixth and seventh Books, by way of Episode to this noble Poem.

Ariftotle himself allows, that Homer has nothing to boast of as to the Unity of his Fable, tho' at the fame time that great Critick and Philofopher endeavours to palliate this Imperfection in the Greek Poet, by imputing it in fome Measure to the very Nature of an Epic Poem. Some have been of Opinion, that the Eneid labours alfo in this particular, and has Episodes which may be looked upon as Excrefcencies rather than as Parts of the Action. On the contrary, the

THE ACTION MUST BE ONE, ENTIRE, AND GREAT. 17 Poem which we have now under our Confideration, hath no other Episodes than fuch as naturally arise from the Subject, and yet is filled with fuch a multitude of astonishing Circumstances [Incidents], that it gives us at the same time a Pleasure of the greatest Variety, and of the greatest Simplicity. {uniform in its Nature, though diversified in the Execution.}

I must observe also, that as Virgil in the Poem which was defigned to celebrate the Original of the Roman Empire, has described the Birth of its great Rival, the Carthaginian Commonwealth. Milton with the like Art in his Poem on the Fall of Man, has related the Fall of those Angels who are his profeffed Enemies. Besides the many other Beauties in fuch an Episode, it's running Parallel with the great Action of the Poem, hinders it from breaking the Unity so much as another Epifode would have done, that had not fo great an Affinity with the principal Subject. In short, this is the fame kind of Beauty which the Criticks admire in the Spanish Fryar, or the Double Difcovery, where the two different Plots look like Counterparts and Copies of one another.

The fecond Qualification required in the Action of an Epic Poem is, that it should be an entire Action: An Action is entire when it is compleat in all its Parts; or as Ariftotle describes it, when it confifts of a Beginning, a Middle, and an End. Nothing fhould go before it, be intermix'd with it, or follow after it, that is not related to it. As on the contrary, no fingle Step should be omitted in that just and regular Progrefs [Procefs] which it must be fuppofed to take from its Original to its Confummation. Thus we see the Anger of Achilles in its Birth, its Continuance and Effects; and Æneas's Settlement in Italy, carried on through all the Oppofitions in his way to it both by Sea and Land. The Action in Milton excels (I think) both the former in this particular; we fee it contrived in Hell, executed upon Earth, and punished by Heaven. The parts of it are told in the most distinct manner,

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and grow out of one another in the most natural Method.

The third Qualification of an Epic Poem is its Greatnefs. The Anger of Achilles was of fuch Confequence, that it embroiled the Kings of Greece, deftroy'd the Heroes of Troy, and engaged all the Gods in Factions. Æneas's Settlement in Italy produced the Cafars, and gave Birth to the Roman Empire. Milton's Subject was still greater than either of the former; it does not determine the Fate of single Perfons or Nations, but of a whole Species. The united Powers of Hell are joyned together for the Destruction of Mankind, which they effected in part, and would have completed, had not Omnipotence it felf interpofed. The principal Actors are Man in his greatest Perfection, and Woman in her highest Beauty. Their Enemies are the fallen Angels: The Meffiah their Friend, and the Almighty their Protector. In short, every thing that is great in the whole Circle of Being, whether within the Verge of Nature, or out of it, has a proper Part affigned it in this noble Poem.

In Poetry, as in Architecture, not only the whole, but the principal Members, and every part of them, should be Great. I will not presume to say, that the Book of Games in the Æneid, or that in the Iliad, are not of this nature, nor to reprehend Virgil's Simile of a Top, and many other of the fame nature in the Iliad, as liable to any Cenfure in this Particular; but I think we may fay, without offence to [derogating from] those wonderful Performances, that there is an unquestionable Magnificence in every Part of Paradife Loft, and indeed a much greater than could have been formed upon any Pagan System.

But Ariftotle, by the Greatness of the Action, does not only mean that it should be great in its Nature, but alfo in its Duration, or in other Words, that it fhould have a due length in it, as well as what we properly call Greatnefs. The juft Measure of this kind of Magnitude, he explains by the following

IN ITS NATURE, BUT IN ITS DURATION.

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Similitude. An Animal, no bigger than a Mite, cannot appear perfect to the Eye, because the Sight takes it in at once, and has only a confused Idea of the whole, and not a distinct Idea of all its Parts; If on the contrary you should fuppofe an Animal of ten thousand Furlongs in length, the Eye would be fo filled with a single Part of it, that it could not give the Mind an Idea of the whole. What these Animals are to the Eye, a very short or a very long Action would be to the Memory. The first would be, as it were, loft and fwallowed up by it, and the other difficult to be contained in it. Homer and Virgil have fhewn their principal Art in this Particular; the Action of the Iliad, and that of the Æneid, were in themselves exceeding fhort, but are fo beautifully extended and diversified by the Intervention [Invention] of Epifodes, and the Machinery of Gods, with the like Poetical Ornaments, that they make up an agreeable Story sufficient to employ the Memory without overcharging it. Milton's Action is enriched with fuch a variety of Circumftances, that I have taken as much Pleasure in reading the Contents of his Books, as in the best invented Story I ever met with. It is poffible, that the Traditions on which the Iliad and Æneid were built, had more Circumstances in them than the History of the Fall of Man, as it is related in Scripture. Befides it was easier for Homer and Virgil to dash the Truth with Fiction, as they were in no danger of offending the Religion of their Country by it. But as for Milton, he had not only a very few Circumstances upon which to raise his Poem, but was also obliged to proceed with the greatest Caution in every thing that he added out of his own Invention. And, indeed, notwithstanding all the Restraints he was under, he has filled his Story with so many surprising Incidents, which bear fo close an Analogy with what is delivered in Holy Writ, that it is capable of pleasing the most delicate Reader, without giving Offence to the most scrupulous.

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