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BE RELATED TO ITS INTENDED READERS.

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Progenitors, but our Representatives. We have an actual Interest in every thing they do, and no less than our utmost Happiness or * Mifery is concerned, and lies at Stake in all their Behaviour.

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I shall fubjoyn as a Corollary to the foregoing Remark, an admirable Obfervation out of Ariftotle, which hath been very much mifrepresented in the Quotations of fome Modern Criticks. 'If a Man of perfect ' and confummate Virtue falls into a Misfortune, it raises our Pity, but not our Terror, because we do 'not fear that it may be our own Cafe, who do not resemble the Suffering Person. But as that great Philofopher adds, 'If we fee a Man of Virtues mixt 'with Infirmities, fall into any Misfortune, it does not only raise our Pity but our Terror; because we are afraid 'that the like Misfortunes may happen to our felves, ' who resemble the Character of the Suffering Person.

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I fhall take another Opportunity to obferve, that a Person of an abfolute and confummate Virtue should never be introduced in Tragedy, and shall only remark in this Place, that this [the foregoing] Obfervation of Arif. totle, tho' it may be true in other Occafions, does not hold in this; because in the present Cafe, though the Perfons who fall into Misfortune are of the most perfect and confummate Virtue, it is not to be confidered as what may poffibly be, but what actually is our own Cafe; fince we are embark'd with them on the fame Bottom, and must be Partakers of their Happiness or Mifery.

In this, and fome other very few Inftances, Ariftotle's Rules for Epic Poetry (which he had drawn from his Reflections upon Homer) cannot be fuppofed to quadrate exactly with the Heroic Poems which have been made fince his Time; as it is plain his Rules would have been ftill more perfect, cou'd he have perused the Æneid which was made fome hundred Years after his Death.

In my next I fhall go through other parts of Milton's Poem; and hope that what I shall there advance, as well as what I have already written, will not only ferve as a Comment upon Milton, but upon Aristotle.

The SPECTATOR.

Reddere perfonæ fcit convenientia cuique.

{He knows what beft befits each Characler.}

Saturday, January 19. 1712.

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E have already taken a general Survey of the Fable and Characters in Milton's Paradife Loft: The Parts which remain to be confider'd, according to Ariftotle's Method, are the Sentiments and the Language. Before I enter upon the first of these, I must advertise my Reader, that it is my Design as soon as I have finished my general Reflections on these four feveral Heads, to give particular Inftances out of the Poem which is now before us of Beauties and Imperfections which may be observed under each of them, as also of such other Particulars as may not properly fall under any of them. This I thought fit to premise, that the Reader may not judge too haftily of this Piece of Criticifm, or look upon it as Imperfect, before he has seen the whole Extent of it.

The Sentiments in an [all] Epic Poem are the Thoughts and Behaviour which the Author ascribes to the Perfons whom he introduces, and are just when they are conformable to the Characters of the several Perfons. The Sentiments have likewise a relation to Things as well as Perfons, and are then perfect when they are fuch as are adapted to the Subject. If in either of thefe Cafes the Poet argues, or explains, magnifies or diminishes, raises Love or Hatred, Pity or Terror, or any other Paffion, we ought to confider whether the Sentiments he makes ufe of are proper for these [their] Ends. Homer is cenfured by the Criticks for

THE SENTIMENTS MUST BE BOTH NATURAL AND SUBLIME. 27

his Defect as to this Particular in several parts of the Iliad and Odyffey, tho' at the fame time those who have treated this great Poet with Candour, have attri buted this Defect to the Times in which he lived. It was the fault of the Age, and not of Homer, if there wants that Delicacy in some of his Sentiments, which appears in the Works of Men of a much inferior Genius. Besides, if there are Blemishes in any particular Thoughts, there is an infinite Beauty in the greatest part of them. In short, if there are many Poets who wou'd not have fallen into the mea[n]nefs of some of his Sentiments, there are none who cou'd have rife[n] up to the Greatness of others. Virgil has excelled all others in the Propriety of his Sentiments. Milton fhines likewise very much in this Particular: Nor must we omit one Confideration which adds to his Honour and Reputation. Homer and Virgil introduced Persons whose Characters are commonly known among Men, and fuch as are to be met with either in History, or in ordinary Converfation. Milton's Cha

racters, most of them, lie out of Nature, and were to be formed purely by his own Invention. It fhews a greater Genius in Shakefpear to have drawn his Calyban, than his Hotspur or Julius Cæfar: The one was to be fupplied out of his own Imagination, whereas the other might have been formed upon Tradition, History and Obfervation. It was much easier therefore for Homer to find proper Sentiments for an Affembly of Grecian Generals, than for Milton to diverfifie his Infernal Council with proper Characters, and inspire them with a variety of Sentiments. The Loves of Dido and Æneas are only Copies of what has paffed between other Persons. Adam and Eve, before the Fall, are a different Species from that of Mankind, who are descended from them; and none but a Poet of the most unbounded Invention, and the moft exquifite Judgment, cou'd have filled their Converfation and Behaviour with fuch Beautiful Circumstances during their State of Innocence.

Nor is it fufficient for an Epic Poem to be filled with fuch Thoughts as are Natural, unless it abound also with such as are Sublime. Virgil in this Particular falls fhort of Homer. He has not indeed fo many Thoughts that are Low and Vulgar; but at the fame time has not so many Thoughts that are Sublime and Noble. The truth of it is, Virgil feldom rises into very aftonishing Sentiments, where he is not fired. by the Iliad. He every where charms and pleases us by the force of his own Genius; but feldom elevates and transports us where he does not fetch his Hints from Homer.

Milton's chief Talent, and indeed his distinguishing Excellence, lies in the Sublimity of his Thoughts. There are others of the Moderns who rival him in every other part of Poetry; but in the greatness of his Sentiments he triumphs over all the Poets both Modern and Ancient, Homer only excepted. It is impoffible for the Imagination of Man to diftend it self with greater Ideas, than those which he has laid together in his first, [fecond,] and fixth* [tenth] Book[s]. The feventh, which defcribes the Creation of the World, is likewife wonderfully Sublime, tho' not fo apt to ftir up Emotion in the Mind of the Reader, nor confequently fo perfect in the Epic way of Writing, because it is filled with lefs Action. Let the Reader compare what Longinus has observed on several Paffages of Homer, and he will find Parallels for most of them in the Paradife Loft.

From what has been faid we may infer, that as there are two kinds of Sentiments, the Natural and the Sublime, which are always to be pursued in an Heroic Poem, there are also two kinds of Thoughts which are carefully to be avoided. The first are fuch as are affected and unnatural; the fecond fuch as are mean and vulgar. As for the first kind of Thoughts we meet with little or nothing that is like them in Virgil: He has none of those little Points and Puerilities that are so often to be met with in Ovid, none of the

LOW THOUGHTS ARE TO BE AVOIDED.

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Epigrammatick Turns of Lucan, none of those swelling Sentiments which are fo frequent[ly] in Statius and Claudian, none of thofe mixed Embellishments of Taffo. Everything is just and natural. His Sentiments shew that he had a perfect Insight into Human Nature, and that he knew every thing which was the most proper to affect it. *I remember but one Line in him which has been objected against, by the Criticks, as a point of Wit. It is in his ninth Book, where Func speaking of the Trojans, how they furvived the Ruins of their City, expreffes her felf in the following Words;

Num capti potuere capi, num incenfa cremarunt Pergama ?

Were the Trojans taken even after they were Captives, or did Troy burn even when it was in Flames?

Mr. Dryden has in fome Places, which I may hereafter take notice of, mifreprefented Virgil's way of thinking as to this Particular, in the Tranflation he has given us of the Æneid. I do not remember that

Homer any where falls into the Faults above mentioned, which were indeed the falfe Refinements of later Áges. Milton, it must be confeft, has sometimes erred in this Respect, as I fhall fhew more at large in another Paper; tho' confidering how all the Poets of the Age in which he writ, were infected with this wrong way of thinking, he is rather to be admired that he did not give more into it, than that he did fometimes comply with that [the] vicious Tafte which prevails so much among Modern Writers.

But since several Thoughts may be natural which are low and groveling, an Epic Poet fhould not only avoid fuch Sentiments as are unnatural or affected, but also such as are low and vulgar. Homer has opened a great Field of Raillery to Men of more Delicacy than Greatnefs of Genius, by the Homeliness of some of his Sentiments. But, as I have before said, these From I remember' to Flames?' omitted in second edition.

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