The rifing of this great Affembly is defcribed in a very Sublime and Poetical manner.

Their rifing all at once was as the found
Of Thunder heard remote-

The Diversions of the fallen Angels, with the particular Account of their Place of Habitation, are described with great Pregnancy of Thought, and Copioufnefs of Invention. The Diversions are every way suitable to Beings who had nothing left them but Strength and Knowledge mifapplied. Such are their Contentions at the Race, and in Feats of Arms, with their Entertainment in the following Lines.

Others with vaft Typhæan rage more fell

Rend up both Rocks and Hills, and ride the Air
In Whirlwind; Hell fcarce holds the wild uproar.

Their Mufick is employed in celebrating their own criminal Exploits, and their Difcourfe in founding the unfathomable Depths of Fate, Free-will, and Foreknowledge.

The feveral Circumstances in the Description of Hell are very finely imagined; as the four Rivers which difgorge themselves into the Sea of Fire, the Extreams of Cold and Heat, and the River of Oblivion. The monstrous Animals produced in that infernal World are represented by a single Line, which gives us a more horrid Idea of them, than a much longer Description would have done. -Nature breeds,

Perverfe, all monflrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse

Than Fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,
Gorgons, and Hydra's, and Chimera's 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 weakned, instead of illustrated, the principal Fable. The Flight of Satan to the Gates of Hellis 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 considered as a Part of an Epic Poem. The Genealogy of the Teveral 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 Eime to time enter into their Mother, and tear the Bowels of her who gave them Birth. These are the Terrors 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,

Before mine eyes in opposition sits,

Grim Death thy Son 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

I need not mention to the Reader the beautiful Circumstance in the last Part of this Quotation. He will likewise observe how naturally the three Persons 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 likewise very strong, and full of Sublime Ideas. The Figure of Death, [the Regal Crown upon his Head,] his Menace to Satan, his advancing to the Combat, the Outcry at his Birth, are Circumstances too noble to be aft over in Silence, and extreamly suitable to this King of Terrors. I need not mention the Juftness of Thought which is obferved in the Generation of these

E

feveral Symbolical Perfons; that Sin was produced upon the first Revolt of Satan, that Death appeared foon after he was caft into Hell, and that the Terrors of Conscience were conceived at the Gate of this Place of Torments. The Description of the Gates is very poetical, as the opening of them is full of Milton's Spirit. -On a fudden open fly

With impetuous recoil and jarring found
Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harfh Thunder, that the lowest bottom shook
Of Erebus. She open'd, but to fhut

Excell'd her Power; the Gates wide open flood,
That with extended wings a banner'd Hoft
Under Spread Enfigns marching might pafs through
With Horfe and Chariots rank'd in loofe array;
So wide they flood, and like a furnace mouth
Caft forth redounding fmoak and ruddy flame.

In Satan's Voyage through the Chaos there are several Imaginary Persons described, as refiding in that immense 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 Paffages in this Defcription which carry in them a greater Measure of Probability, and are fuch as might poffibly have happened. Of this kind is his first mounting in the Smoak that rises from the infernal Pit: his falling into a Cloud of Nitre, and the like combuftible Materials, that by their Explosion still hurried him forward in his Voyage; his fpringing upward like a Pyramid of Fire, with his laborious Paffage through that Confusion of Elements, which the Poet calls

The Womb of Nature and perhaps her Grave.

The Glimmering Light which fhot into the Chaos from the utmost Verge of the Creation, with the distant Discovery of the Earth that hung close by the Moon, are wonderfully beautiful and poetical.

The SPECTATOR.

Nec deus interfit, nifi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit-

{Never prefume to make a God appear,

Hor.

But for a Bufinefs worthy of a God. Rofcommon.}

Saturday, March 1, 1712.

ORACE 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 chofen a Subject entirely conformable to those Talents, of which he was Master. As his Genius was wonderfully turned to the Sublime, his Subject is the nobleft that could have entered into the Thoughts of Man. Every thing that is truly great and astonishing, has a place in it. The whole Syftem of the intellectual World; the Chaos, and the Creation; Heaven, Earth and Hell; enter into the Conftitution of his Poem.

Having in the First and Second Book represented the Infernal World with all its Horrours, the Thread of his Fable naturally leads him into the opposite Regions of Blifs and Glory.

If Milton's Majesty forsakes him any where, it is in those Parts of his Poem, where the Divine Persons are introduced as Speakers. One may, I think, observe that the Author proceeds with a kind of Fear and Trembling, whilst he describes the Sentiments of the Almighty. He dares not give his Imagination its full Play, but chufes to confine himself to fuch Thoughts as are drawn from the Books of the most Orthodox Divines, and to fuch Expreffions as may be met with

in Scripture. The Beauties, therefore, which we are to look for in these Speeches, are not of a Poetical nature, or so proper to fill the mind with Sentiments of Grandeur, as with Thoughts of Devotion. The Paffions, which they are designed to raise, are a Divine Love and Religious Fear. The particular Beauty of the Speeches in the Third Book, confifts in that Shortnefs and Perfpicuity of Stile, in which the Poet has couched the greatest Mysteries of Christianity, and drawn together, in a regular Scheme, the whole Difpenfation of Providence, with refpect to Man. He has represented all the abstruse Doctrines of Predeftination, Free-will and Grace, as also the great Points of Incarnation and Redemption, (which naturally grow up in a Poem that treats of the Fall of Man,) with great Energy of Expreffion, and in a clearer and ftronger Light than I ever met with in any other Writer. As these Points are dry in themselves to the generality of Readers, the concife and clear manner in which he has treated them, is very much to be admired, as is likewife that particular Art which he has made use of in the interfperfing of all those Graces of Poetry, which the Subject was capable of receiving.

The Survey of the whole Creation, and of every thing that is tranfacted in it, is a Profpect worthy of Omniscience; and as much above that, in which Virgil has drawn his Jupiter, as the Christian Idea of the Supream Being is more rational and Sublime than that of the Heathens. The particular Objects on which he is described to have caft his Eye, are represented in the most beautiful and lively manner.

Now had th' Almighty Father from above,
From the pure Empyrean where he fits

High thron'd above all height, bent down his Eye,
His own Works and their Works at once to view.
About him all the Sanctities of Heav'n

Stood thick as Stars, and from his Sight receiv'd