Beatitude paft utterance: On his right Satan's Approach to the Confines of the Creation, is finely imaged in the beginning of the Speech, which immediately follows. The Effects of this Speech in the blessed Spirits, and in the Divine Perfon, to whom it was addressed, cannot but fill the Mind of the Reader with a fecret Pleasure and Complacency. Thus while God fpake, ambrofial fragrance fill'd I need not point out the Beauty of that Circumstance, wherein the whole Hoft of Angels are represented as standing Mute; nor fhew how proper the Occafion was to produce fuch a Silence in Heaven. The Clofe of this Divine Colloquy, with the Hymn of Angels that follows upon it, are fo wonderfully beautiful and poetical, that I should not forbear inferting the whole Paffage, if the bounds of my Paper would give me leave. No fooner had th' Almighty ceas'd, but all Satan's Walk upon the Outside of the Universe, which, at a Distance, appeared to him of a globular Form, but, upon his nearer Approach, looked like an unbounded Plain, is natural and noble: As his roa ming upon the Frontiers of the Creation, between that Mafs of Matter, which was wrought into a World, and that shapeless unform'd Heap of Materials, which still lay in Chaos and Confufion, ftrikes the Imagination with something aftonishingly great and wild. I have before spoken of the Limbo of Vanity, which the Poet places upon this outermoft Surface of the Univerfe, and fhall here explain my self more at large on that, and other Parts of the Poem, which are of the same Shadowy nature. Ariftotle obferves, that the Fable of an Epic Poem should abound in Circumstances that are both credible and aftonishing: or as the French Critics chufe to phrase it, the Fable should be filled with the Probable and the Marvellous. This Rule is as fine and just as any in Ariftotle's whole Art of Poetry. If the Fable is only probable, it differs nothing from a true History; if it is only Marvellous, it is no better than a Romance. The great Secret therefore of Heroic Poetry is to relate fuch Circumstances, as may produce in the Reader at the fame time both Belief and Aftonishment. This often happens [is brought to pass] in a well chofen Fable, by the Account of fuch things as have really happened, or at least of such things as have happen'd, according to the received Opinions of Mankind. Milton's Fable is a Master-piece of this Nature; as the War in Heaven, the Condition of the fallen Angels, the State of Innocence, the Temptation of the Serpent, and the Fall of Man, though they are very astonishing in themselves, are not only credible, but actual Points of Faith. The next Method of reconciling Miracles with Credibility, is by a happy Invention of the Poet; as in particular, when he introduces Agents of a fuperior Nature, who are capable of effecting what is wonderful, and what is not to be met with in the ordinary course of things. Ulyffes's Ship being turned into a Rock, and Eneas's Fleet into a Shoal of Water Nymphs, though they are very furprizing Accidents, are nevertheless probable, when we are told that they were the Gods who thus transformed them. It is this kind of Machinery which fills the Poems both of Homer and Virgil with fuch Circumstances as are wonderful, but not impoffible, and fo frequently produce in the Reader the most pleasing Paffion that can rise in the Mind of Man, which is Admiration. If there be any Inftance in the Eneid liable to Exception upon this Account, it is in the beginning of the third Book, where Æneas is reprefented as tearing up the Myrtle that dropped Blood. To qualifie this wonderful Circumstance, Polydorus tells a Story from the Root of the Myrtle, that the barbarous inhabitants of the Country having pierced him with Spears and Arrows, the Wood which was left in his Body took Root in his Wounds, and gave birth to that bleeding Tree. This Circumftance feems to have the Marvellous without the Probable, because it is reprefented as proceeding from Natural Causes, without the Interpofition of any God, or rather Supernatural Power capable of >roducing it. The Spears and Arrows grow of themelves, without fo much as the Modern help of an Enchantment. If we look into the Fiction of Milton's Fable, though we find it full of furprizing Incidents, they are generally fuited to our Notions of the Things and Perfons described, and temper'd with a due measure of Probability. I muft only make an Excep tion to the Lymbo of Vanity, with his Episode of Sin and Death, and fome of the imaginary Persons in his Chaos. Thefe Paffages are astonishing, but not credible; the Reader cannot fo far impose upon himself as to fee a Poffibility in them; they are the Defcription of Dreams and Shadows, not of Things or Perfons. I know that many Critics look upon the Stories of Circe, Polypheme, the Sirens, nay the whole Odyffey and Iliad, to be Allegories; but allowing this to be true, they are Fables, which confidering the Opinions of Mankind that prevailed in the Age of the Poet, might poffibly have been according to the Letter. The Perfons are fuch as might have acted what is ascribed to them, as the Circumstances in which they are represented, might poffibly have been Truths and Realities. This appearance of Probability is fo abfolutely requifite in the greater kinds of Poetry, that Ariftotle obferves the Ancient Tragick Writers made ufe of the Names of fuch great Men as had actually lived in the World, tho' the Tragedy proceeded upon fuch Adventures they were never engaged in, on purpose to make the Subject more Credible. In a Word, befides the hidden Meaning of an Epic Allegory, the plain literal Sense ought to appear probable. The Story fhould be fuch as an ordinary Reader may acquiefce in, whatever Natural Moral or Political Truth may be discovered in it by Men of greater Penetration. Satan, after having long wandered upon the Surface, or outmost Wall of the Universe, discovers at last a wide Gap in it, which led into the Creation, and which* is described as the Opening through which the Angels pafs to and fro into the lower World, upon their Errands to Mankind. His Sitting upon the brink of this Paffage, and taking a Survey of the whole Face of Nature that appeared to him new and fresh in all its Beauties, with the Simile illuftrating this Circumstance, fills the Mind of the Reader with as furprising and glorious an Idea as any that arises in the whole Poem. He looks down into that vaft hollow of the Universe with the Eye, or (as Milton calls it in his first Book) with the Kenn of an Angel. He furveys all the Wonders in this immense Amphitheatre that lie between both the Poles of Heaven, and takes in at one View the whole Round of the Creation. His Flight between the several Worlds that shined on every fide of him, with the particular Description of the Sun, are set forth in all the wantonness of a luxuriant Imagination. His Shape, Speech and Behaviour upon his transforming himself into an Angel of Light, are touched with exquifite Beauty. The Poet's Thought of directing Satan to the Sun, which in the Vulgar Opinion of Mankind is the most confpicuous Part of the Creation, and the placing in it an Angel, is a Circumftance very finely contriv'd, and the more adjusted to a Poetical Probability, as it was a receiv'd Doctrine among the most famous Philofophers, that every Orb had its Intelligence; and as an Apostle in Sacred Writ is faid to have seen such an Angel in the Sun. In the Answer which this Angel returns to the disguised Evil Spirit, there is fuch a becoming Majesty as is altogether suitable to a Superior Being. The part of it in which he represents himself as present at the Creation, is very noble in it self, and not only proper where it is introduced, but requifite to prepare the Reader for what follows in the Seventh Book. I faw when at his word the formlefs Mafs, In the following part of the Speech he points out the Earth with such Circumstances, that the Reader |