of Judgment to avoid every thing that might appear light or trivial. Thofe, who look into Homer, are furprised to find his Battels still rising one above another, and improving in Horrour, to the Conclufion of the Iliad. Milton's Fight of Angels is wrought up with the fame Beauty. It is ufhered in with fuch Signs of Wrath as are fuitable to Omnipotence incensed. The First Engagement is carried on under a Cope of Fire, occafion'd by the Flights of innumerable burning Darts and Arrows, which are discharged from either Hoft. The fecond Onfet is ftill more terrible, as it is filled with those artificial Thunders, which seem to make the Victory doubtful, and produce a kind of Confternation, even in the Good Angels. This is followed by the tearing up of Mountains and Promontories; till, in the last place, the Meffiah comes forth in the fulness of Majesty and Terrour. The Pomp of his Appearance, amidst the Roarings of his Thunders, the Flashes of his Lightnings, and the Noife of his Chariot Wheels, is defcribed with the utmost Flights of Human Imagination.

There is nothing in the first and last Days Engagement, which does not appear natural and agreeable enough to the Ideas moft Readers would conceive of a Fight between two Armies of Angels.

The Second Day's Engagement is apt to startle an Imagination, which has not been raised and qualified for such a Description, by the reading of the Ancient Poets, and of Homer in particular. It was certainly a very bold Thought in our Author, to ascribe the first use of Artillery to the Rebel Angels. But as fuch a pernicious Invention may be well supposed to have proceeded from fuch Authors, fo it entered very properly into the Thoughts of that Being, who is all along described as afpiring to the Majefty of his Maker. Such Engines were the only Inftruments he could have made ufe of to imitate those Thunders, that in all Poetry, both Sacred and Prophane, are reprefented as the Arms of the Almighty. The tearing up

the Hills was not altogether fo daring a Thought as the former. We are, in fome measure, prepared for fuch an Incident by the Description of the Gyants War, which we meet with among the Ancient Poets. What ftill made this Circumstance the more proper for the Poets ufe, is the Opinion of many learned Men, that the Fable of the Gyants War, which makes fo great a Noife in Antiquity, [and gave Birth to the sublimest Description in Hefiod's Works,] was an Allegory founded upon this very Tradition of a Fight between the good and bad Angels.

It may, perhaps, be worth while to confider with what Judgment Milton, in this Narration, has avoided every thing that is mean and trivial in the Descriptions of the Latin and Greek Poets; and, at the fame time, improved every great Hint which he met with in their Works upon this Subject. Homer in that Paffage, which Longinus has celebrated for its Sublimeness, and which Virgil and Ovid have copied after him, tells us, that the Gyants threw Offa upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Offa. He adds an Epithet to Pelion (eivooiquλλov) which very much fwells the Idea, by bringing up to the Reader's Imagination all the Woods that grew upon it. There is further a great Beauty in his fingling out by Name these three remarkable Mountains fo well known to the Greeks. This laft is fuch a Beauty as the Scene of Milton's War could not poffibly furnish him with. Claudian in his Fragment upon the Gyants War, has given full Scope to that wildness of Imagination which was natural to him. He tells us, that the Gyants tore up whole Islands by the Roots, and threw them at the Gods. He describes one of them in particular taking up Lemnos in his Arms, and whirling it to the Skies, with all Vulcan's Shop in the midst of it. Another tears up Mount Ida, with the River Enipeus which ran down the fides of it ; but the Poet, not content to describe him with this Mountain upon his Shoulders, tells us that the River flowed down his Back, as he held it up in that

Posture. It is visible to every judicious Reader, that fuch Ideas favour more of Burlesque than of the Sublime. They proceed from a Wantonnefs of Imagination, and rather divert the Mind than astonish it. Milton has taken every thing that is Sublime in these several Paffages, and compofes out of them the following great Image.

From their Foundations loofning to and fro

They pluck'd the feated Hills with all their load,
Rocks, Waters, Woods, and by the shaggy tops
Up-lifting bore them in their Hands-

We have the full Majefty of Homer in this short Description, improved by the Imagination of Claudian, without its Puerilities.

I need not point out the Description of the fallen Angels, feeing the Promontories hanging over their Heads in fuch a dreadful manner, with the other numberless Beauties in this Book, which are fo confpicuous, that they cannot escape the Notice of the moft ordinary Reader.

There are indeed fo many wonderful ftroaks of Poetry in this Book, and fuch a variety of Sublime Ideas, that it would have been impoffible to have given them a place within the bounds of this Paper. Befides that, I find it in a great measure done to my Hand, at the end of my Lord Rofcommon's Effay on Translated Poetry. I fhall refer my Reader thither for fome of the Mafter-Stroaks in the Sixth Book of Paradife Loft, tho' at the fame time there are many others which that noble Author has not taken notice of.

Milton, notwithstanding the Sublime Genius he was Master of, has in this Book drawn to his Affistance all the helps he could meet with among the Ancient Poets. The Sword of Michael, which makes fo great an havock among the bad Angels, was given him, we are told, out of the Armory of God.

-But the Sword

Of Michael from the Armory of God

Was giv'n him temper'd fo, that neither keen
Nor folid might refift that edge: it met
The Sword of Satan with fleep force to fmite
Defcending, and in half cut fheere,

This Paffage is a Copy of that in Virgil, wherein the Poet tells us, that the Sword of Æneas, which was given him by a Deity, broke into pieces the Sword of Turnus, which came from a Mortal Forge: As the Moral in this place is Divine, fo by the way we may obferve, that the bestowing on a Man who is favour'd by Heaven fuch an Allegorical Weapon, is very conformable to the old Eastern way of Thinking. Not only Homer has made use of it, but we find the Jewish Hero in the Book of Maccabees, who had fought the Battels of the chosen People with so much Glory and Succefs, receiving in his Dream a Sword from the hand of the Prophet Jeremy [Jeremiah]. The following Paffage, wherein Satan is described as wounded by the Sword of Michael, is in imitation of Homer. The girding Sword with difcontinuous wound Pafs'd through him, but th' Ethereal fubftance clofed Not long divifible, and from the gash

A fream of Nectarous humour iffuing flow'd
Sanguin, fuch as celeftial Spirits may bleed,
And all his Armour flain'd

Homer tells us in the fame manner, that upor Diomedes wounding the Gods, there flow'd from the Wound an Ichor, or pure kind of Blood, which was not bred from Mortal Viands; and that tho' the Pain was exquifitely great, the Wound foon closed up and healed in those Beings who are vested with Immortality.

I queftion not but Milton in his Description of his furious Moloch flying from the Battel, and bellowing with the wound he had receiv'd, had his Eye upon Mars in the Iliad, who upon his being wounded, is represented as retiring out of the Fight, and making an Outcry louder than that of a whole Army when it

G

begins the Charge. Trojans, who were

Homer adds, that the Greeks and engaged in a general Battel, were terrified on each fide with the bellowing of this wounded Deity. The Reader will easily observe how Milton has kept all the horrour of this Image without running into the Ridicule of it.

Where the might of Gabriel fought,

And with fierce Enfigns pierc'd the deep array
Of Moloc furious King, who him defy'd,
And at his Chariot wheels to drag him bound
Threaten'd, nor from the Holy One of Heav'n
Refrain'd his tongue blafphemous; but anon
Down clov'n to the wafte, with fhatter'd Arms
And uncouth pain fled bellowing.

Milton has likewife rais'd his Defcription in this Book with many Images taken out of the Poetical Parts of Scripture. The Meffiah's Chariot, as I have before taken notice, is form'd upon a Vision of Ezekiel, who, as Grotius obferves, has very much in him of Homer's Spirit in the Poetical Parts of his Prophecy.

The following Lines in that glorious Commiffion which is given the Meffiah to extirpate the Host of Rebel Angels, is drawn from a Sublime Paffage in the Pfalms.

Go then thou mightiest in thy Father's might
Afcend my Chariot, guide the rapid wheels
That Shake Heav'ns bafis, bring forth all my War
My Bow, my thunder, my almighty arms,
Gird on thy fword on thy puiffant thigh.

The Reader will easily discover many other Stroaks of the fame nature.

There is no queftion but Milton had heated his Imagination with the Fight of the Gods in Homer, before he entered upon this Engagement of the Angels. Homer there gives us a Scene of Men, Heroes and Gods mixed together in Battel. Mars animates