ΙΟ

2.1

THE CHARACTERS.

Notandi sunt tibi mores. — HOR. Ars Poet. 156.

Note well the manners.

HAVING examined the action of Paradise Lost, let us

in the next place consider the actors. This is Aristotle's method of considering first the fable, and secondly the manners; or, as we generally call them in 5 English, the fable and the characters.

2

Homer has excelled all the heroic poets that ever wrote in the multitude and variety of his characters. Every god that is admitted into this poem acts a part which would have been suitable to no other deity. His princes are as much distinguished by their manners as by their dominions; and even those among them whose characters seem wholly made up of courage differ from one another as to the particular kinds of courage in which they excel. In short, there is scarce a speech or action 15 in the Iliad which the reader may not ascribe to the person that speaks or acts, without seeing his name at the head of it.

Homer does not only outshine all other poets in the variety, but also in the novelty of his characters. He 20 has introduced among his Grecian princes a person who had lived thrice the age of man, and conversed with The

1 Spectator, No. 273, Jan. 12, 1712.

2 For This...

secondly' the first edition has 'These are what Aristotle means by the fable and.' 8 First edition, 'his' (Arber).

1

5

seus, Hercules, Polyphemus, and the first race of heroes. His principal actor is the son of a goddess, not to mention the offspring of other deities who have likewise a place in his poem, and the venerable Trojan prince who was the father of so many kings and heroes. There is in these several characters of Homer a certain dignity as well as novelty, which adapts them in a more peculiar manner to the nature of an heroic poem; though, at the same time, to give them the greater variety, he has described a Vulcan that is a buffoon among his gods, and 10 a Thersites among his mortals.

Virgil falls infinitely short of Homer in the characters of his poem, both as to their variety and novelty. Æneas is indeed a perfect character; but as for Achates, though he is styled the hero's friend, he does nothing in the 15 whole poem which may deserve that title. Gyas, Mnestheus, Sergestus, and Cloanthus, are all of them men of the same stamp and character:

Fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthum.

20

There are, indeed, several natural incidents in the part of Ascanius, as that of Dido cannot be sufficiently admired. I do not see anything new or particular in Turnus. Pallas and Evander are remote3 copies of Hector and Priam, as Lausus and Mezentius are almost parallels to Pallas and Evander. The characters of Nisus 25 and Euryalus are beautiful, but common. We must not forget the parts of Sinon, Camilla, and some few others, which are fine improvements on the Greek poet. In short, there is neither that variety nor novelty in the per

2 First edition for offspring... have' has 'son of Aurora who has.'

3 Remote' added in second edition.

4' We... poet' added in second edition.

sons of the Eneid which we meet with in those of the 1.

If we kk into the characters of Milton we shall find that he has introduced all the variety his fable1 was capaHe of receiving. The whole species of mankind was in two persons at the time to which the subject of his poem is confined. We have, however, four distinct characters in these two persons. We see man and woman in the highest innocence and perfection, and in the most abject 10 state of guilt and infirmity. The two last characters are, indeed, very common and obvious; but the two first are not only more magnificent, but more new than any characters either in Virgil or Homer, or indeed in the whole

circle of nature.

Milton was so sensible of this defect in the subject of his poem, and of the few characters it would afford him, that he has brought into it two actors of a shadowy and fictitious nature, in the persons of Sin and Death, by which means he has wrought into the body of his fable a very 20 beautiful and well-invented allegory. But notwithstand

ing the fineness of this allegory may atone for it in some measure, I cannot think that persons of such a chimerical existence are proper actors in an epic poem; because there is not that measure of probability annexed to them 25 which is requisite in writings of this kind, as I shall show

more at large hereafter.3

Virgil has indeed admitted Fame as an actress in the Eneid; but the part she acts is very short, and none 30 We find in mock-heroic poems, particularly in the Disof the most admired circumstances in that divine work. pensary and the Lutrin, several allegorical persons of this nature, which are very beautiful in those compositions,

1 For his fable' the first edition has that his poem.'

3. As...

2 For wrought into the first edition has 'interwoven in.' hereafter' added in second edition.

and may perhaps be used as an argument that the authors of them were of opinion such1 characters might have a place in an epic work. For my own part I should be glad the reader would think so, for the sake of the poem I am now examining; and must further add, that if such s empty unsubstantial beings may be ever made use of on this occasion, never were2 any more nicely imagined, and employed in more proper actions, than those of which I am now speaking.

15

Another principal actor in this poem is the great enemy 10 of mankind. The part of Ulysses in Homer's Odyssey is very much admired by Aristotle, as perplexing that fable with very agreeable plots and intricacies, not only by the many adventures in his voyage, and the subtilty of his behavior, but by the various concealments and discoveries of his person in several parts of that poem. But the crafty being I have now mentioned makes a much longer voyage than Ulysses, puts in practice many more wiles and stratagems, and hides himself under a greater variety of shapes and appearances, all of which are severally detected, to the great delight and surprise of the reader.

20

We may likewise observe with how much art the poet has varied several characters of the persons that speak to his infernal assembly. On the contrary, how has he represented the whole Godhead exerting itself towards 25 man in its full benevolence, under the threefold distinction of a Creator, a Redeemer, and a Comforter !

Nor must we omit the person of Raphael, who, amidst his tenderness and friendship for man, shows such a dignity and condescension in all his speech and Sehavior as 30 are suitable to a superior nature. The angels are indeed as much diversified in Milton, and distinguished by their

1 First edition, 'that such.'

2 For 'never were' the first edition has there were never.' 8 First edition, 'in' (Arber).

proper parts, as the gods are in Homer or Virgil. The reader will find nothing ascribed to Uriel, Gabriel, Michael, or Raphael, which is not in a particular manner suitable to their respective characters.1

5 There is another circumstance in the principal actors of the Iliad and Æneid which gives a peculiar2 beauty to those two poems, and was therefore contrived with very great judgment: I mean, the authors' having chosen for their heroes persons who were so nearly related to the 10 people for whom they wrote. Achilles was a Greek, and Æneas the remote founder of Rome. By this means their countrymen, whom they principally proposed to themselves for their readers, were particularly attentive to all the parts of their story, and sympathized with their 15 heroes in all their adventures. A Roman could not but rejoice in the escapes, successes, and victories of Æneas, and be grieved at any defeats, misfortunes, or disappointments that befell him; as a Greek must have had the same regard for Achilles. And it is plain that each of 20 those poems have lost this great advantage among those readers to whom their heroes are as strangers or indifferent persons.

Milton's poem is admirable in this respect, since it is impossible for any of its readers, whatever nation, country, or people he may belong to, not to be related to the persons who are the principal actors in it; but what is still infinitely more to its advantage, the principal actors in this poem are not only our progenitors, but our representatives. We have an actual interest in everything they 39 do, and no less than our utmost happiness is concerned and lies at stake in all their behavior.

1

I shall subjoin, as a corollary to the foregoing remark,

1 The two last sentences were added in the second edition.