have been very well pleased had they thought of confronting Vulcan's tripods with Ezekiel's wheels.

Raphael's descent to the earth, with the figure of his person, is represented in very lively colours. Several of the French, Italian, and English poets, have given a loose to their imaginations in the description of angels: but I do not remember to have met with any so finely drawn, and so conformable to the notions which are given of them in Scripture, as this in Milton. After having set him forth in all his heavenly plumage, and represented him as alighted upon the earth, the poet concludes his description with a circumstance which is altogether new, and imagined with the greatest strength of fancy:

-Like Maia's son he stood,

And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fill❜J
The circuit wide-

Raphael's reception by the guardian angels, his passing through the wilderness of sweets, his distant appearance to Adam, have all the graces that poetry is capable of bestowing. The author afterward gives us a particular description of Eve in her domestic employments:

So saying, with dispatchful looks in haste
She turns, on hospitable thoughts intent,
What choice to choose for delicacy best,
What order, so contriv'd, as not to mix
Tastes not well join'd, inelegant, but bring
Taste after taste, upheld with kindliest change;
Bestirs her then, &c.

Though in this, and other parts of the same book, the subject is only the housewifery of our first parent, it is set off with so many pleasing images and strong expressions, as make it none of the least agreeable parts in this divine work.

The natural majesty of Adam, and, at the same time, his submissive behaviour to the superior being who had vouchsafed to be his guest; the solemn

88

'hail' which the angel bestows upon the mother of mankind, with the figure of Eve ministering at the table; are circumstances which deserve to be admired.

Raphael's behaviour is every way suitable to the dignity of his nature, and to that character of a sociable spirit with which the author has so judiciously introduced him. He had received instructions to converse with Adam, as one friend converses with another, and to warn him of the enemy, who was contriving his destruction: accordingly, he is represented as sitting down at table with Adam, and eating of the fruits of Paradise. The occasion naturally leads him to his discourse on the food of angels. After having thus entered into conversation with man upon more indifferent subjects, he warns him of his obedience, and makes a natural transition to the history of that fallen angel who was employed in the circumvention of our first parents.

Had I followed Monsieur Bossu's method in my first paper on Milton, I should have dated the action of Paradise Lost from the beginning of Raphael's speech in this book, as he supposes the action of the Eneid to begin in the second book of that poem. I could allege many reasons for my drawing the action of the Eneid rather from its immediate beginning in the first book, than from its remote beginning in the second; and shew why I have considered the sacking of Troy as an episode, according to the common acceptation of that word. But as this would be a dry unentertaining piece of criticism, and perhaps unnecessary to those who have read my first paper, I shall not enlarge upon it. Whichever of

the notions be true, the unity of Milton's action is preserved according to either of them; whether we consider the fall of man in its immediate beginning, as proceeding from the resolutions taken in the infer

nal council, or in its more remote beginning, as proceeding from the first revolt, of the angels in heaven. The occasion which Milton assigns for this revolt, as it is founded on hints in holy writ, and on the opinion of some great writers, so it was the most proper that the poet could have made use of.

The revolt in heaven is described with great force of imagination, and a fine variety of circumstances. The learned reader cannot but be pleased with the poet's imitation of Homer in the last of the following lines:

At length into the limits of the north

They came, and Satan took his royal seat
High on a hill, far blazing, as a mount
Rais'd on a mount, with pyramids and tow'rs
From diamond quarries hewn, and rocks of gold,
The palace of great Lucifer (so call

That structure in the dialect of men
Interpreted),-

he

Homer mentions persons and things, which, tells us, in the language of the gods are called by different names from those they go by in the language of men. Milton has imitated him with his usual judgment in this particular place, wherein he has likewise the authority of Scripture to justify him. The part of Abdiel, who was the only spirit that in this infinite host of angels preserved his allegiance to his Maker, exhibits to us a noble moral of religi ous singularity. The zeal of the seraphim breaks forth in a becoming warmth of sentiments and expressions, as the character which is given us of him denotes that generous scorn and intrepidity which attend heroic virtue. The author doubtless designed it as a pattern to those who live among mankind in their present state of degeneracy and corruption:

So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found
Among the faithless, faithful only he;
Among innumerable false, unmov'd,

Unshaken, unseduc'd, unterrify'd ;

His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal :

Nor number nor example with him wrought

To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind,
Though single. From amidst them forth he pass'd,
Long way thro' hostile scorn, which he sustain'd
Superior, nor of violence fear'd aught;

And, with retorted scorn, his back he turn'd
On those proud tow'rs to swift destruction doom'd.
L.

N° 328. MONDAY, MARCH 17, 1711-12.

Nullum a labore me reclinat otium.-HOR. Epod, xvii. 24.
Day chases night, and night the day,

But no relief to me convey.-DUNCOMBE.

MR. SPECTATOR,

'As I believe that this is the first complaint that` ever was made to you of this nature, so you are the first person I ever could prevail upon myself to lay it before. When I tell you I have a healthy, vigo-rous constitution, a plentiful estate, no inordinate desires, and am married to a virtuous lovely woman, who neither wants wit nor good nature, and by whom I have a numerous offspring to perpetuate my family, you will naturally conclude me a happy man. But, notwithstanding these promising appearances, I am so far from it, that the prospect of being ruined and undone by a sort of extravagance, which of late years is in a less degree crept into every fashionable family, deprives me of all the comforts of my life, and renders me the most anxious, miserable man on earth. My wife, who was the only child and darling care of an indulgent mother, employed her early years in learning all those accomplishments we generally

understand by good-breeding and polite education.? She sings, dances, plays on the lute and harpsichord, paints prettily, is a perfect mistress of the French tongue, and has made a considerable progress in Italian. She is besides excellently skilled in all domestic sciences, as preserving, pickling, pastry, making wines of fruits of our own growth, embroidering, and needleworks of every kind.· Hitherto, you will be apt to think there is very little cause of complaint; but suspend your opinion till I have farther explained myself, and then, I make no question, you will come over to mine. You are not to imagine I find fault that she possesses or takes de-. light in the exercises of those qualifications I just now mentioned; 'tis the immoderate fondness she has to them that I lament, and that what is only designed for the innocent amusement and recreation of life is become the whole business and study of hers. The six months we are in town (for the year is equally divided between that and the country), from almost break of day till noon, the whole morning is laid out in practising with her several masters; and to make up the losses occasioned by her absence in summer, every day in the week their attendance is required; and as they are all people eminent in their professions, their skill and time must be recompensed accordingly. So how far these articles extend, I leave you to judge. Limning, one would think, is no expensive diversion; but, as she manages the matter, 'tis a very considerable addition to her disbursements; which you will easily believe, when you know she paints fans for all her female acquaintance, and draws all her relations' pictures in miniature: the first must be mounted by nobody but Colmar, and the other set by nobody but Charles. Mather*. What follows is still much worse than the * At the date of this paper a noted toyman in Fleet-street.

}