A CRITIQUE UPON MILTON's PARADISE LOST. SPECTATOR, N° 267. Cedite Romani Scriptores, cedite Graii. Propert. HERE is nothing in Nature more irk. fome than general Difcourfes, efpecially when they turn chiefly upon Words. For this Reason I fhall wave the Dif cuffion of that Point which was started fome Years fince, Whether Milton's Paradije Loft may be called an Heroic Poem? Those who will not give it that Title, may call it (if they pleafe) a Divine Poem. It will be fufficient to its Perfection, f it has in it all the Beauties of the highest kind of Poe- try; and as for those who alledge it is not an Heroic Poem, they advance no more to the Diminution of it, than if they fhould fay Adam is not Æneas, nor Eve I fhall therefore examine it by the Rules of Epic Poetry, and fee whether it falls fhort of the Iliad or Eneid, in the Beauties which are effential to that Kind of Writing. The firft Thing to be confidered in an Epic Poem, is the Fable, which is perfect or imperfect, according as the Action which it relates is more or less fo. This Action fhould have three Qualifications in it. Firft, It should be but One Action. Secondly, It fhould be an Entire Action; and Thirdly, It should be a Great Action. To con- fider the Action of the Iliad, Eneid, and Paradife Loft, in these three feveral Lights. Homer, to pre- ferve the Unity of his Action, haftens into the Midst of Things, as Horace has obferved: Had he gone up to Leda's Egg, or begun much later, even at the Rape of Helen, or the Investing of Troy, it is mani- feft that the Story of the Poem would have been a Series of feveral Actions. He therefore opens his Poem with the Difcord of his Princes, and artfully interweaves, in the feveral fucceeding parts of it, an Account of every Thing material which relates to them, and had paffed before this fatal Diffenfion. After the fame Manner, Eneas makes his firft Ap- pearance in the Tyrrhene Seas, and within the Sight of Italy, becaufe the Action propofed to be celebra- ted was that of his fettling himself in Latium. But because it was neceffary for the Reader to know what had happened to him in the taking of Troy, and in the preceding Parts of his Voyage, Virgil makes his Heroe relate it by way of Episode in the fecond and third Books of the Eneid: the Contents of both which Books come before thofe of the first Book fition of the Poem. Milton, in Imitation of these two great Poets, opens his Parad fe Loft with an infernal Council plotting the Fall of Man; which is the Action he propofed to celebrate; and as for those Great Actions, the Battle of the Angels, and the Creation of the World, (which preceded in Point of Time, and which, in my Opinion, would have entirely deftroyed the Unity of his Principal Action, had he related them in the fame Order that they happened) he caft them into the fifth, fixth and feventh Books, by way of Episode to this noble Poem. Vid. the End of Spectator 327 ARISTOTLE himself allows, that Homer has nothing to boast of as to the Unity of his Fable, though, at the fame time that great Critic and Philofopher endeavours to palliate this Imperfection in the Greek Poet by imputing it in fome Measure to the very Nature of an Epic Poem. Some have been of Opinion, that the Eneid alfo labours in this Particular, and has Episodes which may be looked upon as Excrefcencies rather than as Parts of the Action. On the contrary, the Poem, which we have now under our Confideration, hath no other Epifodes than fuch as naturally arife from the Subject, and yet is filled with fuch a Multitude of aftonishing Incidents, that it gives us at the fame time a Pleasure of the greatest Variety, and of the greatest Simplicity; uniform in its Nature, though diverfified in the Execution. I muft obferve also, that as Virgil in the Poem which was defigned to celebrate the Original of the Roman Empire, has defcribed the Birth of its great Rival, the Carthaginian Commonwealth: Milton with the like Art in his Poem on the Fall of Man, has related the Fall of thofe Angels who are his profeffed Enemies. Befide the many other Beauties in fuch an Epifode, its running parallel with the great Action of the Poem, hin. ders it from breaking the Unity fo much as another Episode would have done, that had not fo great an B 3 Affinity Affinity with the principal Subject. In fhort, this is the fame Kind of Beauty which the Critics admire in the Spanish Friar, or the Double Discovery, where the two different Plots look like Counterparts and Copies of one another. As on THE fecond Qualification required in the Action of an Epic Poem is, that it fhould be an entire Action: An Action is entire when it is complete in all its Parts; or, as Arißotle defcribes it, when it confifts of a Beginning, a Middle, and an End. Nothing fhould go before it, be intermixed with it, or follow after it, that is not related to it. the contrary, no fingle Step fhould be omitted in that just and regular Progrefs which it must be fuppofed to take from its Original to its Confummation. Thus we fee the Anger of Achilles in its Birth, its Continuance, and Effects; and Eneas's Settlement in Italy, carried on through all the Oppofitions in his Way to it both by Sea and Land. The Action in Milton excels (I think) both the former in this Particular; we fee it contrived in Hell, executed upon Earth, and punished by Heaven. The Parts of it are told in the moft diftin&t Manner, and grow out of one another in the most natural Order. THE third Qualification of an Epic Poem is its Greatness. The Anger of Achilles was of fuch Confcquence, that it embroiled the Kings of Greece, deftroyed the Heroes of Afia, and engaged all the Gods in Factions. Eneas's Settlement in Italy produced the Cæfars, and gave Birth to the Roman Empire. Milton's Subject was fill greater than either of the former; it does not determine the Fate of fingle Perfons or Nations, but of a whole Species. The United Powers of Hell are joined together for the Dekruction of Mankind, which they effected in Part, and would have completed, had not Omnipotence itself interpofed. The principal Actors are, Man in his greatest Perfection, and Woman in her higheft Beauty. Their Enemies are the fallen Angels: The Meffiah |