The girding Sword with difcontinuous Wound
Pafs'd through him, but th' Ethereal Subftance clos'd
Not long divifible, and from the Gash

A Stream of nectarous Humour iffuing flor'd
Sanguin, fuch as celeftial Spirits may bled,
And all bis Armour ftain'd-

HOMER tells us in the fame Manner, that upon Diomedes wounding the Gods, there flowed from the Wound an Ichor, or pure kind of Blood, which was not bred from Mortal Viands; and that though the Fain was exquifitely great, the Wound foon clofed up and healed in thofe Beings who are vefted with Immortality."

I question not but Milton, in his Defcription of his furious Moloch flying from the Battle, and bellowing with the Wound he had received, had his Eye on Mars in the Iliad, who, upon his being wounded, is reprefented as retiring out of the Fight, and making an Outcry louder than that of a whole Army when it begins the Charge. Homer adds, that the Greeks and Trojans, who were engaged in a general Battle, were terrified on each Side with the bellowing of this wounded Deity. The Reader will eafily obferve how Milton has kept all the Horror 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 Moloch furious King, who him defy'd,
And at his Chariot-wheels to drag him bound
Threaten'd, nor from the Holy cne of Heav'n
Refrain'd his Tongue blafphemous; but anon
Down cloven to the Waift, with shatter'd Arms
And uncouth Pain fled bellowing.

MILTON has likewife raised 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 Vifion 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 Hoft of Rebel Angels, is drawn from a fublime Paffage in the Ffalms.

Go then thou mightiest in thy Father's Might,
Afcend my Chariot, guide the rapid Wheels
That Shake Heav'n's Bafis, bring forth all my War,
My Bow, my Thunder, my almighty Arms,
Gird on thy Sword on thy puissant Thigh.

THE Reader will eafily difcover many of the fame Nature.

other Strokes

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 Battle.

Mars animates the contending Armies, and lifts up his Voice in fuch a Manner, that it is heard diftinctly amidst all the Shouts and Confufion of the Fight. Jupiter at the fame Time thunders over their Heads; while Neptune raifes fuch a Tempeft, that the whole Field of Battle, and all the Tops of the Mountains, shake about them. The Poet tells us, that Pluto himself, whofe Habitation was in the very Center of the Earth, was so affrighted at the Shock, that he leapt from his Throne. Homer afterwards defcribes Vulcan as pouring down a Storm of Fire upon the River Xanthus, and Minerva as throwing a Rock at Mars; who, he tells us, covered feven Acres in his Fall

A S

AS Homer has introduced into his Battle of the Gods every thing that is great and terrible in Nature, Milton has filled his Fight of Good and Bad Angels with all the like Circumftances of Horror. The Shout of Armies, the Rattling of Brazen Chariots, the Hurling of Rocks and Mountains, the Earthquake,, the Fire, the Thunder, are all of them employed to lift up the Reader's Imagination, and give him a fuitable Idea of fo great an Action. With what Art has the Poet represented the whole Body of the Earth trembling. even before it was created.

All Heaven refounded, and, had Earth been then,
All Earth had to its Center fhook-

IN how fublime and juft a Manner does he afterwards defcribe the whole Heaven fhaking under the Wheels of the Meffiah's Chariot, with that Exception to the Throne of God?

-Under his burning Wheels

The fteadfaft Empyrean book throughout,
All but the Throne itfelf of God

NOTWITHSTANDING the Meffiah ap pears cloathed with fo much Terror and Majefty, the Poet has ftill found Means to make his Readers conceive an Idea of him beyond what he himself was able to defcribe.

Yet half his Strength he put not forth, but check'd
His Thunder in mid Volley, for he meant

Not to defroy, but root them out of Heaven.

IN a Word, Milton's Genius, which was fo great in itself, and fo ftrengthened by all the Helps of Learning, appears in this Book every way equal to his Subject, which was the most fublime that could enter

into

into the Thoughts of a Poet. As he knew all the Arts of affecting the Mind, he knew it was neceffary to give it certain Refting-places and Opportunities of recovering itself from Time to Time: He has therefore with great Address interspersed several Speeches, Reflexions, Similitudes, and the like Reliefs, to diverfify his Narration, and ease the Attention of the Reader, that he might come fresh to his great Action, and, by fuch a Contraft of Ideas, have a more lively Taste of the nobler Parts of his Description.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
SPECTATOR, N° 339.

Ut his exordia primis,

Omnia, et ipfe tener mundi concreverit orbis.
Tum durare folum, & difcludere Nerea ponto
Caperit, et rerum paulatim fumere formas.

XXX

VIRG.

He fung the fecret Seeds of Nature's Frame;
How Seas, and Earth, and Air, and active Flame,
Fell through the mighty void, and in their Falls
Were blindly gather'd in this goodly Ball.
The tender Soil then fiffning by degrees
Shut from the bounded Earth the bounding Seas.
Then Earth and Ocean various Forms difclofe,
And a new Sun to the new World arofe.

DRYDEN.

ONGINUS has obferved, that there may be a

and brings Inftances out of ancient Authors to fupport this his Opinion. The Pathetic, as that great Critic obferves, may animate and inflame the Sublime, but is not effential to it. Accordingly, as he further remarks, we very often find that thofe who excel moft in ftirring

up

MILTON'S PARADISE LOST.

9D

up the Paffions, very often want the Talent of writing in the great and fublime Manner; and fo on the contrary. Milton has fhewn himself a Master in both thefe Ways of Writing. The feventh Book, which we are now entering upon, is an Inftance of that Sublime which is not mixed and worked up with Paffion. The Author appears in a kind of compofed and fedate Majefty; and though the Sentiments do not give fo great an Emotion as thofe in the former Book, they abound with as-magnificent Ideas. The fixth Book, like a troubled Ocean, reprefents Greatness in Confuffon; the feventh affects the Imagination like the Ocean in a Calm, and fills the Mind of the Reader, without producing in it any thing like Tumult or Agitation.

THE Critic above-mentioned, among the Rules which he lays down for fucceeding in the fublime Way of Writing, propofes to his Reader, that he fhould imitate the most celebrated Authors who have gone before him, and have been engaged in Works of the fame Nature; as, in particular, that if he writes on a poetical Subject, he should confider how Homer would have spoken on such an Occasion. By this Means one great Genius often catches the Flame from another, and writes in his Spirit without copying fervilely after him. There are a thousand fhining Paffages in Virgil, which have been lighted up by Homer.

MILTON, though his own natural Strength of Genius was capable of furnishing out a perfect Work, has doubtless very much raised and ennobled his Conceptions, by fuch an Imitation as that which Longinus has recommended.

IN this Book, which gives us an Account of the Six Days Works, the Poet received but very few Affiftances from Heathen Writers, who were Strangers to the Wonders of Creation. But as there are many glorious Strokes of Poetry upon this Subject in Holy Writ, the Author has numberlefs Allufions tot hem through the whole Courfe of this Book. The great Critic I have before mentioned, though an Heathen, has taken