-He scrupled not to eat Sky lowered, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops As all Nature suffered by the guilt of our first parents, these symptoms of trouble and consternation are wonderfully imagined, not only as prodigies, but as marks of her sympathizing in the fall of man. Adam's converse with Eve, after having eaten the forbidden fruit, is an exact copy of that between Jupiter and Juno in the fourteenth Iliad. Juno there approaches Jupiter with the girdle which she had received from Venus; upon which he tells her, that she appeared more charming and desirable than she had ever done before, even when their loves were at the highest. The poet afterwards describes them as reposing on a summit of Mount Ida, which produced under them a bed of flowers, the lotos, the crocus, and the hyacinth, and concludes his description with their falling asleep. Let the reader compare this with the following passage in Milton, which begins with Adam's speech to Eve: For never did thy beauty since the day So said he, and forbore not glance or toy Thick overhead with verdant roof embowered, He led her, nothing loth: flowers were the couch, And hyacinth, earth's freshest, softest lap. There they their fill of love, and love's disport, As no poet seems ever to have studied Homer more, or to have resembled him in the greatness of genius, than Milton, I think I should have given but a very imperfect account of his beauties, if I had not observed the most remarkable pas sages which look like parallels in these two great authors. I might, in the course of these criticisms, have taken notice of many particular lines and expressions which are translated from the Greek poet; but as I thought this would have appeared too minute and over-curious, I have purposely omitted them. The greater incidents, however, are not only set off by being shown in the same light with several of the same nature in Homer, but by that means may be also guarded against the cavils of the tasteless or ignorant. No. 357. SATURDAY, APRIL 19. -Quis talia fando Temperet à lacrymis ?— VIRG. The au THE tenth book of Paradise Lost has a greater variety of persons in it than any other in the whole poem. thor, upon the winding up of his action, introduces all those who had any concern in it, and shows with great beauty the influence which it had upon each of them. It is like the last act of a well-written tragedy, in which all who had a part in it are generally drawn up before the audience, and represented under those circumstances in which the determination of the action places them. I shall, therefore, consider this book under four heads, in relation to the celestial, the infernal, the human, and the imaginary persons, who have their respective parts allotted in it. To begin with the celestial persons: the guardian angels of Paradise are described as returning to heaven upon the fall of man, in order to approve their vigilance; their arrival, their manner of reception, with the sorrow which appeared in themselves, and in those spirits who are said to rejoice at the conversion of a sinner, are very finely laid together in the following lines. Up into heaven from Paradise in haste The angelic guards ascended, mute and sad All were who heard, dim sadness did not spare With pity, violated not their bliss. About the new-arrived in multitudes The ethereal people ran, to hear and know Amidst, in thunder uttered thus his voice. The same Divine person, who, in the foregoing parts of this poem, interceded for our first parents before their fall, overthrew the rebel angels, and created the world, is now represented as descending to Paradise, and pronouncing sentence upon the three offenders. The cool of the evening being a circumstance with which holy writ introduces this great scene, it is poetically described by our author, who has also kept religiously to the form of words, in which the three several sentences were passed upon Adam, Eve, and the serpent. He has rather chosen to neglect the numerousness of his verse, than to deviate from those speeches which are recorded on this great occasion. The guilt and confusion of our first parents standing naked before their Judge, is touched with great beauty. Upon the arrival of Sin and Death into the works of the creation, the Almighty is again introduced as speaking to his angels that surrounded him. See with what heat these dogs of hell advance The following passage is formed upon that glorious image of holy writ, which compares the voice of an innumerable host of angels, uttering hallelujahs, to the voice of mighty thunderings, or of many waters. He ended, and the heavenly audience loud Through multitude that sung: "Just are thy ways, Righteous are thy decrees in all thy works; Though the author, in the whole course of his poem, and particularly in the book we are now examining, has infinite allusions to places of Scripture, I have only taken notice in my remarks of such as are of a poetical nature, and which are woven with great beauty into the body of this fable. Of this kind is that passage in the present book, where describing Sin and Death as marching through the works of nature, he adds, -Behind her Death Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet Which alludes to that passage in Scripture so wonderfully poetical, and terrifying to the imagination. "And I looked, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him; and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with sickness, and with the beasts of the earth." Under this first head of celestial persons we must likewise take notice of the command which the angels received, to produce the several changes in nature, and sully the beauty of the creation. Accordingly they are represented as infecting the stars and planets with malig nant influences, weakening the light of the sun, bringing down the winter into the milder regions of nature, planting winds and storms in several quarters of the sky, storing the clouds with thunder, and, in short, perverting the whole frame of the universe to the condition of its criminal inhabitants. As this is a noble incident in the poem, the following lines, in which we see the angels heaving up the earth, and placing it in a different posture to the sun from what it had before the fall of man, is conceived with that sublime imagination which was so peculiar to this great author. Some say he bid his angels turn askance The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more We are in the second place to consider the infernal agents under the view which Milton has given us of them in this book. It is observed by those who would set forth the greatness of Virgil's plan, that he conducts his reader through all the parts of the earth which were discovered in his time. Asia, Africa, and Europe are the several scenes of his fable. The plan of Milton's poem is of an infinitely greater extent, and fills the mind with many more astonishing circumstances. Satan having surrounded the earth seven times, departs at length from Paradise. We then see him steering his course among the constellations, and after having traversed the whole creation, pursuing his voyage through the Chaos, and entering into his own infernal dominions. His first appearance in the assembly of fallen angels, is worked up with circumstances which give a delightful surprise to the reader; but there is no incident in the whole poem which does this more than the transformation of the whole audience, that follows the account their leader gives them of his expedition. The gradual change of Satan himself is described after Ovid's manner, and may vie with any of those celebrated transformations which are looked upon as the most beautiful parts in that poet's works. Milton never fails of improving his own hints, and bestowing the last finishing touches to every incident which is admitted into his poem. The unexpected hiss which rises in this episode, the dimensions and bulk of Satan, so much superior to those of the infernal spirits who lay under the same transformation, with the annual change which they are supposed to suffer, are instances of this kind. The beauty of the diction is very remarkable in this whole episode, as I have observed in the sixth paper of these remarks the great judgment with which it was contrived. The parts of Adam and Eve, or the human persons, come next under our consideration. Milton's art is nowhere more shown than in his conducting the parts of these our first parents. The representation he gives of them, without falsifying the story, is wonderfully contrived to influence the reader with pity and compassion towards them. Though Adam involves the whole species in misery, his crime proceeds from a weakness which every man is inclined to pardon and commiserate, as it seems rather the frailty of human nature, than of the person who offended. Every one is apt to excuse a fault which he himself might have fallen into. It was the excess of love for Eve that ruined Adam and his posterity. I need not add, that the author is justified in this particular by many of the Fathers, and the most orthodox writers. Milton 1 Influence the reader with-] The expression is hard, and scarce allowable. When we use influence as a verb, we use it absolutely; as "such considerations influenced him," that is, had an effect or influence upon him; without specifying the effect produced. He had expressed himself better, if he had said, to fill the reader's mind with-or, to engage the reader's pity, &c. |