it is his real Opinion, that some of those Fellows who No. 332, are employ'd as Rubbers to this new-fashion'd Bagnío, Friday, have struck as bold Strokes as ever he did in his Life, March 21,

I had sent this Four and twenty Hours sooner, if I had not had the Misfortune of being in a great Doubt about the Orthography of the Word Bagnio, I consulted several Dictionaries, but found no Relief; at last having Recourse both to the Bagnio in Newgate-street and to that in Chancery-lane, and finding the original Manu scripts upon the Sign-Posts of each to agree literally with my own Spelling, I return'd Home, full of Satis faction, in order to dispatch this Epistle.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

As you have taken most of the Circumstances of Humane Life into your Consideration, we, the underwritten, thought it not improper for us also to represent to you our Condition. We are three Ladies who live in the Country, and the greatest Improvements we make is by Reading. We have taken a small Journal of our Lives, and find it extreamly opposite to your last Tuesday's Speculation. We rise by Seven, and pass the Beginning of each Day in Devotion and looking into those Affairs that fall within the Occurrences of a retired Life; in the Afternoon we sometimes enjoy the Company of some Friend or Neighbour, or else work or read; at Night we retire to our Chambers, and take Leave of each other for the whole Night at Ten a Clock. We take particular Care never to be sick of a Sunday, Mr. SPECTATOR, We are all very good Maids, but are ambitious of Characters which we think more laudable, that of being very good Wives. If any of your Correspondents enquire for a Spouse for an honest Country Gentleman, whose Estate is not dipped, and wants a Wife that can save half his Revenue, and yet make a better Figure than any of his Neighbours of the same Estate with finer bred Women; You shall have further Notice from,

Sir,

1712.

T

Your courteous Readers,

Martha Busie,
Deborah Thrifty.
Alice Early.

Saturday

No. 333. No, 333,
Saturday, [ADDISON.]
Mar 22,

1712.

Saturday, March 22,

Vocat in certamina divos.-Virg.

are now entering upon the Sixth Book of Paradise Lost, in which the Poet describes the Battel of Angels Angels; having raised his Reader's Expectation, and prepar'd him for it by several Passages in the preceding Books, I omitted quoting these Passages in my Observations on the former Books, having pur posely reserved them for the Opening of this, the Subject of which gave Occasion to them. The Author's Imagination was so inflamed with this great Scene of Action, that wherever he speaks of it, he rises, if possible, above himself. Thus where he mentions Satan in the Beginning of his Poem,

Him the Almighty Power

Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' Etherial Skie,
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and Penal Fire,
Who durst defie the Omnipotent to Arms.

We have likewise several noble Hints of it in the
Infernal Conference,

...

O Prince, O Chief of many throned Powers,
That led th' imbattel'd Seraphim to War,
Too well I see and rue the dire event,
That with sad overthrow and foul defeat
Hath lost us Heav'n, and all this mighty host
In horrible destruction laid thus low,,,,
But see the angry Victor hath recall'd
His Ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of Heav'n: The sulphurous hail
Shot after us in Storm, o'erblown hath laid
The fiery Surge, that from the Precipice
Of Heav'n receiv'd us falling; and the Thunder,
Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his Shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.

There are several other very sublime Images on the same Subject in the First Book, as also in the Second,

What

What when we fled amain, pursu'd and strook
With Heav'n's afflicting Thunder, and besought
The Deep to shelter us; this Hell then seem'd
A refuge from those wounds,

In short, the Poet never mentions any thing of this Battel but in such Images of Greatness and Terrour as are suitable to the Subject, Among several others, I cannot forbear quoting that Passage where the Power, who is describ'd as presiding over the Chaos, speaks in the Third Book,

Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old

With faultring speech and visage incompos'd
Answer'd, Answer'd, I know thee, stranger, who thou art,
That mighty leading Angel, who of late

Made head against Heaven's King, tho' overthrown,
I saw and heard; for such a numerous Host

Fled not in Silence through the frighted Deep

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded; and Heaven's Gates
Pour'd out by Millions her victorious Bands
Pursuing,

It required great Pregnancy of Invention, and Strength of Imagination, to fill this Battel with such Circumstances as should raise and astonish the Mind of the Reader; and, at the same time, an Exactness of Judgment to avoid every thing that might appear light or trivial, Those who look into Homer, are surpriz'd to find his Battels still rising one above another, and improving in Horrour, to the Conclusion of the Iliad. Milton's Fight of Angels is wrought up with the same Beauty, It is usher'd in with such Signs of Wrath as are suit able to Omnipotence incensed. The first Engagement is carried on under a Cope of Fire, occasion'd by the Flights of innumerable burning Darts and Arrows which are discharged from either Host. The second Onset is still more terrible, as it is filled with those artificial Thunders, which seem to make the Victory doubtful, and produce a kind of Consternation even in the good Angels, This is follow'd by the tearing up of Mountains and Promontories; till, in the last Place, the Messiah comes forth in the Fulness of Majesty and Terrour. The Pomp of his Appearance, amidst the Roarings

No. 333, Saturday, March 22, 1712.

No. 333. Roarings of his Thunders, the Flashes of his Lightnings Saturday, and the Noise of his Chariot Wheels, is described with March 22, the utmost Flights of Humane Imagination.

1712, There is nothing in the first and last Day's Engage

ment which does not appear natural, and agreeable enough to the ideas most Readers would conceive of a Fight between two Armies of Angels.

The second Day's Engagement is apt to startle an Imagination, which has not been raised and qualified for such a Description, by the Reading of the ancient Poets, and of Homer in particular. It was certainly a very bold Thought in our Author, to ascribe the first Use of Artillery to the Rebel Angels, But as such a pernicious Invention may be well supposed to have proceeded from such Authors, so it entered very properly into the Thoughts of that Being, who is all along described as aspiring to the Majesty of his Maker. Such Engines were the only Instruments he could have made use of to imitate those Thunders, that in all Poetry, both Sacred and Prophane, are represented as the Arms of the Almighty, The Tearing up the Hills was not altogether so daring a Thought as the former, We are, in some measure, prepared for such an Incident by the Description of the Gyants' War, which we meet with among the ancient Poets. What still made this Circumstance the more proper for the Poet's Use, is the Opinion of many Learned Men, that the Fable of the Gyants' War, which makes so great a Noise in Antiquity, and gave Birth to the sublimest Descrip tion in Hesiod's Works, was an Allegory founded upon this very Tradition of a Fight between the good and bad Angels,

It may, perhaps, be worth while to consider with what Judgment Milton, in this Narration, has avoided every Thing that is mean and trivial in the Descrip tions of the Latin and Greek Poets; and, at the same time, improv'd every great Hint which he met with in their Works upon this Subject, Homer in that Passage, which Longinus has celebrated for its Sublime ness, and which Virgil and Ovid have copied after him, tells us, that the Gyants threw Ossa upon Olympus, and

1712.

and Pelion upon Ossa. He adds an Epithet to Pelion No. 333,
εἰνοσίφυλλον) which very much swells the Idea, by Saturday,
bringing up to the Reader's Imagination all the Woods March 22,
that grew upon it. There is further a great Beauty
in his singling out by Name these three remarkable
Mountains, so well known to the Greeks, This last
is such a Beauty as the Scene of Milton's War could
not possibly furnish him with. Claudian, in his Frag
ment upon the Gyants' War, has given full Scope to
that Wildness of Imagination which was natural to
him. He tells us, that the Gyants tore up whole
Islands by the Roots, and threw them at the Gods.
He describes one of them in particular taking up
Lemnos in his Arms, and whirling it to the Skies,
with all Vulcan's Shop in the midst of it. Another
tears up Mount Ida, with the River Enipeus, which
ran down the Sides of it; but the Poet, not content
to describe him with this Mountain upon his Shoulders,
tells us that the River flow'd down his Back, as he
held it up in that Posture. It is visible to every
judicious Reader, that such Ideas savour more of Bur
lesque than of the Sublime. They proceed from a
Wantonness of Imagination, and rather divert the
Mind than astonish it. Milton has taken every thing
that is Sublime in these several Passages, and com
poses out of them the following great Image,

From their Foundations loosning to and fro
They pluck'd the seated Hills with all their load,
Rocks, Waters, Woods, and by the shaggy tops
Up-lifting, bore them in their Hands,

We have the full Majesty of Homer in this short Description, improved by the Imagination of Claudian, without its Puerilities,

I need not point out the Description of the fallen Angels seeing the Promontories hanging over their Heads in such a dreadful Manner, with the other numberless Beauties in this Book, which are so con spicuous, that they cannot escape the Notice of the most ordinary Reader.

There are indeed so many wonderful Stroaks of Poetry in this Book, and such a Variety of sublime