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settling in it, as the phrase is. To tell you truly, I have several times tried my fortune that way, though I cannot much boast of my success.

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"I made my first addresses to a young lady in the country; but, when I thought things were pretty well drawing to a conclusion, her father happening to hear that I had formerly boarded with a surgeon, the old put forbade me his house, and within a fortnight after married his daughter to a fox-hunter in the neighborhood.

"I made my next application to a widow, and attacked her so briskly, that I thought myself within a fortnight of her. As I waited upon her one morning, she told me, that she intended to keep her ready money and jointure in her own hand, and desired me to call upon her attorney in Lyon's Inn, who would adjust with me what it was proper for me to add to it. I was so rebuffed by this overture, that I never inquired either for her or her attorney afterward.

"A few months after, I addressed myself to a young lady who was an only daughter, and of a good family. I danced with her at several balls, squeezed her by the hand, said soft things to her, and in short made no doubt of her heart; and though my fortune was no way equal to hers, I was in hopes that her fond father would not deny her the man she had fixed her affections upon. But as I went one day to the house, in order to break the matter to him, I found the whole family in confusion, and heard, to my unspeakable surprise, that Miss Jenny was that very morning run away with the butler.

"I then courted a second widow, and am at a loss to this day how I came to miss her, for she had often commended my person and behavior. Her maid indeed told me one day, that her mistress had said she never saw a gentleman with such a spindle pair of legs as Mr. Honeycomb.

"After this I laid siege to four heiresses successively, and, being a handsome young dog in those days, quickly made a breach in their hearts; but I don't know how it came to pass, though I seldom failed of getting the daughter's consent, I could never in my life get the old people on my side.

"I could give you an account of a thousand other unsuccessful attempts, particularly of one which I made some years since upon an old woman, whom I had certainly borne away with flying colors, if her relations had not come pouring in to her assistance from all parts of England; nay I believe I should have got her at last, had she not been carried off by a hard frost."

As Will's transitions are extremely quick, he turned from Sir Roger, and applying himself to me, told me there was a passage in the book I had considered last Saturday, which deserved to be written in letters of gold: and taking out a pocket Milton, read the following lines, which are part of one of Adam's speeches to Eve after the fall :

-Oh! why did God

Creator wise! that peopled highest heaven
With spirits masculine, create at last
This novelty on earth, this fair defect
Of nature, and not fill the world at once
With men, as angels, without feminine?

Or find some other way to generate
Mankind? This mischief had not then befall'n,
And more that shall befall, innumerable
Disturbances on earth, through female snares,
And straight conjunction with this sex: for either
He shall never find out fit mate; but such
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake;
Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain,
Through her perverseness; but shall see her gain'd
By a far worse; or, if she love, withheld
By parents; or his happiest choice too late
Shall meet already link'd, and wedlock-bound
To a fell adversary, his hate or shame;
Which infinite calamity shall cause

To human life, and household peace confound.

Sir Roger listened to this passage with great attention: and, desiring Mr. Honeycomb to fold down a leaf at the place, and lend him his book, the knight put it up in his pocket, and told us that he would read over these verses again before he went to bed.-X.

No. 360.] WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 1712.
-De paupertate tacentes,

Plus poscente ferent.-HOR. 1 Ep. xvii, 43.
The man who all his wants conceals,
Gains more than he who all his wants reveals.

DUNCOMBE

I HAVE nothing to do with the business of this day any further than affixing the piece of Latin on the head of my paper; which I think a motto not unsuitable; since, if silence of our poverty is a recommendation, still more commendable is his modesty who conceals it by decent dress. "MR. SPECTATOR,

"There is an evil under the sun, which has not yet come within your speculation, and is the censure, disesteem, and contempt, which some young fellows meet with from particular persons, for the reasonable methods they take to avoid them in general. This is by appearing in a better dress than may seem to a relation regularly consistent with a small fortune; and therefore may occasion a judgment of a suitable extravagance in other particulars: but the disadvantage with which the inan of narrow circumstances acts and speaks, is so feelingly set forth in a little book called The Christian Hero, that the appearing to be otherwise is not only pardonable but necessary. Every one knows the hurry of conclusions that are made in contempt of a person that appears to be calamitous; which makes it very excusable to prepare one'sself for the company of those that are of a superior quality and fortune, by appearing to be in a better condition than one is, so far as such appearance shall not make us really worse.

"It is a justice due to the character of one who suffers hard reflections from any particular person upon this account, that such persons would inquire into his manner of spending his time; of which, though no further information can be had than that he remains so many hours in his chamber, yet, if this is cleared, to imagine that a reasonable creature, wrung with a narrow fortune, does not make the best use of this retirement, would be conclusion extremely uncharitable. From what has, or will be said, I hope no consequence can be extorted, implying, that I would have any young fellow spend more time than the common leisure which his studies require, or more money than his fortune or allow ance may admit of; in the pursuit of an acquaintance with his betters: for, as to his time, the gross of that ought to be sacred to more substantial acquisitions; for each irrecoverable moment of which he ought to believe he stands religiously accountable. And as to his dress, I shall engage myself no further than in the modest defense of two plain suits a year; for being perfectly satisfied in Eutrapelus's contrivance of making a Mohock of a man, by presenting him with laced and embroidered suits, I would by no means be thought to controvert that conceit, by insinuating the advantages of foppery. It is an assertion which admits of much proof, that a stranger of tolerable sense, dressed like a gentleman, will be better received by those of quality above him, than one of much better parts, whose dress is regulated by the rigid notions of frugality. A man's appear ance falls wihtin the censure of every one that sees

him; his parts and learning very few are judges of; and even upon these few they cannot at first be well intruded; for policy and good breeding will counsel him to be reserved among strangers, and to support himself only by the common spirit of conversation. Indeed among the injudicious, the words, 'delicacy, idiom, fine images, structures of periods, genius, fire,' and the rest, made use of with a frugal and comely gravity, will maintain the figure of immense reading, and the depth of criticism.

"All gentlemen of fortune, at least the young and middle-aged, are apt to pride themselves a little too much upon their dress, and consequently to value others in some measure upon the same consideration. With what confusion is a man of figure obliged to return the civilities of the hat to a person whose air and attire hardly entitle him to it! for whom nevertheless the other has a particular esteem, though he is ashamed to have it challenged in so public a manner. It must be allowed, that any young fellow that affects to dress and appear genteelly, might, with artificial management, save ten pounds a year; as instead of fine holland he might mourn in sackcloth, and in other particulars be proportionably shabby: but of what great service would this sum be to avert any misfortune, while it would leave him deserted by the little good acquaintance he has, and prevent his gaining any other? As the appearance of an easy fortune is necessary toward making one, I don't know but it might be of advantage sometimes to throw into one's discourse certain exclamations about bank stock, and to show a marvelous surprise upon its fall, as well as the most affected triumph upon its rise. The veneration and respect which the practice of all ages has preserved to appearances, without doubt suggested to our tradesmen that wise and politic custom, to apply and recommend themselves to the public by all those decorations upon their sign-posts and houses which the most eminent hands in the neighborhood can furnish them with. What can be more attractive to a man of letters, than that immense erudition of all ages and languages, which a skillful bookseller, in conjunction with a painter, shall image upon his column, and the extremities of his shop? The same spirit of maintaining a handsome appearance reigns among the grave and solid apprentices of the law (here I could be particularly dull in proving the word apprentice to be significant of a barrister); and you may easily distinguish who has most lately made his pretensions to business, by the whitest and most ornamental frame of his window; if indeed the chamber is a ground-room, and has rails before it, the finery is of necessity more extended, and the pomp of business better maintained. And what can be a greater indication of the dignity of dress, than that burdensome finery which is the regular habit of our judges, nobles, and bishops, with which upon certain days we see them incumbered? And though it may be said, this is awful, and necessary for the dignity of the state, yet the wisest of them have been remarkable, before they arrived at their present stations, for being very well dressed persons. As to my own part, I am rear thirty; and since I left school have not been idle, which is a modern phrase for having studied hard. I brought off a clean system of moral philosophy, and a tolerable jargon of metaphysics, from the university; since that, I have been engaged in the clearing part of the perplexed style and matter of the law, which so hereditarily descends to all its professors. To all which severe studies I have thrown in, at proper interims, the pretty learning of the classics. Notwithstanding

which, I am what Shakspeare calls a fellow of no mark or likelihood, which makes me understand the more fully, that since the regular method of making friends and a fortune by the mere force of a profession is so very slow and uncertain, a man should take all reasonable opportunities, by enlarging a good acquaintance, to court that time and chance which is said to happen to every man."-T.

No. 361.] THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 1712. Tartaream intendit vocem, qua protinus omnis Contremuit domus

VIRG. Æn. vii, 514.

The blast Tartarean spreads its notes around;
The house astonished trembles at the sound.

I HAVE lately received the following letter from a country gentleman:"MR. SPECTATOR,

"The night before I left London I went to see a play called The Humorous Lieutenant. Upon the rising of the curtain I was very much surprised with the great concert of cat-calls which was exhibited that evening, and began to think with myself that I had made a mistake, and gone to a music meeting instead of the playhouse. It appeared indeed a little odd to me, to see so many persons of quality, of both sexes, assembled together at a kind of caterwauling, for I cannot look upon that performance to have been anything better, whatever the musicians themselves might think of it. As I had no acquaintance in the house to ask questions of, and was forced to go out of town early the next morning, I could not learn the secret of this matter. What I would therefore desire of you is, to give me some account of this strange instrument, which I found the company called a cat-call; and particularly to let me know whether it be a piece of music lately come from Italy. For my own part, to be free with you, I would rather hear an English fiddle: though I durst not show my dislike while I was in the playhouse, it being my chance to sit the very next iman to one of the performers.

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In compliance with Squire Shallow's request, I design this paper as a dissertation upon the catcall. In order to make myself a master of the subject, I purchased one the beginning of last week, though not without great difficulty, being informed at two or three toy-shops that the players had lately bought them all up. I have since consulted many learned antiquaries in relation to its. origin, and find them very much divided among themselves upon that particular. A fellow of the Royal Society, who is my good friend, and a great proficient in the mathematical part of music, concludes, from the simplicity of its make, and the uniformity of its sound, that the cat-call is older than any of the inventions of Jubal. He observes very well, that musical instruments took their first rise from the notes of birds, and other melodious animals; and "what," says he, "was more natural than for the first ages of mankind to imitate the. voice of a cat, that lived under the same roof with them?" He added, that the cat had contributed more to harmony than any other animal; as we are not, only beholden to her for this wind instrument, but for our string-music in general.

Another virtuoso of my acquaintance will not allow the cat call to be older than Thespis, and is apt to think it appeared in the world soon after the

ancient comedy; for which reason it has still a place in our dramatic entertainments. Nor must I here omit what a very curious gentleman, who is lately returned from his travels, has more than once assured me, namely, that there was lately dug up at Rome the statue of a Momus, who holds an instrument in his right hand very much resembling our modern cat-call.

There are others who ascribe this invention to Orpheus, and look upon the-cat-call to be one of those instruments which that famous musician made use of to draw the beasts about him. It is certain that the roasting of a cat does not call together a greater audience of that species than this Instrument, if dextrously played upon in proper time and place.

Having said thus much concerning the origin of the cat-call, we are in the next place to consider the use of it. The cat-call exerts itself to most advantage in the British theater. It very much improves the sound of nonsense, and often goes along with the voice of the actor who pronounces it, as the violin or harpsichord accompanies the Italian recitativo.

It has often supplied the place of the ancient chorus, in the words of Mr. ***. In short, a bad poet has as great an antipathy to a cat-call as many people have to a real cat.

Mr. Collier, in his ingenious essay upon music, has the following passage:

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treble cat-call: the former for tragedy, the latter for comedy; only in tragi-comedies they may both play together in concert. He has a particular squeak, to denote the violation of each of the unities, and has different sounds to show whether he aims at the poet or the player. In short, he teaches the smut-note, the fustian-note, the stupidnote, and has composed a kind of air that may serve as an act-tune to an incorrigible play, and which takes in the whole compass of the cat-call.

L.

No. 362.] FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 1712.
Laudibus arguitur vini vinosus.-

HOR. 1 Ep. xix, 6.

He praises wine; and we conclude from thence He lik'd his glass on his own evidence. "MR. SPECTATOR,

Temple, April 24.

But, notwithstanding these various and learned conjectures, I cannot forbear thinking that the cat-call is originally a piece of English music. Its resemblance to the voice of some of our British songsters, as well as the use of it, which is pecu. "SEVERAL of my friends were this morning got liar to our nation, confirms me in this opinion. together over a dish of tea in very good health, It has at least received great improvements among though we had celebrated yesterday with more us, whether we consider the instrument itself, or glasses than we could have dispensed with, had we those several quavers and graces which are thrown not been beholden to Brooke and Hellier. In grainto the playing of it. Every one might be sentitude therefore to those good citizens, I am, in sible of this who heard that remarkable overgrown the name of the company, to accuse you of great cat-call which was placed at the center of the pit, negligence in overlooking their merit who have and presided over all the rest, at the celebrated imported true and generous wine, and taken care performances lately exhibited at Drury-lane. that it should not be adulterated by the retailers before it comes to the tables of private families, or the clubs of honest fellows. I cannot imagine how a Spectator can be supposed to do his duty, without frequent resumption of such subjects as concern our health, the first thing to be regarded, if we have a mind to relish anything else. It would therefore very well become your spectatorial vigilance, to give it in orders to your officer for inspecting signs, that in his march he would look into the itinerants who deal in provisions, and inquire where they buy their several wares. Ever since the decease of Colly-Molly-Puff, of agreeable and noisy memory, I cannot say I have observed anything sold in carts, or carried by horse or ass, or, in fine, in any moving market, which is not perished or putrefied; witness the wheelbarrows of rotten raisins, almonds, figs, and currants, which you see vended by a merchant dressed in a second hand snit of a foot-soldier. You should consider that a child may be poisoned for the worth of a farthing; but except his poor parents send to one certain doctor in town, they can have no advice for him under a guinea. When poisons are thus cheap, and medicines thus dear, how can you be negligent in inspecting what we eat and drink, or take no notice of such as the above-mentioned citizens who have been so serviceable to us of late in that particular? It was a custom among the old Romans, to do him particular honors who had saved the life of a citizen. How much more does the world owe to those who prevent the death of multitudes! As these men deserve well of your officers, so such as act to the detriment of our health you ought to represent to themselves and their fellow subjects in the colors. which they deserve to wear. I think it would be for the public good, that all who vend wines should be under oath in that behalf. The chairman at the quarter-sessions should inform the country, that the vintner who mixes wine to his customers shall (upon proof that the drinker thereof died within a year and a day after taking it) be deemed guilty of willful murder, and the jury shall be instructed to inquire and present such delinquents accordingly. It is no mitigation of the crime, nor will it be conceived that it can be brought in chance-medley or manslaughter, upon proof that

I believe it is possible to invent an instrument that shall have a quite contrary effect to those martial ones now in use; an instrument that shall sink the spirits, and shake the nerves and curdle the blood, and inspire despair and cowardice and consternation, at a surprising rate. 'Tis probable the roaring of lions, the warbling of cats and screech-owls, together with a mixture of the howling of dogs, judiciously imitated and compounded, might go a great way in this invention. Whether such anti-music as this might not be of service in a camp, I shall leave to the military men to con

sider.'

What this learned gentleman supposes in speculation, I have known actually verified in practice. The cat-call has struck a damp into generals, and frightened heroes off the stage. At the first sound of it I have seen a crowned head tremble, and a princess fall into fits. The humorous lieutenant himself could not stand it; nay, I am told that even Almanzor looked like a mouse, and trembled at the voice of this terrifying instrument.

As it is of a dramatic nature, and peculiarly appropriated to the stage, I can by no means approve the thought of that angry lover, who, after an unsuccessful pursuit of some years, took leave uf his mistress in a serenade of cat-calls.

I must conclude this paper with the account I lave lately received of an ingenious artist, who has long studied this instrument, and is very well versed in all the rules of the drama. He teaches to play on it by book, and to express by it the whole art of criticism. He has his bass and his

it shall appear wine joined to wine, or right has, from a gre vit, governed by as great pruHerefordshire poured into Port O Port: but his dence, and both dorned with innocence, the hapselling it for one thing, knowing it to be another, piness of always being ready to discover her real must justly bear the aforesaid guilt of willful mur-thoughts. Sl has many of us who now are her der: for that he, the said vintner, did an unlawful admirers; but her treatment of us is so just and act willingly in the false mixture, and is therefore proportioned to our merit toward her, and what we with equity liable to all the pains to which a man are in ourselves, that I protest to you I have would be, if it were proved that he designed only neither jealousy nor hatred toward my rivals. to run a man through the arm whom he whipped Such is her goodness, and the acknowledgment of through the lungs. This is my third year at the every man who admires her, that he thinks he Temple, and this is, or should be, law. An ill ought to believe she will take him who best deintention, well proved, should meet with no allevia-serves her. I will not say that this peace among tion because it outran itself. There cannot be too us is not owing to self-love, which prompts each great severity used against the injustice as well as to think himself the best deserver. I think there cruelty of those who play with men's lives, by is something uncommon and worthy of imitation preparing liquors whose nature, for aught they in this lady's character. If you will please to know, may be noxious when mixed, though inno-print my letter, you will oblige the little fraternity cent when apart and Brooke and Hellier, who of happy rivals, and in a more particular manner, have insured our safety at our meals, and driven Sir, your most humble Servant, jealousy from our cups in conversation, deserve

the custom and thanks of the whole town: and it
is your duty to remind them of the obligation.
I am, Sir, your humble Servant,
"TOM POTTLE."

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"MR. SPECTATOR,

"I am a person who was long immured in a college, read much, saw little; so that I knew no more of the world than what a lecture or a view of the map taught me. By this means I improved in my study, but became unpleasant in conversation. By conversing generally with the dead, I grew almost unfit for the society of the living; so by a long confinement I contracted an ungainly aversion to conversation, and ever discoursed with pain to myself, and little entertainment to others. At last I was in some measure made sensible of my failing, and the mortification of never being spoke to, or speaking, unless the discourse ran upon books, put me upon forcing myself among

men.

I immediately affected the politest company, by the frequent use of which I hoped to wear off the rust I had contracted: but, by an uncouth imitation of men used to act in public, I got no further than to discover I had a mind to appear a finer thing than I really was

T.

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"WILL CYMON."

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MILTON has shown a wonderful art in describfirst parents upon the breach of the commandment ing that variety of passions which arose in our that had been given them. We see them gradually passing from the triumph of their guilt, through remorse, shame, despair, contrition, prayer, and hope, to a perfect and complete repentance. At the end of the tenth book they are reground, and watering the earth with 'heir tears: presented as prostrating themselves upon the to which the poet joins this beautiful circumstance, that they offered up their penitential Prayers on the very place where their judge appeared to them when he pronounced their sen

tence:

-They forthwith to the place

Repairing where he judg'd them, prostrate fell
Before him rev'rent, and both confess'd

Humbly their faults, and pardon begg'd, with tears
Watering the ground-

There is a beauty of the same kind in a tragedy of Sophocles, where Edipus, after having put out his own eyes, instead of breaking his neck from the palace battlements (which furnishes so elegant an entertainment for our English audience), desires that he may be conducted to Mount Citha ron, in order to end his life in that very place where he was exposed in his infancy, and where he should then have died, had the will of his parents been executed.

"Such I was, and such was my condition, when I became an ardent lover, and passionate admirer of the beauteous Belinda. Then it was that I really began to improve. This passion changed all my fears and diffidences in my general beha vior to the sole concern of pleasing her. I had not now to study the action of a gentleman; but love possessing all my thoughts, made me truly be the thing I had a mind to appear. My thoughts grew free and generous, and the ambition to be agreeable to her I admired produced in my carriage a faint similitude of that disengaged manner of my Belinda. The way we are in at present is, that she sees my passion, and sees I at present forbear speaking of it through prudential regards. This respect to her she returns with much civility, and As the author never fails to give a poetical turn makes my value for her as little a misfortune to to his sentiments, he describes in the beginning ine as is consistent with discretion. She sings of this book of acceptance which these their very charmingly, and is readier to do so at my re- prayers met with a short allegory formed upon quest, because she knows I love her. She will that beautiful passage in holy writ, "And another dance with me rather than another for the same angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden reason. My fortune must alter from what it is, censer; and there was given unto him much inbefore I can speak my heart to her; and her circense, that he should offer it with the prayers of cumstances are not considerable enough to make up for the narrowness of mine. But I write to you now, only to give you the character of Belinda, as a woman that has address enough to demonstrate a gratitude to her lover, without giving aim hopes of success in his passion. Belinda

The preterite for the participle.

all saints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne: and the smoke of the incense, which

*This paragraph was not in the original paper in folio; it was added on the republication of the papers in volumes, when the eighteen numbers, of which Addison's critique on Paradise Lost consists, seem to have been carefully revised by their author, and to have undergone various and conside rable alterations in consequence of his revisal.

came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up | phael, the sociable spirit, entertained the father of before God."*

-To heaven their prayers

Flew up, nor miss'd the way, by envious winds
Blown vagabond or frustrate; in they pass'd
Dimensionless through heavenly doors, then clad
With incense, where the golden altar fum'd
By their great Intercessor, came in sight
Before the Father's throne.

We have the same thought expressed a second time in the intercession of the Messiah, which is conceived in very emphatical sentiments and expressions.

Among the poetical parts of Scripture, which Milton has so finely wrought into this part of his narration, I must not omit that wherein Ezekiel, speaking of the angels who appeared to him in a vision, adds, that every one had four faces, and that their whole bodies, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, were full of eyes round

about:

-The cohort bright

Of watchful cherubim, four faces each
Had, like a double Janus, all their shape
Spangled with eyes.

The assembling of all the angels of heaven, to hear the solemn decree passed upon man, is represented in very lively ideas. The Almighty is here described as remembering mercy in the midst of judgment, and commanding Michael to deliver his message in the mildest terms, lest the spirit of man, which was already broken with the sense of his guilt and misery, should fail before him:

-Yet lest they faint

And the sad sentence rigorously urg'd,
For I behold them soften'd, and with tears
Bewailing their excess, all terror hide.

mankind before the fall. His person, his port, and
behavior, are suitable to a spirit of the highest
rank, and exquisitely described in the following
passage:

-Th' archangel soon drew nigh,
Not in his shape celestial; but as man
Clad to meet man: over his lucid arms
A military vest of purple flow'd,
Livelier than Meliboean, or the grain
Of Sarra, worn by kings and heroes old,
In time of truce: Iris had dipp'd the woof:
His starry helm, unbuckl'd, show'd him prime
In manhood where youth ended; by his side,
As in a glist'ring zodiac, hung the sword,
Satan's dire dread, and in his hand a spear.
Adam bow'd low; he kindly from his state
Inclin'd not, but his coming thus declared.

Eve's complaint, upon hearing that she was to be removed from the garden of Paradise, is wonderfully beautiful. The sentiments are not only proper to the subject, but have something in them particularly soft and womanish:

Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? Thus leave
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of gods, where I had hope to spend
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both? O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation, and my last
At even, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names!
Who now shall rear you to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?
Thee, lastly, nuptial bower, by me adorn'd
With what to sight or smell was sweet: from thee
How shall I part? and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this, obscure

And wild? How shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?
Adam's speech abounds with thoughts which
are equally moving, but of a more masculine and
elevated turn. Nothing can be conceived more
sublime and poetical than the following passage

The conference of Adam and Eve is full of moving sentiments. Upon their going abroad, after the melancholy night which they had passed to-in it: gether, they discover the lion and the eagle, each of them pursuing their prey toward the eastern gates of Paradise. There is a double beauty in this incident, not only as it presents great and just omens, which are always agreeable in poetry, but as it expresses that enmity which was now produced in the animal creation. The poet, to show the like changes in nature, as well as to grace his fable with a noble prodigy, represents the sun in an eclipse. This particular incident has likewise a fine effect upon the imagination of the reader, in regard to what follows; for at the same time that the sun is under an eclipse, a bright cloud descends in the western quarter of the heavens filled with a host of angels, and more luminous than the sun itself. The whole theater of nature is darkened, that this glorious, machine may appear with all its luster and magnificence:

Why in the east

Darkness ere day's mid-course? and morning light
More orient in yon western cloud that draws
O'er the blue firmament a radiant white,

And slow descends with something heavenly fraught?
He err'd not for by this the heavenly bands
Down from a sky of jasper lighted now
In Paradise, and on a hill made halt;
A glorious apparition

This most afflicts me, that departing hence
As from his face I shall be hid, depriv'd
His blessed count'nance; here I could frequent,
With worship, place by place where he vouchsaf'd
Presence divine; and to my sons relate,
On this mount he appeared, under this tree
Stood visible, among these pines his voice

I heard; here with him at this fountain talk'd:

So many grateful altars I would rear
Of grassy tu:f, and pile up every stone
Of luster from the brook, in memory.
Or monuments to ages, and thereon

Offer sweet-smelling gums and fruits and flow'rs.
In yonder nether world, where shall I seek
His bright appearances, or footsteps trace?
For though I fed him angry, yet recalled
To life prolong'd and promis'd race, I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts
Of glory, and far off his steps adore.

The angel afterward leads Adam to the highest
mount of Paradise, and lays before him a whole
hemisphere, as a proper stage for those visious
which were to be represented on it. I have before ob-
served how the plan of Milton's poem is, in many
particulars, greater than that of the Iliad or
Eneid. Virgil's hero, in the last of these poems,
is entertained with a sight of all those who are to
descend from him; but though that episode is
justly admired as one of the noblest designs in
the whole Eneid, every one must allow that this
Adam's
of Milton is of a much higher nature.
mankind, but extends to the whole species.
vision is not confined to any particular tribe of

I need not observe how properly this author, who always suits his parts to the actors whom he introduces, has employed Michael in the expulsion of our first parents from Paradise. The archangel on this occasion neither appears in his proper his sons and daughters, the first objects he is preIn this great review which Adam takes of all shape, nor in the familiar manner with which Ra-sented with exhibit to him the story of Cain and

Rev., viii, 3, 4.

Abel, which is drawn together with much closeness and propriety of expression The curiosity

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