N° 357. SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 1712.

Quis talia fando

Temperet à luchrymis?

VIRG. Æn. ii. 6.

Who can relate such woes without a tear ?*

THE tenth book of Paradise Lost has a greater variety of persons in it than any other in the whole poem. The author, upon the winding up of his action, introduces all those who had any concern in it, and shews 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 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 motto to this paper in the original publication in folio is the same with that which is now prefixed to No. 279. Reddere persona scit convenientia cuique. HOR. Ars. Poet: 316.

To each character he gives what best befits.

the conversion of a sinner, are very finely laid together in the following lines:

'Up into heav'n from Paradise in haste
Th' angelic guards ascended, mute and sad
For man; for of his state by this they knew
Much wond'ring how the subtle fiend had stol'n
Entrance unseen. Soon as th' unwelcome news
From earth arriv'd at heav'n gate, displeas'd
All were who heard: dim sadness did not spare
That time celestial visages; yet mixt

With pity, violated not their bliss.
About the new-arriv'd, in multitudes
Th' ethereal people ran, to hear and know
How all befel. They tow'rds the throne supreme
Accountable made haste, to make appear,
With righteous plea, their utmost vigilance,
And easily approv'd; when the Most High
Eternal Father, from his sacred cloud
Amidst, in thunder utter'd 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,
To waste and havoc yonder world, which I
So fair and good created, &c.

The following passage is formed upon that glorious image in holy writ, which compares the voice of an innumerable host of angels uttering hallelujahs, to the voices of mighty thunderings, or of many

waters:

He ended, and the heav'nly audience loud
Sung hallelujah, as the sound of seas,

Through multitude that sung, "Just are thy ways,
Righteous are thy decrees in all thy works:
Who can extenuate thee?-

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 his fable. Of this kind is that passage in the present book, where, describing Sin as marching through the works of nature, he adds,

Behind her Death

Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet
On his pale horse

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 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 charges in nature, and sully the beauty of creation. Accordingly they are represented as infecting the stars and planets with malignant 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 ascance

The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more
From the sun's axle; they with labour push'd
Oblique the centric globe-

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 coursing 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 Övid'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 in every incident which is admitted into this poem. The unexpected hiss which arises 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 part 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 no where more shewn, 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. Fvery 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