"Milton frequently in an imitation does not confine himself to the passage he principally takes it from, but renders it more complete by hints taken from other places of the same author, or from another author.

As Virgil found it such a difficult thing to improve the verses of Homer, so it must have been a more difficult labour for Milton to improve on Virgil's imitations, and yet he has always succeeded. But the merit of ordinary poets consists in the difficulty of imitating,—and the more literal they are, the better."

Addison's criticism on Paradise Lost is so eminently sagacious, learned, and just, and so indispensable to every commentator who wishes his labours to be useful, that it forms a necessary portion of every good commentary. His remarks on isolated passages of the poem I have given in the Notes, wherever I found them elucidatory: and I here quote some general observations as guides to direct the reader to a proper comprehension of the scheme and principles of an epic poem.

"I shall waive the discussion of that point which was started a few years since, whether the Paradise Lost may be called an heroic poem. Those who will not give it that title may call it

a divine poem; it will be sufficient to its perfection if it has in it all the beauties of the highest kind of poetry; and as for those who allege it is not an heroic poem, they advance no more to the diminution of it, than if they should say that Adam is not Æneas, or Eve Helen. The first thing to be considered in an epic poem is the fable, which is perfect or imperfect according as the action is more or less so. This action should have three qualifications in it first, it should be one action; secondly, it should be an entire action; thirdly, it should be a great action. Homer, to preserve the unity of his action, opens his poem with the discord of his princes, and artfully interweaves, in the several succeeding parts, an account of every thing material which relates to them, and had passed before that fatal dissension. In the same manner Æneas makes his first appearance on the Tuscan seas, within sight of Italy, because the action proposed to be celebrated was that of his settling in Latium. But because it was necessary for the reader to know what had happened to him

in the taking of Troy, and in the preceding parts of his voyage, Virgil makes his hero relate it by way of episode, in the second and third books. Milton, in imitation of these great poets, opens his Paradise Lost with an infernal council plotting the fall of man, which is the action he proposed to celebrate; and casts the great actions which preceded it-the war in heaven, and the creation, into the fifth, sixth, and seventh books, by way of episode, in order to preserve the unity of the principal action. Aristotle himself allows that Homer has not much to boast of as to the unity of the fable; so, many have been of opinion that, the Eneid has episodes which are excrescences. On the contrary, Paradise Lost has none, however various and astonishing the incidents, that do not naturally arise from the subject. As Virgil, in the poem which was designed to celebrate the origin of the Roman empire, has described the birth of its great rival, the Carthaginian commonwealth, Milton, with the like art, in his poem on the fall of man, has related the fall of those angels who are his professed enemies-an episode, which, running parallel with the main action, does not break its unity.

"The second qualification, i. e. that the action should be entire, requires that nothing should be stated as going before it, intermixed with it, or following it, which is not related to it. In this particular, Paradise Lost excels the Iliad and Æneid. The action is contrived in hell, executed on earth, and punished by heaven.

"The third qualification is greatness. The anger of Achilles was of such consequence, that it embroiled the heroes of Greece, destroyed those of Asia, and engaged all the gods in faction. Æneas's settlement in Italy produced the Roman empire and all its heroes. Milton's subject was greater than either; it does not determine the fate of single persons or nations, but of the whole human race. Every thing that is great in the whole circle of being, whether within the verge of nature or out of it, has a proper part assigned to it in this admirable poem. In poetry, as in architecture, not only the whole, but the principal members should be great; and without derogating from those wonderful performances, the Iliad and Æneid, I think there is much greater

magnificence in Paradise Lost than could have been formed on any pagan system.

"The action of the Iliad, and that of the Eneid, were, in themselves, exceedingly short; but are so beautifully diversified and extended by the invention of episodes, and the machinery of gods, with the like poetical ornaments, that they make up an agreeable story, sufficient to employ the memory without overcharging it. Milton's action is enriched by such a variety of circumstances, that I have taken as much pleasure in reading the contents of his books, as in the best invented story I ever met with. It is possible that the traditions on which the Iliad and Eneid were built had more circumstances in them than the history of the fall of man, as it is related in Scripture. Besides, it was easier for Homer and Virgil to dash the truth with fiction, as they were in no danger of offending the religion of their country by it. But as for Milton, he had not only a very few circumstances upon which to raise, but was also obliged to proceed with the greatest caution in every thing that he added out of his own invention; and, indeed, notwithstanding all the restraint, he has filled his story with so many surprising incidents, which bear so close an analogy with what is delivered in holy writ, that it is capable of pleasing the most delicate reader, without giving offence to the most scrupulous."

It has been asserted by Pope, Johnson, and other critics of acknowledged authority in their remarks on English versification, that in all smooth English poetry, there is naturally a pause at the fourth, fifth, or sixth syllable, upon the judicious management and change of which depends the melody and variety of the verse. Milton not limiting himself to this generally received principle, varies the pause according to the sense, and varies it through all the ten syllables of the verse, by which he is master of greater and more diversified harmony, especially in Paradise Lost, than any other English poet. In the first six lines of this poem, he varies the pause no less than five times, making it rest in the first line on the 7th syllable; in the second and third line on the 6th ; in the fourth on the 5th; in the fifth on the 3d; and in the sixth on the 4th. A few instances of his laying the pause on other

syllables may here suffice, as numerous occasions of noticing the fact will arise in the progress of these annotations :—he lays it on the first, B. iv. 351, B. vi. 838; on the second, B. iv. 602, B. v. 267; on the eighth, B. i. 287, B. ii. 110; on the ninth, B. i. 386, B. vii. 323; and on the tenth, B. iii. 393, B. vi. 767. But he does not content himself with mere change of pause, he uses even two or more pauses in the same verse, for the purpose of greater effect, as B. x. 851, B. vi. 852, B. ii. 950, et alibi. Nor is this variation of the pause the only mode by which he produces force of effect and melody of verse: he varies the metre also, for it is not, as is generally imagined, pure iambic-an iambic foot consists of one short and one long syllable, and six such constituted the ancient iambic line: the English iambic has but five feet. In imitation of some of the best ancient models which contain the mixed iambic, or fusion of other feet with the iambic, he frequently mixes with the iambic other feet as the trochee, or one long and one short syllable, thus (-), spondee, two long (——), dactyl, one long and two short (—~~), the pyrrhic, two short (~~), anapæst, two short and one long (~~), and the tribrach, three short (~~~); though the laws of versification seem to have prescribed that the concluding foot of the English pentameter, or line of five feet, should be an iambic, yet Milton has, with consummate grace and judgment, sometimes converted this into a spondee, for instance, in B. vi. 216, where the first foot is a trochee.

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'Silence, ye troubled waves, and thou deep-peace." There are other peculiarities and licences borrowed from the classic poets in his versification, which must be kept in view, in order to form a just conception of its force and melody; sometimes the last vowel of a word, when the next begins with a vowel, is to be cut off in the reading and scansion, although the vowel is retained in print: this the grammarians call elision. Shakspeare, and Spenser occasionally take this liberty; sometimes the same word is to be read as two syllables, and sometimes, by what is grammatically termed contraction, as one; such as power, reason, riot, ruin, highest, spirit, &c. &c.; sometimes, too, the accent is shifted from the syllable on which established usage has fixed it; as in triumph,

exile, and sometimes he lengthens or shortens a syllable according to the exigencies of his metrical law.

But it is not merely his licence of prosody as auxiliary to poetic harmony that must be considered, in order to form a just estimate of the power and elegance of his style; his careful selection of words, their arrangement and combination, the frequent classicalities of his phrases and allusions, and the antique structure of his sentences, have long given him a pre-eminence in our language, as the chief author who has kept alive the manner and spirit of the ancient authors. These variations of pause and metre, with all his metrical licences, his choice of words and their disposition, have enabled him to attain in the highest degree of all poets next to Homer, what is one of the rarest perfections of poetry, the assimilation of the sound to the sense: his lines by their smoothness and roughness, by the necessity of reading them slowly or rapidly, give a perfect picture, and, as it were, an echo of the subject matter. All critics agree in this, but in greater and lesser degrees according to their various tastes; I have thought it better to state these principles generally, leaving the particular applications of them to the reader's judgment.

There are other beauties that deserve to be noticed; such as his inversions, or throwing the words out of the common prose arrangement; his alliterations in various forms; his judicious use of monosyllabic lines; his blending of the singular and plural numbers; his change of tenses; and his detaching the auxiliary verb from the participle, by which he has contrived to give additional force and effect to his lines; he frequently uses the contraction in such words as fallen, covering, dangerous, general, emperor, &c. More than these general principles I cannot state within the narrow limits of this edition.- I intended to have given an Essay on his use and imitation of the ancient authors; but such an essay, to be treated fully, or with considerable advantage to the reader, should be made the subject of a separate work, which it is my purpose to give.

J. P.