sions, where the subject is capable of poetical ornaments, as particularly in the confusion which he describes among the builders of Babel, and in his short sketch of the plagues of Egypt. The storm of hail and fire, with the darkness that overspread the land for three days, are described with great strength. The beautiful passage which follows is raised upon noble hints in Scripture: -Thus with ten wounds The river dragon tam`d, at length submits The poet has very finely represented the joy and gladness of heart which arises in Adam upon his discovery of the Messiah. As he sees his day at a distance through types and shadows, he rejoices in it; but when he finds the redemption of man com pleted, and Paradise again renewed, he breaks forth in rapture and transport: O goodness infinite! goodness immense! That all this good of evil shall produce,' &c. I have hinted in my sixth paper on Milton, that a heroic poem, according to the opinion of the best critics, ought to end happily, and leave the mind of the reader, after having conducted it through many doubts and fears, sorrows and disquietudes, in a state of tranquillity and satisfaction. Milton's fable, which had so many other qualifications to recommend it, was deficient in this particular. It is here therefore that the poet has shown a most exquisite judgment, as well as the finest invention, by finding out a method to supply this natural defect in his subject. Accordingly he leaves the adversary of mankind, in the last view which he gives of him, under the lowest state of mortification and disappointment. We see him chewing ashes, gro The river dragon is an allusion to the crocodile, which inhabits the Nile, from whence Egypt derives her plenty. This allusion is taken from that sublime passage in Ezekiel: Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.' Milton has given us another very noble and poetical image in the same de-velling in the dust, and loaden with superscription, which is copied almost word for word out of the history of Moses! All night be will pursue, but his approach Darkness defends between till morning watch Then through the fiery pillar and the cloud God looking forth will trouble all his host, And craze their chariot wheels: when by command Moses once more his potent rod extends Over the sea: the sea his rod obeys: On their embattled ranks the waves return And overwhelm their war As the principal design of this episode was to give Adam an idea of the holy person who was to reinstate human nature in that happiness and perfection from which it had fallen, the poet confines himself to the line of Abraham, from whence the Messiah was to descend. The angel is described as seeing the patriarch actually travelling towards the land of promise, which gives a particular liveliness to this part of the narration: I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith He leaves his gods, his friends, his native soil, Ur of Chaldea, passing now the ford To Haran; after him a cumbrous train Of herds, and flocks, and num'rous servitude; Not wand'ring poor, but trusting all his wealth With God, who call'd him in a land unknown. Canaan he now attains: I see his tents Pitch'd about Sechem, and the neighbouring plain Of Moreh; there by promise he receives Gift to his progeny of all that land; From Hamath northward to the desert south: (Things by their names I call, though yet unnam'd.) As Virgil's vision in the sixth neid probably gave Milton the hint of this whole episode, the last line is a translation of that verse where Anchises mentions the names of places, which they were to bear hereafter: Hæc tum nomina erunt, nunc sunt sine nomine terræ. numerary pains and torments. On the contrary, our two first parents are comforted by dreams and visions, cheered with promises of salvation, and in a manner raised to a greater happiness_than_that which they had forfeited. In short, Satan is represented miserable in the height of his triumphs, and Adam triumphant in the height of misery. Milton's poem ends very nobly. The last speeches of Adam and the archangel are full of moral and instructive sentiments. The sleep that fell upon Eve, and the effects it had in quieting the disorders of her mind, produces the same kind of consolation in the reader, who cannot peruse the last beautiful speech, which is ascribed to the mother of mankind, without a secret pleasure and satisfaction: 'Whence thou return'st, and whither went'st, I know: In me is no delay: with thee to go, Is to stay here, without thee here to stay, I carry hence; though all by me is lost, poem, rise in a most glorious blaze of poetiThe following lines, which conclude the cal images and expressions. Heliodorus in the Ethiopics acquaints us, that the motion of the gods differs from that of mortals, as the former do not stir their feet, nor proceed step by step, but slide over the surface of the earth by an uniform swimming of the whole body, The reader may observe with how poetical a So spake our mother Eve; and Adam heard The author helped his invention in the The scene which our first parents are surprised with, upon their looking back on Paradise, wonderfully strikes the reader's imagination, as nothing can be more natural than the tears they shed on that occasion: They looking back, all th' eastern side beheld The world was all before them, where to choose If I might presume to offer at the smallest alteration in this divine work, I should think the poem would end better with the passage here quoted, than with the two verses which follow: They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow These two verses, though they have their beauty, fall very much below the foregoing passage, and renew in the mind of the reader that anguish which was pretty well laid by that consideration: The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. The number of books in Paradise Lost is equal to those of the Æneid. Our author, in his first edition, had divided his poem into ten books, but afterwards broke the seventh and the eleventh each of them into two different books, by the help of some small additions. This second division was made with great judgment, as any one may see who will be at the pains of examining it. It was not done for the sake of such a chimerical beauty as that of resembling Virgil in this particular, but for the more just and regular disposition of this great work. Those who have read Bossu, and many of the critics who have written since his time, will not pardon me if I do not find out the particular moral which is inculcated in Paradise Lost. Though I can by no means think, with the last-mentioned French author, that an epic writer first of all pitches upon a certain moral, as the ground-work and foundation of his poem, and afterwards finds out a story to it; I am however of opinion, that no just heroic poem ever was or can be made, from whence one great moral may not be deduced. That which reigns in Milton is the most universal and most useful that can be imagined. It is, in short, this, that obedience to the will of God makes men happy. and that disobedience makes them misera ble. This is visibly the moral of the prin cipal fable, which turns upon Adam and Eve, who continued in Paradise while they kept the command that was given them, and were driven out of it as soon as they had transgressed. This is likewise the moral of the principal episode, which shows us how an innumerable multitude of angels fell from their disobedience. Besides this great moral, which may be looked upon as the soul of the fable, there are an infinity of under-morals which are to be drawn from the several parts of the poem, and which make this work more useful and instructive than any other poem in any language. Those who have criticised on the Odyssey, the Iliad, and neid, have taken a great deal of pains to fix the number of months and days contained in the action of each of these poems. If any one thinks it worth his while to examine this particular in Milton, he will find, that from Adam's first appearance in the fourth book, to his expulsion from Paradise in the twelfth, the author reckons ten days. As for that part of the action which is described in the three first books, as it does not pass within the regions of nature, I have before observed that it is not subject to any calculations of time. work which does an honour to the English I have now finished my observations on a nation. I have taken a general view of it under these four heads-the fable, the characters, the sentiments, and the language, and made each of them the subject of a particular paper. I have in the next place spoke of the censures which our author may incur under each of these heads, which I have confined to two papers, though I might have enlarged the number if I had been disposed to dwell on so ungrateful a subject. I believe, however, that the severest reader will not find any little fault in heroic poetry, which this author has fallen into, that does not come under one of those heads among which I have distributed his several blemishes. After having thus treated at large of Paradise Lost, I could not think it sufficient to have celebrated this poem in the whole without descending to particulars. I have therefore bestowed a paper upon each book, and endeavoured not only to prove that the poem is beautiful in general, but to point out its particular beauties; and to deter mine wherein they consist, I have endea- terests of true piety and religion, is a player voured to show how some passages are with a still greater imputation of guilt, in beautiful by being sublime, others by being proportion to his depreciating a character soft, others by being natural; which of them more sacred. Consider all the different are recommended by the passion, which pursuits and employments of men, and you by the moral, which by the sentiment, and will find half their actions tend to nothing which by the expression. I have likewise else but disguise and imposture; and all endeavoured to show how the genius of the that is done which proceeds not from a poet shines by a happy invention, a distant man's very self, is the action of a player. allusion, or a judicious imitation; how he For this reason it is that I make so frequent has copied or improved Homer or Virgil, mention of the stage. It is with me a matter and raises his own imaginations by the use of the highest consideration, what parts which he has made of several poetical pas- are well or ill performed, what passions or sages in Scripture. I might have inserted sentiments are indulged or cultivated, and also several passages in Tasso, which our consequently what manners and customs author has imitated: but, as I do not look are transfused from the stage to the world, upon Tasso to be a sufficient voucher, I which reciprocally imitate each other. would not perplex my reader with such As the writers of epic poems introduce quotations as might do more honour to the shadowy persons, and represent vices and Italian than to the English poet. In short, virtues under the character of men and . I have endeavoured to particularize those women; so I, who am a Spectator in the innumerable kinds of beauty which it would world, may perhaps sometimes make use be tedious to recapitulate, but which are of the names of the actors of the stage, to essential to poetry, and which may be met represent or admonish those who transact with in the works of this great author. Had affairs in the world. When I am comI thought, at my first engaging in this design, mending Wilks for representing the tenthat it would have led me to so great a derness of a husband and a father in Maclength, I believe I should never have en- beth, the contrition of a reformed prodigal tered upon it; but the kind reception which in Harry the Fourth, the winning emptiness it has met with among those whose judg- of a young man of good-nature and wealth ment I have a value for, as well as the in The Trip to the Jubilee, the officiousuncommon demands which my bookseller ness of an artful servant in the Fox; when tells me have been made for these particu- thus I celebrate Wilks, I talk to all the lar discourses, give me no reason to repent world who are engaged in any of those cirof the pains I have been at in composing cumstances. If I were to speak of merit them. L. neglected, misapplied, or misunderstood, might I not say Estcourt has a great capacity? But it is not the interest of others who bear a figure on the stage, that his talents were understood; it is their business to impose upon him what cannot become him, or keep out of his hands any thing in which he would shine. Were one to raise a suspicion of himself in a man who passes upon the world for a fine thing, in order to alarm him, one might say, If Lord Foppington was not on the stage (Cibber acts the false pretensions to a genteel behaviour so very justly,) he would have in the generality of mankind more that would admire than deride him. When we come to characters directly comical, it is not to be imagined what effect a well-regulated stage would have upon men's manners. The craft of an usurer, the absurdity of a rich fool, the awkward roughness of a fellow of half courage, the ungraceful mirth of a creature of half wit, might for ever be put out of countenance by proper parts for Dogget. Johnson, by acting Corbacchio the other night, must have given all who saw him a thorough detestation of aged avarice. The petulancy of a peevish old fellow, who loves and hates he knows not why, is very excellently performed by the ingenious Mr. William Penkethman, in the Fop's Fortune; where, in the character of Don Choleric Snap Shorto de Testy, he answers no questions but to those whom he likes, and wants No. 370.] Monday, May 5, 1712. Totus mundus agit histrionem. -All the world's a stage, MANY of my fair readers, as well as very gay and well-received persons of the other sex, are extremely perplexed at the Latin sentences at the head of my speculations, I do not know whether I ought not to indulge them with translations of each of them: however, I have to-day taken down from the top of the stage in Drury-lane, a bit of Latin, which often stands in their view, and signifies, that The whole world acts the player. It is certain that if we look all around us, and behold the different employments of mankind, you hardly see one who is not, as the player is, in an assumed character. The lawyer, who is vehement and loud in a cause wherein he knows he has not the truth of the question on his side, is a player as to the personated part, but incomparably meaner than he as to the prostitution of himself for hire; because the pleader's falsehood introduces injustice: the player feigns for no other end but to divert or instruct you. The divine, whose passions transport him to say any thing with any view but promoting the in No. 371.1 THE SPECTATOR. no account of any thing from those he approves. Mr. Penkethman is also master of as many faces in the dumb scene as can be expected from a man in the circumstances of being ready to perish out of fear and hunger. He wanders through the whole scene very masterly, without neglecting his victuals. If it be, as I have heard it sometimes mentioned, a great qualification of the world to follow business and pleasure too, what is it in the ingenious Mr. Penkethman to represent a sense of pleasure and pain at the same time, as you may see him do this evening? Among those innumerable sets of whims which our country produces, there are none whom I have regarded with more curiosity than those who have invented any particular kind of diversion for the entertainment of themselves and their friends. My letter shall single out those who take delight in sorting a company that has something of burlesque and ridicule in its appearance. I shall make myself understood by the following example: One of the wits of the last age, who was a man of a good estate,* thought he never laid out his money better than in a jest. As he was one year at the Bath, observing that, in the great confluence of fine people, there were several among them with long chins, a part of the visage by which he himself was very much distinguished, he invited to dinner half a score of these remarkable persons who had their mouths in the middle of their faces. They had no sooner placed themselves about the table but they began to stare upon one another, not being able to imagine what had brought them together. Our English proverb says, Jamne igitur laudas quod de sapientibus unus 'SIR,-You know very well that our na- VOL. II. 12 The third feast which this merry gentleman exhibited was to the stammerers, whom he got together in a sufficient body to fill his table. He had ordered one of his servants, who was placed behind a screen, to write down their table-talk, which was very easy to be done without the help of short-hand. It appears by the notes which were taken, that though their conversation never fell, there were not above twenty words spoken during the first course; that upon serving up the second, one of the them that the ducklings and asparagus company was a quarter of an hour in telling were very good; and that another took up the same time in declaring himself of the same opinion. This jest did not, however, go off so well as the former; for one of the guests being a brave man, and fuller of resentment than he knew how to express, went out of the room, and sent the facetious * Villars, Duke of Buckingham, inviter a challenge in writing, which, though | wherein he made use of the same invention it was afterwards dropped by the interposition of friends, put a stop to these ludicrous entertainments. to cure a different kind of men, who are the pests of all polite conversation, and murder time as much as either of the two former, 'Now, sir, I dare say you will agree with though they do it more innocently-I mean, me, that as there is no moral in these jests, that dull generation of story-tellers. My they ought to be discouraged, and looked friend got together about half a dozen of his upon rather as pieces of unluckiness than acquaintance, who were infected with this wit. However, as it is natural for one man strange malady. The first day one of them to refine upon the thought of another; and sitting down, entered upon the siege of impossible for any single person, how great Namur, which lasted till four o'clock, their soever his parts may be, to invent an art, time of parting. The second day a North and bring it to its utmost perfection; I shall Briton took possession of the discourse, here give you an account of an honest which it was impossible to get out of his gentleman of my acquaintance, who upon hands so long as the company stayed tohearing the character of the wit above-gether. The third day was engrossed after mentioned, has himself assumed it, and endeavoured to convert it to the benefit of mankind. He invited half a dozen of his friends one day to dinner, who were each of them famous for inserting several redundant phrases in their discourse, as "D'ye hear me?-D'ye see?-That is,-And so, sir." 'As you have somewhere declared, that Each of his guests making use of his par- extraordinary and uncommon characters of ticular elegance, appeared so ridiculous to mankind are the game which you delight his neighbour, that he could not but reflect in, and as I look upon you to be the greatest upon himself as appearing equally ridi- sportsman, or, if you please, the Nimrod culous to the rest of the company. By this among this species of writers, I thought means, before they had sat long together, this discovery would not be unacceptable to every one, talking with the greatest cir-you. I am, sir, &c.' cumspection, and carefully avoiding his favourite expletive, the conversation was cleared of its redundancies, and had a No. 372.] Wednesday, May 7, 1712. greater quantity of sense, though less of sound in it. 'The same well-meaning gentleman took occasion, at another time, to bring together such of his friends as were addicted to a foolish habitual custom of swearing. In order to show them the absurdity of the practice, he had recourse to the invention above-mentioned, having placed an amanuensis in a private part of the room. After the second bottle, when men open their minds without reserve, my honest friend began to take notice of the many sonorous but unnecessary words that had passed in his house since their sitting down at table, and how much good conversation they had lost by giving way to such superfluous phrases. "What a tax," says he, "would they have raised for the poor, had we put the laws in execution upon one another!" Every one of them took this gentle reproof in good part; upon which he told them, that, knowing their conversation would have no secrets in it, he ordered it to be taken down in writing, and, for the humour-sake, would read it to them, if they pleased. There were ten sheets of it, which might have been reduced to two, had there not been those abominable interpolations I have before mentioned. Upon the reading of it in cold blood, it looked rather like a conference of fiends than of men. In short, every one trembled at himself upon hearing calmly what he had pronounced amidst the heat and inadvertency of discourse. the same manner by a story of the same length. They at last began to reflect upon this barbarous way of treating one another, and by this means awakened out of that lethargy with which each of them had been seized for several years. -Pudet hæc opprobria nobis I. Ovid. Met. i. 759. To hear an open slander, is a curse; Dryden. May 6, 1712. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am sexton of the parish of Covent-garden, and complained to you some time ago, that as I was tolling in to prayers at eleven in the morning, crowds of people of quality hastened to assemble at a puppet-show on the other side of the garden. I had at the same time a very great disesteem for Mr. Powell and his little thoughtless commonwealth, as if they had enticed the gentry into those wanderings: but let that be as it will, I am convinced of the honest intentions of the said Mr. Powell and company, and send this to acquaint you, that he has given all the profits which shall arise to-morrow night by his play to the use of the poor charitychildren of this parish. I have been informed, sir, that in Holland all persons who set up any show, or act any stage-play, be the actors either of wood and wire, or flesh and blood, are obliged to pay out of their gains such a proportion to the honest and industrious poor in the neighbourhood: by this means they make diversion and pleasure pay a tax to labour and industry. have been told also, that all the time of Lent, in Roman-Catholic countries, the persons of condition administer to the necessities of the poor, and attend the beds of I shall only mention another occasion | lazars and diseased persons. Our Protestant |