but cannot perform so well as some others; I have taken some pains in a former paper however, by my out-of-the-way capers, to show, that this kind of implex fable, and some original grimaces, I do not fail wherein the event is unhappy, is more apt to divert the company, particularly the to affect an audience than that of the ladies, who laugh immoderately all the first kind; notwithstanding many excellent time. Some, who pretend to be my friends pieces among the ancients, as well as most tell me that they do it in derision, and would of those which have been written of late advise me to leave it off, withal that I make years in our own country are raised upon myself ridiculous. I do not know what to contrary plans. I must however own, that do in this affair, but I am resolved not to I think this kind of fable, which is the most give over upon any account, until I have the perfect in tragedy, is not so proper for a opinion of the Spectator. Your humble heroic poem.

servant,

JOHN TROTT.'

If Mr. Trott is not awkward out of time, he has a right to dance, let who will laugh; but if he has no ear he will interrupt others: and I am of opinion he should sit still. Given under my hand this fifth of February, 1711-12. THE SPECTATOR.

T.

Milton seems to have been sensible of this fore endeavoured to cure it by several eximperfection in his fable, and has therepedients; particularly by the mortification which the great adversary of mankind meets with upon his return to the assembly of infernal spirits, as it is described in a beautiful passage of the third book; and likewise by the vision wherein Adam, at the close of the poem, sees his offspring, triumphing over his great enemy, and him

No. 297.] Saturday, February 9, 1711-12. self restored to a happier paradise than that from which he fell.

-velut si

Hor. Sat. vi. Lib. 1. 66.

Egregio inspersos reprendas corpore nævos.
As perfect beauties somewhere have a mole.-Creech.

AFTER what I have said in my last Saturday's paper, I shall enter on the subject of this without further preface, and remark the several defects which appear in the fable, the characters, the sentiments, and the language of Milton's Paradise Lost; not doubting but the reader will pardon me, if I allege at the same time whatever may be said for the extenuation of such defects. The first imperfection which I shall observe in the fable is, that the event of it is unhappy.

There is another objection against Milton's fable, which is indeed almost the same with the former, though placed in a different light, namely-That the hero in the Paradise Lost is unsuccessful, and by no means a match for his enemics. This gave occasion to Mr. Dryden's reflection, that the devil was in reality Milton's hero. I think I have obviated this objection in my first paper. The Paradise Lost is an epic, or a narrative poem, and be that looks for a hero in it, searches for that which Milton never intended; but if he will needs fix the name of a hero upon any person in it, it is certainly the Messiah who is the hero, both in the principal action, and in the The fable of every poem is, according to chief episodes. Paganism could not furnish Aristotle's division, either simple or implex. out a real action for a fable greater than It is called simple when there is no change that of the Iliad or Æneid, and therefore a of fortune in it; implex, when the fortune heathen could not form a higher notion of of the chief actor changes from bad to good, a poem than one of that kind, which they or from good to bad. The implex fable is call a heroic. Whether Milton's is not of thought the most perfect: I suppose, be- a sublimer nature I will not presume to cause it is more proper to stir up the pas- determine: it is sufficient that I show there sions of the reader, and to surprise him with is in the Paradise Lost all the greatness of a greater variety of accidents. plan, regularity of design, and masterly beauties which we discover in Homer and Virgil.

The implex fable is therefore of two kinds: in the first, the chief actor makes his way through a long series of dangers and difficulties, until he arrives at honour and prosperity, as we see in the stories of Ulysses and Æneas; in the second, the chief actor in the poem falls from some eminent pitch of honour and prosperity, into misery and disgrace. Thus we see Adam and Eve sinking from a state of innocence and happiness, into the most abject condition of sin

and sorrow.

The most taking tragedies among the ancients, were built on this last sort of implex fable, particularly the tragedy of Edipus, which proceeds upon a story, if we may believe Aristotle, the most proper for tragedy that could be invented by the wit of man.

I must in the next place observe, that Milton has interwoven in the texture of his fable some particulars which do not seem to have probability enough for an epic poem, particularly in the actions which he ascribes to Sin and Death, and the picture which he draws of the Limbo of Vanity, with other passages in the second book. Such allegories rather savour of the spirit of Spencer and Ariosto, than of Homer and Virgil.

In the structure of his poem he has likewise admitted too many digressions. It is finely observed by Aristotle, that the author of a heroic poem should seldom speak himself, but throw as much of his work as

he can into the mouths of those who are his
principal actors. Aristotle has given no
reason for this precept: but I presume it is
because the mind of the reader is more
awed and elevated, when he hears Æneas
or Achilles speak, than when Virgil or
Homer talk in their own persons. Besides
that assuming the character of an eminent
man is apt to fire the imagination, and raise
the ideas of the author. Tully tells us,
mentioning his dialogue of old age, in which
Cato is the chief speaker, that upon a re-
view of it he was agreeably imposed upon,
and fancied that it was Cato, and not he
himself, who uttered his thoughts on that
subject.

If the reader would be at the pains to see
how the story of the Iliad and the Æneid
is delivered by those persons who act in it,
he will be surprised to find how little either
of these poems proceeds from the authors.
Milton has, in the general disposition of
his fable, very finely observed this great
rule; insomuch that there is scarce a tenth
part of it which comes from the poet; the
rest is spoken either by Adam or Eve, or by
some good or evil spirit who is engaged
either in their destruction or defence.

From what has been here observed it appears, that digressions are by no means to be allowed of in an epic poem. If the poet, even in the ordinary course of his narration, should speak as little as possible, he should certainly never let his narration sleep for the sake of any reflections of his

own.

of the angels eating, and several other pas sages in his poem, are liable to the same exception, though I must confess there is so great a beauty in these very digressions, that I would not wish them out of his poem. I have in a former paper spoken of the characters of Milton's Paradise Lost, and declared my opinion, as to the allegorical persons who were introduced in it.

If we look into the sentiments, I think they are sometimes defective under the following heads; first, as there are several of them too much pointed, and some that degenerate even into puns. Of this last kind I am afraid is that in the first book, where, speaking of the pygmies, he calls them,

-The small infantry
Warr'd on by cranes.-

Another blemish that appears in some of his thoughts, is his frequent allusion to heathen fables, which are not certainly of a piece with the divine subject of which he treats. I do not find fault with these allusions where the poet himself represents them as fabulous, as he does in some places, but where he mentions them as truths and matters of fact. The limits of my paper will not give me leave to be par ticular in instances of this kind; the reader will easily remark them in his perusal of the poem.

Milton

A third fault in his sentiments is an unnecessary ostentation of learning, which likewise occurs very frequently. It is certain that both Homer and Virgil were masters of all the learning of their times, but it shows itself in their works after an indirect and concealed manner. seems ambitious of letting us know, by his excursions on free-will and predestination, and his many glances upon history, astronomy, geography, and the like, as well as by the terms and phrases he sometimes makes use of, that he was acquainted with the whole circle of arts and sciences.

I have often observed, with a secret admiration, that the longest reflection in the neid is in that passage of the tenth book, where Turnus is represented as dressing himself in the spoils of Pallas, whom he had slain. Virgil here lets his fable stand still, for the sake of the following remark. How is the mind of man ignorant of futurity, and unable to bear prosperous fortune with moderation! The time will come when Turnus shall wish that he had left the body of Pallas untouched, and curse the day on which he dressed himself in If in the last place we consider the lanthese spoils. As the great event of the guage of this great poet, we must allow Eneid, and the death of Turnus, whom what I have hinted in a former paper, that Æneas slew because he saw him adorned it is often too much laboured, and some with the spoils of Pallas, turns upon this times obscured by old words, transposi incident, Virgil went out of his way to tions, and foreign idioms. Seneca's objec make this reflection upon it, without which tion to the style of a great author, Rige so small a circumstance might possibly ejus oratio, nihil in ea placidum, nihil lene, have slipped out of his reader's memory. is what many critics make to Milton. As Lucan, who was an injudicious poet, lets cannot wholly refute it, so I have already drop his story very frequently for the sake apologized for it in another paper: to which of his unnecessary digressions, or his diver- may further add, that Milton's sentiments ticula, as Scaliger calls them. If he gives and ideas were so wonderfully sublime, thatit us an account of the prodigies which pre- would have been impossible for him to have ceded the civil war, he declaims upon the represented them in their full strength and occasion, and shows how much happier it beauty, without having recourse to these would be for man, if he did not feel his evil foreign assistances. Our language sunk fortune before it comes to pass; and suffer under him, and was unequal to that great not only by its real weight, but by the ap-ness of soul which furnished him with such prehension of it. Milton's complaint for glorious conceptions. his blindness, his panegyric on marriage, his reflections on Adam and Eve's going naked, often affects a kind of jingle in his words, A second fault in his language is, that he

I

I

QUVLDLI

s in the following passages, and many
thers:

And brought into the world a world of woe.
-Begirt th' Almighty throne

Beseeching or besieging

This tempted our attempt

At one slight bound high overleapt all bound.

I know there are figures for this kind of peech; that some of the greatest ancients have been guilty of it, and that Aristotle imself has given it a place in his rhetoric mong the beauties of that art. But as it sin itself poor and trifling, it is, I think, it present universally exploded by all the masters of polite writing.

The last fault which I shall take notice of in Milton's style, is the frequent use of what the learned call technical words, or erms of art. It is one of the greatest beauies of poetry, to make hard things intelligible, and to deliver what is abstruse of tself in such easy language as may be unerstood by ordinary readers: besides that he knowledge of a poet should rather seem porn with him, or inspired, than drawn from books and systems. I have often wondered how Mr. Dryden could translate a passage out of Virgil after the following

manner:

Tack to the larboard, and stand off to sea,
Veer starboard sea and land.'-

Milton makes use of larboard in the

same manner.

When he is upon building, The mentions doric pillars, pilasters, cornice, freeze, architrave. When he talks of heavenly bodies, you meet with ecliptic and eccentric, the trepidation, stars dropping from the zenith, rays culminating from the equator: to which might be added many instances of the like kind in several other arts and sciences.

I shall in my next papers give an account of the many particular beauties in Milton, which would have been too long to insert under those general heads I have already treated of, and with which I intend to conclude this piece of criticism.

L.

"The humble petition, therefore, of many of the most strictly virtuous, and of myself, is, that you will once more exert your authority; and that, according to your late promise, your full, your impartial authority, on this sillier branch of our kind; for why should they be the uncontrollable mistresses of our fate? Why should they with impunity indulge the males in licentiousness whilst single, and we have the dismal hazard and plague of reforming them when married? Strike home, sir, then, and spare not, or all our maiden hopes, our gilded hopes of nuptial felicity are frustrated, are vanished, and you yourself, as well as Mr. Courtly, will, by smoothing over immodest practices with the gloss of soft and harmless names, for ever forfeit our esteem. Nor think that I am herein more severe than need be: if I have not reason more than enough, do you and the world judge from this ensuing account, which I think will prove the evil to be universal.

'You must know, then, that since your reprehension of this female degeneracy came out, I have had a tender of respects from no less than five persons, of tolerable figure, too, as times go: but the misfortune is, that four of the five are professed followers of the mode. They would face me down, that all women of good sense ever were, and ever will be, latitudinarians in wedlock: and always did, and will, give and take, what they profanely term conjugal liberty of conscience.

The two first of them, a captain and a merchant, to strengthen their arguments, pretend to repeat after a couple of ladies kind to Mars; and what soul that has the of quality and wit, that Venus was always least spark of generosity can deny a man of bravery any thing? And how pitiful a trader that, whom no woman but his own with? Thus these: whilst the third, the wife will have correspondence and dealings country 'squire, confessed, that indeed he was surprised into good breeding, and entered into the knowledge of the world unawares: that dining the other day at a gentleman's house, the person who enter

No. 298.]* Monday, February 11, 1711-12. tained was obliged to leave him with his

Nusquam tuta fides

Honour is no where safe.

in no case

London, Feb. 9, 1711-12. MR. SPECTATOR,I am a virgin, and despicable; but yet such as I am I must remain, or else become, it is to be feared, less happy; for I find not the least good effect from the just correction you Some time since gave that too free, that looser part of our sex which spoils the men; the same connivance at the vices, the same easy admittance of addresses, the same vitiated relish of the conversation of the greatest rakes (or, in a more fashionable way of expressing one's self, of such as have seen the world most) still abounds, increases, multiplies.

wife and nieces; where they spoke with so
much contempt of an absent gentleman for
being so slow at a hint, that he resolved
never to be drowsy, unmannerly, or stupid,
for the future, at a friend's house; and on a
hunting morning not to pursue the game
either with the husband abroad, or with the
wife at home.

'The next that came was a tradesman,
no less full of the age than the former; for
he had the gallantry to tell me, that at a late
junket which he was invited to, the motion
being made, and the question being put, it
was by maid, wife, and widow, resolved
nemine contradicente, that a young sprightly
journeyman is absolutely necessary in their
way of business; to which they had the

assent and concurrence of their husbands

present. I dropped him a courtesy, and
gave him to understand that was his au-
dience of leave.

or keeping it offending against Him whom they cannot deceive. Your assistance and labours of this sort would be of great benefit, and your speedy thoughts on this subject would be very seasonable to, sir, your most humble servant,

'I am reckoned pretty, and have had very many advances besides these; but have been very averse to hear any of them, from my observation on those above-mentioned, until I hoped some good from the character of my present admirer, a clergy- No. 299.] Tuesday, February 12, 1711-12

man.

'CHASTITY LOVEWORTH.'

Malo Venusinam, quam te, Cornelia, mater
Gracchorum, si cum magnis virtutibus affers
Grande supercilium, et numeras in dote triumphos.
Tolle tuum precor Annibalem, victumque Syphacem
In castris; et cum tota Carthagine migra.

Juv. Sat. vi. 166.
Some country girl, scarce to a courtesy bred,
Would I much rather than Cornelia wed;
If supercilious, haughty, proud, and vain,
She brought her father's triumphs in her train.
Away with all your Carthaginian state;
Let vanquish'd Hannibal without doors wait,
Too burly and too big to pass my narrow gate.
Dryden
IT is observed, that a man improves
more by reading the story of a person emi-

But I find even among them there are indirect practices in relation to love, and our treaty is at present a little in suspense, until some circumstances are cleared. There is a charge against him among the women, and the case is this: It is alleged, that a certain endowed female would have appropriated herself to, and consolidated herself with a church which my divine now enjoys (or, which is the same thing, did prostitute herself to her friend's doing this for her:) that my ecclesiastic, to obtain the one, did engage himself to take off the other that lay on hand; but that on his success in the spiritual, he again re-nent for prudence and virtue, than by the finest rules and precepts of morality. In the same manner a representation of those calamities and misfortunes which a weak man suffers from wrong measures, and illconcerted schemes of life, is apt to make a deeper impression upon our minds, than the wisest maxims and instructions that can be given us, for avoiding the like follies and indiscretions in our own private con duct. It is for this reason that I lay before my reader the following letter, and leave it with him to make his own use of it, without adding any reflections of my own upon the subject-matter.

nounced the carnal.

'MR. SPECTator,

I put this closely to him, and taxed him with disingenuity. He to clear himself made the subsequent defence, and that in the most solemn manner possible: that he was applied to, and instigated to accept of a benefice: that a conditional offer thereof was indeed made him at first, but with disdain by him rejected:-that when nothing (as they easily perceived) of this nature could bring him to their purpose, assurance of his being entirely unengaged beforehand, and safe from all their afterexpectations, (the only stratagem left to draw him in,) was given him:-that pursuant to this the donation itself was, without Having carefully delay, before several reputable witnesses, perused a letter sent you by Josiah Fribble, tendered to gratis, with the open profes- Esq. with your subsequent discourse upon sion of not east reserve, or most minute pin-money, I do presume to trouble you with condition; but that yet, immediately after an account of my own case, which I look induction, his insidious introducer (or her upon to be no less deplorable than that of crafty procurer, which you will) indus- 'squire Fribble. I am a person of no extriously spread the report which had reach-traction, having begun the world with a ed my ears, not only in the neighbourhood small parcel of rusty iron, and was for some of that said church, but in London, in the years commonly known by the name university, in mine and his own country, Anvil. I have naturally a very happy and wherever else it might probably ob- genius for getting money, insomuch that by the age viate his application to any other woman, of five and twenty, I had scraped and so confine him to this alone: and in a together four thousand two hundred pounds, I then word, that as he never did make any prefive shillings, and a few odd pence. vious offer of his service, or the least step launched out into considerable business, and to her affection; so on his discovery of these became a bold trader both by sea and land, designs thus laid to trick him, he could not which in a few years raised me a very great but afterwards, in justice to himself, vindi- fortune. For these my good services I was cate both his innocence and freedom, by knighted in the thirty-fifth year of my age keeping his proper distance. and lived with great dignity among my city This is his apology, and I think I shall neighbours by the name of Sir John Anvil be satisfied with it. But I cannot conclude Being in my temper very ambitious, I was my tedious epistle without recommending now bent upon making a family, and ac to you not only to resume your former chastisement, but to add to your criminals the Juded to Gore, of Tring, and Lady Mary Compton: It is said by some, that the author of this letter al

of Jack

simoniacal ladies, who seduce the sacred but others, with more probability, that it referred to Sir
order into the difficulty of either breaking Ambrose Crowley and his lady. See Tat. ed. 1786,
a mercenary troth made to them, whom Crawley, the folly of which seems to be ridiculed above,
Svo. The latter changed his name from Crowley to
by the change of Anvil into Envil

they ought not to deceive, or by breaking

QUULULB

ordingly resolved that my descendants | John Anvil, but as her husband; and added,
hould have a dash of good blood in their with a frown, that I did not seem to know
eins. In order to this, I made love to the who she was. I was surprised to be treated
ady Mary Oddly, an indigent young wo- thus, after such familiarities as had passed
an of quality. To cut short the mar- between us. But she has since given me to
iage-treaty, I threw her a carte blanche, know, that whatever freedoms she may
s our newspapers call it, desiring her to sometimes indulge me in, she expects in
Tite upon
it her own terms. She was very general to be treated with the respect that
oncise in her demands, insisting only that is due to her birth and quality. Our chil-
e disposal of my fortune, and the regula-dren have been trained up from their
on of my family, should be entirely in her infancy with so many accounts of their mo-
ands. Her father and brothers appear- ther's family, that they know the stories of
1 exceedingly averse to this match, and all the great men and women it has pro-
ould not see me for some time; but at duced. Their mother tells them, that such
resent are so well reconciled, that they an one commanded in such a sea-engage-
ne with me almost every day, and have ment, that their great-grandfather had a
rrowed considerable sums of me; which horse shot under him at Edge-hill, that
y Lady Mary very often twits me with, their uncle was at the siege of Buda, and
hen she would show me how kind her that her mother danced in a ball at court
lations are to me. She had no portion, as with the Duke of Monmouth; with abun-
told you before; but what she wanted in dance of fiddle-faddle of the same nature.
rtune she makes up in spirit. She at first I was the other day a little out of counte-
anged my name to Sir John Envil, and nance at a question of my little daughter
present writes herself Mary Enville. I Harriot, who asked me, with a great deal
ave had some children by her, whom she of innocence, why I never told them of the
as christened with the surnames of her generals and admirals that had been in my
mily, in order, as she tells me, to wear family? As for my eldest son, Oddly, he
at the homeliness of their parentage by has been so spirited up by his mother, that
e father's side. Our eldest son is the if he does not mend his manners I shall go
onourable Oddly Enville, Esq. and our near to disinherit him. He drew his sword
dest daughter Harriot Enville. Upon her upon me before he was nine years old, and
st coming into my family, she turned off told me that he expected to be used like a
parcel of very careful servants, who had gentleman: upon my offering to correct
en long with me, and introduced in their him for his insolence, my Lady Mary step-
ead a couple of black-a-moors, and three ped in between us, and told me that I ought
four very genteel fellows in laced live- to consider there was some difference be-
es, besides her French woman, who is tween his mother and mine. She is per-
rpetually making a noise in the house, in petually finding out the features of her
language which nobody understands, ex- own relations in every one of my children,
pt my Lady Mary. She next set her- though by the way, I have a little chub-
If to reform every room of my house, faced boy as like me as he can, stare, if I
ving glazed all my chimney-pieces with durst say so: but what most Ters me,
king-glasses, and planted every corner when she sees me playing with any of them
th such heaps of china, that I am obliged upon my knee, she has begged me more
move about my own house with the than once to converse with the children as
eatest caution and circumspection, for little as possible, that they may not learn
r of hurting some of our brittle furniture. any of my awkward tricks.
e makes an illumination once a week
th wax candles in one of the largest
ms, in order, as she phrases it, to see
mpany: at which time she always desires
to be abroad, or to confine myself to the
kloft, that I may not disgrace her among
visitants of quality. Her footmen, as
old you
before, are such beaus that I do
much care for asking them questions;
en I do, they answer me with a saucy
wn, and say that every thing which I
fault with, was done by my Lady
ry's order. She tells me, that she in- To complete my sufferings, she has
ds they shall wear swords with their teased me for this quarter of a year last
Et liveries, having lately observed the past to remove into one of the squares at
men of two or three persons of quality the other end of the town, promising, for
ging behind the coach with swords by my encouragement, that I shall have as
r sides. As soon as the first honeymoon good a cock-loft as any gentleman in the
over, I represented to her the unrea-square; to which the Honourable Oddly
bleness of those daily innovations which Enville, Esq. always adds, like a jack-a-
made in my family; but she told me, I napes as he is, that he hopes it will be as
no longer to consider myself as Sir near the court as possible.

You must further know, since I am
opening my heart to you, that she thinks
herself my superior in sense, as much as
she is in quality, and therefore treats me
like a plain well-meaning man, who does
not know the world. She dictates to me in
my own business, sets me right in points
of trade, and if I disagree with her about
any of my ships at sea, wonders that I will
dispute with her, when I know very well
that her great-grandfather was a flag-
officer.