Their phalanx, and began to hem him round -On th' other side Satan alarm'd, His stature reach'd the sky, and on his crest I must here take notice, that Milton is every where full of hints, and sometimes literal translations, taken from the greatest of the Greek and Latin poets. But this I may reserve for a discourse by itself, because I would not break the thread of these speculations, that are designed for English readers, with such reflections as would be of no use but to the learned. I must, however, observe in this place, that the breaking off the combat between Gabriel and Satan, by the hanging out of the golden scales in heaven, is a refinement upon Homer's thought, who tells us, that before the battle between Hector and Achilles, Jupiter weighed the event of it in a pair of scales. The reader may see the whole passage in the 22d Iliad. Virgil, before the last decisive combat, describes Jupiter in the same manner, as weighing the fates of Turnus and Eneas. Milton, though he fetched this beautiful circumstance from the Iliad and Eneid, does not only insert it as a poetical embellishment, like the authors above-mentioned, but makes an artful use of it for the proper carrying on of his fable, and for the breaking off the combat between the two warriors, who were upon the point of engaging. To this we may further add, that Milton is the more justified in this passage, as we find the same noble allegory in holy writ, where a wicked prince, some few hours before he was assaulted and slain, is said to have been 'weighed in the scales, and to have been found wanting.' I must here take notice, under the head of the machines, that Uriel's gliding down to the earth upon a sun-beam, with the poet's device to make him descend, as well in his return to the sun as in his coming from it, is a prettiness that might have been admired in a little fanciful poet, but seems below the genius of Milton. The description of the host of armed angels walking their nightly round in Paradise is of another spirit: 'So saying, on he led his radiant files, as that account of the hymns which our first parents used to hear them sing in these their midnight walks is altogether divine, and inexpressibly amusing to the imagination. We are, in the last place, to consider the parts which Adam and Eve act in the fourth book. The description of them, as they first appeared to Satan, is exquisitely drawn, and sufficient to make the fallen angel gaze upon them with all that astonishment, and those emotions of envy, in which he is represented: 'Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, Clust'ring, but not beneath his shoulders broad, Dis-shevel'd, but in wanton ringlets wav'd. There is a fine spirit of poetry in the lines which follow, wherein they are described as sitting on a bed of flowers by the side of a fountain, amidst a mixed assembly of animals. The speeches of these two first lovers flow equally from passion and sincerity. The professions they make to one another are full of warmth; but at the same time founded on truth. In a word, they are the gallantries of Paradise : -When Adam first of men-→ "Sole partner and sole part of all these joys, But let us ever praise him and extol His bounty, following our delightful task, To prune these growing plants, and tend these flow'rs; Pre-eminent by so much odds, while thou The remaining part of Eve's speech, in which she gives an account of herself upon her first creation, and the manner in which she was brought to Adam, is, I think, as beautiful a passage as any in Milton, or perhaps in any other poet whatsoever. These passages are all worked off with so much art, that they are capable of pleasing the most delicate reader, without offending the most severe. 'That day I oft remember, when from sleep,' &c. A poet of less judgment and invention than this great author, would have found it very difficult to have filled these tender parts of the poem with sentiments proper for a state of innocence; to have described the warmth of love, and the professions of it, without artifice or hyperbole; to have made the man speak the most endearing things without descending from his natural dignity, and the woman receiving them without departing from the modesty of her character; in a word, to adjust the prerogatives of wisdom and beauty, and make each appear to the other in its proper force and loveliness. This mutual subordination of the two sexes is wonderfully kept up in the whole poem, as particularly in the speech of Eve I have before men. tioned, and upon the conclusion of it in the following lines: 'So spake our general mother, and with eyes And meek surrender, half-embracing lean'd The poet adds, that the devil turn'd away with envy at the sight of so much happiness. We have another view of our first parents in their evening discourses, which is full of pleasing images and sentiments suitable to their condition and characters. The speech of Eve, in particular, is dressed up in such a soft and natural turn of words and sentiments, as cannot be sufficiently admired I shall close my reflexions upon this book with observing the masterly transition which the poet makes to their evening worship in the following lines: Thus at their shady lodge arriv'd, both stood, Both turn'd, and under open sky ador'd The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav'n, Most of the modern heroic poets have imitated the ancients, in beginning a speech without premising that the person said thus or thus; but as it is easy to imitate the ancients in the omission of two or three words, it requires judgment to do it in such a manner as they shall not be missed, and that the speech may begin naturally without them. There is a fine instance of this kind out of Homer, in the twenty-third chapter of Longinus, L. N° 322. MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1711-12. -Ad humum mærore gravi deducit et angit. HOR. Ars Poet. v. 110. - Grief wrings her soul, and bends it down to earth. FRANCIS. IT is often said, after a man has heard a story with extraordinary circumstances, it is it is a very good one, if it be true:' but as for the following re |