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so long possessed me. And to demonat penitence accompanies my confession, stancy my resolutions, I have locked my a year, and desire you would let my comknow I am not within.

'I am with great respect,

SIR,

Your most obedient servant,

'N. B.'

T.

SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1711-12.

tis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto. OVID. Ars Poet. ver. 99.

Tis not enough a poem's finely writ;
It must affect and captivate the soul.

and elaborate in these descriptions, than in most other parts of the poem. I must further add, that though the drawings of gardens, rivers, rainbows, and the like dead pieces of nature, are justly censured in an heroic poem, when they run out into an unnecessary length; the description of Paradise would have been faulty, had not the poet been very particular in it, not only as it is the scene of the principal action, but as it is requisite to give us an idea of that happiness from which our first parents fell. The plan of it is wonderfully beautiful, and formed upon the short sketch which we have of it in holy writ. Milton's exuberance of imagination has poured forth such a redundancy of ornaments on this seat of happiness and innocence, that it would be endless to point out cach particular.

I must not quit this head without further observing, that there is scarce a speech of Adam or Eve in the whole poem, wherein the sentiments and allusions are not taken from this their delightful habitation. The reader, during their whole course of action, always finds himself in the walks of Paradise. In short, as the critics have remarked, that in those poems wherein shepherds are actors, the thoughts ought always to take a tincture from the woods, fields, and rivers, so we may observe, that our first parents seldom lose sight of their happy station in any thing they speak or do; and, if the reader will give me leave to use the expression, that their thoughts are always Paradisiacal.'

ho know how many volumes have been on the poems of Homer and Virgil, will rdon the length of my discourse upon The Paradise Lost is looked upon by the es, as the greatest production, or at least st work of genius in our language, and deserves to be set before an English its full beauty. For this reason, though ndeavoured to give a general idea of its d imperfections in my six first papers, I yself obliged to bestow one upon every particular. The first three books I have We are in the next place to consider the malispatched, and am now entering upon the chines of the fourth book. Satan being now within I need not acquaint my reader that there prospect of Eden, and looking round upon the itudes of beauties in this great author, glories of the creation, is filled with sentiments y in the descriptive parts of this poem, different from those which he discovered whilst he have not touched upon, it being my inten-was in hell. The place inspires him with thoughts int out those only which appear to me exquisite, or those which are not so obrdinary readers. Every one that has read who have written upon the Odyssey, the I the Eneid, knows very well, that though e in their opinions of the great beauties poems, they have nevertheless each of overed several master-strokes, which have he observation of the rest. In the same I question not but any writer, who shall this subject after me, may find several in Milton, which I have not taken notice st likewise observe, that as the greatest f critical learning differ among one anto some particular points in an epic ave not bound myself scrupulously to the h any one of them has laid down upon but have taken the liberty sometimes to one, and sometimes with another, and to differ from all of them, when I have hat the rea on of the thing was on my

more adapted to it. He reflects upon the happy
condition from whence he fell, and breaks forth
into a speech that is softened with several transient
touches of remorse and self-accusation: but at
length he confirms himself in impenitence, and in
his design of drawing man into his own state of
guilt and misery. This conflict of passions is
raised with a great deal of art, as the opening of
his speech to the sun is very bold and noble ;

O thou that, with surpassing glory crown'd,
Look'st from thy sole dominion like the god
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminish'd heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice; and add thy name,
O Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere.'

This speech is, I think, the finest that is ascribed to Satan in the whole poem. The evil spirit afterwards proceeds to make his discoveries concerning our first parents, and to learn after what manner they may be best attacked. His bounding over y consider the beauties of the fourth book the walls of Paradise; his sitting in the shape of a ee heads. In the first are those pictures cormorant upon the tree of life, which stood in e, which we meet with in the description the centre of it, and overtopped all the other trees Paradise, Adam's Bower, &c. In the of the garden; his alighting among the herd of the machines, which comprehend the animals, which are so beautifully represented as and behaviour of the good and bad an-playing about Adam and Eve, together with his the last is the conduct of Adam and Eve, he principal actors in the poem. description of Paradise, the poet has obristotle's rule of lavishing all the ornaliction on the weak unactive parts of the ich are not supported by the beauty officer of fraud. s and characters. Accordingly the reader rve, that the expressions are more florid

transforming himself into different shapes, in order to hear their conversation; are circumstances that give an agreeable surprise to the reader, and are devised with great art, to connect that series of adventures in which the poet has engaged this arti

The thought of Satan's transformation into a cormorant, and placing himself on the tree of life,

seems raised upon that passage in the Iliad, where | bellishment, like the authors above-mentioned; but two deities are described as perching on the top of an oak in the shape of vultures.

His planting himself at the ear of Eve under the form of a toad, in order to produce vain dreams and imaginations, is a circumstance of the same nature; as his starting up in his own form is wonderfully fine, both in the literal description, and in the moral which is concealed under it. His answer upon his being discovered, and demanded to give an account of himself, is conformable to the pride and intrepidity of his character:

Know ye not then,' said Satan, fill'd with scorn,
Know ye not ine! Ye knew me once no mate
For you, there sitting where you durst not soar;
Not to know me, argues yourselves unknown,
The lowest of your throng-

Zephon's rebuke, with the influence it had on Satan, is exquisitely graceful and moral. Satan is afterwards led away to Gabriel, the chief of the guardian angels, who kept watch in Paradise. His disdainful behaviour on this occasion is so remarkable a beauty, that the most ordinary reader cannot but take notice of it. Gabriel's discovering his approach at a distance is drawn with great strength and liveliness of imagination:

O friends, I hear the tread of nimble feet
Hasting this way, and now by glimpse discern
Ithuriel and Zephon throngh the shade,
And with them comes a third of regal port,
But faded splendour wan; who by his gait
And fierce demeanour seems the prince of hell:
Not likely to part bence without contest;
Stand firm, for in his look defiance low'rs.'

The conference between Gabriel and Satan abounds with sentiments proper for the occasion, and suitable to the persons of the two speakers. Satan clothing himself with terror when he prepares for the combat is truly sublime, and at least equal to Homer's description of Discord celebrated by Longinus, or to that of Fame in Virgil, who are both represented with their feet standing upon the earth, and their heads reaching above the clouds:

While thus he spake, th' angelic squadron bright
Turn'd fiery red, Sharp'ning in mooned horns
Their phalanx, and began to hem him round
With ported spears, &e.

On th' other side Satan alarm'd,

Collecting all his might dilated stood
Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremov'd:

His stature reach'd the sky, and on his crest
Sat horror plum'd;-

I must here take notice, that Milton is every where fail 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 Ilector 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 Furnus and Eneas. Milton, though he fetched this beautiful circumstance from the Iliad and Aneid, does not only insert it as a poctical em

makes an artful use of it for the proper carrying on of his fable, and for the breaking off the com bat 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 seeri 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,
Dazzling the moon;'

as that account of the hmns which our first pa
rents used to hear them sing in these their midnigh
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 astenishment, and those emotions of envy, in which be is represented:

Two of far nobler shape erect and tall,
Godlike erect! with native honour clad
In naked majesty, seem'd lords of all;
And worthy seem'd: for in their looks divine
The image of their glorious Maker shone,
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure;
Severe, but in true filial freedom plac'd:
For contemplation he and valour form'd,
For softness she and sweet atuactive grace;
He for God only, she for God in him.
His fair large front, and eye sublime, declar'd
Absolute rule, and hyacinthun Leks
Round from his parted forebek manly hung
Clust'ring, but not beneath his shoulders broad.
She, as a veil, down to he slender waist
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dissheveld, but in wanton ringlets way'd.
So pass'd they naked on, nor shunn'd the sight
Of God or angel, for they thought no ill:
So hand in hand they pass'd, the loveliest pair
That ever since in love's embraces met.'

There is a fine spirit of poetry in the lines which follow, wherein they are described as sitting oa bed of flowers by the side of a fountain, amidst a mixed assembly of animals.

The speeches of these two first lovers fon equally from passion and sincerity. The profes sions 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 juys,
Dearer thyself than all;-

But let us ever praise him, and extol
His bounty, following our delightful task

To prune these growing plants, and teud these & vb.
Which were it toilsome, yet with thee were sweet
To whom thus Eve reply'd. "O thou, for whom
And from whom I was form'd, flesh of thy flest
And without whom am to no end, my gu de
And head, what thou hast said is just and night,
For we to him indeed all praizes owe,
And daily thanks; I chiefly, who enjoy
So far the happier lot, enjoying thee
Pre-eminent by so much odds, while thou
Like consort to thyself canst no where and," &c.

⚫ Dan. v. 27.

1

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'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 subordiBation of the two sexes is wonderfully kept up in the whole poem, as particularly in the speech of Eve I have before mentioned, and upon the conclusion of it in the following lines:

So spake our general mother, and with eyes
Of conjugal attraction unreprov'd,
And meek surrender, half embracing lean'd
On our first father; half her swelling breast

Naked met his under the flowing gold
Of her loose tresses hid; he in deught
Both of her beauty and submissive "charms
Smil'd with superior love-

The poet adds, that the devil turned away with envy at the sight of so much happiness.

We have another view of our first parents in images and sentiments suitable to their condition their evening discourses, which is full of pleasing 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 reflections 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,
Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe,
And starry pole: "Thou also mad st the night,
Maker omnipotent, and thou the day," &c.

Most of the modern heroic poets have imitated the ancients in beginning a speech without premising, that the person said thus or thas; 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 1lomer, in the twenty-third chapter of Longinus.

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Ad humum mærore gravi deducit et angit.
HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 110.
Grief dejects, and wrings the tortur'd soul.
ROSCOMMON.

T is often said, after a man has heard a story
with extraordinary circumstances, it is a very

good one if it be true: but as for the following relation, I should be glad were I sure it were fabe. It is told with such simplicity, and there are s many artless touches of distress in it, that I fear it comes too much from the heart.

6

'MR. SPECTATOR,

SOME years ago it happened that I lived in the whose good qualities I was so much taken, as to same house with a young gentleman of merit; with make it my endeavour to show as many as I was able in myself. Familiar converse improved ge

THE author of the Spectator, having prefixed before each of his volumes the name of some great person to whom he has particular obligations, lays his claim to your Lordship's patronage upon the same account. I must confess, my Lord, had not I already received great instances of your favour, I should have been afraid of submitting a work of this nature to your perusal. You are so thoroughly acquainted with the characters of men, and all the parts of human life, that it is impossible for the least misrepresentation of them to escape your notice. It is your Lordship's particular distinction, that you are master of the whole compass of business, and have signalized yourself in all the different scenes of it. We admire some for the dig-neral civilities into an unfeigned passion on both nity, others for the popularity of their behaviour; himself to me; and I, who could not expect a mai sides. He watched an opportunity to declare some for their clearness of judgment, others for of so great an estate as his, received his addresses their happiness of expression; some for the laying in such terms as gave him no reason to believe I of schemes, and others for the putting of them in was displeased with them, though I did nothing to execution. It is your Lordship only who enjoys His father was a very hard worldly man, and make him think me more easy than was decent. these several talents united, and that too in as great proud; so that there was no reason to believe he perfection as others possess them singly. Your would easily be brought to think there was any enemies acknowledge this great extent in your thing in any woman's person or character that could Lordship's character, at the same time that they In the mean time, the son continued his application balance the disadvantage of an unequal fortune. use their utmost industry and invention to derogate to me, and omitted no occasion of demonstrating from it. But it is for your honour that those who the most disinterested passion imaginable to me; are now your enemies were always so. You have and in plain direct terins offered to marry me priacted in so much consistency with yourself, and vately, and keep it so till he should be so happy as to gain his father's approbation, or become pos promoted the interests of your country in so uni-sessed of his estate. I passionately loved him, form a manner, that even those who would misrepresent your generous designs for the public good, cannot but approve the steadiness and intrepidity with which you pursue them. It is a most sensible pleasure to me, that I have this opportunity of professing myself one of your great admirers, and, in a very particular manner, MY LORD,

Your Lordship's most obliged
And most obedient, humble servant
THE SPECTATOR.

and you will believe I did not deny such a one what was my interest also to grant. However, I carrying with me a faithful servant, who had been was not so young as not to take the precaution of also my mother's maid, to be present at the cere mony. When that was over, I demanded a certificate, signed by the minister, my husband, ard the servant I just now spoke of. After our Leptials, we conversed together very familiarly in the same house; but the restraints we were generally under, and the interviews we had being stolen and interrupted, made our behaviour to each other have rather the impatient fondness which is visible in lovers, than the regular and gratified affection which is to be observed in man and wife. This eb

Thomas Wharton; appointed by King William comp froller of the household, justice in eyre south of Trent, and lord lieutenant of Oxfordshire; created Viscount Winchin-servation made the father very anxious for his son, don in the county of Bucks, and Earl of Wharton in the

county of Westmorland, December 1706; appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland, November 1708 (when Mr. Addison became his secretary); lord privy seal, September 1714; and, in December of the same year, created Marquis of Wharton and Malmesbury in England, and Earl of Rathfarnham and Marquis Catherlough in Ireland. He died April 1715, in the 76th year of his age, and was succeeded by his son Philip, whom George I. in 1718, created Duke of Wharton, in consideration of the merits of his father.

To relieve my husband from this importunity, and and press him to a match he had in his eye for him. conceal the secret of our marriage, which I had reason to know would not be long in my power in town, it was resolved that I should retire into a remote place in the country, and converse under feigned names by letter. We long continued this way of commerce; and I with my needle, a few books, and reading over and over my husband's

letters, passed my time in a resigned expectation of better days. Be pleased to take notice, that within four months after I left my husband I was delivered of a daughter, who died within a few bours after her birth. This accident, and the retired manner of life I led, gave criminal hopes to a neighbouring brute of a country gentleman, whose folly was the source of all my affliction. This rustic is one of those rich clowns who supply the want of all manner of breeding by the neglect of it, and with noisy mirth, half understanding, and ample fortune, force themselves upon persons and things, without any sense of time or place. The poor ignorant people where I lay concealed, and now passed for a widow, wondered I could be so shy and strange, as they called it, to the squire; and were bribed by him to admit him whenever he thought fit: I happened to be sitting in a little parlour which belonged to my own part of the house, and musing over one of the fondest of my husband's letters, in which I always kept the certificate of my marriage, when this rude fellow came in, and with the nauseous familiarity of such unbred brutes, snatched the papers out of my hand. I was immediately under so great a concern, that I threw myself as his feet, and begged of him to return them. He, with the same odious pretence to freedom and gaiety, swore he would read them. I grew more importunate, he more curious, till at last, with an indignation arising from a passion I then first discovered in him, he threw the papers into the fire, swearing that since he was not to read them, the man who writ them should never be so happy as to have me read them over again. It is insignificant to tell you my tears and reproaches made the boisterous calf leave the room ashamed and out of countenance, when I had leisure to ruminate on this accident with more than ordinary sorrow. However, such was then my confidence in my husband, that I writ to him the misfortune, and desired another paper of the same kind. He deferred writing two or three posts, and at last answered me in general, That he could not then send me what I asked for; but when he could find a proper conveyance, I should be sure to have it. From this time his letters were more cold every day than other; and as he grew indifferent, I grew jealous. This has at last brought ne to town, where I find both the witnesses of my Carriage dead, and that my husband, after three months cohabitation, has buried a young lady whom he married in obedience to his father. In a word, be shans and disowns me. Should I come to the house and confront him, the father would join in supporting him against me, though he believed my story; should I talk it to the world, what reparation can I expect for an injury I cannot make out? I believe he means to bring me, through necessity, to resign my pretensions to him for some provision for my life: but I will die first. Pray bid him remember what he said, and how he was charmed when he laughed at the heedless discovery I often made of myself; let him remember how awkward I was in my dissembled indifference towards him before company; ask him how I, who could never conceal my love for him, at his own request can part with him for ever? Oh, Mr. Spectator, senble spirits know no indifference in marriage: what then do you think is my piercing addiction!—I leave you to represent my distress your own way, in which I desire you to be speedy, if you have Compassion for innocence exposed to infamy.

STEELE.

OCTAVIA.'

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THE journal with which I presented my reader on Tuesday last + has brought me in several letters, with accounts of many private lives cast into that form. I have the Rake's Journal,' the Sot's Journal,' the ' Whoremaster's Journal,' and, among several others, a very curious piece, intituled, The Journal of a Mohock.' By these instances I find that the intention of my last Tuesday's paper has been mistaken by many of my readers. I did not design so much to expose vice as idleness ‡, and aimed at those persons who pass away their time rather in trifles and impertinence, than in crimes and immoralities. Offences of this latter kind are not to be dallied with, or treated in so ludicrous a manner. In short, my journal only holds up folly to the light, and shows the disagreeableness of such actions as are indifferent in themselves, and blamable only as they proceed from creatures endowed with reason.

My following correspondent, who calls herself Clarinda, is such a journalist as I require. She seems by her letter to be placed in a modish state of indifference between vice and virtue, and to be susceptible of either, were there proper pains taken with her. Had her journal been filled with gallantries, or such occurrences as had shown her wholly divested of her natural innocence, notwithstanding it might have been more pleasing to the generality of readers, I should not have published it; but as it is only the picture of a life filled with a fashionable kind of gaiety a d laziness, I shall set down five days of it, as I have received it from the hand of my fair correspondent.

DEAR MR. SPECTATOR,

"You having set your readers an exercise in one of your last week's papers, I have performed mine according to your orders, and herewith send it you inclosed. You must know, Mr. Spectator, that I am a maiden lady of a good fortune, who have had several matches offered me for these ten years last past, and have at present warm applications made to me by A Very Pretty Fellow §. As I am at my own di-posal, I come up to town every winter, and pass my time in it after the manner you will find in the following journal, which I began to write upon the very day after your Spectator upon that subject.

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TUESDAY night. Could not go to sleep till one in the morning for thinking of my journal.

WEDNESDAY. From eight till ten. Drank two dishes of chocolate in bed, and fell asleep after them.

From ten to eleven. Eat a slice of bread and butter, drank a dish of bohea, read the Spectator.

There is no such line in Virgil.-Addison nfost likely quoted from memory, and had reference to the following line describing Caneus:

-juvenis quondam, nunc fœmina.
An. vi. ver. 448.

A woman now, but formerly a man.
See No 314./

+ No 317.

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