Adam's reconcilement to her is worked up in the fame fpirit of tenderness. Eve afterwards. proposes to her husband, in the blindness of her despair, that, to prevent their guilt from defcending upon pofterity, they should refolve to live childless; or, if that could not be done, they fhould feek their own deaths by violent methods. As those sentiments naturally engage the reader to regard the mother of mankind with more than ordinary commiferation, they likewise contain a very fine moral. The resolution of dying to end our miseries, does not show such a degree of magnanimity as a refolution to bear them, and fubmit to the difpenfations of Providence. Our author has therefore, with great delicacy, represented Eve as entertaining this thought, and Adam as difapproving it.

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they likewife contain a very fine moral.] Milton frequently takes occafion to recommend "the bearing well of all calamities; extolling patience as the trueft fortitude." How would his pious fpirit have been grieved, if he had lived to mark the profligacy of those, who, thinking of themselves more highly than they ought to think, have, in modern times, affected to despise the Christian lesson which he teaches; who have defended even the guilt of fuicide, and proclaimed the eternity of death! See the Note on Par. Loft, B. xii. 434.-Milton's moral is indeed fublime: It" raises the attentive mind" (as Adam's mind was raised)" to better hopes" than the thought of self-destruction in distress and mifery: It teaches us to await, in awful expectation, our laft hour; and humbly to feek, in the mercy of God, a ❝ remedy to the evils which our own mifdeeds have wrought.' . It is remarkable that, in the Adamo of Andreini, Eve tempts Adam to fuicide, A. iv. S. v.

We are, in the laft place, to confider the imaginary perfons, or Death and Sin, who act a large part in this book. Such beautiful extended allegories are certainly fome of the finest compofitions of genius; but, as I have before observed, are not agreeable to the nature of an heroick. poem. This of Sin and Death is very exquifite in its kind, if not confidered as a part of such a work. The truths contained in it are fo clear. and open, that I fhall not lofe time in explaining them; but shall only obferve, that a reader, who knows the strength of the English tongue, will be amazed to think how the poet could find fuch apt words and phrases to defcribe the actions of thofe two imaginary perfons, and particularly in: that part where Death is exhibited as forming a bridge over the chaos; a work fuitable to the enius of Milton.

Since the fubject I am upon gives me an op-. portunity of fpeaking more at large of fuch fhadowy and imaginary perfons as may be in troduced into heroick poems, I fhall beg leave to explain myself in a matter which is curious in its kind, and which none of the criticks have treated of. It is certain, Homer and Virgil are full of imaginary perfons; who are very beautiful in poetry, when they are juft fhown without being engaged in any feries of action.. Homer indeed reprefents Sleep as a person, and

afcribes a fhort part to him in his Iliad; but we muft confider, that, though we now regard fuch a perfon as entirely fhadowy and unsubstantial, the Heathens made ftatues of him, placed him in their temples, and looked upon him as a real deity. When Homer makes ufe of other fuch allegorical perfons, it is only in fhort expreffions, which convey an ordinary thought to the mind in the most pleasing manner, and may rather be looked upon as poetical phrases, than allegorical defcriptions. Instead of telling us that men naturally fly when they are terrified, he introduces the perfons of Flight and Fear, who, he tells us, are infeparable companions. Instead of saying that the time was come when Apollo ought to have received his recompence, he tells us, that the Hours brought him his reward. Inftead of defcribing the effects which Minerva's Ægis produced in battle, he tells us that the brims of it were encompaffed by Terrour, Rout, Difcord, Fury, Purfuit, Maffacre, and Death. In the fame figure of fpeaking, he represents Victory as following Diomedes; Difcord as the mother of funerals and mourning; Venus as dreffed by the Graces; Bellona as wearing terrour and confternation like a garment. I might give several other inftances out of Homer, as well as a great many out of Virgil. Milton has likewife very: often made use of the fame way of speaking, as

where he tells us, that Victory fat on the right hand of the Meffiah, when he marched forth against the rebel Angels; that, at the rifing of the fun, the Hours unbarred the gates of light; that Discord was the daughter of Sin. Of the fame nature are thofe expreffions, where, describing the finging of the nightingale, he adds, "Silence was pleased;" and, upon the Meffiah's bidding peace to the chaos, "Confufion heard his voice." I might add innumerable instances of our poet's writing in this beautiful figure. It is plain that these I have mentioned, in which perfons of an imaginary nature are introduced, are such short allegories as are not defigned to be taken in the literal fenfe, but only to convey particular circumftances to the reader, after an unusual and entertaining manner. But when such persons are introduced as principal actors, and engaged in a series of adventures, they take too much upon them; and are by no means proper for an heroick poem, which ought to appear credible in its principal parts. I cannot forbear therefore thinking that Sin and Death are as improper agents in a work of this na

are as improper agents in a work of this nature, &c.] Yet, as doctor Newton has obferved, "Milton may rather be justified for introducing fuch imaginary beings as Sin and Death, because a great part of his Poem lies in the invifible world, and fuch fic. titious beings may better have a place there; and the actions of Sin and Death are at least as probable as those ascribed to the

ture, as Strength and Neceffity in one of the tragedies of Æfchylus, who represented those two perfons nailing down Prometheus to a rock; for which he has been justly cenfured by the greatest criticks. I do not know any imaginary perfon made use of in a more fublime manner of thinking than that in one of the prophets, who, defcribing God as defcending from Heaven and visiting the fins of mankind, adds that dreadful circumftance," Before him went the Peftilence." It is certain, this imaginary perfon might have been described in all her purple spots. The Fever might have marched before her, Pain might have stood at her right hand, Phrenzy on her left, and Death in her rear. She might have been introduced as gliding down from the tail of a comet, or darted from the earth in a flash of lightning: She might have tainted the atmosphere with her breath; the very glaring of her eyes might have scattered infection. But I

good or evil Angels. Befides, as Milton's fubject neceffarily admitted fo few real perfons, he was in a manner obliged to supply that defect by introducing imaginary ones; and the characters of Sin and Death are perfectly agreeable to the hints and sketches, which are given of them in Scripture. The Scripture had made perfons of them before in several places; only the Scripture has represented them as I may fay in miniature, and he has drawn them in their full length and proportions." He has also exactly followed the genealogy of Sin and Death, as defcribed by St. James. See the Note on Par. Loft, B. ii. 648. The Poem, therefore, may be confidered as free from the imperfection with which it has been charged. See also before, p. 89.