sun the Hours unbarred the gates of light, that Discord was the daughter of Sin. Of the same nature are those expressions where, describing the singing of the nightingale, he adds, 'Silence was pleased'; and upon the 5 Messiah's bidding peace to the chaos, 'Confusion heard his voice.' I might add innumerable1 instances of our poet's writing in this beautiful figure. It is plain that these I have mentioned, in which persons of an imaginary nature are introduced, are such short allegories as are 10 not designed to be taken in the literal sense, but only to convey particular circumstances 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 15 by no means proper for an heroic 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 nature, as Strength and Necessity 2 in one of the tragedies of Eschylus, who represented 20 those two persons nailing down Prometheus to a rock, for which he has been justly censured by the greatest critics. I do not know any imaginary person made use of in a more sublime manner of thinking than that in one of the prophets, who, describing God as descending from heaven and visiting the sins of mankind, adds that dreadful circumstance, 'Before him went the Pestilence.' It is certain this imaginary person might have been described. in all her purple spots. The Fever might have marched before her, Pain might have stood at her right hand, 30 Frenzy on her left, and Death in her rear. She might 25 have been introduced as gliding down from the tail of a comet, or darted upon the earth in a flash of lightning. She might have tainted the atmosphere with her breath; 1 First edition adds 'other' (Arber). 2 First edition, ‘Violence' (Arber). the very glaring of her eyes might have scattered infection. But I believe every reader will think that in such sublime writings the mentioning of her, as it is done in Scripture, has something in it more just, as well as great, than all that the most fanciful poet could have bestowed upon 5 her in the richness of his imagination. 17.1 BOOK XI. Crudelis ubique 5 ΙΟ 15 Luctus, ubique pavor, et plurima mortis imago. All parts resound with tumults, plaints, and fears, DRYDEN. MILTON has shown a wonderful art in describing that upon variety of passions which arose in our first parents the breach of the commandment that had been given them. We see them gradually passing from the triumph of their guilt, through remorse, shame, despair, contrition, prayer, and hope, to a perfect and complete repentance. X At the end of the Tenth Book they are represented as prostrating themselves upon the ground, and watering the earth with their tears; to which the poet joins this beautiful circumstance, that they offered up their penitential prayers on the very place where their judge appeared to them when he pronounced their sentence: 2 They, forthwith to the place Repairing where he judged them, prostrate fell Before him reverent, and both confessed Humbly their faults, and pardon begged, with tears 3 There is a beauty of the same kind in a tragedy of Sophocles, where Edipus, after having put out his own 1 Spectator, No. 363, April 26, 1712. 3 This paragraph added in the second edition. 2 10. 1098-1102. eyes, instead of breaking his neck from the palace battlements, which furnishes so elegant an entertainment for our English audience, desires that he may be conducted to Mount Citharon, in order to end his life in that very place where he was exposed in his infancy, and where he should then have died had the will of his parents been executed. As the author never fails to give a poetical turn to his sentiments, he describes in the beginning of this book the acceptance which these their prayers met with, in 10 a short allegory formed upon that beautiful passage in Holy Writ, 'And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the 15 throne; and the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God': — 1 To Heaven their prayers Flew up, nor missed the way, by envious winds By their great Intercessor, came in sight Before the Father's throne. 20 We have the same thought expressed a second time in 25 the intercession of the Messiah, which is conceived in very emphatic sentiments and expressions. Among the poetical parts of Scripture which Milton has so finely wrought into this part of his narration, I must not omit that wherein Ezekiel, speaking of the angels who appeared to him in a vision, adds that every one had four faces, and that their whole bodies, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, were full of eyes round about: 1 II. 14-20. 30 1 The cohort bright Of watchful Cherubim. Four faces each 5 The assembling of all the angels of heaven to hear the solemn decree passed upon man is represented in very lively ideas. The Almighty is here described as remembering mercy in the midst of judgment, and commanding Michael to deliver his message in the mildest terms, lest 10 the spirit of man, which was already broken with the sense of his guilt and misery, should fail before him : 15 2 Yet, lest they faint At the sad sentence rigorously urged (For I behold them softened, and with tears The conference of Adam and Eve is full of moving sentiments. Upon their going abroad, after the melancholy night which they had passed together, they discover the lion and the eagle, pursuing each of them their prey 20 towards the eastern gates of Paradise. There is a double beauty in this incident, not only as it presents great and just omens, which are always agreeable in poetry, but as it expresses that enmity which was now produced in the animal creation. The poet, to show the like changes in 25 Nature, as well as to grace his fable with a noble prodigy, represents the sun in an eclipse. This particular incident has likewise a fine effect upon the imagination of the reader in regard to what follows; for at the same time that the sun is under an eclipse, a bright cloud descends 30 in the western quarter of the heavens filled with a host of angels, and more luminous than the sun itself. The whole theatre of Nature is darkened, that this glorious machine may appear in all its lustre and magnificence :2 II. 108-III. 1 II. 127-130. |