Those who have criticized on the Odyssey, the Iliad, and Æneid, have taken a great deal of pains to fix the number of months and1 days contained in the action of each of these poems. If any one thinks it worth his while to examine this particular in Milton, he will find 5 that from Adam's first appearance in the fourth book to his expulsion from Paradise in the twelfth the author reckons ten days. As for that part of the action which is described in the three first books, as it does not pass within the regions of Nature, I have before observed that it is not subject to any calculations of time. ΙΟ 20 I have now finished my observations on a work which does an honor to the English nation. I have taken a general view of it under these four heads — the fable, the characters, the sentiments, and the language, and made 15 each of them the subject of a particular paper. I have in the next place spoken of the censures which our author may incur under each of these heads, which I have confined to two papers, though I might have enlarged the number if I had been disposed to dwell on so ungrateful a subject. I believe, however, that the severest reader will not find any little fault in heroic poetry, which this author has fallen into, that does not come under one of those heads among which I have distributed his several blemishes. After having thus treated at large of Para- 25 dise Lost, I could not think it sufficient to have celebrated this poem in the whole without descending to particulars. I have, therefore, bestowed a paper upon each book, and endeavored not only to prove that the poem is beautiful in general, but to point out its particular beauties, and to 30 determine wherein they consist. I have endeavored to show how some passages are beautiful by being sublime, others by being soft, others by being natural; which of 1 First edition, 'or' (Arber). 2 First edition, 'show.' In them are recommended by the passion, which by the moral, which by the sentiment, and which by the expression. I have likewise 1 endeavored to show how the genius of the poet shines by a happy invention, a distant allusion, 5 or a judicious imitation; how he has copied or improved Homer or Virgil, and raised his own imaginations by the use which he has made of several poetical passages in Scripture. I might have inserted also several passages of Tasso, which our author has 2 imitated; but, as I do 10 not look upon Tasso to be a sufficient voucher, I would not perplex my reader with such quotations as might do more honor to the Italian than the English poet. short, I have endeavored to particularize those innumerable kinds of beauty which it would be tedious to reca15 pitulate, but which are essential to poetry, and which may be met with in the works of this great author. Had I thought at my first engaging in this design that it would have led me to so great a length, I believe I should never have entered upon it; but the kind reception which it has met with among those whose judgment I have a value for, as well as the uncommon demands which my bookseller tells me have been made for these particular discourses, give me no reason to repent of the pains I have been at in composing them. 20 1 Added in second edition. 2 First edition adds 'likewise.' NOTES. 11 ff. The announcement of these papers was made by Addison at the close of Spectator, No. 262, Dec. 31, 1711, in the following words: "As the first place among our English poets is due to Milton, and as I have drawn more quotations out of him than from any other, I shall enter into a regular criticism upon his Paradise Lost, which I shall publish every Saturday till I have given my thoughts upon that poem. I shall not, however, presume to impose upon others my own particular judgment on this author, but only deliver it as my private opinion. Criticism is of a very large extent, and every particular master in this art has his favorite passages in an author, which do not equally strike the best judges. It will be sufficient for me if I discover many beauties or imperfections which others have not attended to, and I should be very glad to see any of our eminent writers publish their discoveries on the same subject. In short, I would always be understood to write my papers of criticism in the spirit which Horace has expressed in those two famous lines: Si quid novisti rectius istis Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum. 'If you have made any better remarks of your own, communicate them with candor; if not, make use of these I present you with.'' Though Addison thus ranked Milton as the first of English poets, he gives Shakespeare a position in the first rank of great geniuses and Milton in the second (Spectator, No. 160, Sept. 3, 1711): “There is another kind of great geniuses which I shall place in a second class, not as I think them inferior to the first, but only for distinction's sake, as they are of a different kind. This second class of great geniuses are those that have formed themselves by rules, and submitted the greatness of their natural talents to the corrections and restraints of art. Such among the Greeks were Plato and Aristotle; among the Romans, Virgil and Tully; among the English, Milton and Sir Francis Bacon." Sixteen years before, when he was not quite twenty-two years of ८ |