the commission for Mrs. Such-a-one shall neither be in fashion, nor dare ever appear in company, should he attempt to evade their determination. day at a neighbouring coffee-house, where we have what I may call a lazy club. We generally come in night-gowns, with our stockings about our heels, and sometimes but one on. Our salutation at entrance is a yawn and a stretch, and then without more ceremony we take our place at the lollingtable, where our discourse is, what I fear you would not read out, therefore shall not insert. But I assure you, sir, I heartily lament this loss of time, and am now resolved, (if possible, with double diligence,) to retrieve it, being effectually awakened by the arguments of Mr. Slack, out of the senseless stupidity that has so long possessed me. And to demonstrate that penitence accompanies my confessions, and constancy my resolutions, I have locked my door for a year, and desire you would let my companions know I am not within. I am with great respect, sir, your most obedient servant, T. 'N. B.' Nec satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto. The female sex wholly govern domestic life; and by this means, when they think fit, they can sow dissensions between the dearest friends, nay, make father and son irreconcilable enemies, in spite of all the ties of gratitude on one part, and the duty of protection to be paid on the other. The ladies of the inquisition understand this perfectly well; and where love is not a motive to a man's choosing one whom they allot, they can with very much art insinuate stories to the disadvantage of his honesty or courage, until the creature is too much dispirited to bear up against a general ill reception, which he every where meets with, and in due time falls into their appointed wedlock for shelter. I have a long letter bearing date the fourth instant, which gives me a large account of the policies of this court; and find there is now before them a very refractory person who has escaped all their machinations for two No. 321.] Saturday, March 8, 1711-12. years last past; but they have prevented two successive matches which were of his own inclination; the one by a report that his mistress was to be married, and the very day appointed, wedding-clothes bought, and all things ready for her being given to another; the second time by insinuating to all his mistress's friends and acquaintance, that he had been false to several other women, and the like. The poor man is now reduced to profess he designs to lead a single life; but the inquisition give out to all his acquaintance, that nothing is intended but the gentleman's own welfare and happiness. When this is urged, he talks still more humbly, and protests he aims only at a life without pain or reproach; pleasure, honour, and riches, are things for which he has no taste. But notwithstanding all this, and what else he may defend himself with, as that the lady is too old or too young, of a suitable humour, or the quite contrary, and that it is impossible they can ever do other than wrangle from June to January, every body tells him all this is spleen, and he must have a wife; while all the members of the inquisition are unanimous in a certain woman for him, and they think they altogether are better able to judge than he, or any other private person whatsoever. 'Temple, March 3, 1711. 'SIR,-Your speculation this day on the subject of idleness has employed me ever since I read it, in sorrowful reflections on my having loitered away the term (or rather the vacation) of ten years in this place, and unhappily suffered a good chamber and study to lie idle as long. My books (except those I have taken to sleep upon,) have been totally neglected, and my Lord Coke and other venerable authors were never so slighted in their lives. I spend most of the Tis not enough a poem's finely writ; It must affect and captivate the soul.-Roscommon. THOSE Who know how many volumes have been written on the poems of Homer and Virgil will easily pardon the length of my discourse upon Milton. The Paradise Lost is looked upon by the best judges, as the greatest production, or at least the noblest work of genius in our language, and therefore deserves to be set before an English reader in its full beauty. For this reason, though I have endeavoured to give a general idea of its graces and imperfections in my first six papers, I thought myself obliged to bestow one upon every book in particular. The first three books I have already despatched, and am now entering upon the fourth. I need not acquaint my reader that there are multitudes of beauties in this great author, especially in the descriptive parts of this poem, which I have not touched upon; it being my intention to point out those only which appear to me the most exquisite, or those which are not so obvious to ordinary readers. Every one that has read the critics who have written upon the Odyssey, the Iliad, and the Æneid, knows very well, that though they agree in their opinions of the great beauties in those poems, they have nevertheless each of them discovered several master-strokes, which have escaped the In the same manobservation of the rest. ner, I question not but any writer, who shall treat of this subject after me may find several beauties in Milton, which I have not taken notice of. I must likewise observe, that as the greatest masters of critical learning differ among one another, as to some particular points in an epic poem, I have not bound myself scrupulously to the rules | forth into a speech that is softened with which any one of them has laid down upon that art, but have taken the liberty sometimes to join with one, and sometimes with another, and sometimes to differ from all of them, when I have thought that the reason of the thing was on my side. several transient touches of remorse_and 'O thou, that with surpassing glory crown'd, We may conclude the beauties of the fourth book under three heads. In the first are those pictures of still-life, which we meet with in the description of Eden, Paradise, Adam's bower, &c. In the next are the machines, which comprehend the speeches and behaviour of the good and bad angels. In the last is the conduct of Adam and Eve, who are the principal actors in the poem. In the description of Paradise, the poet has observed Aristotle's rule of lavishing all the ornaments of diction on the weak unactive parts of the fable, which are not supported by the beauty of sentiments and characters. Accordingly the reader may observe, that the expressions are more florid 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 each par-shape of vultures. ticular. 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 the 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 'paradisaical.' We are in the next place to consider the machines of the fourth book. Satan being now within the prospect of Eden, and looking round upon the glories of the creation, is filled with sentiments different from those which he discovered whilst he was in hell. The place inspires him with thoughts more adapted to it. He reflects upon the happy condition from whence he fell, and breaks 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 the walls of Paradise: his sitting in the shape of a cormorant upon the tree of life, which stood in the centre of it, and overtopped all the other trees of the garden; his alighting among the herd of animals, which are so beautifully represented as playing about Adam and Eve; together with his 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 artificer of fraud. 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 two deities are described as perching on the top of an oak in the 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 of his character: 'Know ye not, then,' said Satan, fill'd with scorn, 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 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 -On th' other side Satan alarm'd, Collecting all his might, dilated stood 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 Æneas. Milton, though he fetched this beautiful circumstance from the Iliad and Æneid, does not only insert it as a poetical embellishment, like the author's 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, God-like 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 attractive grace; He for God only, she for God in him. His fair large front, and eye sublime declar'd Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks Round from his parted forelock manly hung Clust'ring, but not beneath his shoulders broad. She, as a veil, down to her slender waist Her unadorned golden tresses wore Dishevell'd, but in wanton ringlets wav'd. So pass'd they naked on, nor shunn'd the sight Of God or angels, 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 on a bed of flowers by the side of a fountain, amidst a mixed assembly of ani mals. The speeches of these two first lovers The professions they make to one another flow equally from passion and sincerity. 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 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,' &e. A poet of less judgment and invention is a very good one, if it be true:' but as for than this great author, would have found the following relation, I should be glad were it very difficult to have filled these tender I sure it were false. It is told with such parts of the poem with sentiments proper simplicity, and there are so many artless for a state of innocence; to have described touches of distress in it, that I fear it comes the warmth of love, and the professions of too much from the heart. it, without artifice or hyperbole; to have made the man speak the most endearing 'MR. SPECTATOR,-Some years ago it things without descending from his natural happened that I lived in the same house dignity, and the woman receiving them with a young gentleman of merit, with without departing from the modesty of her whose good qualities I was so much taken, character: in a word, to adjust the pre- as to make it my endeavour to show as rogatives of wisdom and beauty, and make many as I was able in myself. Familiar each appear to the other in its proper force converse improved general civilities into and loveliness. This mutual subordination an unfeigned passion on both sides. of the two sexes is wonderfully kept up in watched an opportunity to declare himself the whole poem, as particularly in the to me; and I, who could not expect a man speech of Eve I have before mentioned, of so great an estate as his, received his adand upon the conclusion of it in the follow-dresses in such terms, as gave him no reaing lines: So spake our general mother, and with eyes 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 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 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, He son to believe I was displeased with them, Most of the modern heroic poets have were generally under, and the interviews imitated the ancients, in beginning a speech we had being stolen and interrupted, made without premising that the person said thus our behaviour to each other have rather or thus; but as it is easy to imitate the anthe impatient fondness which is visible in cients in the omission of two or three words, lovers, than the regular and gratified affecrequires judgment to do it in such a man- tion, which is to be observed in man and ner as they shall not be missed, and that wife. This observation made the father the speech may begin naturally without very anxious for his son, and press him to them. There is a fine instance of this kind a match he had in his eye for him. To reout of Homer, in the twenty-third chapter and conceal the secret of our marriage, lieve my husband from this importunity, of Longinus. it L. 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 husband's letters, passed my time in a few books, and reading over and over my resigned expectation of better days. pleased to take notice, that within four months after I left my husband I was de Be vered of a daughter, who died within a few hours 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 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, sensible spirits know no indifference in marriage: what then do you think is my piercing affliction?—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 OCTAVIA.' infamy. Virg. -Modo vir, modo fœmina. stances, 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 passed 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 blameable only as they proceed from creatures endowed with reason. so shy and strange, as they called it, to the No. 323.] Tuesday, March 11, 1711-12. 'squire; and were bribed by him to admit him whenever he thought fit: I happened to be sitting in a little parlour which beTHE journal with which I presented my longed to my own part of the house, and musing over one of the fondest of my hus- reader on Tuesday last has brought me in band's letters, in which I always kept the several letters, with accounts of many pricertificate of my marriage, when this rude vate lives cast into that form. I have the fellow came in, and with the nauseous fami- 'Rake's Journal,' the 'Sot's Journal,' the liarity of such unbred brutes snatched the Whoremaster's Journal,' and, among sepapers out of my hand. I was immediately veral others, a very curious piece, entitled, under so great a concern, that I threw my-The Journal of a Mohock. By these inself at 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 sorMy following correspondent, who calls row. However, such was then my confi- herself Clarinda, is such a journalist as I dence in my husband, that I writ to him require. She seems by her letter to be the misfortune, and desired another paper placed in a modish state of indifference beof the same kind. He deferred writing two tween vice and virtue, and to be susceptible or three posts, and at last answered me in of either, were there proper pains taken general, that he could not then send me with her. Had her journal been filled with what I asked for; but when he could find a gallantries, or such occurrences as had proper conveyance, I should be sure to have shown her wholly divested of her natural it. From this time his letters were more innocence, notwithstanding it might have cold every day than other, and, as he grew been more pleasing to the generality of indifferent I grew jealous. This has at last readers, I should not have published it: brought me to town, where I find both the but as it is only the picture of a life filled witnesses of my marriage dead, and that with a fashionable kind of gaiety and lazimy husband, after three month's cohabita-ness, I shall set down five days of it, as I tion, has buried a young lady whom he mar- have received it from the hand of my fair ried in obedience to his father. In a word correspondent. he shuns 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 '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 enclosed. 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 disposal, I come up to town every winter, and pass my time în it |