pleasure; the authority which decides upon that lies outside of ourselves, since it was before us and will live after us."

"The Paradise Lost," says Arnold, "has not this effect certainly and universally," - that is, the effect of proving its own virtue by powerfully and delightfully affecting us as we read it, and by remaining a constant source of elevation and happiness to us for ever; "therefore Addison proposes to 'set before an English reader, in its full beauty,' the great poem." For this, and for the manner in which he performed his task, Arnold censures him. In reply we would ask, What better object could Addison, in his capacity as critic, have proposed to himself? Who has written more effectively upon Milton than he, or, in the main, more truly? What more satisfactory piece of criticism upon Paradise Lost is there in existence to-day? Is it Arnold's? Is it Edmond Schérer's?

Cedite Romani scriptores, cedite Graii. - PROPERT. 2. 34. 95.3

Give place, ye Roman and ye Grecian wits.1

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HERE is nothing in nature so irksome as3 general dis

THERE

courses, especially when they turn chiefly upon words. For this reason I shall waive the discussion of that point which was started some years since, whether Milton's Paradise Lost may be called an heroic poem. Those 5 who will not give it that title may call it, if they please, a divine poem. It will be sufficient to its perfection if it has in it all the beauties of the highest kind of poetry; and as for those who allege it is not an heroic poem, they advance no more to the diminution of it than if they should say Adam is not Æneas, nor Eve, Helen.

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1 Spectator, No. 267, Jan. 5, 1712.

2 These titles are not original, and are merely inserted for convenience.

3 The references in the original editions are merely to the author in general.

4 The translations of the mottoes are first added in the edition of 1744, and were therefore not inserted by Addison.

5 First edition, 'more irksome than.'

6 First edition, 'say.'

ΙΟ

I shall therefore examine it by the rules of epic poetry, and see whether it falls short of the Iliad or Æneid in the beauties which are essential to that kind of writing. The first thing to be considered in an epic poem is the 5 fable, which is perfect or imperfect according as the action which it relates is more or less so. This action should have three qualifications in it. First, it should be but one action; secondly, it should be an entire action; and thirdly, it should be a great action. To consider the action of the Iliad, Æneid, and Paradise Lost, in these three several lights. Homer, to preserve the unity of his action, hastens into the midst of things, as Horace has observed. Had he gone up to Leda's egg, or begun much later, even at the rape of Helen, or the investing 15 of Troy, it is manifest that the story of the poem would

ΙΟ

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have been a series of several actions. He therefore opens his poem with the discord of his princes, and with great art1 interweaves, in the several succeeding parts of it, an account of everything material2 which relates to them, and had passed before that fatal dissension. After the same manner Æneas makes his first appearance in the Tyrrhene seas, and within sight of Italy, because the action proposed to be celebrated was that of, his settling himself in Latium. But because it was necessary for the 25 reader to know what had happened to him in the taking of Troy, and in the preceding parts of his voyage, Virgil makes his hero relate it by way of episode in the Second and Third Books of the Æneid; the contents of both which books come before those of the First Book in the 30 thread of the story, though, for preserving of this unity of action, they follow it in the disposition of the poem. Milton, in imitation of these two great poets, opens his

1 For 'with great art' the first edition has artfully.'

2 Added in second edition.

3 For 'them' the first edition has 'the story.'

Paradise Lost with an infernal council plotting the Fall of Man, which is the action he proposed to celebrate; and as for those great actions which preceded in point of time, the battle of the angels and the creation of the world, which would have entirely destroyed the unity of 5 the principal action had he related them in the same order that they happened, he cast them into the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Books, by way of episode to this noble poem.

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Aristotle himself allows that Homer has nothing to 10 boast of as to the unity of his fable, though at the same time that great critic and philosopher endeavors to palliate this imperfection in the Greek poet by imputing it in some measure to the very nature of an epic poem. Some have been of opinion that the Æneid also labors1 in this particular, and has episodes which may be looked upon (as excrescences rather than as parts of the action. On the contrary, the poem which we have now under our consideration hath no other episodes than such as naturally arise from the subject, and yet is filled with 20 such a multitude of astonishing incidents that it gives us at the same time a pleasure of the greatest variety and of the greatest simplicity; uniform in its nature, though diversified in the execution.3

2

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I must observe also that as Virgil, in the poem which was designed to celebrate the original of the Roman empire, has described the birth of its great rival, the Carthaginian commonwealth, Milton, with the like art, in his poem on the Fall of Man, has related the fall of those angels who are his professed enemies. Besides the many 30 other beauties in such an episode, its running parallel with the great action of the poem hinders it from break

1 For also labors' the first edition has labors also.'

2 First edition, 'circumstances.'

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3 The clause, uniform . . . execution,' added in second edition.

ing the unity so much as another episode would have done, that had not so great an affinity with the principal subject. In short, this is the same kind of beauty which the critics admire in The Spanish Friar, or The Double 5 Discovery, where the two different plots look like counterparts and copies of one another.

The second qualification required in the action of an epic poem is that it should be an entire action. An action is entire when it is complete in all its parts; or, as 10 Aristotle describes it, when it consists of a beginning, a middle, and an end. Nothing should go before it, be intermixed with it, or follow after it, that is not related to it; as, on the contrary, no single step should be omitted in that just and regular process1 which it must be supposed 15 to take from its original to its consummation. Thus we see the anger of Achilles in its birth, its continuance, and effects; and Æneas' settlement in Italy carried through all the oppositions in his way to it both by sea and land. The action in Milton excels, I think, both the 20 former in this particular: we see it contrived in hell, executed upon earth, and punished by Heaven. The parts of it are told in the most distinct manner, and grow out of one another in the most natural order.2

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on

The third qualification of an epic poem is its greatness. The anger of Achilles was of such consequence that it embroiled the kings of Greece, destroyed the heroes of Troy, and engaged all the gods in factions. Æneas' settlement in Italy produced the Cæsars, and gave birth to the Roman empire. Milton's subject was still greater 30 than either of the former; it does not determine the fate of single persons or nations, but of a whole species. The united powers of hell are joined together for the destruction of mankind, which they effected in part, and

1 First edition, 'progress.'

2 First edition, 'method.'