enriched with fuch a variety of circumstances, that I have taken as much pleasure in reading the Contents of his Books, as in the best invented story I ever met with. It is poffible that the traditions on which the Iliad and Æneid were built had more circumstances in them than the history of the fall of Man, as it is related in Scripture: befides, it was easier for Homer and Virgil to dash the truth with fiction, as they were in no danger of offending the religion of their country by it; but as for Milton, he had not only a very few circumstances upon which to raise his Poem, but was also obliged to proceed with the greatest caution in every thing that he added out of his own invention. And, indeed, notwithstanding all the restraints he was under, he has filled his story with fo many furprising incidents, which bear fo close analogy with what is delivered in Holy Writ, that it is capable of pleasing the most delicate reader, without giving offence to the most scrupulous.

The modern critics have collected, from feveral hints in the Iliad and Æneid, the space of time which is taken up by the Action of each of those poems; but as a great part of Milton's ftory was tranfacted in regions that lie out of the reach of the fun and the sphere of day, it is impoffible to gratify the reader with fuch a calculation, which indeed, would be more curious than inftructive; none of the critics, either ancient or modern, having laid down rules to cir

cumfcribe the Action of an epic poem within any de termined number of years, days, or hours. But of this more particularly hereafter.

Having examined the Action of Paradife Loft, let us, in the next place, confider the Actors. This is Aristotle's method of confidering; first, the Fable; and, fecondly, the Manners; or, as we generally call them in English, the Fable and the Characters.

Homer has excelled all the heroic poets that ever wrote in the multitude and variety of his Characters. Every god that is admitted into his poem acts a part which would have been fuitable to no other deity. His princes are as much distinguished by their manners as by their dominions; and even those among them whose characters feem wholly made up of courage, differ from one another as to the particular kinds of courage in which they excel. In short, there is scarce a speech or action in the Iliad which the reader may not ascribe to the person that speaks or acts, without seeing his name at the head of it.

Homer does not only outshine all other poets in the variety, but also in the novelty of his Characters. He has introduced among his Grecian princes a perfon who had lived in three ages of men, and conversed with Thefeus, Hercules, Polyphemus, and the first race of heroes. His principal Actor is the fon of a goddefs, not to mention the offspring of other deities, who have likewise a place in his poem, and the venerable Trojan prince who was the father of so many

kings and heroes. There is in these several Characters of Homer a certain dignity, as well as novelty, which adapts them in a more peculiar manner to the nature of an heroic poem: though, at the same time, to give them the greater variety, he has described a Vulcan, that is, a buffoon, among his gods, and a Therfites among his mortals.

Virgil falls infinitely short of Homer in the Characters of his poem, both as to their variety and novelty. Eneas is indeed a perfect character; but as for Achates, though he is styled the hero's friend, he does nothing in the whole poem which may deserve that title. Gyas, Mneftheus, Sergeftus, and Cloanthus, are all of them men of the same stamp and character.

fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthum.

Virg.

There are, indeed, several very natural incidents in the part of Afcanius, as that of Dido cannot be fufficiently admired. I do not fee any thing new or particular in Turnus. Pallas and Evander are remote copies of Hector and Priam, as Laufus and Mezéntius are almost parallels to Pallas and Evander. The characters of Nifus and Eurialus are beautiful, but common. We must not forget the parts of Sinon, Camilla, and some few others, which are fine improvements on the Greek poet. In short, there is neither that variety nor novelty in the perfons of the Æneid, which we meet with in those of the Iliad.

If we look into the Characters of Milton, we shall find that he has introduced all the variety his fable

was capable of receiving. The whole fpecies of mankind was in two perfons, at the time to which the fubject of his Poem is confined. We have, however, four diftinct Characters in these two perfons. We fee man and woman in the highest innocence and perfection, and in the most abject state of guilt and infirmity. The two last Characters are, indeed, very common and obvious, but the two firft are not only more magnificent, but more new than any Characters either in Virgil or Homer, or indeed in the whole circle of Nature.

Milton was fo fenfible of this defect in the subject of his Poem, and of the few Characters it would afford him, that he has brought into it two actors of a fhadowy and fictitious nature, in the persons of Sin and Death, by which means he has wrought into the body of his fable a very beautiful and well-invented allegory; but not witstanding the fineness of this allegory may atone for it in fome measure, I cannot think that perfons of fuch a chimerical existence are proper Actors in an epic poem; because there is not that measure of probability annexed to them which is requifite in writings of this kind,as I fhall show more at large hereafter.

Virgil has, indeed, admitted Fame as an Actress in the Æneid; but the part she acts is very short, and none of the most admired circumftances in that divine work. We find in mock-heroic poems, particularly in the Dispensary, and the Lutrin, several allegorical perfons of this nature, which are very beautiful in those compofitions, and may, perhaps, be used as an argu

ment that the authors of them were of opinion fuch characters might have a place in an epic work: for my own part, I should be glad the reader would think fo for the fake of the Poem I am now examining, and must farther add, that if such empty unsubstantial beings may be ever made use of on this occafion, never were any more nicely imagined, and employed in more proper actions, than those of which I am now speaking.

Another principal actor in this Poem is the great enemy of mankind. The part of Ulyffes in Homer's Odyssey is very much admired by Aristotle, as perplexing that fable with very agreeable plots and intricacies, not only by the many adventures in his voyage, and the fubtlety of his behaviour, but by the various concealments and discoveries of his perfon in feveral parts of that poem: but the crafty being I have now mentioned makes a much longer voyage than Ulyffes, puts in practice many more wiles and ftratagems, and hides himself under a greater variety of shapes and appearances, all of which are severally detected, to the great delight and surprise of the reader.

We may likewise observe with how much art the Poet has varied feveral characters of the perfons that fpeak in his infernal affembly. On the contrary, how has he represented the whole Godhead exerting itself towards man, in its full benevolence, under the threeVolume I. D