MR. SPECTATOR, York, Jan. 20, 1711-12. WE have in this town a sort of people who pretend to wit, and write lampoons: I have lately been the subject of one of them. The scribbler had not genius enough in verse to turn my age, as indeed I am an old maid, into raillery, for affecting a youthier turn than is consistent with my time of day; and therefore he makes the title of his madrigal, the character of Mrs. Judith Lovebane, born in the year 1680. What I desire of you is, that you disallow that a coxcomb, who pretends to write verse, should put the most malicious thing he can say in prose. This I humbly conceive will disable our country wits, who indeed take a great deal of pains to say any thing in rhyme, though they say it very ill. I am, SIR, • Your humble servant, " MR. SPECTATOR, WE are several of us, gentlemen and ladies, who board in the same house, and after dinner one of our company (an agreeable man enough otherwise) stands up, and reads your paper to us all. We are the civilest people in the world to one another, and therefore I am forced to this way of desiring our reader, when he is doing this office, not to stand afore the fire. This will be a general good to our family this cold weather. He will, I know, take it to be our common request when he comes to these words, Pray, Sir, sit down ;" which I desire you to insert, and you will particularly oblige SIR, I AM a great lover of dancing, but cannot perform so well as some others; however, by my outof-the-way capers, and some original grimaces, I do not fail to divert the company, particularly the ladies, who laugh inmoderately all the time. Some, who pretend to be my friends, tell me they do it in derision, and would advise me to leave it off; withal that I make myself ridiculous. I do not know what to do in this affair, but I am resolved not to give over upon any account, till I have the opinion of the Spectator. Your humble servant, " JOHN TROTT.' If Mr. Trott is not aukward out of time, he has a right to dance, let who will laugh; but if he has no ear he will interrupt others: and I am of opinion he should sit still. Given under my hand this fifth of February 1711-12. STEELE. THE SPECTATOR. T. No 297. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1711-12. velut si Egregio inspersos reprendas corpore nævos. HOR. Sat. vi. 1. 1. ver. 66. As perfect beauties often have a mole. CREECH. AFTER What I have said in my last Saturday's paper, I shall enter on the subject of this without further preface, and remark the several defects which appear in the fable, the characters, the sentiments, and the language of Milton's Paradise Lost; not doubting but the reader will pardon me, if I alledge at the same time whatever may be said for the extenuation of such defects. The first imperfection which I shall observe in the fable is, that the event of it is unhappy. The fable of every poem is, according to Aristotle's division, either simple or implex. It is called simple when there is no change of fortune in it; implex, when the fortune of the chief actor changes from bad to good, or from good to bad. The implex fable is thought the most perfect; I suppose, because it is more proper to stir up the passions of the reader, and to surprise him with a greater variety of accidents. The implex fable is therefore of two kinds; in the first the chief actor makes his way through a long series of dangers and difficulties, until he arrives at honour and prosperity, as we see in the stories of Ulysses and Æneas. In the second, the chief actor in the poem falls from some eminent pitch of honour and prosperity, into misery and disgrace. Thus we see Adam and Eve sinking from a state of innocence and happiness, into the most abject condition of sin and sorrow. The most taking tragedies among the ancients were built on this last sort of implex fable, particularly the tragedy of Edipus, which proceeds upon a story, if we may believe Aristotle, the most proper for tragedy that could be invented by the wit of man. I have taken some pains in a former paper to shew, that this kind of implex fable, wherein the event is unhappy, is more apt to affect an audience than that of the first kind; notwithstanding many excellent pieces among the ancients, as well as most of those which have been written of late years in our own country, are raised upon contrary plans. I must however own, that I think this kind of fable, which is the most perfect in tragedy, is not so proper for an heroic poem. Milton seems to have been sensible of this imperfection in his fable, and has therefore endeavoured to cure it by several expedients; particularly by the mortification which the great adversary of mankind meets with upon his return to the assembly of infernal spirits, as it is described in a beautiful passage of the tenth book; and likewise by the vision wherein Adam, at the close of the poem, sees his offspring triumphing over his great enemy, and himself restored to a happier paradise than that from which he fell. There is another objection against Milton's fable, which is indeed almost the same with the former, though placed in a different light, namely--That the hero in the Paradise Lost is unsuccessful, and by no means a match for his enemies. This gave occasion to Mr. Dryden's reflection, that the devil was in reality Milton's hero. I think I have obviated this ob -jection in my first paper. The Paradise Lost is an epic, or a narrative poem, and he that looks for an hero in it, searches for that which Milton never intended; but if he will needs fix the name of an hero upon any person in it, it is certainly the Messiah who is the hero, both in the principal action, and in the chief episodes. Paganism could not furnish out a real action for a fable greater than that of the Iliad or Æneid, and therefore an heathen could not form an higher notion of a poem than one of that kind, which they call an heroic. Whether Milton's is not of a sublimer nature I will not presume to determine: it is sufficient that I shew there is in the Paradise Lost all the greatness of plan, regularity of design, and masterly beauties which we discover in Homer and Virgil. I must in the next place observe, that Milton has interwoven in the texture of this fable, some particulars which do not seem to have probability enough for an epic poem, particularly in the actions which he ascribes to Sin and Death, and the picture which he draws of the Limbo of Vanity,' with other passages in the second book. Such allegories rather savour of the spirit of Spenser and Ariosto, than of Homer and Virgil. In the structure of his poem he has likewise admitted too many digressions. It is finely observed by Aristotle, that the author of an heroic poem should seldom speak himself, but throw as much of his work as he can into the mouths of those who are his principal actors. Aristotle has given no reason for this precept: but I presume it is because the mind of the reader is more awed, and elevated, when he hears Æneas or Achilles speak, than when Virgil or Homer 'talk in their own persons. Besides that assuming the VOL. IV. |