that they are not acquainted with the most common and ordinary systems of arts and sciences. A few general rules extracted out of the French authors, with a certain cant of words, has fometimes set up an illiterate heavy writer for a most judicious and formidable critic.

One great mark by which you may discover a critic who has neither taste nor learning is this, that he feldom ventures to praise any paffage in an author which has not been before received and applauded by the public, and that his criticism turns wholly upon little faults and errors. This part of a critic is fo very eafy to fucceed in, that we find every ordinary reader, upon the publishing of a new poem, has wit and illnature enough to turn several paffages of it into ridicule, and very often in the right place. This Mr. Dryden has very agreeably remarked in those two celebrated lines,

Errors, like ftraws, upon the furface flow;

He who would fearch for pearls must dive below.

A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellencies than imperfections to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world fuch things as are worth their obfervation. The most exquifite words and finest strokes of an author are those which very often appear the most doubtful and exceptionable to a man who wants a relish for polite learning; and they are these which a four undistinguishing critic generally attacks with the greatest violence. Tully

abferves, that it is very easy to brand or fix a mark upon what he calls verbum ardens, or, as it may be rendered into English, a glowing, bold expreffion, and to turn it into ridicule by a cold,ill-natured criticism. A little wit is equally capable of exposing a beauty and of aggravating a fault; and though such a treatment of an author naturally produces indignation in the mind of an understanding reader, it has, however, its effect among the generality of those whofe hands it falls into, the rabble of mankind being very apt to think that every thing which is laughed at with any mixture of wit is ridiculous in itself.

Such a mirth as this is always unfeasonable in a critic, as it rather prejudices the reader than convinces him, and is capable of making a beauty as well as a blemish the subject of derifion. A man who cannot write with wit on a proper fubject is dull and ftupid; but one who shows it in an improper place is as impertinent and abfurd. Besides, a man who has the gift of ridicule is apt to find fault with any thing that gives him an opportunity of exerting his beloved talent, and very often cenfures a paffage, not because there is any fault in it, but because he can be merry upon it. Such kinds of pleasantry are very unfair and difingenuous in works of criticism, in which the greateft masters, both ancient and modern, have always appeared with a serious and instructive air.

As I intend, in my next paper, to fhow the defects in Milton's Paradise Loft, I thought fit to premife

these few particulars, to the end that the reader may know I enter upon it as on a very ungrateful work, and that I shall just point at the imperfections, without endeavouring to inflame them with ridicule. I must also observe with Longinus, that the productions of a great genius, with many lapses and inadvertencies, are infinitely preferable to the works of an inferior kind of author, which are scrupulously exact, and conformable to all the rules of correct writing.

I shall conclude my paper with a story out of Boccalini, which fufficiently shows us the opinion that judicious author entertained of the fort of critics I have been here mentioning. A famous critic, fays he, having gathered together all the faults of an eminent poet, made a present of them to Apollo, who received them very graciously, and resolved to make the author a fuitable return for the trouble he had been at in collecting them. In order to this, he fet before him a fack of wheat as it had been just threshed out of the sheaf. He then bid him pick out the chaff from among the corn, and lay it aside by itself. The critic applied himself to the task with great industry and pleasure, and, after having made the due feparation, was presented by Apollo with the chaff for his pains.

After what I have faid, I fhall enter on the subject without farther preface, and remark the several defects which appear in the Fable, the Characters, the Sentiments, and the Language, of Milton's Paradise

Loft; not doubting but the reader will pardon me if I alledge, at the fame time, whatever may be faid for the extenuation of fuch defects. The firft imperfection which I fhall observe in the Fable is, that the event of it is unhappy.

The Fable of every poem is, according to Aristotle's divifion, either fimple or implex. It is called fimple, 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 paffions 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, till he arrives at honour and profperity, as we fee in the story of Ulyffes. In the fecond, the chief actor in the poem falls from fome eminent pitch of honour and prosperity into mifery and difgrace. Thus we fee Adam and Eve finking from a state of innocence and happiness into the most abject condition of fin and forrow.

The most taking tragedies among the Ancients were built on this last sort of implex fable, particularly the tragedy of Oedipus, 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 fome pains, in a former paper, to show 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 feems 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 affembly 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, fees his offspring triumphing over his great enemy, and himself restored to a happier Paradife than that from which he fell.

There is another objection against Milton's Fable, which is indeed almoft the fame with the former, though placed in a different light, namely, that the hero in the Paradife Loft is unfuccessful, and by no means a match for his enemies. This gave occafion to Mr. Dryden's reflection, that the devil was in reality Milton's hero. I think I have obviated this objection in my first paper. The Paradife Loft is an epic or a narrative poem, and he that looks for an hero in it fearches for that which Milton never intended; but if he will needs fix the name of an hero pon any person in it, 'tis certainly the Messiah is the