In this book which gives us an account of clouds which lay as a barrier before of the six days' works, the poet received them. but very few assistances from heathen I do not know any thing in the whole writers, who are strangers to the wonders poem more sublime than the description of creation. But as there are many glorious which follows, where the Messiah is restrokes of poetry upon this subject in holy presented at the head of his angels, as lookwrit, the author has numberless allusions to ing down into the chaos, calming its confuthem through the whole course of this book. sion, riding into the midst of it, and drawing The great critic I have before mentioned, the first outline of the creation: though a heathen, has taken notice of the sublime manner in which the lawgiver of the Jews has described the creation in the first chapter of Genesis; and there are many other passages in scripture which rise up to the same majesty, where the subject is touched upon. Milton has shown his judgment very remarkably, in making use of such of these as were proper for his poem, and in duly qualifying those strains of eastern poetry which were suited to readers whose imaginations were set to a higher pitch than those of colder climates.

Adam's speech to the angel, wherein he desires an account of what had passed within the regions of nature before the creation, is very great and solemn. The following lines, in which he tells him, that the day is not too far spent for him to enter upon such a subject, are exquisite in their kind:

And the great light of day yet wants to run
Much of his race, though steep; suspense in heav'n
Held by thy voice, thy potent voice he hears,
And longer will delay to hear thee tell
His generation, &c.

The angel's encouraging our first parents in a modest pursuit after knowledge, with the causes which he assigns for the creation of the world, are very just and beautiful. The Messiah, by whom, as we are told in scripture, the heavens were made, goes forth in the power of his Father, surrounded with a host of angels, and clothed with such a majesty as becomes his entering upon a work which, according to our conceptions, appears the utmost exertion of Omnipotence. What a beautiful description has our author raised upon that hint in one of the prophets! And behold there came four chariots out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of

brass:'

About his chariot numberless were pour'd
Cherub and seraph, potentates and thrones,
And virtues, winged spirits, and chariots wing'd
From the armoury of God, where stand of old
Myriads between two brazen mountains lodg'd
Against a solemn day, harness'd at hand,
Celestial equipage! and now came forth
Spontaneous, for within them spirit liv'd,
Attendant on their Lord: heav'n open'd wide
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound!
On golden hinges moving-

I have before taken notice of these chariots of God, and of these gates of heaven; and shall here only add, that Homer gives us the same idea of the latter as opening of themselves; though he afterwards takes off from it, by telling us, that the Hours first of all removed those prodigious heaps

On heav'nly ground they stood, and from the shore
They view'd the vast immeasurable abyss
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turn'd by furious winds
And surging waves, as mountains to assault
Heav'n's height, and with the centre mix the pole.
"Silence, ye troubled waves; and thou, deep, peace!"
Said then th' omnific Word, "Your discord end!"
Nor staid, but, on the wings of cherubim
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode

Far into Chaos, and the world unborn;
For Chaos heard his voice. Him all his train
Follow'd in bright procession, to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
Then stay'd the fervid wheels; and in his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepar'd
In God's eternal store to circumscribe
The universe, and all created things:
One foot he centred, and the other turn'd
Round through the vast profundity obscure,
And said, "Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,
This be thy just circumference, O world!"

The thought of the golden compasses is conceived altogether in Homer's spirit, and is a very noble incident in this wonderful description. Homer, when he speaks of the gods, ascribes to them several arms and instruments with the same greatness of imagination. Let the reader only peruse the description of Minerva's ægis or buckler, in the fifth book, with her spear which would overturn whole squadrons, and her helmet that was sufficient to cover an army drawn out of a hundred cities. The golden compasses, in the above-mentioned passage, appear a very natural instrument in the hand of him whom Plato somewhere calls the Divine Geometrician. As poetry delights in clothing abstracted ideas in allegories and sensible images, we find a magnificent description of the creation, formed after the same manner, in one of the prophets, wherein he describes the Almighty Architect as measuring the waters in the hollow of his hand, meting out the heavens with his span, comprehending the dust of the earth in a measure, weighing the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. Another of them describing the Supreme Being in this great work of creation, represents him as laying the foundations of the earth, and stretching a line upon it; and, in another place, as garnishing the heavens, stretching out the north over the empty place, and hanging the earth upon nothing. This last noble thought Milton has expressed in the following verse:

And earth self-balanced on her centre hung.

The beauties of description in this book lie so very thick, that it is impossible to enumerate them in this paper. The poet has employed on them the whole energy of our tongue. The several great scenes of

The poet afterwards represents the Messiah returning into heaven, and taking a survey of his great work.

There is something inexpressibly sublime in this part of the poem, where the author describes the great period of time, filled with so many glorious circumstances; when the heavens and earth were finished; when the Messiah I

is to be imagined, or executed, by the wit or force of man. The prince is of that stature which makes a man most easily become all parts of exercise; has height to be graceful on occasions of state and ceremo ny, and no less adapted for agility and despatch: his aspect is erect and composed: his eye lively and thoughtful, yet rather vigilant than sparkling; his action and address the most easy imaginable, and his be

only as they contribute to the exerting | who forced the trenches at Turin: but in those virtues. Such a man, if he is wise or general I can say, that he who beholds him valiant, knows it is of no consideration to will easily expect from him any thing that other men that he is so, but as he employs those high talents for their use and service. He who affects the applauses and addresses of a multitude, or assumes to himself a preeminence upon any other consideration, must soon turn admiration into contempt. It is certain that there can be no merit in any man who is not conscious of it; but the sense that it is valuable only according to the application of it, makes that superiority amiable, which would otherwise behaviour in an assembly peculiarly graceful invidious. In this light it is considered as a thing in which every man bears a share. It annexes the ideas of dignity, power, and fame, in an agreeable and familiar manner, to him who is possessor of it; and all men who are strangers to him are naturally incited to indulge a curiosity in beholding the person, behaviour, feature, and shape of him in whose character, perhaps, each man had formed something in common with himself.

in a certain art of mixing insensibly with the rest, and becoming one of the company, instead of receiving the courtship of it. The shape of his person, and composure of his limbs, are remarkably exact and beautiful. There is in his looks something sublime, which does not seem to arise from his quality or character, but the innate disposition of his mind. It is apparent that he suffers the presence of much company, instead of taking delight in it: and he apWhether such, or any other, are the peared in public, while with us, rather to causes, all men have a yearning curiosity to return good-will, or satisfy curiosity, than behold a man of heroic worth. I have had to gratify any taste he himself had of being many letters from all parts of this kingdom, popular. As his thoughts are never tumulthat request I would give them an exact ac- tuous in danger, they are as little discomcount of the stature, the mien, the aspect of posed on occasions of pomp and magnifithe prince who lately visited England, and cence. A great soul is affected, in either has done such wonders for the liberty of case, no further than in considering the Europe. It would puzzle the most curious properest methods to extricate itself from to form to himself the sort of man my seve- them. If this hero has the strong incentives ral correspondents expect to hear of by the to uncommon enterprises that were reaction mentioned, when they desire a de-markable in Alexander, he prosecutes and scription of him. There is always something that concerns themselves, and growing out of their own circumstances, in all their inquiries. A friend of mine in Wales beseeches me to be very exact in my account of that wonderful man who had marched an army and all its baggage over the Alps; and if possible, to learn whether the peasant who showed him the way, and is drawn in the map, be yet living. A gentleman from the university, who is deeply intent on the study of humanity, desires me to be as particular, if I had an opportunity, in observing the whole interview between his highness and our late general. Thus do men's fancies work according to their several educations and circumstances; but all pay a respect, mixed with admiration, to this illustrious character. I have waited for his arrival in Holland, before I would let my correspondents know that I have not been so uncurious a Spectator as not to have seen prince Eugene. It would be very difficult, as I said just now, to answer every expectation of those who have written to me on that head; nor is it possible for me to find words to let one know what an artful glance there is in his countenance who surprised Cremona; how daring he appears

*He stood godfather to Steele's second son, who was named Eugene after this prince,

enjoys the fame of them with the justness, propriety, and good sense of Cæsar. It is easy to observe in him a mind as capable of being entertained with contemplation as enterprise; a mind ready for great exploits, but not impatient for occasions to exert itself. The prince has wisdom and valour in as high perfection as man can enjoy it; which noble faculties, in conjunction, banish all vain-glory, ostentation, ambition, and all other vices which might intrude upon his mind, to make it unequal. These habits and qualities of soul and body render his personage so extraordinary, that he appears to have nothing in him but what every man should have in him, the exertion of his very self, abstracted from the circumstances in which fortune has placed him. Thus, were you to see prince Eugene, and were told he was a private gentleman, you would say he is a man of modesty and merit. Should you be told that was prince Eugene, he would be diminished no otherwise, than that part of your distant admiration would turn into a familiar good-will.

This I thought fit to entertain my reader with, concerning a hero who never was equalled but by one man:† over whom also

The duke of Marlborough, who was disgraced about this time.

The audience would not permit Mrs. Oldfield to go off the stage the first night till she had repeated it twice; the second night the noise of ancora was as loud as before, and she was obliged again to speak it twice: the third night it was still called for a second time; and, in short, contrary to all other epilogues, which are dropped after the third representation of the play, this has already been repeated nine times.

tised by Mr. Dryden, who, if he was not the best writer of tragedies in his time, was allowed by every one to have the happiest turn for a prologue, or an epilogue. The epilogues to Cleomenes, Don Sebastian, The duke of Guise, Aurengzebe, and Love Triumphant, are all precedents of this

nature.

'I might further justify this practice by that excellent epilogue which was spoken, a few years since, after the tragedy of Phædra and Hippolytus;* with a great many others, in which the authors have endeavoured to make the audience merry. If they have not all succeeded so well as the writer of this, they have however shown that it was not for the want of good-will.

I must further observe, that the gaiety at the end of a French play; since every of it may be still the more proper, as it is esteemed to have as polite a taste as any one knows that nation, who are generally in Europe, always close their tragic entertainment with what they call a petite piece, which is purposely designed to raise pleased. The same person who has supmirth, and send away the audience well ported the chief character in the tragedy very often plays the principal part in the petite piece; so that I have myself seen, at Paris, Orestes and Lubin acted the same night by the same man.

Tragi-comedy, indeed, you have yourself in a former speculation, found fault with very justly, because it breaks the tide of the passions while they are yet flowing; but this is nothing at all to the present case, where they have already had their full course.

I must own, I am the more surprised to find this censure in opposition to the whole town, in a paper which has hitherto been famous for the candour of its criticisms. "As the new epilogue is written conform'I can by no means allow your melan-ably to the practice of our best poets, so it choly correspondent, that the new epilogue is not such a one, which, as the duke of is unnatural because it is gay. If I had a mind to be learned, I could tell him that Buckingham says in his Rehearsal, might the prologue and epilogue were real parts out of the occurrences of the piece it was serve for any other play; but wholly rises of the ancient tragedy; but every one composed for. knows, that, on the British stage, they are distinct performances by themselves, pieces entirely detached from the play, and no

way essential to it.

The moment the play ends, Mrs. Oldfield is no more Andromache but Mrs. Oldfield; and though the poet had left Andromache stone-dead upon the stage, as your ingenious correspondent phrases it, Mrs. Oldfield might still have spoken a merry epilogue. We have an instance of this in a tragedy where there is not only a death, but a martyrdom. St. Catherine was there personated by Nell Gwin; she lies stone-dead upon the stage, but upon those gentlemen's offering to remove her body, whose business it is to carry off the slain in our English tragedies, she breaks out into that abrupt beginning of what was a very ludicrous, but at the same time thought a very good epilogue:

Hold! are you mad? you damn'd confounded dog,
I am to rise and speak the epilogue.'

"The only reason your mournful correspondent gives against this facetious epilogue, as he calls it, is, that he has a mind to go home melancholy. I wish the gentleFor my own part, I must confess, I think man may not be more grave than wise. it very sufficient to have the anguish of a fictitious piece remain upon me while it is representing; but I love to be sent home to bed in a good humour. If Physibulus is, however, resolved to be inconsolable, and continue his old custom, and when he has not to have his tears dried up, he need only had his half-crown's worth of sorrow, slink out before the epilogue begins.

'It is pleasant enough to hear this tragical genius complaining of the great mischief Andromache had done him. What was that? Why she made him laugh. The poor gentleman's sufferings put me in mind of Harlequin's case, who was tickled to

* Mr. Edmund Neal, alias Smith, 8vo. 1707. Addison wrote a prologue to this play to ridicule the Italian "This diverting manner was always prac-operas. The epilogue was written by Prior.

death. He tells us soon after, through a small mistake of sorrow for rage, that during the whole action he was so very sorry, that he thinks he could have attacked half a score of the fiercest Mohocks in the excess of his grief. I cannot but look upon it as an unhappy accident, that a man who is so bloody-minded in his affliction was diverted from this fit of outrageous melancholy. The valour of this gentleman in his distress brings to one's memory the Knight of the sorrowful Countenance, who lays about him at such an unmerciful rate in an old romance. I shall readily grant him that his soul, as he himself says, would have made a very ridiculous figure, had it quitted the body, and descended to the poetical shades, in such an encounter.

arose very much from the circumstances of my own life, who am a soldier, and expect every day to receive orders, which will oblige me to leave behind me a wife that is very dear to me, and that very deservedly. She is at present, I am sure, no way below your Asteria for conjugal affection: but I see the behaviour of some women so little suited to the circumstances wherein my wife and I shall soon be, that it is with a reluctance, I never knew before, I am going to my duty. What puts me to present pain is the example of a young lady, whose story you shall have as well as I can give it you. Hortensius, an officer of good rank in his majesty's_service, happened, in a certain part of England, to be brought to a country gentleman's house, where he was received with that more than ordinary welcome with which men of domestic lives entertain such few soldiers whom a military life, from the vasud-riety of adventures, has not rendered overbearing, but humane, easy, and agreeable. Hortensius staid here some time, and had easy access at all hours, as well as unavoidable conversation, at some parts of the day, with the beautiful Sylvana, the gentleman's daughter. People who live in cities are wonderfully struck with every little country abode they see when they take the air; and it is natural to fancy they could live in every neat cottage (by which they pass) 'He fetches his next thought from Ty-much happier than in their present cirburn: and seems very apprehensive lest there should happen any innovations in the tragedies of his friend Paul Lorrain.

'As to his conceit of tacking a tragic head with a comic tail, in order to refresh the audience, it is such a piece of jargon, that I do not know what to make of it.

'The elegant writer makes a very den transition from the playhouse to the church, and from thence to the gallows.

'As for what relates to the church, he is of opinion that these epilogues have given occasion to those merry jigs from the organloft, which have dissipated those good thoughts and dispositions he has found in himself, and the rest of the pew, upon the singing of two staves culled out by the judicious and diligent clerk.

cumstances. The turbulent way of life which Hortensius was used to, made him reflect with much satisfaction on all the advantages of a sweet retreat one day; and, among the rest, you will think it not improbable it might enter into his thought, that such a woman as Sylvana would consummate the happiness. The world is so debauched with mean considerations, that Hortensius knew it would be received as an act of generosity, if he asked for a woman of the highest merit, without further questions, of a parent who had nothing to add to her personal qualifications. The wedding was celebrated at her father's house. When that was over, the generous husband did not proportion his provision for her to the circumstances of her fortune, but considered his wife as his darling, his pride, and his vanity; or, rather, that it was in the woman he had chosen that a man of sense could show pride or vanity with an excuse, and therefore adorned her did not, however, omit to admonish her, with rich habits and valuable jewels. He that he did his very utmost in this; that it was an ostentation he could not be guilty of but to a woman he had so much pleasure in, desiring her to consider it as such; and begged of her also to take these matters rightly, and believe the gems, the gowns, the laces, would still become her better, if her air and behaviour was such, that it might appear she dressed thus rather in compliance to his humour that way, than