out two staves proper to the discourse, and I have found in myself and in the rest of the pew, good thoughts and dispositions, they have been, all in a moment, dissipated by a merry jig from the organ loft. One knows not what further ill effects the epilogues I have been speaking of may in time produce: but this I am credibly informed of, that Paul Lorrain* has resolved upon a very sudden reformation in his tragical dramas; and that, at the next monthly performance, he designs, instead of a penetential psalm, to dismiss his audience with an excellent new ballad of his own composing. Pray, sir, do what you can to put a stop to these growing evils, and you will very much oblige

Your humble servant,

PHYSIBULUS.'

*Paul Lorrain was the ordinary of Newgate at this time, which place he held for many years; he died October 7, 1719. In his accounts of the convicts executed at Tyburn, P. Lorrain generally represented them as true penitents, and dying very well, after having lived for the most part very ill: they are humorously styled Paul Lorrain's saints, in the Tatler, No. 63.

No. 339. SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 1712.

Ut his exordia primis

Omnia, et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis.
Tum durare solum et discludere Nereu ponto
Caperit, et rerum paullatim sumere formas.

VIRG. Ecl. vi. 33.

He sung the secret seeds of nature's frame:
How seas, and earth, and air, and active flame,
Fell through the mighty void, and in their fall
Were blindly gather'd in this goodly ball.
The tender soil then stiff"ning by degrees,
Shut from the bounded earth the bounding seas,
The earth and ocean various forms disclose,
And a new sun to the new world arose.

DRYDEN.

LONGINUS has observed, that there may be a loftiness in sentiments where there is no passion, and brings instances out of ancient authors to support this his opinion. The pathetic, as that great critic observes, may animate and inflame the sublime, but is not essential to it. Accordingly, as he further remarks, we very often find that those who excel most in stirring up the passions very often want the talent of writing in the great and sublime manner, and so on the contrary. Milton has shown himself a master in both these ways of writing. The seventh book, which we are now entering upon, is an instance of that sublime which is not mixed and worked up with passion. The author appears in a kind of composed and sedate majesty; and though the sentiments do not give so great an emotion as those in the former book, they abound with as magnificent ideas. The sixth book, like a troubled ocean, represents greatness in confusion; the seventh affects the imagination like the ocean in a calm, and fills the mind of the

reader, without producing in it any thing like tumult or agitation.

The critic above mentioned, among the rules which he lays down for succeeding in the sublime way of writing, proposes to his reader, that he should imitate the most celebrated authors who have gone before him, and have been engaged in works of the same nature; as in particular that, if he writes on poetical subjects, he should consider how Homer would have spoken on such an occasion. By this means one great genius often catches the flame from another and writes in his spirit, without copying servilely after him. There are a thousand shining passages in Virgil, which have been lighted up by Homer.

Milton, though his own natural strength of genius was capable of furnishing out a perfect work, has doubtless very much raised and ennobled his conceptions by such an imitation as that which Longinus has recommended.

In this book, which gives us an account of the six days' works, the poet received but very few assistances from heathen writers, who are strangers to the wonders of creation. But as there are many glorious strokes of poetry upon this subject in holy writ, the author has numberless allusions to them through the whole course of this book. The great critic I have before mentioned though an 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 an 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 an 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 the Lord: Heav'n open'd wide
Her ever-during gates, harmonius 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 of clouds which lay as a barrier before them.

I do not know any thing in the whole poem more sublime than the description which follows, where the Messiah is represented at the head of his angels, as looking down into the chaos, calming its confusion, riding into the midst of it, and drawing the first outline of the creation :

'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
Up-lifted, in paternal glory rode

Far into Chaos, and the world unborn;

For Chaos heard his voice. Him all his train
Followed 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
This universe, and all created things:
One foot he centered, 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