must consider that tho' we now regard such a Person as entirely shadowy and unsubstantial, the Heathens made Statues of him, placed him in their Temples, and looked upon him as a real Deity. When Homer makes use of other such Allegorical Persons, it is only in short Expressions, which convey an ordinary Thought to the Mind in the most pleasing manner, and may rather be looked upon as Poetical Phrases than Allegorical Descriptions. Instead of telling us that Men naturally fly when they are terrified, he introduces the Persons of Flight and Fear, who, he tells us, are inseparable Companions. Instead of saying that the time was come when Apollo ought to have received his Recompence, he tells us, that the Hours brought him his Reward. . . . Milton has likewise very often made use of the same way of Speaking, as when he tells us, that Victory sat on the Right Hand of the Messiah. . . . But when such Persons are introduced as principal Actors, and engaged in a series of Adventures, they take too much upon them, and are by no means proper for an Heroick Poem, which ought to appear credible in its principal Parts.' Addison finds three defects in Milton's Sentiments.' They are too much pointed,' and even 'degenerate into puns'; the 'frequent allusion to Heathen Fables' is incongruous, considering the subject-matter of the poem; and there is an 'unnecessary ostentation of learning' appearing in his dissertations on Free-Will and Predestination, and his many glances upon History, Astronomy, Geography and the like.' And he condemns his 'Language' on almost similar grounds. It is obscured by the use of 'old words, transpositions, and foreign idioms'; 'a kind of jingle in his words' is apparent in such passages as these : 'And brought into the world a world of woe. This tempted our attempt— At one slight bound high overleapt all bound.' And there is a frequent use of technical terms; whereas 'it is one of the great beauties of poetry to make hard things intelligible, and to deliver what is abstruse of itself in such easy language as may be understood of ordinary readers.'1 Having indicated these blemishes (which he compares to the spots in the sun), Addison proceeds to the more congenial task of pointing out those beauties in Milton's poem which appear ' more exquisite than the rest.' This appreciation of Paradise Lost occupies twice as much space as the preceding criticism; but it is impossible here to do more than refer to one or two of the more conspicuous conclusions. It may, however, be remarked in passing, that of the many passages which Addison quotes, there are very few which do not appeal to the modern critic. He early decides that Satan is the principal character of the poem, and in his appreciation he notices the conspicuous beauty of the scenes and speeches in which the Miltonic Satan is presented to our minds. 'He above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent He has already' decided, too, that sublimity is the characteristic excellence of Milton's poetry: 'Milton's chief Talent, and indeed his distinguishing Excellence, lies in the Sublimity of his Thoughts. There are others of the Moderns who rival him in every other Part of Poetry; but in the greatness of his Sentiments he triumphs over all the Poets, both modern and ancient, Homer only excepted. It is impossible for the Imagination of Man to distend itself with greater Ideas, than those which he has laid together in his First, Second, and Sixth Books.' And in this appreciation he illustrates with special fulness the culminating splendours of the Battle of the Angels in the sixth book, down to the moment when, under the wheels of the chariot of the Messiah, 'The steadfast Empyrean shook throughout, All but the throne itself of God.' He also selects and illustrates with scarcely less detail those scenes in which Milton has succeeded in achieving another special excellence of epic poetry, the happy blending of the marvellous and the probable. 'If the Fable is only Probable, it differs nothing from a 1 Ib. 279. true History; if it is only Marvellous, it is no better than a Romance. The great Secret therefore of Heroic Poetry is to relate such Circumstances, as may produce in the Reader at the same time both Belief and Astonishment. This is brought to pass in a well-chosen Fable, by the Account of such things as have really happened, or at least of such things as have happened according to the received Opinions of Mankind. Milton's Fable is a Masterpiece of this Nature; as the War in Heaven, the Condition of the fallen Angels, the State of Innocence, and Temptation of the Serpent, and the Fall of Man, though they are very astonishing in themselves, are not only credible, but actual Points of Faith.'' But one of the objects which Addison tells us he had in view in this application of Aristotle's rules to Paradise Lost, was to furnish a commentary on the Poetics. In one sense it is as much a criticism of Aristotle as of Milton; since the deficiencies of the critic's theory are exhibited as well as the deficiencies of the poet's practice. Considered as a commentary, Addison's remarks are in general conspicuous for their good sense and elegance; and in two important particulars he extends Aristotle's principles. In discussing the theory of the plot he introduces the consideration of 'poetical justice,' and he widens the significance of 'sentiment' and 'language' as elements of poetic composition. These are points which will be more fully discussed in the two following chapters; but apart from this he sometimes applies himself to special passages in 1 Ib. 315. the Poetics, and these special passages he treats no less successfully than the general theory. I propose to bring this chapter to a close with one or two of these comments. We will take the difficult passage in which Aristotle explains the quality of 'magnitude,' as requisite to the action on which a tragedy is based. 'Since beauty,' he says, ''whether in a living creature or anything else which is composed of parts, requires not merely the due proportion of the parts, but in the first instance an appropriate magnitude in the whole-for beauty consists in a union of magnitude and proportion; and, therefore, neither can anything excessively small be a beautiful creature, because nothing but a confused whole is seen where the perception is almost instantaneous; nor anything excessively large, for it is not enough to look once, but the sight has lost unity and wholeness for the spectator, for example, in the case of an animal a thousand miles long-it follows that just as in the case of human bodies and animals there should be magnitude, but magnitude which can be readily traversed by the eye, so too in the case of plots, while there must be length, it must be such length as can be readily kept in the mind.' On this passage Addison's comment is elegant and luminous.2 'Aristotle, by the Greatness of the Action, does not only mean that it should be great in its nature, but also in its Duration, or in other words that it should have a due Length in it, as well as what we properly call Greatness. The just Measure of this kind of Magnitude, he explains by the 2 Spectator, 267. 1 1450-1451*. |