The Boarding-School for young Gentlewomen, which was formerly kept on
Mile-End-Green, being laid down, there is now one set up almost opposite
to it at the two Golden-Balls, and much more convenient in every
Respect; where, beside the common Instructions given to young
Gentlewomen, they will be taught the whole Art of Paistrey and
Preserving, with whatever may render them accomplished. Those who please
to make Tryal of the Vigilance and Ability of the Persons concerned may
enquire at the two Golden-Balls on Mile-End-Green near Stepney, where
they will receive further Satisfaction.
This is to give Notice, that the SPECTATOR has taken upon him to be
Visitant of all Boarding-Schools, where young Women are educated; and
designs to proceed in the said Office after the same Manner that the
Visitants of Colleges do in the two famous Universities of this Land.
All Lovers who write to the SPECTATOR, are desired to forbear one
Expression which is in most of the Letters to him, either out of
Laziness, or want of Invention, and is true of not above two thousand
Women in the whole World; viz. She has in her all that is valuable in
Woman.
* * * * *
No. 315 Saturday, March 1, 1712. Addison.
Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit.
Hor.
Horace advises a Poet to consider thoroughly the Nature and Force of his
Genius. [1] Milton seems to have known perfectly well, wherein his
Strength lay, and has therefore chosen a Subject entirely conformable to
those Talents, of which he was Master. As his Genius was wonderfully
turned to the Sublime, his Subject is the noblest that could have
entered into the Thoughts of Man. Every thing that is truly great and
astonishing, has a place in it. The whole System of the intellectual
World; the Chaos, and the Creation; Heaven, Earth and Hell; enter into
the Constitution of his Poem.
Having in the First and Second Books represented the Infernal World with
all its Horrors, the Thread of his Fable naturally leads him into the
opposite Regions of Bliss and Glory.
If Milton's Majesty forsakes him any where, it is in those Parts of his
Poem, where the Divine Persons are introduced as Speakers. One may, I
think, observe that the Author proceeds with a kind of Fear and
Trembling, whilst he describes the Sentiments of the Almighty. He dares
not give his Imagination its full Play, but chuses to confine himself to
such Thoughts as are drawn from the Books of the most Orthodox Divines,
and to such Expressions as may be met with in Scripture. The Beauties,
therefore, which we are to look for in these Speeches, are not of a
Poetical Nature, nor so proper to fill the Mind with Sentiments of
Grandeur, as with Thoughts of Devotion. The Passions, which they are
designed to raise, are a Divine Love and Religious Fear. The Particular
Beauty of the Speeches in the Third Book, consists in that Shortness and
Perspicuity of Style, in which the Poet has couched the greatest
Mysteries of Christianity, and drawn together, in a regular Scheme, the
whole Dispensation of Providence, with respect to Man. He has
represented all the abstruse Doctrines of Predestination, Free-Will and
Grace, as also the great Points of Incarnation and Redemption, (which
naturally grow up in a Poem that treats of the Fall of Man) with great
Energy of Expression, and in a clearer and stronger Light than I ever
met with in any other Writer. As these Points are dry in themselves to
the generality of Readers, the concise and clear manner in which he has
treated them, is very much to be admired, as is likewise that particular
Art which he has made use of in the interspersing of all those Graces of
Poetry, which the Subject was capable of receiving.
The Survey of the whole Creation, and of every thing that is transacted
in it, is a Prospect worthy of Omniscience; and as much above that, in
which Virgil has drawn his Jupiter, as the Christian Idea of the Supreme
Being is more Rational and Sublime than that of the Heathens. The
particular Objects on which he is described to have cast his Eye, are
represented in the most beautiful and lively Manner.
Now had th' Almighty Father from above,
(From the pure Empyrean where he sits
High thron'd above all height) bent down his Eye,
His own Works and their Works at once to view.
About him all the Sanctities of Heavn
Stood thick as Stars, and from his Sight received
Beatitude past uttrance: On his right
The radiant Image of his Glory sat,
His only Son. On earth he first beheld
Our two first Parents, yet the only two
Of Mankind, in the happy garden plac'd,
Reaping immortal fruits of Joy and Love;
Uninterrupted Joy, unrival'd Love
In blissful Solitude. He then surveyed
Hell and the Gulph between, and Satan there
Coasting the Wall of Heaven on this side Night,
In the dun air sublime; and ready now
To stoop with wearied wings, and willing feel
On the bare outside of this world, that seem'd
Firm land imbosom'd without firmament;
Uncertain which, in Ocean or in Air.
Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake.
Satan's Approach to the Confines of the Creation, is finely imaged in
the beginning of the Speech, which immediately follows. The Effects of
this Speech in the blessed Spirits, and in the Divine Person to whom it
was addressed, cannot but fill the Mind of the Reader with a secret
Pleasure and Complacency.
Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill'd
All Heavn, and in the blessed Spirits elect
Sense of new Joy ineffable diffus'd.
Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious, in him all his Father shone
Substantially expressed, and in his face
Divine Compassion visibly appeared,
Love without end, and without measure Grace.
I need not point out the Beauty of that Circumstance, wherein the whole
Host of Angels are represented as standing Mute; nor shew how proper the
Occasion was to produce such a Silence in Heaven. The Close of this
Divine Colloquy, with the Hymn of Angels that follows upon it, are so
wonderfully Beautiful and Poetical, that I should not forbear inserting
the whole Passage, if the Bounds of my Paper would give me leave.
No sooner had th' Almighty ceas'd, but all
The multitudes of Angels with a shout
(Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
As from blest Voices) uttring Joy, Heavn rung
With Jubilee, and loud Hosannas fill'd
Th' eternal regions; &c. &c.--
Satan's Walk upon the Outside of the Universe, which, at a Distance,
appeared to him of a globular Form, but, upon his nearer Approach,
looked like an unbounded Plain, is natural and noble: As his Roaming
upon the Frontiers of the Creation between that Mass of Matter, which
was wrought into a World, and that shapeless unformed Heap of Materials,
which still lay in Chaos and Confusion, strikes the Imagination with
something astonishingly great and wild. I have before spoken of the
Limbo of Vanity, which the Poet places upon this outermost Surface of
the Universe, and shall here explain my self more at large on that, and
other Parts of the Poem, which are of the same Shadowy Nature.
Aristotle observes[1], that the Fable of an Epic Poem should abound in
Circumstances that are both credible and astonishing; or as the French
Criticks chuse to phrase it, the Fable should be filled with the
Probable and the Marvellous. This Rule is as fine and just as any in
Aristotle's whole Art of Poetry.
If the Fable is only Probable, it differs nothing from a 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.
The next Method of reconciling Miracles with Credibility, is by a happy
Invention of the Poet; as in particular, when he introduces Agents of a
superior Nature, who are capable of effecting what is wonderful, and
what is not to be met with in the ordinary course of things. Ulysses's
Ship being turned into a Rock, and Æneas's Fleet into a Shoal of Water
Nymphs; though they are very surprising Accidents, are nevertheless
probable, when we are told that they were the Gods who thus transformed
them. It is this kind of Machinery which fills the Poems both of Homer
and Virgil with such Circumstances as are wonderful, but not impossible,
and so frequently produce in the Reader the most pleasing Passion that
can rise in the Mind of Man, which is Admiration. If there be any
Instance in the Æneid liable to Exception upon this Account, it is in
the Beginning of the Third Book, where Æneas is represented as tearing
up the Myrtle that dropped Blood. To qualifie this wonderful
Circumstance, Polydorus tells a Story from the Root of the Myrtle, that
the barbarous Inhabitants of the Country having pierced him with Spears
and Arrows, the Wood which was left in his Body took Root in his Wounds,
and gave Birth to that bleeding Tree. This Circumstance seems to have
the Marvellous without the Probable, because it is represented as
proceeding from Natural Causes, without the Interposition of any God, or
other Supernatural Power capable of producing it. The Spears and Arrows
grow of themselves, without so much as the Modern Help of an
Enchantment. If we look into the Fiction of Milton's Fable, though we
find it full of surprizing Incidents, they are generally suited to our
Notions of the Things and Persons described, and tempered with a due
Measure of Probability. I must only make an Exception to the Limbo of
Vanity, with his Episode of Sin and Death, and some of the imaginary
Persons in his Chaos. These Passages are astonishing, but not credible;
the Reader cannot so far impose upon himself as to see a Possibility in
them; they are the Description of Dreams and Shadows, not of Things or
Persons. I know that many Criticks look upon the Stories of Circe,
Polypheme, the Sirens, nay the whole Odyssey and Iliad, to be
Allegories; but allowing this to be true, they are Fables, which
considering the Opinions of Mankind that prevailed in the Age of the
Poet, might possibly have been according to the Letter. The Persons are
such as might have acted what is ascribed to them, as the Circumstances
in which they are represented, might possibly have been Truths and
Realities. This Appearance of Probability is so absolutely requisite in
the greater kinds of Poetry, that Aristotle observes the Ancient Tragick
Writers made use of the Names of such great Men as had actually lived in
the World, tho the Tragedy proceeded upon Adventures they were never
engaged in, on purpose to make the Subject more Credible. In a Word,
besides the hidden Meaning of an Epic Allegory, the plain litteral Sense
ought to appear Probable. The Story should be such as an ordinary Reader
may acquiesce in, whatever Natural, Moral, or Political Truth may be
discovered in it by Men of greater Penetration.
Satan, after having long wandered upon the Surface, or outmost Wall of
the Universe, discovers at last a wide Gap in it, which led into the
Creation, and is described as the Opening through which the Angels pass
to and fro into the lower World, upon their Errands to Mankind. His
Sitting upon the Brink of this Passage, and taking a Survey of the whole
Face of Nature that appeared to him new and fresh in all its Beauties,
with the Simile illustrating this Circumstance, fills the Mind of the
Reader with as surprizing and glorious an Idea as any that arises in the
whole Poem. He looks down into that vast Hollow of the Universe with the
Eye, or (as Milton calls it in his first Book) with the Kenn of an
Angel. He surveys all the Wonders in this immense Amphitheatre that lye
between both the Poles of Heaven, and takes in at one View the whole
Round of the Creation.
His Flight between the several Worlds that shined on every side of him,
with the particular Description of the Sun, are set forth in all the
Wantonness of a luxuriant Imagination. His Shape, Speech and Behaviour
upon his transforming himself into an Angel of Light, are touched with
exquisite Beauty. The Poets Thought of directing Satan to the Sun,
which in the vulgar Opinion of Mankind is the most conspicuous Part of
the Creation, and the placing in it an Angel, is a Circumstance very
finely contrived, and the more adjusted to a Poetical Probability, as it
was a received Doctrine among the most famous Philosophers, that every
Orb had its Intelligence; and as an Apostle in Sacred Writ is said to
have seen such an Angel in the Sun. In the Answer which this Angel
returns to the disguised evil Spirit, there is such a becoming Majesty
as is altogether suitable to a Superior Being. The Part of it in which
he represents himself as present at the Creation, is very noble in it
self, and not only proper where it is introduced, but requisite to
prepare the Reader for what follows in the Seventh Book.
I saw when at his Word the formless Mass,
This Worlds material Mould, came to a Heap:
Confusion heard his Voice, and wild Uproar
Stood rul'd, stood vast Infinitude confin'd.
Till at his second Bidding Darkness fled,
Light shon, &c.
In the following Part of the Speech he points out the Earth with such
Circumstances, that the Reader can scarce forbear fancying himself
employed on the same distant View of it.
Look downward on the Globe whose hither Side
With Light from hence, tho but reflected, shines;
That place is Earth, the Seat of Man, that Light
His Day, &c.
I must not conclude my Reflections upon this Third Book of Paradise
Lost, without taking Notice of that celebrated Complaint of Milton with
which it opens, and which certainly deserves all the Praises that have
been given it; tho as I have before hinted, it may rather be looked
upon as an Excrescence, than as an essential Part of the Poem. The same
Observation might be applied to that beautiful Digression upon
Hypocrisie, in the same Book.