Volume Ii Part 87 (1/2)

[Footnote 1: To this number there is added after a repeated advertis.e.m.e.nt of the Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff in 4 vols. 8vo, a repet.i.tion in Italic type of the advertis.e.m.e.nt of the Boarding School on Mile-end Green (ending at the words render them accomplish'd) to which a conspicuous place was given, with original additions by Steele, in No.

314.]

No. 333. Sat.u.r.day, March 22, 1712. Addison.

--vocat in Certamina Divos.

Virg.

We are now entering upon the Sixth Book of Paradise Lost, in which the Poet describes the Battel of Angels; having raised his Readers Expectation, and prepared him for it by several Pa.s.sages in the preceding Books. I omitted quoting these Pa.s.sages in my Observations on the former Books, having purposely reserved them for the opening of this, the Subject of which gave occasion to them. The Authors Imagination was so inflam'd with this great Scene of Action, that wherever he speaks of it, he rises, if possible, above himself. Thus where he mentions Satan in the Beginning of his Poem:

--Him the Almighty Power Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless Perdition, there to dwell In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire, Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to Arms.

We have likewise several n.o.ble Hints of it in the Infernal Conference.

O Prince! O Chief of many throned Powers, That led th' imbattel'd Seraphim to War, Too well I see and rue the dire Event, That with sad Overthrow and foul Defeat Hath lost us Heavn, and all this mighty Host In horrible Destruction laid thus low.

But see I the angry Victor has recalled His Ministers of Vengeance and Pursuit, Back to the Gates of Heavn: The sulphurous Hail Shot after us in Storm, overblown, hath laid The fiery Surge, that from the Precipice Of Heaven receiv'd us falling: and the Thunder, Winged with red Lightning and impetuous Rage, Perhaps hath spent his Shafts, and ceases now To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.

There are several other very sublime Images on the same Subject in the First Book, as also in the Second.

What when we fled amain, pursued and strook With Heavns afflicting Thunder, and besought The Deep to shelter us; this h.e.l.l then seem'd A Refuge from those Wounds--

In short, the Poet never mentions anything of this Battel but in such Images of Greatness and Terror as are suitable to the Subject. Among several others I cannot forbear quoting that Pa.s.sage, where the Power, who is described as presiding over the Chaos, speaks in the Third Book.

Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old With faultring Speech, and Visage incompos'd, Answer'd, I know thee, Stranger, who thou art, That mighty leading Angel, who of late Made Head against Heavens King, tho overthrown.

I saw and heard, for such a numerous Host Fled not in silence through the frighted Deep With Ruin upon Ruin, Rout on Rout, Confusion worse confounded; and Heavns Gates Pour'd out by Millions her victorious Bands Pursuing--

It requir'd great Pregnancy of Invention, and Strength of Imagination, to fill this Battel with such Circ.u.mstances as should raise and astonish the Mind of the Reader; and at the same time an Exactness of Judgment, to avoid every thing that might appear light or trivial. Those who look into Homer, are surprized to find his Battels still rising one above another, and improving in Horrour, to the Conclusion of the Iliad.

Milton's Fight of Angels is wrought up with the same Beauty. It is usher'd in with such Signs of Wrath as are suitable to Omnipotence incensed. The first Engagement is carry'd on under a Cope of Fire, occasion'd by the Flights of innumerable burning Darts and Arrows, which are discharged from either Host. The second Onset is still more terrible, as it is filled with those artificial Thunders, which seem to make the Victory doubtful, and produce a kind of Consternation even in the good Angels. This is follow'd by the tearing up of Mountains and Promontories; till, in the last place, the Messiah comes forth in the Fulness of Majesty and Terror, The Pomp of his Appearance amidst the Roarings of his Thunders, the Flashes of his Lightnings, and the Noise of his Chariot-Wheels, is described with the utmost Flights of Human Imagination.

There is nothing in the first and last Days Engagement which does not appear natural, and agreeable enough to the Ideas most Readers would conceive of a Fight between two Armies of Angels.

The second Days Engagement is apt to startle an Imagination, which has not been raised and qualify'd for such a Description, by the reading of the ancient Poets, and of Homer in particular. It was certainly a very bold Thought in our Author, to ascribe the first Use of Artillery to the Rebel Angels. But as such a pernicious Invention may be well supposed to have proceeded from such Authors, so it entered very properly into the Thoughts of that Being, who is all along describ'd as aspiring to the Majesty of his Maker. Such Engines were the only Instruments he could have made use of to imitate those Thunders, that in all Poetry, both sacred and profane, are represented as the Arms of the Almighty. The tearing up the Hills, was not altogether so daring a Thought as the former. We are, in some measure, prepared for such an Incident by the Description of the Giants War, which we meet with among the Ancient Poets. What still made this Circ.u.mstance the more proper for the Poets Use, is the Opinion of many learned Men, that the Fable of the Giants War, which makes so great a noise in Antiquity, [and gave birth to the sublimest Description in Hesiod's Works was [l]] an Allegory founded upon this very Tradition of a Fight between the good and bad Angels.

It may, perhaps, be worth while to consider with what Judgment Milton, in this Narration, has avoided every thing that is mean and trivial in the Descriptions of the Latin and Greek Poets; and at the same time improved every great Hint which he met with in their Works upon this Subject. Homer in that Pa.s.sage, which Longinus has celebrated for its Sublimeness, and which Virgil and Ovid have copy'd after him, tells us, that the Giants threw Ossa upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Ossa. He adds an Epithet to Pelion ([Greek: einosiphullon]) which very much swells the Idea, by bringing up to the Readers Imagination all the Woods that grew upon it. There is further a great Beauty in his singling out by Name these three remarkable Mountains, so well known to the Greeks. This last is such a Beauty as the Scene of Milton's War could not possibly furnish him with. Claudian, in his Fragment upon the Giants War, has given full scope to that Wildness of Imagination which was natural to him. He tells us, that the Giants tore up whole Islands by the Roots, and threw them at the G.o.ds. He describes one of them in particular taking up Lemnos in his Arms, and whirling it to the Skies, with all Vulcan's Shop in the midst of it. Another tears up Mount Ida, with the River Enipeus, which ran down the Sides of it; but the Poet, not content to describe him with this Mountain upon his Shoulders, tells us that the River flow'd down his Back, as he held it up in that Posture. It is visible to every judicious Reader, that such Ideas savour more of Burlesque, than of the Sublime. They proceed from a Wantonness of Imagination, and rather divert the Mind than astonish it. Milton has taken every thing that is sublime in these several Pa.s.sages, and composes out of them the following great Image.

From their Foundations loosning to and fro, They pluck'd the seated Hills, with all their Land, Rocks, Waters, Woods; and by the s.h.a.ggy Tops Up-lifting bore them in their Hands--

We have the full Majesty of Homer in this short Description, improv'd by the Imagination of Claudian, without its Puerilities. I need not point out the Description of the fallen Angels seeing the Promontories hanging over their Heads in such a dreadful manner, with the other numberless Beauties in this Book, which are so conspicuous, that they cannot escape the Notice of the most ordinary Reader.

There are indeed so many wonderful Strokes of Poetry in this Book, and such a variety of Sublime Ideas, that it would have been impossible to have given them a place within the bounds of this Paper. Besides that, I find it in a great measure done to my hand at the End of my Lord Roscommon's Essay on Translated Poetry. I shall refer my Reader thither for some of the Master Strokes in the Sixth Book of Paradise Lost, tho at the same time there are many others which that n.o.ble Author has not taken notice of.