Let her alone Ten Days.
York, Jan. 20, 1711-12.
Mr.
Spectator,
'We have in this Town a sort of People who pretend to Wit and write
Lampoons: I have lately been the Subject of one of them. The Scribler
had not Genius enough in Verse to turn my Age, as indeed I am an old
Maid, into Raillery, for affecting a youthier Turn than is consistent
with my Time of Day; and therefore he makes the Title to his Madrigal,
The Character of Mrs. Judith Lovebane, born in the Year
16801.
What I desire of you is, That you disallow that a Coxcomb who pretends
to write Verse, should put the most malicious Thing he can say in
Prose. This I humbly conceive will disable our Country Wits, who
indeed take a great deal of Pains to say any thing in Rhyme, tho' they
say it very ill.
I am,
Sir,
Your Humble Servant,
Susanna Lovebane.'
Mr.
Spectator,
'We are several of us, Gentlemen and Ladies, who Board in the same
House, and after Dinner one of our Company (an agreeable Man enough
otherwise) stands up and reads your Paper to us all. We are the
civillest People in the World to one another, and therefore I am
forced to this way of desiring our Reader, when he is doing this
Office, not to stand afore the Fire. This will be a general Good to
our Family this cold Weather. He will, I know, take it to be our
common Request when he comes to these Words, Pray, Sir, sit down;
which I desire you to insert, and you will particularly oblige
Your Daily Reader,
Charity Frost.'
Sir,
I am a great Lover of Dancing, but cannot perform so well as some
others; however, by my Out-of-the-Way Capers, and some original
Grimaces, I don't fail to divert the Company, particularly the Ladies,
who laugh immoderately all the Time. Some, who pretend to be my
Friends, tell me they do it in Derision, and would advise me to leave
it off, withal that I make my self ridiculous. I don't know what to do
in this Affair, but I am resolved not to give over upon any
Account, 'till I have the Opinion of the
Spectator.
Your humble Servant,
John Trott.'
If Mr. Trott is not awkward out of Time, he has a Right to
Dance let who will Laugh: But if he has no Ear he will
interrupt others; and I am of Opinion he should sit still.
Given under my Hand this Fifth of February, 1711-12.
The
Spectator
.
T.
1750
Contents
|
Saturday, February 9, 1712 |
Addison |
—velut si
Egregio inspersos reprendas corpore nævos.
Hor.
translation
After what I have said in my last Saturday's Paper, I shall enter on the
Subject of this without further Preface, and remark the several Defects
which appear in the Fable, the Characters, the Sentiments, and the
Language of Milton's
Paradise Lost
; not doubting but the Reader will
pardon me, if I alledge at the same time whatever may be said for the
Extenuation of such Defects. The first Imperfection which I shall
observe in the Fable is that the Event of it is unhappy.
Fable of every Poem is, according to Aristotle's Division, either
Simple or Implex
. It is called Simple when there is no change of
Fortune in it: Implex, when the Fortune of the chief Actor changes from
Bad to Good, or from Good to Bad. The Implex Fable is thought the most
perfect; I suppose, because it is more proper to stir up the Passions of
the Reader, and to surprize him with a greater Variety of Accidents.
The Implex Fable is therefore of two kinds:
the first the chief Actor
makes his Way through a long Series of Dangers and Difficulties, till he
arrives at Honour and Prosperity, as we see in the
Story of Ulysses
. In the second, the chief Actor in the Poem falls from some eminent
Pitch of Honour and Prosperity, into Misery and Disgrace. Thus we see
Adam and Eve sinking from a State of Innocence and Happiness, into the
most abject Condition of Sin and Sorrow.
The most taking Tragedies among the Ancients were built on this last
sort of Implex Fable,
the Tragedy of Œdipus, which
proceeds upon a Story, if we may believe Aristotle, the most proper for
Tragedy that could be invented by the Wit of Man
. I have taken some
Pains in a former Paper to shew, that this kind of Implex Fable, wherein
the Event is unhappy, is more apt to affect an Audience than that of the
first kind; notwithstanding many excellent Pieces among the Ancients, as
well as most of those which have been written of late Years in our own
Country, are raised upon contrary Plans. I must however own, that I
think this kind of Fable, which is the most perfect in Tragedy, is not
so proper for an Heroic Poem.
Milton seems to have been sensible of this Imperfection in his Fable,
and has therefore endeavoured to cure it by several Expedients;
particularly by the Mortification which the great Adversary of Mankind
meets with upon his Return to the Assembly of Infernal Spirits,
it is
described in
a,
beautiful Passage of the Tenth Book; and likewise
by the Vision wherein Adam at the close of the Poem sees his Off-spring
triumphing over his great Enemy, and himself restored to a happier
Paradise than that from which he fell.
There is another Objection against Milton's Fable, which is indeed
almost the same with the former, tho' placed in a different Light,
namely, That the Hero in the
Paradise Lost
is unsuccessful, and by no
means a Match for his Enemies.
gave Occasion to Mr. Dryden's
Reflection, that the Devil was in reality Milton's Hero
.
I think I have obviated this Objection in my first Paper.
The
Paradise
Lost
is an Epic
or a
Narrative Poem,
and
he that looks for an Hero
in it, searches for that which Milton never intended;
but
if he
will needs fix the Name of an Hero upon any Person in it, '
certainly
the Messiah who is the Hero, both in the Principal Action, and in the
chief Episodes
. Paganism could not furnish out a real Action for a
Fable greater than that of the Iliad or Æneid, and therefore an Heathen
could not form a higher Notion of a Poem than one of that kind, which
they call an Heroic.
Milton's is not of a
sublimer
Nature I
will not presume to determine: It is sufficient that I shew there is in
the
Paradise Lost
all the Greatness of Plan, Regularity of Design, and
masterly Beauties which we discover in Homer and Virgil.
I must in the next Place observe, that Milton has interwoven in the
Texture of his Fable some Particulars which do not seem to have
Probability enough for an Epic Poem, particularly in the Actions which
he ascribes to Sin and Death, and the Picture which he draws of the
Limbo of Vanity, with other Passages in the second Book. Such Allegories
rather savour of the Spirit of Spenser and Ariosto, than of Homer and
Virgil.
In the Structure of his Poem he has likewise admitted of too many
Digressions. It is
observed by Aristotle, that the Author of an
Heroic Poem should seldom speak himself, but throw as much of his Work
as he can into the Mouths of those who are his Principal Actors
.
Aristotle has given no reason for this Precept; but I presume it is
because the Mind of the Reader is more awed and elevated when he hears
Æneas or Achilles speak, than when Virgil or Homer talk in their own
Persons. Besides that assuming the Character of an eminent Man is apt to
fire the Imagination, and raise the Ideas of the Author.
tells us
,
mentioning his Dialogue of Old Age, in which Cato is the chief Speaker,
that upon a Review of it he was agreeably imposed upon, and fancied that
it was Cato, and not he himself, who uttered his Thoughts on that
Subject.
If the Reader would be at the Pains to see how the Story of the Iliad
and the Æneid is delivered by those Persons who act in it, he will be
surprized to find how little in either of these Poems proceeds from the
Authors. Milton has, in the general disposition of his Fable, very
finely observed this great Rule; insomuch that there is scarce a third
Part of it which comes from the Poet; the rest is spoken either by Adam
and Eve, or by some Good or Evil Spirit who is engaged either in their
Destruction or Defence.
From what has been here observed it appears, that Digressions are by no
means to be allowed of in an Epic Poem. If the Poet, even in the
ordinary course of his Narration, should speak as little as possible, he
should certainly never let his Narration sleep for the sake of any
Reflections of his own. I have often observed, with a secret Admiration,
that the longest Reflection in the Æneid is in that Passage of the
Tenth Book, where Turnus is represented as dressing himself in the
Spoils of Pallas, whom he had slain. Virgil here lets his Fable stand
still for the-sake of the following Remark. How is the Mind of Man
ignorant of Futurity, and unable to bear prosperous Fortune with
Moderation? The Time will come when Turnus shall wish that he had left
the Body of Pallas untouched, and curse the Day on which he dressed
himself in these Spoils. As the great Event of the Æneid, and the Death
of Turnus, whom Æneas slew because he saw him adorned with the Spoils of
Pallas, turns upon this Incident, Virgil went out of his way to make
this Reflection upon it, without which so small a Circumstance might
possibly have slipped out of his Reader's Memory.
, who was an
Injudicious Poet, lets drop his Story very frequently for the sake of
his unnecessary Digressions, or his Diverticula, as Scaliger calls them.
If he gives us an Account of the Prodigies which preceded the Civil
War, he declaims upon the Occasion, and shews how much happier it would
be for Man, if he did not feel his Evil Fortune before it comes to pass;
and suffer not only by its real Weight, but by the Apprehension of it.
Complaint
for
his Blindness, his Panegyrick on Marriage,
his Reflections on Adam and Eve's going naked, of the Angels eating, and
several other Passages in his Poem, are liable to the same Exception,
tho' I must confess there is so great a Beauty in these very
Digressions, that I would not wish them out of his Poem.
I have, in a former Paper, spoken of the Characters of Milton's
Paradise
Lost
, and declared my Opinion, as to the Allegorical Persons who are
introduced in it.
If we look into the Sentiments, I think they are sometimes defective
under the following Heads: First, as there are several of them too much
pointed, and some that degenerate even into Punns. Of this last kind I
am afraid is that in the First Book, where speaking of the Pigmies, he
calls them,
—The small Infantry
Warrdon by Cranes—
Blemish
that
appears in some of his Thoughts, is his
frequent Allusion to Heathen Fables, which are not certainly of a Piece
with the Divine Subject, of which he treats. I do not find fault with
these Allusions, where the Poet himself represents them as fabulous, as
he does in some Places, but where he mentions them as Truths and Matters
of Fact. The Limits of my Paper will not give me leave to be particular
in Instances of this kind; the Reader will easily remark them in his
Perusal of the Poem.
A third fault in his Sentiments, is an unnecessary Ostentation of
Learning, which likewise occurs very frequently. It is certain that both
Homer and Virgil were Masters of all the Learning of their Times, but it
shews it self in their Works after an indirect and concealed manner.
Milton seems ambitious of letting us know, by his Excursions on
Free-Will and Predestination, and his many Glances upon History,
Astronomy, Geography, and the like, as well as by the Terms and Phrases
he sometimes makes use of, that he was acquainted with the whole Circle
of Arts and Sciences.
If, in the last place, we consider the Language of this great Poet, we
must allow what I have hinted in a former Paper, that it is often too
much laboured, and sometimes obscured by old Words, Transpositions, and
Foreign Idioms. Seneca's Objection to the Style of a great Author,
Riget
ejus oratio, nihil in eâ placidum nihil lene
, is what many Criticks make
to Milton: As I cannot wholly refuse it, so I have already apologized
for it in another Paper; to which I may further add, that Milton's
Sentiments and Ideas were so wonderfully Sublime, that it would have
been impossible for him to have represented them in their full Strength
and Beauty, without having recourse to these Foreign Assistances. Our
Language sunk under him, and was unequal to that Greatness of Soul,
which furnished him with such glorious Conceptions.
A second Fault in his Language is, that he often affects a kind of
Jingle in his Words, as in the following Passages, and many others:
And brought into the World a World of Woe.
—Begirt th' Almighty throne
Beseeching or besieging—
This tempted our attempt—
At one slight bound high overleapt all bound.
I
there are Figures for this kind of Speech, that some of the
greatest Ancients have been guilty of it, and that Aristotle himself has
given it a place in his Rhetorick among the Beauties of that Art.
But as it is in its self poor and trifling, it is I think at present
universally exploded by all the Masters of Polite Writing.
The last Fault which I shall take notice of in Milton's Style, is the
frequent use of what the Learned call Technical Words , or Terms of Art.
It
one of the great Beauties of Poetry, to make hard things
intelligible, and to deliver what is abstruse
of
it self in such
easy Language as may be understood by ordinary Readers: Besides, that
the Knowledge of a Poet should rather seem born with him, or inspired,
than drawn from Books and Systems. I have often wondered how Mr. Dryden
could translate a Passage out of Virgil after the following manner.
Tack to the Larboard, and stand off to Sea.
Veer Star-board Sea and Land.
Milton makes use of Larboard in the same manner. When he is upon
Building he mentions Doric Pillars, Pilasters, Cornice, Freeze,
Architrave. When he talks of Heavenly Bodies, you meet with Eccliptic
and Eccentric, the trepidation, Stars dropping from the Zenith, Rays
culminating from the Equator. To which might be added many Instances of
the like kind in several other Arts and Sciences.
I
in my next
Papers
give an Account of the many particular
Beauties in Milton, which would have been too long to insert under those
general Heads I have already treated of, and with which I intend to
conclude this Piece of Criticism.
L.
Poetics
, cap. x. Addison got his affected word 'implex' by
reading Aristotle through the translation and notes of André Dacier.
Implex was the word used by the French, but the natural English
translation of Aristotle's
Greek: haploì
and
Greek: peplegménoi
is
into simple and complicated.
Stories of Achilles, Ulysses, and Æneas.
Poetics
, cap. xi.
that
Dediction of the Æneid; where, after speaking of small
claimants of the honours of the Epic, he says,
'Spencer has a better for his "Fairy Queen" had his action been
finished, or been one; and Milton if the Devil had not been his hero,
instead of Adam; if the giant had not foiled the knight, and driven
him out of his stronghold, to wander through the world with his
lady-errant; and if there had not been more machining persons that
human in his poem.'
or
Episode
greater
Poetics
, cap. xxv. The reason he gives is that when the
Poet speaks in his own person 'he is not then the Imitator.' Other Poets
than Homer, Aristotle adds,
'ambitious to figure throughout themselves, imitate but little and
seldom. Homer, after a few preparatory lines, immediately introduces a
man or woman or some other character, for all have their character.'
Of Lucan, as an example of the contrary practice, Hobbes said in his
'Discourse concerning the Virtues of an Heroic Poem,'
'No Heroic Poem raises such admiration of the Poet, as his hath done,
though not so great admiration of the persons he introduceth.'
Letters to Atticus
, Bk. xiii., Ep. 44.
Poetics
, Lib. iii. cap. 25.
of
which
Rhetoric
, iii. ch. II, where he cites such verbal jokes
as, You wish him
Greek: pérsai
(i.e. to side with Persia—to ruin
him), and the saying of Isocrates concerning Athens, that its
sovereignty
Greek: archàe
was to the city a beginning
Greek: archàe
of evils. As this closes Addison's comparison of Milton's practice with
Aristotle's doctrine (the following papers being expressions of his
personal appreciation of the several books of
Paradise Lost
), we may
note here that Milton would have been quite ready to have his work tried
by the test Addison has been applying. In his letter to Samuel Hartlib,
sketching his ideal of a good Education, he assigns to advanced pupils
logic and then
'rhetoric taught out of the rules of Plato, Aristotle, Phalereus,
Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus. To which poetry would be made
subsequent, or, indeed, rather precedent, as being less subtile and
fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate. I mean not here the
prosody of a verse, which they could not but have hit on before among
the rudiments of grammar; but that sublime art which in Aristotle's
Poetics, in Horace, and the Italian commentaries of Castelvetro,
Tasso, Mazzoni, and others, teaches what the laws are of a true epic
poem, what of a dramatic, what of a lyric, what decorum is, which is
the grand masterpiece to observe. This would make them soon perceive
what despicable creatures our common rhymers and play-writers be; and
show them what religious, what glorious and magnificent use might be
made of poetry, both in divine and human things.'
in
Saturday's Paper
Contents
|
Monday, February 11, 1712 |
Steele |