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pire; his subject is the fate of worlds, the revolutions of heaven and earth, rebellion against the Supreme King, raised by the highest order of created beings; the overthrow of their host, and the punishment of their crime; the creation of a new race of reasonable creatures; their original happiness and innocence; their forfeiture of immortality; and their restoration to hope and peace. Great events can be hastened or retarded only by persons of elevated dignity. Before the greatness displayed in Milton's poem, all other greatness shrinks away. The weakest of his agents are the highest and noblest of human beings, the original parents of mankind, with whose actions the elements consented, on whose rectitude or deviation of will depended the state of terrestrial nature, and the condition of all the future inhabitants of the globe.

Of other agents in the poem, the chief are such as it is irreverence to name on flight occasions. The rest were lower powers;

Of which the least could wield

Those elements, and arm him with the force
Of all their regions; •

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powers which only the control of Omnipotence could restrain from laying creation waste, and filling the vast expance of space with ruin and confusion. To display the motives and actions of beings thus superior so far as human reason can examine them, is the task which this great Poet has undertaken, and performed.

• In the examination of epic-poems, much speculation is commonly employed on the characters. The characters in Paradise Lost, which admit of examination, are those of angels and man; of angels, good and evil; of man, in his innocent and sinful state.

Of the probable and the marvellous, two parts of aq

zione di un impero; il suo subbietto è il fato di mondi, la rivoluzione del cielo e della terra, la ribellione contro il Supremo Re mossa dai più alti ordini degli esseri creati; là rotta dell'oste loro, e il castigo del loro delitto; la creazione di una specie di ragionevoli creature; l'originale felicità ed innocenza di esse; la perdita di loro immortalità il ristoramento loro a speranza ed a pace. Grandi avvenimenti possono essere affrettati o ritardati solo da persone di elevata dignità. Verso la grandezza spiegata nel poema di Milton, ne sparisce ogni altra. I più deboli de' suoi attori sono i più grandi, i più nobili umani esseri, i primi padri della specie umana, allé azioni de' quali secondavano gli elementi'; dal retto • torto loro volere pendea lo stato della natura terrestre, e la sorte di tutti i futuri abitatori del globo.

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Degli altri attori nel poema, i principali sono siffatti che fia irriverenza toccarli così di volo. Gli altri sono inferiori spiriti ;

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spiriti cui solo il potere dell' onnipotenza frenar potrebbe dal menar desolazione sul creato, ed ingombrar la sterminata amplitudine dello spazio con ruina e confusione. A spiegare motivi ed azioni di spiriti così superiori, per quanto può esaminarli l'umana ragione, è il compito che il gran poeta tolsé à misurare.

Nell'esame del poema-epico, molta diligenza è comunemente adoperata sui caratteri. I caratteri che nel paradiso perduto ammettono esame, sono quei di angeli e di nomo; di angeli, buoni e cattivi, di uomo, nel suo stato innocente è colpevole.

Del probabile e maraviglioso, due parti del poe

epic-poem which immerge the critic in deep consideration, the « Paradise Lost » requires little to be said. It contains the history and redemption; it displays the power and mercy of the Supreme Being; the probable is marvellous, and the marvellous is probable. The substance of the narrative is truth; and as truth allows no choice, it is, like necessity, superior to rule. To the accidental, or adventitious parts, as to every thing human, some slight exceptions may be made, but the main fabric is immoveably supported. »>

Dr. Johnson observes, that it is justly remarked by Addisson, that this poem, by the nature of its subject, has the advantage above all others, as it is universally and perpetually interesting. All mankind will, throughout all ages, bear the same relation to Adam and to Eve, and must partake of that good and evil which extend to themselves.

< To the completeness of the design nothing can be objected; it has distinctly and clearly what is requisite for a finished poem; a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is not, perhaps, any poem of the same length, from which so little can be taken without apparent mutilation. The thoughts, which are occasionally called forth in the progress of this sublime composition, are such as could only be produced by an imagination, in the highest degree fervid and active, to which materials were supplied by incessant study and unlimited curiosity. The heat of Milton's mind might be said to sublimate his learning, to throw off, into his work, the spirit of science unmingled with its grosser parts.

« He had considered creation in its whole extent; his descriptions are therefore learned. He had accustomed his imagination to unrestrained indulgence; his conceptions were therefore extensive. The characteristic qua

ma epico che immergono il critico in grande considerazione, vuol dirsi poco nel paradiso perduto. Ei contiene l'istoria della redenzione, dispiega il potere e la misericordia dell' essere Supremo. I probabile è maraviglioso e il maraviglioso è probabile. La sostanza del narrato è verità; e come verità non da luogo a scegliere, ella è qual necessità superiore a regola. Alle parti accidentali o avvenitizie, come ad ogni cosa umana, ponno farsi leggiere eccezioni, ma il lavoro principale è piantato immobilmente. »

Il Dr. Johnson osserva ciò che è meritamente notato da Addisson che questo poema per la natura del suo subbietto ha sugli altri tutto il vantaggio di essere universalmente e perpetuamente interessante. Ogni uomo vorrà, in ogni età, dare la medesima istoria di Adamo e di Eva, e partecipare a quel bene e male che tribuisce ad essi.

• Alla finitezza nel disegno non può obbiettarsi nulla; egli ha chiaro e netto quanto chiede un perfetto poema; un principio, un mezzo ed fine. Non vi è forse altro poema di egual lunghezza, da cui sì poco toglier si possa senza che appaiavi mutilazione. I pensieri che opportuni traggon fuori nel seguito di quest'opera sublime, sono tali da poter essere prodotto solamente da una imaginativa sovranamente fervida ed operosa, a cui venian forniti materiali da incessante studio e da illimitata vaghezza di sapere. La fervidezza della mente di Milton potrebbe dirsi sublimare la sua dottrina, e francare nel suo lavoro lo spirito di scienza non mescolato con le sue parti grossiere.

Egli ha trattato la creazione nella sua intera estensione; le sue descrizioni sono quindi erudite. Egli costumò la sua imaginazione a non frenata liberlà, i suoi concetti sono quindi vastissimi. La nota

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lity of his poem is sublimity. He sometimes descends to the elegant, but his element is the great. He can occasionally invest himself with grace; but his natural part is gigantic loftiness. He can please when pleasure is required; but it is his peculiar power to astonish.

He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to know what it was that nature has bestowed upon him more bountifully than upon others, the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the splendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful; he therefore chose a subject on which too much could no be said; on which he might tire his fancy without the censure of extravagance.

The appearance of nature, and the occurrences of life, did not satiate his appetite of greatness. To paint things as they are, requires a minute attention, and employs the memory rather than the fancy. Milton's delight was to sport in the wide regions of possibility; reality was a scene too narrow for his mind. He sent his faculties out upon discovery into worlds where only imagination can travel, and delighted to form new modes of existence, and furnish sentiment and action to superior beings; to trace the counsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven. But he could not always be in other worlds; he must sometimes revisit earth, and tell of things visible and known. When he cannot raise wonder by the sublimity of his mind, he gives delights by its fertility.

< Whatever be his subject, he never fails to fill the imagination. But his images and descriptions of the scenes or operations of Nature, do not seem to be always copied from original form, nor to have the freshness and energy of immediate observations. He saw nature, as Dryden expresses it, through the spectacle of books,» and, on

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