vice and folly, had not Emilia's prudent conduct won him over to the government of his reason. Her ingenuity has been constantly employed in humanizing his passions, and refining his pleasures. She has shewed him by her own example, that virtue is consistent with decent freedoms and good-humour, or rather, that it cannot subsist without them. Her good sense readily instructed her, that a silent example, and an easy unrepining behaviour, will always be more persuasive than the severity of lectures and admonitions; and that there is so much pride interwoven into the make of human nature, that an obstinate man must only take the hint from another, and then be left to advise and correct himself. Thus by an artful train of management and unseen persuasions, having at first brought him not to dislike, and at length to be pleased with that which otherwise he would not have bore to hear of, she then knew how to press and secure this advantage, by approving it as his thought, and seconding it as his proposal. By this means she has gained an interest in some of his leading passions, and made them accessary to his reformation.

There is another particular of Emilia's conduct which I cannot forbear mentioning to some perhaps it may at first sight appear but a trifling, inconsiderable circumstance; but, for my part, I think it highly worthy of observation, and to be recommended to the fair sex. I have often thought wrapping gowns and dirty linen, with all that huddled economy of dress which passes under the general name of a mob, the bane of conjugal love, and one of the readiest means imaginable to alienate the affection of a husband, especially a fond one. I have heard some ladies, who have been surprised by company in such a dishabille, apologize for it after this manner; "Truly I am ashamed to be caught in this pickle; but my husband and I were sitting all alone by our

"selves, and I did not expect to see such good com"pany. ............This by the way is a fine compliment to the good man, which it is ten to one but he returns in dogged answers and a churlish behaviour, without knowing what it is that puts him out of humour.

Emilia's observation teaches her, that, as little inadvertencies and neglects cast a blemish upon a great character, so, the neglect of apparel, even among the most intimate friends, does insensibly lessen their regards to each other, by creating a familiarity too low and contemptible. She understands the importance of those things which the generality account trifles; and considers every thing as a matter of consequence, that has the least tendency towards keeping up or abating the affection of her husband; him she esteems as a fit object to employ her ingenuity in pleasing, because he is to be pleased for life.

By the help of these, and a thousand other nameless arts, which it is easier for her to practise than for another to express, by the obstinacy of her goodness and unprovoked submission, in spite of all her afflictions and ill-usage, Bromius has become a man of sense and a kind husband, and Emilia a happy wife.

Ye guardian angels, to whose care heaven has entrusted its dear Emilia, guide her still forward in the paths of virtue, defend her from the insolence and wrongs of this undiscerning world; at length, when we must no more converse with such purity on earth, lead her gently hence, innocent and unreprovable, to a better place, where by an easy transition from what she now is, she may shine forth an angel of light.

T

I HAVE seen in the works of a modern philo sopher a map of the spots in the sun. My last paper of the faults and blemishes in Milton's Paradise Lost, may be considered as a piece of the same nature. To pursue the allusion: as it is observed, that among the bright parts of the luminous body above-mentioned, there are some which glow more intensely, and dart a stronger light than others, so, notwithstanding I have already shown Milton's poem to be very beautiful in general, I shall now proceed to take notice of such beauties as appear to me more exquisite than the rest. Milton has proposed the subject of his poem in the following verses.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, 'till one greater man

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing heav'nly muse!............

These lines are perhaps as plain, simple, and unadorned, as any of the whole poem, in which particular the author has conformed himself to the example of Homer and the precept of Horace.

His invocation to a work which turns in a great measure upon the creation of the world, is very properly made to the muse who inspired Moses in those books from whence our author drew his subject, and to the Holy Spirit who is therein represented as operating after a particular manner in the first produc

tion of nature. This whole exordium rises very happily into noble language and sentiment, as I think the transition to the fable is exquisitely beautiful and natural.

The nine days astonishment, in which the angels lay entranced after their dreadful overthrow and fall from heaven, before they could recover either the use of thought or speech, is a noble circumstance, and very finely imagined. The division of hell into seas of fire, and into firm ground impregnated with the same furious element, with that particular circumstance of the exclusion of hope from those infernal regions, are instances of the same great and fruitful invention.

The thoughts in the first speech and description of Satan, who is one of the principal actors in this poem, are wonderfully proper to give us a full idea of him. His pride, envy and revenge, obstinacy, despair, and impenitence, are all of them very artfully interwoven. In short, his first speech is a complication of all those passions which discover themselves separately in several other of his speeches in the poem. The whole part of this great enemy of mankind is filled with such incidents as are very apt to raise and terrify the reader's imagination. Of this nature, in the book now before us, is his being the first that awakens out of the general trance, with his posture on the burning lake, his rising from it, and the description of his shield and spear.

Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate,
With head up-lift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blaz'd, his other parts besides
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood..............

Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each hand the flames
Driv'n backward slope their pointing spires, and roll'd
In billows, leave i'th' midst a horrid vale.

Then with expanded wings he steers his flight

Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air
That felt unusual weight.

his pond'rous shield,

Ethereal temper, massy, large and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening, from the top of Fesole.

Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers or mountains, on her spotty globe.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great admiral, were but a wand,
He walk'd with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marl

To which we may add his call to the fallen angels that lay plunged and stupified in the sea of fire.

He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep

Of hell resounded,

But there is no single passage in the whole poem worked up to a greater sublimity, than that wherein his person is described in those celebrated lines :

............... He above the rest

In shape and gesture proudly eminent,

Stood like a tower, &c.

His sentiments are every way answerable to his character, and suitable to a created being of the most exalted and most depraved nature. Such is that in which he takes possession of his place of torments.

Hail horrors! hail

Infernal world! and thou profoundest hell
Receive thy new possessor, one who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by place or time.

And afterwards,

Here at last

We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence;
Here we may reign secure; and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n.