in the practice of thefe arts, to which, indeed, I applied myself with unwearied diligence and affiduity, that I kept my company roaring with applaufe, till their voices funk by degrees, and they were no longer able to laugh, because they were no longer able either to hear or to fee. I had now afcended another fcale in the climax; and was acknowledged, by all who knew me, to be a Joyous Spirit. After all thefe topics of merriment were exhaufted, and I had repeated my tricks, my ftories, my jokes, and my fongs, till they grew infipid, I became mifchievous; and was continually devifing and executing Frolics, to the unfpeakable delight of my companions, and the injury of others. For many of them I was profecuted, and frequently obliged to pay large damages but I bore all these loffes with an air of jovial indifference, I pushed on in my career, I was more defperate in proportion as I had lefs to lofe; and being deterred from no mischief by the dread of it's confequences, I was faid to run at all, and complimented with the name of Buck.

My estate was at length mortgaged for more than it was worth; my creditors were importunate; I became negligent of myself and of others; I made a desperate effort at the gaming-table, and loft the last fum that I could raife; my eftate was feized by the mortgagee; I learned to pack cards and to cog a die; became a bully to whores; paffed my nights in a brothel, the street, or the watch-houfe; was utterly infenfible of thame, and lived upon the town as a beaft of prey in a foreft. Thus I reach ed the fummit of modern glory, and had jutt acquired the diftinction of a Blood, when I was arrested for an old debt of three hundred pounds, and thrown into the King's Bench prison.

SIR,

Thefe characters, Sir, though they are diftinct, yet do not all differ, otherwife than as fhades of the fame colour. And though they are ftages of a regular progreffion, yet the whole progress is not made by every individual: fome are fo foon initiated in the mysteries of the town, that they are never publicly known in their Greenhorn state; others fix long in their Jemmyhood, others are Jeffamies at fourfcore, and fome ftagnate in each of the higher stages for life. But I request that they may never hereafter be confounded either by you or your correfpondents. Of the Blood, your brother Adventurer, Mr. Wildgoofe, though he affumes the character, does not seem to have a juft and precife idea as diftinct from the Buck, in which clafs he should be placed, and will probably die; for he feems determined to shoot himself, just at the time when his circumftances will enable him to affume the higher distinction.

But the retrofpect upon life, which this letter has made neceffary, covers me with confufion, and aggravates defpair. I cannot but reflect, that among all these characters I have never afsumed that of a Man. Man is a reasonable Being, which he ceafes to be, who dif.” guifes his body with ridiculous fopperies, or degrades his mind by detestable brutality. These thoughts would have been of great ufe to me, if they had occurred feven years ago. If they are of ufe to you, I hope you will fend me a fmall gratuity for my labour, to alleviate the inifery of hunger and nakedness: but, dear Sir, let your bounty be speedy, left I perish before it arrives.

I am your humble fervant, NOMENTANUS. COMMON-SIDE, KING'S BENCH, Oct. 18, 1753

TO THE ADVENTURER.

If we confider the high rank which Milton has defervedlyobtained among our few English claffics, we cannot wonder at the multitude of commentaries

HOR.

and criticisms of which he has been the fubject. To thefe I have added fome mifcellaneous remarks; and if you should at first be inclined to reject them as trifling, you may, perhaps, determine to admit them, when you reflect that they

are new.

The

The defcription of Eden in the fourth book of the Paradife Loft, and the battle of the angels in the fixth, are usually felected as the most ftriking examples of a florid and vigorous imagination but it requires much greater ftrength of mind to form an affemblage of natural objects, and range them with propriety and beauty, than to bring together the greatest variety of the most fplendid images, without any regard to their ufe or congruity; as in painting, he who, by the force of his imagination, can delineate a landfcape, is deemed a greater mafter than he who, by heaping rocks of coral upon teffelated pavements, can only make abfurdity fplendid, and dispose gaudy colours fo as beft to fet off each other.

'Sapphire fountains that rolling over 'orient Pearl run Nectar, roses without thorns, trees that bear fruit of 'Vegetable Gold, and that weep odorous gums and balms,' are easily feigned; but having no relative beauty as pictures of nature, nor any abfolute excellence as derived from truth, they can only please those who, when they read, exercife no faculty but fancy, and admire because they do not think.

If I fhall not be thought to digrefs wholly from my subject, I would illuftrate this remark, by comparing two paffages, written by Milton and Fletcher, on nearly the fame fubject. The spirit in Comus thus pays his addrefs of thinks to the water-nymph Sabrina:

May thy brimmed waves for this,
Their full tribute never miss,
From a thousand petty rills,
That tumble down the fnowy hills:
Summer drought, or finged air,
Never fcorch thy treffes fair;
Nor wet October's torrent flood
Thy molten crystal fill with mud.

Thus far the wishes are most proper for the welfare of a river goddess: the circumstance of fummer not fcorching her treffes, is highly poetical and elegant; but what follows, though it is pompous and majestic, is unnatural and far fetched

May thy billows roll afhore
The beryl and the golden ore:
May thy lofty head be crown'd
With many a tow'r and terras round;
And here and there, thy banks upon,
With groves of myrrh and cinnamon!

The circumftance in the third and fourth lines is happily fancied; but what idea can the reader have of an English River rolling Gold and the Beryl afhore, or of groves of Cinnamon growing on it's banks? The images in the following paffage of Fletcher are all fimple and real, all appropriated and strictly natural:

For thy kindness to me shown,
Never from thy banks be blown
Any tree, with windy force,
Crofs thy ftream to stop thy course;
May no beast that comes to drink,
With his horns caft down thy brink;
May none that for thy fish do look,
Cut thy banks to dam thy brook;
Barefoot may no neighbour wade
In thy cool ftreams, wife or maid,
When the spawn on ftones do lie,
To wash their hemp, and spoil the fry.

The glaring picture of Paradife is dence of Milton's force of imagination, not, in my opinion, fo ftrong an evias his representation of Adam and Eve when they left it, and of the paffions with which they were agitated on that event.

Against his battle of the Angels, I have the fame objections as against his garden of Eden. He has endeavoured to elevate his combatants, by giving them the enormous ftature of giants in romances, books of which he was known to be fond ; and the prowess and behaviour of Michael as much resemble the feats of Ariofto's knight, as his twohanded fword does the weapons of chivalry: I think the fublimity of his genius much more vifible in the first арpearance of the fallen angels; the debates of the infernal peers; the paffage of Satan through the dominions of chaos, and his adventure with Sin and Death; the miffion of Raphael to Adam; the converfations between Adam and his wife; the creation; the account which Adam gives of his firft fenfations, and of the approach of Eve from the hand of her CREATOR; the whole behaviour of Adam and Eve after the firft tranfgreffion; and the profpect of the various ftates of the world, and hif tory of man exhibited in a vision to Adam.

In this vifion, Milton judiciously reprefents Adam as ignorant of what dif after had befallen Abel, when he was murdered by his brother: but during Kk 2 his

his conversation with Raphael, the poet feems to have forgotten this neceflary and natural ignorance of the first man. How was it poffible for Adam to difcern what the Angel meant by cubic phalanxes, by planets of afpect malign, by encamping on the foughten field, by van and rear, by ftandards and gonfalons and glittering tilues, by the girding fword, by embattled fquadrons, chariots, and flaming arms, and fiery steeds?' And although Adam poffeffed a fuperior degree of knowledge, yet doubtless he had not skill enough in chemiftry to understand Raphael, who informed him, that

-Sulphurous and nitrous foam They found, they mingled, and with subtle art,

Concocted and Adufted, they reduc'd
To blackest grain, and into ftore convey'd.

And, furely, the nature of cannon was not much explained to Adam, who neither knew or wanted the ufe of iron tools, by telling him, that they refembled the hollow bodies of oak or fir

With branches lopt, in wood or mountain fell'd.

He that never beheld the brute creation but in it's paftimes and sports, muit have greatly wondered, when the Angel expreffed the flight of the Satanic hoft, by faying, that they fled

As a herd

yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.'

At the end of the fourth book, fufpenfe and attention are excited to the utmoft; a combat between Satan and the guardians of Eden is eagerly expected, and curiofitý is impatient for the action and the catastrophe: but this horrid fray is prevented, expectation is cut off, and curiofity is difappointed, by an expedient which, though applauded by Addifon and Pope, and imitated from Homer and Virgil, will be deemed frigid and inartificial by all who judge from their own fenfations, and are not content to echo the decifions of others." The golden balances are held forth,:

which,' fays the poet, are yet feen • between Aftrea and the Scorpion;" Satan looks up, and perceiving that his fcale mounted aloft, departs with the fhades of night. To make fuch a use, at fo critical a time, of Libra, a mere imaginary fign of the Zodiac, is fcarcely juftifiable in a poem founded on religi ous truth.

Among innumerable beauties in the Paradife Loft, I think the most tranfcendent is the fpeech of Satan at the beginning of the ninth book: in which his

unextinguishable pride and fierce indignation against GOD, and his envy towards Man, are fo blended with an involuntary approbation of goodness, and difdain of the meannefs and bafenefs of his prefent undertaking, as to render it, on account of the propriety of it's fentiments and it's turns of paffion, the moit natural, moft fpirited, and truly dramatic fpeech, that is, perhaps, to be found in any writer whether ancient or modern: and yet Mr. Addifon has paffed it over, unpraifed and unnoticed.

If an apology thould be deemed receflary for the freedom here ufed with our inimitable bard, let me conclude in the words of Longinus: Whoever was

carefullyto collect the blemishes of Ho'mer, Demofthenes, Plato, and of other celebrated writers of the fame rank, would find they bore not the leat proportion to the fublimities and excellencies with which their works abound.'

Ι am, Sir, your

humble fervant, PALEOPHILUS.

N° CII.

why fo many volumes fhould have been written upon queftions which I have lived fo long and fo happily without understanding. I once refolved to go through the volumes relating to the of fce of justice of the peace, but found them fo crabbed and intricate, that in lefs than a month I defifted in despair, and refolved to supply my deficiences by paying a competent falary to a skilful clerk.

I am naturally inclined to hofpitality, and for fome time kept up a conftant intercourfe of vifits with the neighbouring gentlemen: but though they are eally brought about me by better wine than they can find at any other house, I am not much relieved by their converfation; they have no fill in commerce or the stocks, and I have no know ledge of the hiftory of families, or the fictions of the country; fo that when the firft civilities are over, they ufually

talk to one another, and I am left alone in the midft of the company. Though I cannot drink myself, I am obliged to encourage the circulation of the glafss their mirth grows more turbulent and obftreperous; and before their merriment is at an end, I am fick with dif guft, and, perhaps, reproached with my fobriety, or by fome fly intinuations in fulted as a cit.

Such, Mr. Adventurer, is the life to which I am condemned by a foolish endeavour to be happy by imitation; such is the happinefs to which I pleafed my felf with approaching, and which I confidered as the chief end of my cares and my labours. I toiled year after year with chearfulness, in expectation of the happy hour in which I might be idle; the privilege of idleness is attained, but has not brought with it the bleffing of tranquillity. I am, yours, &c. T MERCATOR

pre

Omaraddin had two daughters, Almerine and Shelimah. At the birth of Almerine, the fairy Elfarina had fided; and, in compliance with the importunate and reiterated request of the parents, had endowed her with every natural excellence both of body and mind, and decreed that the fhould be fought in mariage by a fovereign prince.

When the wife of Omaraddin was Fregnant with Shelimah, the fairy Elfarina was again invoked; at which Farimina, another power of the aërial kingdom, was offended. Farimina was inCorable and cruel; the number of her otaries, therefore, was few. Elfarina was placable and benevolent; and Fai

Juv.

DRYDEN.

ries of this character were obferved to ba fuperior in power, whether because it is the nature of vice to defeat it's own purpofe, or whether the calm and equal tenor of a virtuous mind prevents thofe mistakes which are committed in the tumult and precipitation of outrageous. malevolence But Farimina, from whatever cause, refolved that her influence should not be wanting; the therefore, as far as she was able, precluded the influence of Elfarina, by first pronounc ing the incantation which determined the fortume of the infant, whom she dif covered by divination to be a girl. Farimina, that the innocent object of her malice might be defpifed by others, and perpetually employed in tormenting herfelf, decreed, that her perfon fhould be rendered hideous by every fpecies of deformity, and that all her wishes fhould fpontaneoutly produce an oppofite effect.

The parents dreaded the birth of the infant under this malediction, with which Elfarina had acquainted them, and which fhe could not reverfe. The moment they beheld it, they were folicitous only.

to

to conceal it from the world; they confidered the complicated deformity of unhappy Shelimah, as fome reproach to themselves; and as they could not hope to change her appearance, they did not find themselves interested in her felicity. They made no request to Elfarina, that The would by any intellectual endowment alleviate miferies which they should not participate, but feemed content that a being fo hideous fhould fuffer perpetual difappointment; and, indeed, they concurred to injure an infant which they could not behold with complacency, by fending her with only one attendant to a remote castle which flood on the confines of a wood.

Elfarina, however, did not thus forfake innocence in diftrefs; but to counterbalance the evils of obfcurity, neglect, and uglinefs, the decreed, that to the taste of Shelimah the coarfeft food fhould be the most exquifite dainty; that the rags which covered her, should in her citimation be equal to cloth of gold; that he should prize a palace lefs than a cottage; and that in thefe circumftances love fhould be a stranger to her breaft. To prevent the vexation which would arife from the continual difappointment of her wishes, appeared at first to be more difficult; but this was at length perfectly effected by endowing

her with Content.

While Shelimah was immured in a remote caftle, neglected and forgotten, every city in the dominions of Soliman contributed to decorate the perfon, or cultivate the mind, of Almerine. The houfe of her father was the refort of all who excelled in learning of whatever clafs; and as the wit of Almerine was equal to her beauty, her knowledge was foon equal to her wit.

Thus accomplished, fhe became the object of univerfal admiration; every heart throbbed at her approach, every tongue was filent when the ipoke; at the glance of her eye every cheek was covered with blushes of diffidence or defire, and at her command every foot became fwift as that of the roe. But Almerine, whom ambition was thus jealous to obey, who was reverenced by hoary wisdom, and beloved by youthful beauty, was perhaps the moft wretched of her fex. Perpetual adulation had made her haughty and fierce; her penetration and delicacy rendered almoft every object offenfive; fhe was difgufted

with imperfections which others could not difcover; her breast was corroded by deteftation, when others were foftened by pity; the loft the fweetnefs of fleep by the want of exercise, and the relish of food by continual luxury: but her life became yet more wretched, by her fenfibility of that paffion on which the happiness of life is believed chiefly to depend,

Nouraffin, the phyfician of Soliman, was of noble birth, and celebrated for his fkill through all the east. He had just attained the meridian of life; his perfon was graceful, and his manner foft and infinuating. Among many others, by whom Almerine had been taught to inveftigate nature, Nouraffin had acquainted her with the qualities of trees and herbs. Of him the learned, how an innumerable progeny are contained in the parent plant; how they expand and quick en by degrees; how from the fame foil each imbibes a different juice, which rifing from the root hardens into branches above, fwells, into leaves, and flowers, and fruits, infinitely various in colour, and taste, and fell: of power to repel difeafes, or precipitate the ftroke of death.

Whether by the caprice which is conmon to violent paffions, or whether by fome potion which Nouraffin- found means to adminifter to his fcholar, is not known; but of Nouraffin fhe became enamoured to the moft romantic excefs. The pleafure with which he had before reflected on the decree of the Fairy, that the fhould be fought in marriage by a fovereign prince, was now at an end. It was the cuftom of the nobles to prefent their daughters to the king, when they entered their eighteenth year; an event which Almerine had often anticipated with impatience and hope, but now wished to prevent with folicitude and terror. The period urged forward, like every thing future, with filent and irrefiftible rapidity, at length arrived, The curiofity of Soliman had been raifed, as well by accidental encomiums, as by the artifices of Omaraddin, who now hatted to gratify it with the utmost anxiety and perturbation: he discovered the confufion of his daughter, and imagined that it was produced like his own, by the uncertainty and importance of an event, which would be determined before the day fhould be paffed. He endeavoured to give her a peaceful confi

dence