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    is the more puerile , the more it aims at greatness . Angels armed with mountains in heaven , resemble too much the Dipsodes in Rabelais , who wore an armour of Portland stone six

    foot thick . " The artillery seems of the same kind , yet more trifling , because more useless . To what purpose are these engines brought in ? Since they cannot wound the enemies , but only remove them from their places , and make them tumble down . Indeed

    ( if the expression may be forgiven ) 'tis to play at nine-pins . And the thing which is so dreadfully great on earth , becomes very low and ridiculous in heaven .

    " I cannot omit here , the visible contradiction which reigns in that episode . God sends his faithful angels to fight , to conquer and to punish the rebels . * Go' ( says he , to Michael and Gabriel )

    And to the ljrow of heaven Pursuing-, drive them out from God and [ bliss , Into their place of punishment , the g'ulph Of Tartarus ^ which ready opens wide His fiery Chaos to receive their fall . '

    " How does it come to pass , after such a positive order , that the battle hangs doubtful ? And why did God the Father command Gabriel and Raphael , to do what he executes afterwards by his Son only ?

    " 1 leave it to the readers , to pronounce if these observations are right or ill-grounded , and if they are carried too far . But in case these exceptions are just , the severest critic must however confess , there are perfections enough in Milton to atone for all his defects .

    " I must beg leave to conclude this article on Milton with two observations . His Hero ( I mean Adam , his first personage ) is unhappy . That demonstrates against all the critics , that a very good poem may end

    unfortunately , in spite of all their pretended rules . Secondly . The ' Paradise Lost' ends completely . The thread of the fable is spun out to the last , Milton and Tasso have been

    careful of not stopping short and abruptly . The one does not abandon Adam and Eve till they are driven out of Eden . The other does not conclude before Jerusalem is taken . Homer and Virgil took a contrary way . The Iliad ends with the death of

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    Hector : the ^ Enead with that of Tuynus . The tribe of commentators have , upon that , enacted a law , that a house ought never to be finished because

    Homer and V > fgil did not complete their own . But if Homer had taken Troy , and Virgil married Lavinia to yEneas , the critics would have laid down a rule , just the contrary . " pn .

    103—IS I . The first paragraph in the Critique , as I had occasion to observe , p . 38 , is quoted in the ** Conjectures on the Origin of the Paradise Lost" by Mr . Hay ley . He adds , ( p . 249 ) that " Rolli , another foreign student in epic

    poetry , who resided at that time in London , and was engaged in translating Milton into Italian verse , published some severe censures , in English , on the English Essay of Voltaire , " Mr .

    Hay ley charges " the volatile Frenchman with the inconsistency of sometimes praising Milton with such admiration as approaches to idolatry , and sometimes reproving him with such keenness of ridicule as borders

    on contempt . " I have indeed been obliged to omit a very few sentences , —on the production of Death , as too indecorous for my purpose of giving amusement and information without needlessly exciting disgust . 1

    Ruffhead , in his " Life of Pope , ' p . 215 , relates , that while Voltaire ' was in England , the darling subject of his conversation was Milton j whom he once took occasion to abuse for his Episode of Death and Sin . Whereupon a certain wit turned the laugh against him , by the following smart

    impromptu : Thou art so witty , wicked , and so thift , Thou serv ' st at once for Milton , Death [ and Si n , This couplet , with some variations , has been often quoted aud ascribed to

    Young . Mr . 11 . Croft who communicated that poet's life to Johnson , conjectures from " the following passage in the dedication of his Sea-piece to Voltaire / ' that they had met at the Seat of Lord Melcombe , in Dorsetshire .

    " No stranger , Sir , though bom in foreign b ' ' & [ climes , On Dorset downs , when Milton ' s page , With sin and death provokM thy rage , with

    Thy rage provok'd , who sootlfd gentle rhymes i This English Essay of Voltaire he afterwards much expanded in his native tongue . He ha « fallen under the

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    100 Book-Worm , No . XVIIL

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1815, page 100, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1757/page/36/