The Spectator, Volume 2.

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pes of a Reformation, which is only to be effected by a Restoration of the Latin to the usual Dignity in your Papers, which of late, the Greek, to the great Displeasure of your Female Readers, has usurp'd; for tho' the Latin has the Recommendation of being as unintelligible to them as the Greek, yet being written of the same Character with their Mother-Tongue, by the Assistance of a Spelling-Book it's le

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ions, to shew my Zeal for removing the Dissatisfacti

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toying Posture on purpose to draw my Eyes that Way. The Confession of this vain Soldier made me reflect on some of my own Actions; for you must know, Sir, I am often at a Window which fronts the Apartments of several Gentlemen, who I doubt not have the same Opinion of me. I must own I love to look at them all, one for being well dressed, a second for his fine Eye, and one particular one, because he is the least Man I ever saw

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Provocation, that I know of, she has of late shunned me with the utmost Abhorrence, insomuch that she went out of Church

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hue

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ffecting 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 Coxco

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he 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 Goo

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ny, 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, w

umble

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ll Laugh: But if he has no Ear he will interrupt others; and I am of Opinio

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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 sa

une 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 p

at Honour and Prosperity, as we see in the Story of Ulysses2. In the second, the chief Actor in the Poem falls from some eminent Pitch of Honour and Prosp

it of Man3. 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

the great Adversary of Mankind meets with upon his Return to the Assembly of Infernal Spirits, as it is described in a,4 beautiful Passage of the Tenth Book; and likewise by

ed in a different Light, namely, That the Hero in the Paradise Lost is unsuccessful, and by no means a Match

y the Messiah who is the Hero, both in the Principal Action, and in the chief Episodes7. Paganism could not furnish out a real Action for a Fable greater than that of the Iliad or ?neid, and therefore an Heathen could not form a higher Notion of a Poem than one of that kind

ity 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

observed by Aristotle, that the Author of an Heroic Poem should seldom speak himself, but

alk 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. Tully tells us10, mentioning his Dialogue of

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

nd 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 ?neid, and the Death of Turnus, whom ?neas 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. Lucan, who was an Injudicious Poet, lets drop his Story very frequently for the sake of his unnecessary Digressions, or his Divert

f Milton's Paradise Lost, and declared my Opinion, as

rst, as there are several of them too much pointed, and some that degenerate even into Punns. Of t

mall I

n by C

e 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 an

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

hor, Riget ejus oratio, nihil in ea 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

ften affects a kind of Jingle in his Words,

to the World a

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ng or be

pted our

ound high overl

d that Aristotle himself has given it a place in his Rhetorick among the Beauties of that Art.14 But as it is i

, to make hard things intelligible, and to deliver what is abstruse of15 it self in such easy Language as may be understood by ordinary Readers: Besides, that the Knowledge of a Poet s

rboard, and st

-board Se

Architrave. When he talks of Heavenly Bodies, you meet with Eccliptic and Eccentric, the trepidation, Stars dropping from the Zen

ilton, which would have been too long to insert under those general Heads I have