one of the greatest and most daring Genius’s that has appear’d in the World, and who has made his country a glorious present of the most lofty, but most irregular Poem, that has been produc’d by the Mind of Man.  That great Man had a desire to give the World something like an Epick Poem; but he resolv’d at the same time to break thro the Rules of Aristotle.  Not that he was ignorant of them, or contemned them....  Milton was the first who in the space of almost 4000 years resolv’d for his Country’s Honour and his own, to present the World with an Original Poem; that is to say, a Poem that should have his own thoughts, his own images, and his own spirit.  In order to this he was resolved to write a Poem, that, by virtue of its extraordinary Subject, cannot so properly be said to be against the Rules as it may be affirmed to be above them all ...  We shall now shew for what Reasons the choice of Milton’s Subject, as it set him free from the obligation which he lay under to the Poetical Laws, so it necessarily threw him upon new Thoughts, new Images, and an Original Spirit.  In the next place we shall shew that his Thoughts, his Images, and by consequence too, his Spirit are actually new, and different from those of Homer and Virgil.  Thirdly, we shall shew, that besides their Newness, they have vastly the Advantage of Homer and Virgil.]

[Footnote 6:  Paradise Lost, Book II.]

[Footnote 7:  interwoven in]

[Footnote 8:  Sir Samuel Garth in his Dispensary, a mock-heroic poem upon a dispute, in 1696, among doctors over the setting up of a Dispensary in a room of the College of Physicians for relief of the sick poor, houses the God of Sloth within the College, and outside, among other allegories, personifies Disease as a Fury to whom the enemies of the Dispensary offer libation.  Boileau in his Lutrin a mock-heroic poem written in 1673 on a dispute between two chief personages of the chapter of a church in Paris, la Sainte Chapelle, as to the position of a pulpit, had with some minor allegory, chiefly personified Discord, and made her enter into the form of an old precentor, very much as in Garths poem the Fury Disease

  Shrill Colons person took,
  In morals loose, but most precise in look.]

[Footnote 9:  [that such]]

[Footnote 10:  Poetics II.  Sec. 17; III.  Sec.6.]

[Footnote 11:  [particular]]

[Footnote 12:  1 Poetics II.  Sec. ii.  But Addison misquotes the first clause.  Aristotle says that when a wholly virtuous man falls from prosperity into adversity, this is neither terrible nor piteous, but ([Greek:  miaron]) shocking.  Then he adds that our pity is excited by undeserved misfortune, and our terror by some resemblance between the sufferer and ourselves.]

[Footnote 13:  [have been still]]

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No. 274.  Monday, January 14, 1712.  Steele.