Nor is it sufficient for an Epic Poem to be filled with such Thoughts as are Natural, unless it abound also with such as are Sublime.  Virgil in this Particular falls short of Homer.  He has not indeed so many Thoughts that are Low and Vulgar; but at the same time has not so many Thoughts that are Sublime and Noble.  The Truth of it is, Virgil seldom rises into very astonishing Sentiments, where he is not fired by the Iliad.  He every where charms and pleases us by the Force of his own Genius; but seldom elevates and transports us where he does not fetch his Hints from Homer.

Milton’s chief Talent, and indeed his distinguishing Excellence, lies in the Sublimity of his Thoughts.  There are others of the Moderns who rival him in every other part of Poetry; but in the Greatness of his Sentiments he triumphs over all the Poets both Modern and Ancient, Homer only excepted.  It is impossible for the Imagination of Man to distend itself with greater Ideas, than those which he has laid together in his first, [second,] and sixth Book[s].  The seventh, which describes the Creation of the World, is likewise wonderfully Sublime, tho not so apt to stir up Emotion in the Mind of the Reader, nor consequently so perfect in the Epic Way of Writing, because it is filled with less Action.  Let the judicious Reader compare what Longinus has observed [6] on several Passages in Homer, and he will find Parallels for most of them in the Paradise Lost.

From what has been said we may infer, that as there are two kinds of Sentiments, the Natural and the Sublime, which are always to be pursued in an Heroic Poem, there are also two kinds of Thoughts which are carefully to be avoided.  The first are such as are affected and unnatural; the second such as are mean and vulgar.  As for the first kind of Thoughts, we meet with little or nothing that is like them in Virgil: He has none of those [trifling [7]] Points and Puerilities that are so often to be met with in Ovid, none of the Epigrammatick Turns of Lucan, none of those swelling Sentiments which are so frequent in Statins and Claudian, none of those mixed Embellishments of Tasso.  Every thing is just and natural.  His Sentiments shew that he had a perfect Insight into human Nature, and that he knew every thing which was the most proper to [affect it [8]].

Mr. Dryden has in some Places, which I may hereafter take notice of, misrepresented Virgil’s way of thinking as to this Particular, in the Translation he has given us of the AEneid.  I do not remember that Homer any where falls into the Faults above-mentioned, which were indeed the false Refinements of later Ages. Milton, it must be confest, has sometimes erred in this Respect, as I shall shew more at large in another Paper; tho considering how all the Poets of the Age in which he writ were infected with this wrong way of thinking, he is rather to be admired that he did not give more into it, than that he did sometimes comply with the vicious Taste which still prevails so much among Modern Writers.