[Footnote 2:  [some other]]

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No. 303.  Saturday, February 16, 1712.  Addison.

 —­volet haec sub luce videri,
  Judicis argulum quae non formidat acumen.

  Hor.

I have seen in the Works of a Modern Philosopher, a Map of the Spots in the Sun.  My last Paper of the Faults and Blemishes in Milton’s Paradise Lost, may be considered as a Piece of the same Nature.  To pursue the Allusion:  As it is observed, that among the bright Parts of the Luminous Body above mentioned, there are some which glow more intensely, and dart a stronger Light than others; so, notwithstanding I have already shewn Milton’s Poem to be very beautiful in general, I shall now proceed to take Notice of such Beauties as appear to me more exquisite than the rest.  Milton has proposed the Subject of his Poem in the following Verses.

  Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
  Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
  Brought Death into the World and all our woe,
  With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
  Restore us, and regain the blisful Seat,
  Sing Heavenly Muse—­

These Lines are perhaps as plain, simple and unadorned as any of the whole Poem, in which Particular the Author has conformed himself to the Example of Homer and the Precept of Horace.

His Invocation to a Work which turns in a great measure upon the Creation of the World, is very properly made to the Muse who inspired Moses in those Books from whence our Author drew his Subject, and to the Holy Spirit who is therein represented as operating after a particular manner in the first Production of Nature.  This whole Exordium rises very happily into noble Language and Sentiment, as I think the Transition to the Fable is exquisitely beautiful and natural.

The Nine Days Astonishment, in which the Angels lay entranced after their dreadful Overthrow and Fall from Heaven, before they could recover either the use of Thought or Speech, is a noble Circumstance, and very finely imagined.  The Division of Hell into Seas of Fire, and into firm Ground impregnated with the same furious Element, with that particular Circumstance of the Exclusion of Hope from those Infernal Regions, are Instances of the same great and fruitful Invention.

The Thoughts in the first Speech and Description of Satan, who is one of the Principal Actors in this Poem, are wonderfully proper to give us a full Idea of him.  His Pride, Envy and Revenge, Obstinacy, Despair and Impenitence, are all of them very artfully interwoven.  In short, his first Speech is a Complication of all those Passions which discover themselves separately in several other of his Speeches in the Poem.  The whole part of this great Enemy of Mankind is filled with such Incidents as are very apt to raise and terrifie the Readers Imagination.  Of this nature, in the Book now before us, is his being the first that awakens out of the general Trance, with his Posture on the burning Lake, his rising from it, and the Description of his Shield and Spear.