This Circumstance seems to have the Marvellous without
the Probable, because it is represented as proceeding
from Natural Causes, without the Interposition of any
God, or other Supernatural Power capable of producing
it. The Spears and Arrows grow of themselves,
without so much as the Modern Help of an Enchantment.
If we look into the Fiction of Milton’s Fable,
though we find it full of surprizing Incidents, they
are generally suited to our Notions of the Things
and Persons described, and tempered with a due Measure
of Probability. I must only make an Exception
to the Limbo of Vanity, with his Episode of Sin and
Death, and some of the imaginary Persons in his Chaos.
These Passages are astonishing, but not credible;
the Reader cannot so far impose upon himself as to
see a Possibility in them; they are the Description
of Dreams and Shadows, not of Things or Persons.
I know that many Criticks look upon the Stories of
Circe, Polypheme, the Sirens, nay the whole Odyssey
and Iliad, to be Allegories; but allowing this to
be true, they are Fables, which considering the Opinions
of Mankind that prevailed in the Age of the Poet,
might possibly have been according to the Letter.
The Persons are such as might have acted what is ascribed
to them, as the Circumstances in which they are represented,
might possibly have been Truths and Realities.
This Appearance of Probability is so absolutely requisite
in the greater kinds of Poetry, that Aristotle observes
the Ancient Tragick Writers made use of the Names
of such great Men as had actually lived in the World,
tho the Tragedy proceeded upon Adventures they were
never engaged in, on purpose to make the Subject more
Credible. In a Word, besides the hidden Meaning
of an Epic Allegory, the plain litteral Sense ought
to appear Probable. The Story should be such as
an ordinary Reader may acquiesce in, whatever Natural,
Moral, or Political Truth may be discovered in it
by Men of greater Penetration.
Satan, after having long wandered upon the Surface,
or outmost Wall of the Universe, discovers at last
a wide Gap in it, which led into the Creation, and
is described as the Opening through which the Angels
pass to and fro into the lower World, upon their Errands
to Mankind. His Sitting upon the Brink of this
Passage, and taking a Survey of the whole Face of
Nature that appeared to him new and fresh in all its
Beauties, with the Simile illustrating this Circumstance,
fills the Mind of the Reader with as surprizing and
glorious an Idea as any that arises in the whole Poem.
He looks down into that vast Hollow of the Universe
with the Eye, or (as Milton calls it in his first
Book) with the Kenn of an Angel. He surveys all
the Wonders in this immense Amphitheatre that lye
between both the Poles of Heaven, and takes in at one
View the whole Round of the Creation.