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, Janu