ty 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.

But since several Thoughts may be natural which are low and groveling,
an Ep