Confusion heard his Voice, and wild Uproar
Stood rul'd, stood vast Infinitude confin'd.
Till at his second Bidding Darkness fled,
Light shon, &c.

In the following Part of the Speech he points out the Earth with such
Circumstances, that the Reader can scarce forbear fancying himself
employed on the same distant View of it.

Look downward on the Globe whose hither Side
With Light from hence, tho but reflected, shines;
That place is Earth, the Seat of Man, that Light
His Day, &c.

I must not conclude my Reflections upon this Third Book of Paradise
Lost, without taking Notice of that celebrated Complaint of Milton with
which it opens, and which certainly deserves all the Praises that have
been given it; tho as I have before hinted, it may rather be looked
upon as an Excrescence, than as an essential Part of the Poem. The same
Observation might be applied to that beautiful Digression upon
Hypocrisie, in the same Book.

L.

[Footnote 1: De Arte Poetica. II. 38-40.]

[Footnote 2: Poetics, iii. 4.

The surprising is necessary in tragedy; but the Epic Poem goes
farther, and admits even the improbable and incredible, from which the
highest degree of the surprising results, because there the action is
not seen.]

* * * * *

No. 316. Monday, March 3, 1712. John Hughes.

Libertas; quae sera tamen respexit Inertem.

Virg. Ecl. I.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

If you ever read a Letter which is sent with the more Pleasure for
the Reality of its Complaints, this may have Reason to hope for a
favourable Acceptance; and if Time be the most irretrievable Loss, the
Regrets which follow will be thought, I hope, the most justifiable.
The regaining of my Liberty from a long State of Indolence and
Inactivity, and the Desire of resisting the further Encroachments of
Idleness, make me apply to you; and the Uneasiness with which I I
recollect the past Years, and the Apprehensions with which I expect
the Future, soon determined me to it.

Idleness is so general a Distemper that I cannot but imagine a
Speculation on this Subject will be of universal Use. There is hardly
any one Person without some Allay of it; and thousands besides my self
spend more Time in an idle Uncertainty which to begin first of two
Affairs, that would have been sufficient to have ended them both. The
Occasion of this