me that this is because they resemble that grand natural article of
sound in heaven, and simile upon earth--thunder. I shall be told
triumphantly, that Milton made sad work with his artillery, when he
armed his devils therewithal. He did so; and this artificial object
must have had much of the sublime to attract his attention for such a
conflict. He _has_ made an absurd use of it; but the absurdity
consists not in using _cannon_ against the angels of God, but any
_material_ weapon. The thunder of the clouds would have been as
ridiculous and vain in the hands of the devils, as the "villanous
saltpetre:" the angels were as impervious to the one as to the other.
The thunderbolts become sublime in the hands of the Almighty not as
such, but because _he_ deigns to use them as a means of repelling the
rebel spirits; but no one can attribute their defeat to this grand
piece of natural electricity: the Almighty willed, and they fell; his
word would have been enough; and Milton is as absurd, (and, in fact,
_blasphemous_,) in putting material lightnings into the hands of the
Godhead, as in giving him hands at all.

The artillery of the demons was but the first step of his mistake,
the thunder the next, and it is a step lower. It would have been fit
for Jove, but not for Jehovah. The subject altogether was essentially
unpoetical; he has made more of it than another could, but it is
beyond him and all men.

In a portion of his reply, Mr. Bowles asserts that Pope "envied
Phillips," because he quizzed his pastorals in the Guardian, in that
most admirable model of irony, his paper on the subject. If there was
any thing enviable about Phillips, it could hardly be his pastorals.
They were despicable, and Pope expressed his contempt. If Mr.
Fitzgerald published a volume of sonnets, or a "Spirit of Discovery,"
or a "Missionary," and Mr. Bowles wrote in any periodical journal an
ironical paper upon them, would this be "envy?" The authors of the
"Rejected Addresses" have ridiculed the sixteen or twenty "first
living poets" of the day, but do they "envy" them? "Envy" writhes, it
don't laugh. The authors of the Rejected Addresses may despise some,
but they can hardly "envy" any of the persons whom they have
parodied; and Pope could have no more envied Phillips than he did
Welsted, or Theobald, or Smedley, or any other given hero of the
Dunciad. He could not have envied him, even had he himself _not_ been
the greatest poet of his age. Did M