"It is very remarkable," says Addison, "that notwithstanding we fall
short at present of the ancients in poetry, painting, oratory,
history, architecture, and all the noble arts and sciences which
depend more upon genius than experience; we exceed them as much in
doggerel, humour, burlesque, and all the trivial arts of ridicule." As
this fine observation stands at present only in the form of a general
assertion, it deserves, I think, to be examined by a deduction of
particulars, and confirmed by an allegation of examples, which may
furnish an agreeable entertainment to those who have ability and
inclination to remark the revolutions of human wit.
That Tasso, Ariosto, and Camoens, the three most celebrated of modern
Epic Poets, are infinitely excelled in propriety of design, of
sentiment, and style, by Horace and Virgil, it would be serious
trifling to attempt to prove: but Milton, perhaps, will not so easily
resign his claim to equality, if not to superiority. Let it, however,
be remembered, that if Milton be enabled to dispute the prize with the
great champions of antiquity, it is entirely owing to the sublime
conceptions he has copied from the book of God. These, therefore, must
be taken away before we begin to make a just estimate of his genius;
and from what remains, it cannot, I presume, be said with candour and
impartiality, that he has excelled Homer in the sublimity and variety
of his thoughts, or the strength and majesty of his diction.
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