other matter besides imagery and description. Such a reason shows the narrowness of their conception of this divine art. All the finest passages of poetry are complex, in which the heart and understanding have essential co-operation: the bard must imagine what the heart must colour, or perhaps instigate, and the understanding enlighten. Imagery is material, and will not do alone; there must be the union of spirituality with it. The fault of a great part of Pope is, that there is nothing but reasoning, without either imagination or sentiment. But, to return to Comus,' let it not be inferred that I mean in the smallest degree to detract from its merits. I only wish to protest against rules and definitions injurious to still greater poems of the same inimitable author! 'Comus' is perfect in its kind; but a pastoral Mask cannot be put upon a footing with a grand heroic poem. Milton, when he wrote these strains, was in the very opening of early youth, not more than twenty-four years old. Then all was, The purple light of love, and bloom of young desires. The woods and the rivers and all nature then seemed to his eyes to smile with delight; but as years passed along, and he saw the obliquities of mankind and the sorrows of life, his lays took a deeper tone, and his music was more magnificent and soul-moving. The Lady and the two Brothers in Comus' are all calm philosophy, and tender, hopeful confidence: to them the dawn is joy; the nightfall, peaceful slumbers: the demons of darkness dare not hurt them: the Lady has faith, even when left alone amid the dangers of a haunted forest. O fond imagination! O beamy visionariness of innocent inexperience! INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE same character may be given of the style, sentiments, imagery, and tone of these Fragments, as far as they go, as of Comus.' Warton observes, "Unquestionably this Mask was a much longer performance. Milton seems only to have written the poetical part, consisting of these three songs, and the recitative soliloquy of the Genius: the rest was probably prose and machinery. In many of Jonson's Masques, the poet but rarely appears, amidst a cumbersome exhibition of heathen gods and mythology. 'Arcades' was acted by persons of Lady Derby's own family. The Genius says, v. 26: Stay, gentle swains; for, though in this diguise, that is, although ye are disguised like rustics, I perceive that ye are of honourable birth; your nobility cannot be concealed."" Many parts of the soliloquy of the Genius are very highly poetical, as the passage beginning at v. 56 :— And early, ere the odorous breath of morn With puissant words, and murmurs made to bless. |