ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

are cafily remarked, and generally cenfured; [and at laft bear fo little proportion to the whole, that they fcarcely deferve the attention of a critick,

Such are the faults of that wonderful performance Paradife Loft; which he who who can put in balance with its beauties must be confidered not as nice but as dull, as lefs to be cenfured for want of candour, than, pitied for want of fenfibility,

Of Paradife Regained, the general judgement feems now to be right, that it is in many parts elegant, and every where inftructive, It was not to be fuppofed that the writer of Paradife Loft could ever write without great effufions of fancy, and exalted precepts of wisdom. The bafis of Paradife Regained is narrow; a dialogue without action can never please like an union of the narrative and dramatic powers. Had this poem been written not by Milton, but by fome imitator,, it would have claimed and received univerfal praife.

If Paradife Regained has been too much deprecia ted, Sampfon Agonistes has in requital been too much ́admired, It could only be by long prejudice, and the bigotry of learning, that Milton could prefer the ancient tragedies, with their encumbrance of a chorus, the exhibitions of the French and English ftages; and it is only by a blind confidence in the reputation of Milton, that a drama can be praised in which the intermediate parts have neither cause nor confequence, neither haften nor retard the catastrophe.

In this tragedy are however many particular beau sies; many juft fentiments and ftriking lines; but it

[blocks in formation]

wants that power of attracting the attention which a well-connected plan produces.

Milton would not have excelled in dramatick writing; he knew human nature only in the grofs, and had never ftudied the fhades, of character, nor the combinations of concurring, or the perplexity of contending paffions. He had read much, and. knew what books could teach; but had mingled little in the world, and Was deficient in the knowledge which experience must confer.

Through all his greater works there prevails an uniform peculiarity of Diction, a mode and caft of expretion which bears little refemblance to that of any former writer, and which is fo far removed from common ule, that an unlearned reader, when he first opens his book, finds himself furprised by a new language.

This novelty has been, by those who ca can find nothing wrong in Milton, imputed to his laborious endeavours after words fuitable to the grandeur of his ideas. Our language, fays Addison, funk under him. But the truth is, that, both in profe and verfe, he had formed his ftyle by a perverfe and pedantick principle. He was defirous to ufe English words with a foreign idiom. This in all his profe is difcovered and condemned; for there judgment operates freely, neither 1 foftened by the he beauty, nor awed by the dignity of his thoughts; but fuch is the power of his poetry, that his call is obeyed without refiftance, the reader feels himfelf in captivity to a higher and a nobler mind, and criticilm finks in adiniration.

Milton's ftyle was not modified by his fubject; what is fhown with

may be found in Cor extent in Paradife Loft,

One fource of his peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tufcan poets the difpofition of his words is, I think, frequently Italian; perhaps fometimes combined with other tongues. Of him, at laft, may be faid what Jonton fays of Spenter, that he wrote no language, but has formed what Butler calls a Babylonifh Dialect, in itfelf harth and barbarous, but made by exalted genius, and extensive learning, the vehicle of fo

much

much inftruction and fo much pleasure, that, like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity.

he

Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praise of copioufnels and variety: was mafter, of his language in its full extent; and has felected the melodious words with fuch diligence, that from his book alone the Art of English Poetry might be learned.

After his diction, fomething muft be faid of his verfification. The measure, he lays is the English heroick verfe without rhyme. Of this mode he had many examples among the Italians, and fome in his own country. The Earl of Surrey is faid to have tranflated one of Virgil's books, without rhyme; and, befides our tragedies, a few fhort poems had appeared in blank verfe; particularly one tending to reconcile, the nation to Raleigh's wild attempt upon Guiana, and probably written by Raleigh himfelt. Thefe petty performances cannot be fuppofed to have much influenced Milton, who more probably took his hint from Trifino's Italia Liberata; and, finding blank verfe easier than rhyme defirous of perfuading himself that it is better.

33

Was

Rhyng, he fays, and fays truly, is no neceffary adjunct of true poetry. But perhaps, of poetry as a mental, operation, metre or mufick is no neceffary adjunct: it is however by the inulick of metre that poetry has been difcriminated in all languages; and in languages melodioufly conftructed with a due proportion of long and fhort fyllables, metre is fufficient. But one language cannot communicate its rules to another: where metre is fcanry and imperfect, fome, help is neceffary. The mufick of the Englih neroick line ftrikes the ear fo faintly that it is eafily loft, unless all the fyllables of every line co-operate toge ther this co-operation can be only obtained by the prefervation of every verfe unmingled with another, as a diftinct fyftem of founds; and this dittinctness is obtained and preferyed by the artifice of rhyme. The variety of paules, fo much boated by the lovers of blank verfe, changes the measures of an English poet to the periods of a declaimer; and there are only a few fkilful and happy readers of Milton,

who

who enable their audience to perceive where the lines end or begin. Blank verfe, faid an ingenious critick, feems to be verfe only to the eye.

Poetry may fubfift without rhyme, but English poetry will not often pleafe; nor can rhyme ever be fafely fpared but where the subject is able to fupport itfelf. Blank verfe makes fome approach to that which is called the lapidary Style; has neither the eafinets of profe, nor the melody of numbers, and Of the Italian therefore tires by long continuance. writers without rhyme, whom Milton alleges as precedents, not one is popular; what reafon could urge in its defence, has been confuted by the ear.

But, whatever be the advantage of thyme, I cannot prevail on myself to with that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot with his work to be other than it yet, like other heroes, he is to be admired rather than imitated. He that thinks himself capable of aftonishing, inay write blank verfe; but those that hope only to please, muit condefcend to rhyme.

The highest praise of genius is original invention. Milton cannot be faid to have contrived the ftructure of an epick poem, and therefore awes reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind to which all generations must be indebted for the art of poetical narration, for the texture of the fable, the variation of incidents, the interpofition of dialogue, and all the ftra. tagems that furprife and enchain attention. But, of all the borrowers from Homer, Milton is perhaps the leaft indebted. He was naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, and difdainful of help or hindrance: he did not refufe admiflion to the thoughts or images of his predeceffors, but he did not feek them. From his contemporaries he neither courted nor received fupport; there is in his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might be gratified, or favour gained; no exchange of praife, nor folicitation of fupport. His great works were performed under dilcountenance, and if blindness, but difficulties vanifhed at his touch; he was born for whatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of he roick poems, only because it is not the first.

THE

THE

POEMS

OF

MILTON.

VOLUME I.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »