Again:

down to the end.

Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career;

In general, there is more of description than of sentiment, more of the material than of the immaterial, in these two compositions: but there are some parts of them which are very important to the illustration of the poet's character. The poet describes a very early period of the morning, "by selecting and assembling such picturesque objects," says Warton, "as were familiar to 'an early riser. He is waked by the lark, and goes into the fields: the sun is just emerging, and the clouds are still hovering over the mountains: the cocks are crowing, and, with their lively notes, scatter the lingering remains of darkness. Human labours and employments are renewed with the dawn of day: the hunter, formerly much earlier at his sport than at present, is beating the covert; and the slumbering morn is roused with the cheerful echo of hounds and horns; the mower is whetting his scythe to begin his work; the milk-maid, whose business is of course at daybreak, comes abroad singing; the shepherd opens his fold, and takes the tale of his sheep, to see if any were lost in the night," &c. line 67.

When he sees towers and battlements bosomed high in tufted trees, the same excellent commentator says, "it is the great mansion-house in Milton's early days, before the old-fashioned architecture had given way to modern arts and improvements. Turrets and battlements were conspicuous marks of the numerous new buildings of King Henry VIII., and of some rather more ancient, many of which yet remained in their original state unchanged and undecayed: nor was that style, in part at least, quite omitted in Inigo Jones's first manner; where only a little is seen, more is left to the imagination. These symptoms of an old palace, especially when thus disposed, have a greater effect than a discovery of larger parts, and even a full display of the whole edifice. The embosomed battlements, and the spreading top of the tall grove, on which they reflect a reciprocal charm, still farther interest the fancy from the novelty of combination; while just enough of the towering structure is shown to make an accompaniment to the tufted expanse of venerable verdure, and to compose a picturesque association. With respect to their rural residence, there was a coyness in our gothic ancestors: modern seats are seldom so deeply ambushed: they disclose all their glories at once; and never excite expectation by concealment, by gradual approaches, and by interrupted appearances."

At line 131, the poet alludes to a stage worthy of his presence:

Then to the well-trod stage anon,

If Jonson's learned sock be on;

Or sweetest Shakspeare, fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.

Milton had not yet gone such extravagant lengths in puritanism, as to join with his reforming brethren in condemning the stage.

By "trim gardens" (Il Pens. 1. 50), Milton means those gardens of elaborate artifice and extravagance, of which Bacon has given a description; some of which I still remember in existence, in my own boyhood, sixty years ago. There was a sort of magnificence and variety about them, in some respects more interesting than modern barrenness. I often wish them back;-the terraces, the slopes, the wilderness-walks, the mazes, the alleys, the garden-plots, the gravel-walks, the bowers, the summerhouses, the bowling-greens, have been too rudely and indiscriminately swept away. Where the poet says, line 109,

Or call up him who left half-told

The story of Cambuscan bold,

he expresses his admiration of Chaucer, "the father of English poetry," says Warton, "who is here distinguished by a story remarkable for the wildness of its invention; and hence Milton seems to make a very pertinent and natural transition to Spenser, whose 'Faery Queene,' although it externally professes to treat of tournaments and the trophies of knightly valour, of forests drear and terrific enchantments, is yet allegorical, and contains a remote meaning concealed under the veil of a fabulous story and of typical narrative, which is not immediately perceived. Spenser sings in sage and

Bolemn tunes, with respect to his morality, and the dignity of his stanza. In the mean time, it is to be remembered that there were other great bards, and of the romantic class, who sang in such tunes, and who mean more than meets the ear.' Both Tasso and Ariosto pretend to an allegorical and mysterious meaning; and Tasso's enchanted forest, the most conspicuous fiction of the kind, might have been here intended. Berni allows that his incantations, giants, magic gardens, monsters, and other romantic imageries, may amuse the ignorant, but that the intelligent have more penetration. Orl. Inam. 1. 1. c. XXV.

Ma voi ch'avete gl' intelletti sani,

Mirate la dettrino che s'asconde
Sotto queste coperte alte e profonde

"One is surprised," continues Warton, "that Milton should have delighted in romances: the images of feudal and royal life which those books afford, agreed not at all with his system. A passage should here be cited from our author's Apology for Smectymnuus:-'I may tell you whither my younger feet wandered: I betook me among those lofty fables and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of knighthood,' &c. The extraordinary and most imaginative, but inconsistent poet, exclaims, line 155,

But let my due feet never fail

To walk the studious cloisters pale, &c.

Being educated at St. Paul's school, contiguous to the church, he thus became impressed with an early reverence for the solemnities of the ancient ecclesiastical architecture, its vaults, shrines, aisles, pillars, and painted glass, rendered yet more awful by the accompaniment of the choral service."

It is unnecessary to copy the opinion which Johnson gives of "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," because it is in every one's hands. Johnson yet allows that "they are two noble efforts of imagination."-They would be noble for a common poet; but not comparatively for Milton: I cannot allow them that high invention which belongs to the bard of Paradise Lost." Warton criticises Johnson's comment with a just severity:"Never," says he, "were fine imagery and fine imagination so marred, mutilated, and impoverished by a cold, unfeeling, and imperfect representation."-" No part of 'L'Allegro," says Johnson, "is made to arise from the pleasures of the bottle." What sad vulgarity! Who could suspect that Milton would write a Bacchanalian song? It seems to me that these two poems are much more valuable for their development of Milton's studies and amusements, than for their poetry, by proving his love of nature, of books,-of solitude,-of contemplation,-of all that is beautiful, and all that is romantic, than for those bold figures, and that glorious fiction, which were his power and his chief delight. Observation and an accurate copy of the external appearances of nature do not make the highest poetry: to copy always restrains the imagination.

When we make things after our own fashion, we have the ascendancy over them: it is better to deal with the invisible world than with the visible; but we ought to associate them together: mere description is always imperfect: all the grandeur of natural scenery will not avail, unless by its tendency to operate on the human mind. This is the spell of Gray's poetry: this makes the charm of Collins' "Ode to Evening:" this is the magic of the poetical part of Cowley's "Essays:" all those parts of Shakspeare's dramas which break into pure poetry, are of this cast. It is charm, which to my apprehension, was scarce ever reached by Dryden or Pope: Byron repeatedly reached it; sometimes he was extravagant: Wordsworth absolutely deals in it All impression on the mind is nothing, unless the mind throws back its own colours upon it.. All the labour and all the art in the world will do nothing for poetry: they may draw copiously and freely from a cistern which they have previously filled with borrowed water; but the water will be stale, vapid, and good for nothing.

I have said the more on these two lyrics of Milton, because they are so much more universal favourites than some of his diviner compositions. The greater part of the images are within every one's observance; but this is not, I think, a high merit: the poct's eyes should "give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name." Here the images, for the most part, are such as actually exist bodily: the touches upon their

most picturesque features are, indeed, exquisite; and here and there are passagen of aërial music unknown to common ears: but then the want of dignity, of the "longresounding pace" in the versification, lessens the magic. The whole is written lightly, and upon the surface: the poet skims away, just touches with his wings, and goes on: he does not here rise in slow and majestic dignity to the sun; hovering sometimes on his mighty pinions, and seeming to hang over the earth, as if his eye was penetrating into its depths; and then, as if with an angel's power, again darting into the upper regions of the sky.

I can scarcely suppose that these two pieces cost Milton any labour, or time, or strong exercise of mind: each of them might easily have been produced by him in a few hours but there is an abstraction of mind, a visionary enthusiasm, which requires a very different sort of nursing: in that state Milton must have been in his sublimer compositions. Here he deals with nothing difficult, nor enters into the mysteries of the soul.

If I say that there is not much sentiment in these descriptions I shall probably be answered, that the images are selected by sentiment, and so arranged as to produce a particular tone of sentiment. If it be so, the sentiment is not brought out; and the poet ought not to trust to others to bring out that which he ought to express himself. It will not be pretended that there is any moral pathos here; and moral pathos is assuredly one of the finest spells of poetry. Pathos cannot be produced by a writer who has not a visionary presence of the objects which produce it: but it were better to give more of the pathos, and less of the objects.

This faculty, indeed, was not Milton's chief excellence: now and then he is pathetic in "Paradise Lost," but he has none of Shakspeare's human pathos: he was too stern and heroic for tears.

It is rarely that I get into a different track of criticism from Warton; but Warton was perhaps too exclusively fond of imagery and descriptions, and therefore has estimated the poems, of which I am now speaking, higher than I do. Warton also wanted pathos, but he was not without a gentle and kindly sentiment.

These descriptive poems had long fallen into oblivion, when, about 1740, they were revived by the Wartons, who formed a school upon them. Like all schools, when they once took up the thing, they carried it too far: but Collins, in his "Ode to Evening," stopped precisely at the true point: Gray caught some of the infusion; and I suspect, that in two or three images or epithets, he was indebted to Collins; but did not owe his tone to the Warton school, being rather their senior, and drinking from the original fountains, not only of Milton, but still more of the Italians, as well as of the classics. Altogether, the cast and combination of the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" is his own, though he may have borrowed particular ingredients. His is a perfect model, sui generis. Joseph Warton's "Ode to Fancy" is an attempted echo of "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso;" indeed, almost a cento.

CHAPTER V.

ON LYCIDAS, AND EPITAPHIUM DAMONIS.

EDWARD KING, fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, the friend of Milton, passing over to Ireland to visit his friends, the ship struck on a rock on the English coast, August 10th, 1637, when all on board perished. He was son of Sir John King, knight, secretary for Ireland under Queen Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I. At Cambridge, Edward King was distinguished for his piety and proficiency in polite letters. "Lycidas," which laments his death, first appeared in the Cambridge collection of verses on that occasion, 1638.

'Dr. Johnson's censure on this poem is gross and tasteless: it is disgraceful only to the critic. He has treated with insolent rudeness one tenfold greater than himself: he has set the example; and why should he be spared? I will endeavour to discuss this question with the utmost impartiality, and confer neither praise nor blame from unfounded prejudice.

This poem is so far from deserving the character applied to it by Johnson, that "the

diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers unpleasing"-that the language is throughout imaginative and picturesque, and the rhythm harmonious and enchanting: there is no poem in which the epithets are more beautiful, more appropriate, and more fresh: they are like the diction of no predecessor, but of some of the occasional passages of rural description by Shakspeare, in his happiest modes: the outburst at the commencement is eminently striking, and rich with poetry: the images that present themselves, and the transitions, are always natural, and sometimes sublime: they have this difference from those of "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," that they are more spiritual; that is, they are more mingled up with intellect: they are not purely material. As to the poem being pastoral, Johnson might much more object to the Psalme; as in Addison's beautiful version,

The Lord my pasture shall prepare, &c.

where the Deity himself is represented in the character of a shepherd.

But it will be asked what invention there is in this poem? There is invention in the epithets, in the combinations, in the descriptions, in the apostrophes, in the visionary parts of the poem, in the sorrows, the predictions, and the consolations: in all those associations, which none but a rich and poetical mind produces.

Johnson had so accustomed himself to cultivate dry reason only, that he thought all array of imagery idle and useless. If he had any feeling, it was only when he argued himself into it; it did not come from the senses: he loved abstraction; but it was not the abstraction of shadows, nor the "bodying forth" of "airy nothings." Milton's mind was in a blaze, surrounded by a whole range of invisible worlds and their aërial inhabitants: his genius gave to matter an ideal light and ideal properties: he connected the dignity of human existence with the beauty and the grandeur of the scenery of nature.

The epithets which true poets give to imagery confer upon it its spell: "Lycidas" is full of these epithets from beginning to end: they are always fresh and exquisitely vivid, but never extravagant or over-ornamental.

The versification is as regular as is consistent with vigour and variety: the five-feet lines are far preferable to the shorter lines of the two poems before discussed.

"Lycidas" is full of learned allusions, perhaps too full,-which was Milton's fault. Dr. Joseph Warton has truly said, that the admiration or dislike of this poem is an infallible test whether a reader has or has not a poetical taste: he who is not enraptured with it can have no genuine idea of poetry.

If we are asked what puts all within the range of mind before us in such brilliant or such affecting colours, we can only say that it is indefinable, but that we cannot doubt its effects. All secondary poets attempt this by a false gloss: they are full of ornament; but the ornament is a glare, or a set of artificial flowers: there is no fragrance,no vivifying spirit. In a true poet, like Milton, all springs up unsought from the fountain of the soul or the heart: it is an enthusiasm; but an enthusiasm not unapproved by the sober judgment and the conscience. Nothing is good, which there is not some susceptibility within us ready instantly to recognise: nothing can be forced upon us by artful effort: no factitious gilding will avail. The poet's difficulty is to find expressions for what he really feels.

Now and then there may be a momentary blaze in inferior authors; but, in bards like Milton, all is one texture of light.

Just before Milton's return from Italy in 1639, his friend Charles Deodate died, and the news met him on his arrival: he then wrote a Latin elegy on him, entitled "Epitaphium Damonis," which has some similitude to "Lycidas." Warton says, that there are in it some new and natural country images, and the common topics are often recommended by a novelty of elegant expression: it contains some passages which wander far beyond the bounds of bucolic song, and are in his own original style of the more sublime poetry. Milton cannot be a shepherd long: his own native powers break forth, and cannot bear the assumed disguise.

At line 155 of this elegy, he hints his design of writing an epic poem on some part of the ancient British story. So, in his poem entitled "Mansus," he says,

Si quando indigenas revocabo in carmina reges,
Arturumque etiam sub terris bella moventem.

These are the ancient kings of Britain: this was the subject for an epic poem that first occupied his mind. King Arthur, at his death, was supposed to be carried into the subterraneous land of fairy or of spirits, where he still reigned as a king; and whence he was to return into Britain, to renew the round table, conquer all his enemies, and re-establish his throne: he was therefore "etiam movens bella sub terris," still medi tating wars under the earth. The impulse of Milton's attachment to this subject was not entirely suppressed: it produced his "History of Britain." By the expression, "revocabo in carmina," the poet means, that these ancient kings, which were once the themes of the British bards, should now again be celebrated in verse. Milton, in his "Church Government," written in 1641, says that, after the example of Tasso, "it haply would be no rashness, from an equal diligence and inclination, to present the like offer in one of our own ancient stories!" It is possible that the advice of Manso, the friend of Tasso, might determine the poet to a design of this kind.

CHAPTER VI.

ON COMUS.

IN 1634, Milton wrote his immortal "Mask of Comus," for John Egerton, first Earl of Bridgewater, then Lord President of Wales, to be presented at Ludlow Castle, which was his Lordship's residence.

The poet's father held his house under the Earls of Bridgewater, at Horton, near Harefield, and not far from Ashridge: thus, perhaps, was the poet introduced to that noble family: he certainly had not yet become a decided puritan and republican. The Countess of Derby (Alice Spencer), mother-in-law of the Earl of Bridgewater, and also widow of Lord Chancellor Egerton, was a generous patroness of poets, and, among the rest, of her relation, the author of the "Faëry Queene." Such a patroness would be, above all others, grateful to Milton.

"Comus" was acted by the Earl's children, the Lord Brackley, Mr. Thomas Egerton, and the Lady Alice Egerton.

The Egertons were among the most powerful of the nobility, and lived in the most state. By a marriage with a co-heiress of the great feudal family of Stanley, who were co-heirs to the royal races of Tudor and Plantagenet, they held a sort of demi-regal respect. Their domains were large, and their character for hospitality and accomplishments stood high. This historical house have, a century afterwards, rendered themselves again immortal by designing and patronizing national works of another class. Masks had been common in the time of Ben Jonson. I leave to antiquaries to trace the origin of the subject and design of "Comus." The merit lies not in the hint but in the superstructure. The story is said to have been occasioned by a domestic incident of the Egerton family.

When we open this poem, we seem to enter on the beings and language of another world. Every word is poetry.

The first of the dramatis persone is the Spirit, whose speech runs to ninety-two lines. It is of the deepest interest to the piece, and opens to us the sovereignty of Neptune the quartering of our island to his blue-haired deities-the parentage of Comus-his dangerous arts, and the Spirit's own protecting intervention.

Next comes Comus attended by his monstrous rout, whom he thus addresses :

The star that bids the shepherd fold

Now the top of heaven doth hold, &c.

The noise of their revelry calls the attention of the Lady, who now enters:

This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
My best guide now.

"By laying the scene of this Mask," Warton observes, "in a wild forest, Milton secured to himself a perpetual fund of picturesque description, which, resulting from The canal navigation of the last Duke of Bridgewater, who died in 1803, is celebrated all over the world. The last two Earls, who succeeded him, were indeed less eminent, and dimmed-the former by his mediocrity, the latter by his eccentricities-some of the lustre of the name. The last died in 1829. Such are the chances and changes of time.