BOOK I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE very outline of the subject of this book of sublime wisdom, argument, and eloquence, is of the highest character of poetry. Our Saviour, in a fit of meditative abstraction, and just beginning to feel his divinity from the signs imparted to him at the baptism of St. John, wanders into a desert and barren wilderness, where he loses himself, and fasts for forty days. There Satan encounters him, first in disguise; and, when detected, in his avowed name, to tempt him to his fall; as he had formerly successfully tempted Eve, and thus effected the ruin of the human race. The descriptive parts are here only occasional; but when they do occur, they are magnificent and picturesque. The argumentative parts form the main matter. Satan argues with the wicked power of a rebellious and perverted angel; but Christ, feeling within him the growing illumination of his mighty mission, always overcomes him: yet the fiend is as subtle, crafty, flattering, and persuasive, as he is ingenious and vigorous. Our Saviour had yet scarcely plumed his wings; he was doubtful of his own strength; yet a secret Spirit from Heaven now whispered to him, that he was born for the trial. The dialogue is supported with amazing force and splendour on both sides: the mind of the profound reader is kept in anxious and trembling suspense. The flash of the demon comes strong and dazzling; then follows the sublime and overwhelming answer, which eclipses it at once; and which moves the soul and heart by its acute and moral grandeur, and its heroic self-denial. But let it be remembered, that in addition to Satan's alarming artifices, our Saviour had to sustain hunger, thirst, want of shelter, loneliness in a desert of terrific gloominess, out of which he could not find his way: this gives the story a sort of breathless interest, in which the human imagination can find the strongest sympathy. As a divinity, we should not feel the same interest in the fate of the hero of this poem; unless he had, for the execution of his great mission, clothed himself with a nature which subjected him to all the evils of humanity. The art with which the poet interests us in Satan himself, is miraculous: the demon's plausibilities sometimes almost make us pity him. His self-exculpations, his cunning arguments, to induce a belief that he means no ill-will to man, and that he has no interest in hating him, are invented with astonishing colour and wiliness our Saviour's calm detection of Satan's sophistries is delightful and exalting. The reader, who feels in this no human sympathy; no glow at intellectual force; no electrification at the spell of mighty genius; no expansion of the brain; no light to the ideas; no elation and renovation of our fallen nature ;must be unspiritualised, and half-imbruted. If any man finds himself cold and dull at first, let him consider it a duty to endeavour by degrees to warm himself. The hardest ice will melt at last by the continual impulse of a glowing sun. If the intellectual ingredients of this book,-or this poem,-were abstract, I could account for the vulgar distaste of it: but the whole has reference to the contest of characters, and to practical results: the whole is not only involved in a progressive story; but is partly, by its prevalence of dialogue, of a dramatic interest: the reader is kept in suspense for the event of the successive trials. Is the mean nature of many individuals fallen so low, that they can recognise nothing of sentiment or thought which is noble and generous?-Will they call it improbable, exaggerated, and forced?-There may be poetry holding up a mirror to common life, which is harmless; but it is not virtuous, because it is of no use. The mob perhaps like best to see their own likenesses; but it is often so far mischievous, that it is apt to confirm them in a complacency with their own follies. Our business is to improve our understandings, and exalt our hearts; to be taught to detect the delusions of sin and the devil; and to bear the sorrows and wrongs of life with a magnanimous fortitude. What poem does this like "Paradise Regained?" What poem therefore ought we so to study, and become familiar with? The very authorities, on which its chief doctrines are built, are in themselves treasures of wisdom. But I am at a loss to guess, what, even on the mere principles of poetry, there is of excellence wanting in this poem. Invention, character, sentiment, language, -all in a high degree,-cannot be denied it. Here is unbounded expanse of thought, and profundity of wisdom: here is all the moral eloquence, which is to be found in the noblest authors of antiquity: here is much of the essence of the inspired writings: here is what perhaps popular readers like best of all,-the most condensed and solid brevity: here is inexhaustible richness of thought combined with extreme plainness, and a scriptural simplicity of expression. I believe that no one ever read florid language for any number of pages without satiety and disgust. Beautiful as the first book of the "Paradise Regained" is, I think that the poem continues to rise to the last : here is the difficulty; but it would be a fault if it did not. This book is principally occupied in Satan's exculpation of himself: the other books set forth the fiend's temptations, both material and intellectual; and our Saviour's sublime arguments in answer to him. The style with which the "Paradise Regained" opens, is generally considered more sober, and less removed from its authorities, than that of the "Paradise Lost;" and this is supposed to have partly arisen from the poet's awe of his subject, and partly from the weakness of rapidly declining age. With respect to the style, so far as it is more subdued (if it be so), I believe that it has purely been caused by the choice of his subject, and the plainer and simpler language of the New Testament, which disdains all ornament, and in which the story gives less scope to imagination. Where we are relating recorded facts, from which we dare not vary, our language is necessarily more controlled and tame. I am only surprised at the boldness of the poet in choosing this sublime theme: he could not but have foreseen all its difficulties; but knowing his own perfect familiarity with the scriptural language, his gigantic mind hazarded the task. This alone is a proof that he was not conscious of any "failure of strength;" and there is not a single passage in the execution, which indicates any such failure: with whatever else compared of his immortal writings, the imagery is as distinct and picturesque; the spiritual part, the thoughts and arguments, are at least equally vigorous, original, discriminative, and profound, and perhaps more abundant: nor has the language less of that naked strength, which supports itself by its own intrinsic power. ARGUMENT.* THE subject proposed. Invocation of the Holy Spirit. The poem opens with John baptizing at the river Jordan: Jesus coming there is baptized; and is attested, by the descent of the Holy Ghost, and by a voice from heaven, to be the Son of God. Satan, who is present, upon this immediately flies up into the regions of the air; where, summoning his infernal council, he acquaints them with his apprehensions that Jesus is that seed of the woman, destined to destroy all their power; and points out to them the immediate necessity of bringing the matter to proof, and of attempting, by snares and fraud, to counteract and defeat the person, from whom they have so much to dread; this office he offers himself to undertake; and, his offer being accepted, sets out on his enterprise. In the meantime, God, in the assembly of holy angels, declares that he has given up his Son to be tempted by Satan; but foretels that the tempter shall be completely defeated by him: upon which the angels sing a hymn of triumph. Jesus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness, while he is meditating on the * No edition of "Paradise Regained " had ever appeared with Arguments to the books, before that which was published in 1795 by Mr. Dunster; from which they are adopted in this edition. Peck, indeed, endeavoured to supply the deficiency, in his "Memoirs of Milton," 1740, p. 70, &c., but the Arguments, which he has there given, are too diffuse, and want that conciseness and energy which distinguish Mr. Dunster's.-TODD. Y commencement of his great office of Saviour of mankind. Pursuing his meditations, he narrates, in a soliloquy, what divine and philanthropic impulses he had felt from his early youth, and how his mother Mary, on perceiving these dispositions in him, had acquainted him with the circumstances of his birth, and informed him that he was no less a person than the Son of God; to which he adds what his own inquiries and reflections had supplied in confirmation of this great truth, and particularly dwells on the recent attestation of it at the river Jordan. Our Lord passes forty days, fasting, in the wilderness; where the wild beasts become mild and harmless in his presence. Satan now appears under the form of an old peasant; and enters into discourse with our Lord, wondering what could have brought him alone into so dangerous a place, and at the same time professing to recognise him for the person lately acknowledged by John, at the river Jordan, to be the Son of God. Jesus briefly replies. Satan rejoins with a description of the difficulty of supporting life in the wilderness; and entreats Jesus, if he be really the Son of God, to manifest his divine power, by changing some of the stones into bread. Jesus reproves him, and at the same time tells him that he knows who he is. Satan instantly avows himself, and offers an artful apology for himself and his conduct. Our blessed Lord severely reprimands him, and refutes every part of his justification. Satan, with much semblance of humility, still endeavours to justify himself; and, professing his admiration of Jesus and his regard for virtue, requests to be permitted at a future time to hear more of his conversation; but is answered, that this must be as he shall find permission from above. Satan then disappears, and the book closes with a short description of night coming on in the desert. I, WHO erewhile a the happy garden sung a I, who erewhile. 5 The proposition of the subject is clear and dignified, and is beautifully wound up in the concluding line : And Eden raised in the waste wilderness.-DUNSTER. This is plainly an allusion to the "Ille ego qui quondam," &c., attributed to Virgil· Thus also Spenser : Lo, I the man, whose Muse whilom did mask, And now enforced, a far unfitter task, For trumpets stern to change mine oaten reeds, &c.-NEWTON. b By one man's disobedience lost. "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."-Rom. v. 19.-NEWTON. c Recover'd Paradise. It may seem a little odd, that Milton should impute the recovery of Paradise to this short scene of our Saviour's life upon earth, and not rather extend it to his agony, crucifixion, &c.; but the reason no doubt was, that Paradise, regained by our Saviour's resisting the temptations of Satan, might be a better contrast to Paradise, lost by our first parents too easily yielding to the same seducing Spirit. Besides, he might, very probably, and indeed very reasonably, be apprehensive, that a subject, so extensive as well as sublime, might be too great a burden for his declining constitution, and a task too long for the short term of years he could then hope for. Even in his "Paradise Lost," he expresses his fears, lest he had begun too late, and lest "an age too late, or cold climate, or years, should have damped his intended wing;" and surely he had much greater cause to dread the same now, and to be very cautious of launching out too far.-THYER. d And Eden raised in the waste wilderness, There is, I think, a particular beauty in this line, when one considers the fine allusion in it to the curse brought upon the paradisiacal earth by the fall of Adam: "Cursed is the ground for thy sake: thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee."-THYER. See Isaiah, li. 3. Thou Spirit, who ledst this glorious eremite Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence As thou art wont 8, my prompted song, else mute h; Now had the great proclaimer, with a voice • Thou Spirit. 10 15 This invocation is so supremely beautiful, that it is hardly possible to give the preference even to that in the opening of the "Paradise Lost." This has the merit of more conciseness. Diffuseness may be considered as lessening the dignity of invocations on such subjects.-DUNSTER. f Into the desert. It is said, Matt. iv. 1,-"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." And from the Greek original ěpnuos, the desert, and épnμíτns, an inhabitant of the desert, is rightly formed the word eremite; which was used before by Milton in his "Paradise Lost," b. iii. 474: and by Fairfax, in his translation of Tasso, c. xi. st. 4: and in Italian, as well as Latin, there is eremita, which the French, and we after them, contract into hermite, hermit.-NEWTON. See the very fine opening of the ninth book of the "Paradise Lost," and also his invocation of Urania, at the beginning of the seventh book: and in the introduction to the second book of the "Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy," where he promises to undertake something, he yet knows not what, that may be of use and honour to his country, he adds: "This is not to be obtained but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify whom he pleases." Here then we see that Milton's invocations of the Divine Spirit were not merely exordia pro forma. Indeed his prose works are not without their invocations. Compare also Tasso, "Il Mondo Creato," Giorn. Prim. e langue Se non m' inspiri tu, la voce, e 'l suono.-DUNSTER. h My prompted song, else mute. Milton's third wife, who survived him many years, related of him, that he used to compose his poetry chiefly in winter; and on his waking in a morning, would make her write down sometimes twenty or thirty verses. Being asked, whether he did not often read Homer and Virgil, she understood it as an imputation upon him for stealing from those authors, and answered with eagerness, "He stole from nobody but the Muse who inspired him :" and, being asked by a lady present who the Muse was, replied "It was God's grace, and the Holy Spirit, that visited him nightly."-Newton's Life of Milton. Mr. Richardson also says, that "Milton would sometimes lie awake whole nights, but not a verse could he make; and on a sudden his poetical fancy would rush upon him with an impetus or astrum."-Johnson's Life of Milton. "Else mute" might have been suggested by a passage of Horace's most beautiful ode to the Muse, IV. III. :— O testudinis aureæ or from Quinctilian : Dulcem quæ strepitum, Pieri, temperas ! O mutis quoque piscibus Donatura cygni, si libeat, sonum ! -"Ipsam igitur orandi majestatem, qua nihil Dii immortales melius homini dederunt, et qua remota muta sunt omnia, et luce præsenti et memoria posteritatis carent, toto animo petamus,” 1. xii. 11.-DUNSTER. More awful than the sound of trumpet i, cried i With a voice More awful than the sound of trumpet. "Lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions," Isaiah lviii. 1 and see Heb. xii. 18, 19.-DUNSTER. But him the Baptist soon Descried, divinely warn'd. John the Baptist had notice given him before, that he might certainly know the Messiah by the Holy Ghost descending and abiding upon him: "And I knew him not; but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost," John i. 33. But it appears from St. Matthew, that the Baptist knew him, and acknowledged him before he was baptized, and before the Holy Ghost descended upon him, Matt. iii. 14. "I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?" To account for which we must admit with Milton, that another divine revelation was made to him at this very time, signifying that this was the person of whom he had such notice before.-NEWTON. The Baptist John carries us with the best effect in medias res.-DUNSTER. About the world. Who, roving still "And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." Job i. 7. See also 1 Pet. v. 8.-DUNSTER. 1 The exalted man, to whom Such high attest was given, &c. The description how Satan is affected by this divine attestation of Jesus is admirable: his involuntary admiration is consistent with his knowledge of what is good and amiable; (see ver. 379 ;) his envy and rage are truly Satanic, and becoming his character of the enemy of all good.-Dunster. m Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved. Milton, in making Satan's residence to be "in mid air, within thick clouds and dark," seems to have St. Austin in his eye; who, speaking of the region of clouds, |