much by what it expresses, as by what it sug- all the dear classical recollections of childgests; not so much by the ideas which it di- hood, the school-room, the dog-eared Virgil, rectly conveys, as by other ideas which are the holiday, and the prize. A fourth brings connected with them. He electrifies the before us the splendid phantoms of chivalmind through conductors. The most unim-rous romance, the trophied lists, the embroidaginative man must understand the Iliad. ered housings, the quaint devices, the hauntHomer gives him no choice, and requires ed forests, the enchanted gardens, the achieve from him no exertion, but takes the whole ments of enamored knights, and the smiles of upon himself, and sets the images in so clear rescued princesses. a light, that it is impossible to be blind to them. The works of Milton cannot be comprehended or enjoyed, unless the mind of the reader co-operate with that of the writer. He does not paint a finished picture, or play for a mere passive listener. He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline. He strikes the key-note, and expects his hearer to make out the melody.

We often hear of the magical influence of poetry. The expression in general means nothing: but, applied to the writings of Milton, it is most appropriate. His poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in its occult power. There would seem, at first sight, to be no more in his words than in other words. But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced, than the past is present and the distant near. New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all the burialplaces of the memory give up their dead. Change the structure of the sentence; substitute one synonyme for another, and the whole effect is destroyed. The spell loses its power; and he who should then hope to conjure with it would find himself as much mistaken as Cassim in the Arabian tale, when he stood crying, "Open Wheat," Open Barley," to the door which obeyed no sound but "Open Sesame." The miserable failure of Dryden in his attempt to translate into his own diction some part of the Paradise Lost, is a remarkable instance of this.

99 66

In support of these observations we may remark, that scarcely any passages in the poems of Milton are more generally known or more frequently repeated than those which are little more than muster-rolls of names. They are not always more appropriate or more melodious than other names. But they are charmed names. Every one of them is the first link in a long chain of associated ideas. Like the dwelling-place of our infancy revisited in manhood, like the song of our country heard in a strange land, they produce upon us an effect wholly independent of their intrinsic value. One transports us back to a remote period of history. Another places us among the novel scenes and manners of a distant region. A third evokes

In none of the works of Milton is his peculiar manner more happily displayed than in Allegro and the Penseroso. It is impossible to conceive that the mechanism of language can be brought to a more exquisite degree of perfection. These poems differ from others, as atar of roses differs from ordinary rose water, the close packed essence from the thin diluted mixture. They are indeed not so much poems, as collections of hints, from each of which the reader is to make out a poem for himself. Every epithet is a text for a stanza.

The Comus and the Samson Agonistes are works which, though of very different merit, offer some marked points of resemblance. Both are lyric poems in the form of plays. There are perhaps no two kinds of composition so essentially dissimilar as the drama and the ode. The business of the dramatist is to keep himself out of sight, and to let nothing appear but his characters. As soon as he attracts notice to his personal feelings, the illusion is broken. The effect is as unpleasant as that which is produced on the stage by the voice of the prompter or the entrance of a scene-shifter. Hence it was, that the tragedies of Byron were his least successful performances. They resemble those pasteboard pictures invented by the friend of children, Mr. Newbury, in which a single movable head goes round twenty different bodies, so that the same face looks out upon us successively, from the uniform of a hussar, the furs of a judge, and the rags of a beggar. In all the characters, patriots and tyrants, haters and lovers, the frown and sneer of Harold were discernible in an instant. But this species of egotism, though fatal to the drama, is the inspiration of the ode. It is the part of the lyric poet to abandon himself, without reserve, to his own emotion.

Between these hostile elements many great men have endeavored to effect an amalgamation, but never with complete success. The Greek Drama, on the model of which the Samson was written, sprang from the Ode. The dialogue was ingrafted on the chorus, and naturally partook of its character. The genius of the greatest of the Athenian dramatists co-operated with the circumstances under which tragedy made its first appearance.

Eschylus was, head and heart, a lyric poet. | as in a good play. We cannot identify our In his time, the Greeks had far more inter- selves with the poet, as in a good ode. The course with the East than in the days of Ho- conflicting ingredients, like an acid and an almer, and they had not yet acquired that kali mixed, neutralize each other. We are immense superiority in war, in science, and by no means insensible to the merits of this in the arts, which, in the following generation, celebrated piece, to the severe dignity of the led them to treat the Asiatics with contempt. style, the graceful and pathetic solemnity of From the narrative of Herodotus it should the opening speech, or the wild and barbaric seem that they still looked up, with the dis- melody which gives so striking an effect to ciples, to Egypt and Assyria. At this period, the choral passages. But we think it, we conaccordingly, it was natural that the literature fess, the least successful effort of the genius of Greece should be tinctured with the Ori- of Milton. ental style. And that style, we think, is dis- The Comus is framed on the model of the cernible in the works of Pindar and Eschylus. Italian Masque, as the Samson is framed on The latter often reminds us of the Hebrew the model of the Greek Tragedy. It is cerwriters. The book of Job, indeed, in conduct 'tainly the noblest performance of the kind and diction, bears a considerable resemblance which exists in any language. It is as far to some of his dramas. Considered as plays, superior to the Faithful Shepherdess, as the his works are absurd; considered as choruses, Faithful Shepherdess is to the Aminta, or the they are above all praise. If, for instance, Aminta to the Pastor Fido. It was well for we examine the address of Clytemnestra to Milton that he had here no Euripides to misAgamemnon on his return, or the description lead him. He understood and loved the literof the seven Argive chiefs, by the principles ature of modern Italy. But he did not feel of dramatic writing, we shall instantly con- for it the same veneration which he enterdemn them as monstrous. But if we forget tained for the remains of Athenian and Roman the characters, and think only of the poetry, poetry, consecrated by so many lofty and enwe shall admit that it has never been sur- dearing recollections. The faults, moreover, passed in energy and magnificence. Sopho- of his Italian predecessors were of a kind to cles made the Greek drama as dramatic as which his mind had a deadly antipathy. He was consistent with its original form. His could stoop to a plain style, sometimes even portraits of men have a sort of similarity; but to a bald style; but false brilliancy was his it is the similarity not of a painting, but of a utter aversion. His muse had no objection to bas-relief. It suggests a resemblance; but it a russet attire; but she turned with disgust does not produce an illusion. Euripides at- from the finery of Guarini, as tawdry and as tempted to carry the reform further. But it paltry as the rags of a chimney-sweeper on was a task far beyond his powers, perhaps May-day. Whatever ornaments she wears beyond any powers. Instead of correcting are of massive gold, not only dazzling to the what was bad, he destroyed what was excel- sight, but capable of standing the severest lent. He substituted crutches for stilts, bad test of the crucible. sermons for good odes.

Milton attended in the Comus to the disMilton, it is well known, admired Euripides tinction which he afterwards neglected in the highly, much more highly than, in our opin- Samson. He made his Masque what it ought ion, Euripides deserved. Indeed the caresses to be, essentially lyrical, and dramatic only which this partiality leads our countryman in semblance. He has not attempted a fruitto bestow on "sad Electra's poet," sometimes less struggle against a defect inherent in the remind us of the beautiful Queen of Fairy-nature of that species of composition; and he land kissing the long ears of Bottom. At all has therefore succeeded, wherever success events, there can be no doubt that this veneration for the Athenian, whether just or not, was injurious to the Samson Agonistes. Had Milton taken Eschylus for his model, he would have given himself up to the lyric inspiration, and poured out profusely all the treasures of his mind, without bestowing a thought on those dramatic proprieties which the nature of the work rendered it impossible to preserve. In the attempt to reconcile things in their own nature inconsistent, he has failed, as every one else must have failed. We cannot identify ourselves with the characters,

was not impossible. The speeches must be read as majestic soliloquies; and he who so reads them will be enraptured with their eloquence, their sublimity, and their music. The interruptions of the dialogue, however, impose a constraint upon the writer, and break the illusion of the reader. The finest passages are those which are lyric in form as well as in spirit. "I should much commend," says the excellent Sir Henry Wotten in a letter to Milton, "the tragical part if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your songs and odes, whereunto, I must plain

ly confess to you, I have seen yet nothing the appearance which Dante undertakes to parallel in our language." The criticism was describe, he never shrinks from describing it. just. It is when Milton escapes from the He gives us the shape, the color, the sound, the shackles of the dialogue, when he is dis- smell, the taste; he counts the numbers; he charged from the labor of uniting two incon-measures the size. His similes are the illustragruous styles, when he is at liberty to indulge his choral raptures without reserve, that he rises even above himself. Then, like his own good Genius bursting from the earthly form and weeds of Thyrsis, he stands forth in celestial freedom and beauty; he seems to cry exultingly,

"Now my task is smoothly done,

I can fly or I can run,"

to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to bathe in the Elysian dew of the rainbow, and to inhale the balmy smells of nard and cassia, which the musky winds of the zephyr scatter through the cedared alleys of the Hesperides. There are several of the minor poems of Milton on which we would willingly make a few remarks. Still more willingly would we enter into a detailed examination of that admirable poem, the Paradise Regained, which, strangely enough, is scarcely ever mentioned except as an instance of the blindness of the parental affection which men of letters bear towards the offspring of their intellects. That Milton was mistaken in preferring this work, excellent as it is, to the Paradise Lost, we readily admit. But we are sure that the superiority of the Paradise Lost to the Paradise Regained is not more decided, than the superiority of the Paradise Regained to every poem which has since made its appearance. Our limits, however, prevent us from discussing the point at length. We hasten on to that extraordinary production which the general suffrage of critics has placed in the highest class of human compositions.

The only poem of modern times which can be compared with the Paradise Lost is the Divine Comedy. The subject of Milton, in some points, resembled that of Dante; but he has treated it in a widely different manner. We cannot, we think, better illustrate our opinion respecting our own great poet, than by contrasting him with the father of Tuscan literature.

tions of a traveller. Unlike those of other poets, and especially of Milton, they are introduced in a plain, business-like manner; not for the sake of any beauty in the objects from which they are drawn; not for the sake of any ornament which they may impart to the poem; but simply in order to make the meaning of the writer as clear to the reader as it is to himself. The ruins of the precipice which led from the sixth to the seventh circle of hell were like those of the rock which fell into the Adige on the south of Trent. The cataract of Phlegethon was like that of Aqua Cheta at the monastery of St. Benedict. The place where the heretics were confined in burning tombs resembled the vast cemetery of Arles.

Now let us compare with the exact details of Dante the dim intimations of Milton. We will cite a few examples. The English poet has never thought of taking the measure of Satan. He gives us merely a vague idea of vast bulk. In one passage the fiend lies stretched out huge in length, floating many a rood, equal in size to the earth-born enemies of Jove, or to the sea-monster which the mariner mistakes for an island. When he addresses himself to battle against the guardian angels, he stands like Teneriffe or Atlas: his stature reaches the sky. Contrast with these descriptions the lines in which Dante has described the gigantic spectre of Nimrod. "His face seemed to me as long and as broad as the ball of St. Peter's at Rome; and his other limbs were in proportion; so that the bank, which concealed him from the waist downwards, nevertheless showed so much of him, that three tall Germans would in vain have attempted to reach to his hair." We are sensible that we do no justice to the admirable style of the Florentine poet. But Mr. Cary's translation is not at hand; and our version, however rude, is sufficient to illustrate our meaning.

Once more, compare the lazar-house in the eleventh book of the Paradise Lost with the last ward of Malebolge in Dante. Milton The poetry of Milton differs from that of avoids the loathsome details, and takes refuge Dante, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed in indistinct but solemn and tremendous imfrom the picture-writing of Mexico. The imagery, Despair hurrying from couch to couch to ages which Dante employs speak for them- mock the wretches with his attendance, Death selves; they stand simply for what they are. shaking his dart over them, but, in spite of Those of Milton have a signification which is supplications, delaying to strike. What says often discernible only to the initiated. Their Dante? "There was such a moan there as value depends less on what they directly rep- there would be if all the sick who, between resent than on what they remotely suggest. July and September, are in the hospitals of However strange, however grotesque, may be Valdichiana, and of the Tuscan swamps, and

of Sardinia were in one pit together; and such | many functions of which spirits must be inca a stench was issuing forth as is wont to issue pable. But these objections, though sancfrom decayed limbs." tioned by eminent names, originate, we vent

is with images, and not with words. The poet uses words indeed; but they are merely the instruments of his art, not its objects. They are the materials which he is to dispose in such a manner as to present a picture to the mental eye. And if they are not so disposed, they are no more entitled to be called poetry than a bale of canvas and a box of colors to be called a painting.

We will not take upon ourselves the invid-ure to say, in profound ignorance of the art ious office of settling precedency between two of poetry. such writers. Each in his own department is What is a spirit? What are our own minds, incomparable; and each, we may remark, has the portion of spirit with which we are best wisely, or fortunately, taken a subject adapted acquainted? We observe certain phenomena. to exhibit his peculiar talent to the greatest We cannot explain them into material causes. advantage. The Divine Comedy is a personal We therefore infer that there exists something narrative. Dante is the eye-witness and ear-which is not material. But of this something witness of that which he relates. He is the we have no idea. We can define it only by very man who has heard the tormented spir-negatives. We can reason about it only by its crying out for the second death, who has symbols. We use the word: but we have no read the dusky characters on the portal with-image of the thing; and the business of poetry in which there is no hope, who has hidden his face from the terrors of the Gorgon, who has fled from the hooks and the seething pitch of Barbariccia and Draghignazzo. His own hands have grasped the shaggy sides of Lucifer. His own feet have climbed the mountain of expiation. His own brow has been marked by the purifying angel. The reader would throw aside such a tale in incredulous disgust, unless it were told with the strongest air of veracity, with a sobriety even in its horrors, with the greatest precision and multiplicity in its details. The narrative of Milton in this respect differs from that of Dante, as the ad-on no other principle. The first inhabitants ventures of Amadis differ from those of Gulliver. The author of Amadis would have made his book ridiculous if he had introduced those minute particulars which give such a charm to the work of Swift, the nautical observations, the affected delicacy about names, the official documents transcribed at full length, and all the unmeaning gossip and scandal of the court, springing out of nothing, and tending to nothing. We are not shocked at being told that a man who lived, nobody knows when, saw many very strange sights, and we can easily abandon ourselves to the illusion of the romance. But when Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon, resident at Rotherhithe, tells us of pygmies and giants, dying islands, and philosophizing horses, nothing but such circumstantial touches could produce for a single moment a deception on the imagina

Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the great mass of men must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained

of Greece, there is reason to believe, worshipped one invisible Deity. But the necessity of having something more definite to adore produced, in a few centuries, the innumerable crowd of Gods and Goddesses. In like manner the ancient Persians thought it impious to exhibit the Creator under a human form. Yet even these transferred to the Sun the worship which, in speculation, they considered due only to the Supreme Mind. The History of the Jews is the record of a continued struggle between pure Theism, supported by the most terrible sanctions, and the strangely fascinating desire of having some visible and tangible object of adoration. Perhaps none of the secondary causes which Gibbon has assigned for the rapidity with which Christianity spread over the world, while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a proselyte, operated more powerfully than this feeling. God, the Of all the poets who have introduced into uncreated, the incomprehensible, the invisible, their works the agency of supernatural beings, attracted few worshippers. A philosopher Milton has succeeded best. Here Dante de- might admire so noble a conception: but the cidedly yields to him: and as this is a point crowd turned away in disgust from words on which many rash and ill-considered judg- which presented no image to their minds. It ments have been pronounced, we feel inclined was before Deity embodied in a human form, to dwell on it a little longer. The most fatal walking among men, partaking of their inerror which a poet can possibly commit in the firmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping management of his machinery, is that of at-over their graves, slumbering in the manger, tempting to philosophize too much. Milton bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of has been often censured for ascribing to spirits the Synagogue, and the doubts of the Academy,

tion.

and the pride of the portico, and the fasces of case. It was impossible for the poet to adopt the Lictor, and the swords of thirty legions, altogether the material or the immaterial were humbled in the dust. Soon after Chris- system. He therefore took his stand on the tianity had achieved its triumph, the prin- debatable ground. He left the whole in amciple which had assisted it began to corrupt biguity. He has, doubtless, by so doing laid it. It became a new Paganism. Patron saints himself open to the charge of inconsistency. assumed the offices of household gods. St. But, though philosophically in the wrong, we George took the place of Mars. St. Elmo con- cannot but believe that he was poetically in soled the mariner for the loss of Castor and the right. This task, which almost any other Pollux. The Virgin Mother and Cecilia suc- writer would have found impracticable, was ceeded to Venus and the Muses. The fascination easy to him. The peculiar art which he posof sex and loveliness was again joined to that sessed of communicating his meaning circuitof celestial dignity; and the homage of chiv-ously through a long succession of associated alry was blended with that of religion. Re-ideas, and of intimating more than he exformers have often made a stand against these pressed, enabled him to disguise those inconfeelings; but never with more than apparent gruities which he could not avoid. and partial success. The men who demolished the images in Cathedrals have not always world ought to be at once mysterious and been able to demolish those which were enshrined in their minds. It would not be difficult to show that in politics the same rule holds good. Doctrines, we are afraid, must generally be embodied before they can excite a strong public feeling. The multitude is more easily interested for the most unmeaning badge, or the most insignificant name, than for the most important principle.

From these considerations, we infer that no poet, who should affect that metaphysical accuracy for the want of which Milton has been blamed, would escape a disgraceful failure. Still, however, there was another extreme, which, though far less dangerous, was also to be avoided. The imaginations of men are in a great measure under the control of their opinions. The most exquisite art of poetical coloring can produce no illusion, when it is employed to represent that which is at once perceived to be incongruous and absurd. Milton wrote in an age of philosophers and theologians. It was necessary, therefore, for him to abstain from giving such a shock to their understandings as might break the charm which it was his object to throw over their imaginations. This is the real explanation of the indistinctness and inconsistency with which he has often been reproached. Dr. Johnson acknowledges that it was absolutely necessary that the spirit should be clothed with material forms. 66 But," says he, "the poet should have secured the consistency of his system by keeping immateriality out of sight, and seducing the reader to drop it from his thoughts." This is easily said; but what if Milton could not seduce his readers to drop immateriality from their thoughts? What if the contrary opinion had so fully taken possession of the minds of men as to leave no room even for the half belief which poetry requires? Such we suspect to have been the

Poetry which relates to the beings of another

picturesque. That of Milton is so. That of Dante is picturesque indeed beyond any that was ever written. Its effect approaches to that produced by the pencil or the chisel. But it is picturesque to the exclusion of all mystery. This a fault on the right side, a fault inseparable from the plan of Dante's poem, which, as we have already observed, rendered the utmost accuracy of description necessary. Still it is a fault. The supernatural agents excite an interest; but it is not the interest which is proper to supernatural agents. We feel that we could talk to the ghosts and dæmons without any emotion of unearthly awe. We could, like Don Juan, ask them to supper, and eat heartily in their company. Dante's angels are good men with wings. His devils are spiteful ugly executioners. His dead men are merely living men in strange situations. The scene which passes between the poet and Farinata is justly celebrated. Still, Farinata in the burning tomb is exactly what Farinata would have been at an auto da fe. Nothing can be more touching than the first interview of Dante and Beatrice. Yet what is it, but a lovely woman chiding, with sweet austere composure, the lover for whose affection she is grateful, but whose vices she reprobates? The feelings which give the passage its charm would suit the streets of Florence as well as the summit of the Mount of Purgatory.

The spirits of Milton are unlike those of almost all other writers. His fiends, in particular, are wonderful creations. They are not metaphysical abstractions. They are not wicked men. They are not ugly beasts. They have no horns, no tails, none of the fee-fawfum of Tasso and Klopstock. They have just enough in common with human nature to be intelligible to human beings. Their characters are, like their forms, marked by a certain dim resemblance to those of men, but exaggerated