found useful in attaining his special end, but he never allowed their rules to hamper his invention. He familiarized himself with their views of 'decorum,' ‘verisimilitude,' and poetic diction; he accepted this convention and rejected that. He was guided by Tasso in many particulars, but not in so important a matter as the outcome of the epic story, which according to the Italian critic was more properly joyous than painful. He selected his hero without help from the classical tradition; for he no more followed the models in the Iliad and the Odyssey than the injunction of Tasso that the epic poet should imitate the deeds of magnanimous heroes. In short, from the theory and practice of the past, Milton took all that could refine the gold of his new epical invention, and with the steady hand of a great artificer cast a new form. Whether he be called a classicist or a child of the Renaissance, whether he observed the ancients through the eyes of the Italian theorists, or, looking straight through Mediaevalism, regarded antiquity first for himself, and then steadied his view by a wide reading of critical literature, one thing is plain: he was reverent toward a rich inheritance, and understood the conservatism that is maintained at no cost to freedom. But there is, of course, a balance in Milton between old and new. Like other great poets, he to some extent preceded criticism; and no modern theorist could disregard Paradise Lost as a source from which to derive laws for the guidance of the so-called literary epic. We have found Milton looking both before and after; taking from the past, and offering to the future. The interesting thing is to consider how far he should be re

garded as a great intermediary, and how far as an inspired/ innovator; how far his originality took him to origins, and how far it made him a fountain-head for others. Perhaps an exact conclusion is impossible; but to adapt his own words, and say that he bettered what he borrowed, is to recognize one of the greatest elements in his genius-and to call him original in the highest sense of the term.

CHAPTER VI

MILTON'S IDEAL POET

'Poetas equidem vere dictos et diligo et colo, et audiendo saepissime delector," writes Milton, and, in describing the true poet, he epitomizes his theory of fine art, and gives the crowning expression of his humanism. His ideal is one of beauty and strength, elevated and magnanimous; for in Milton's eyes the poet before all else is an inspired interpreter, standing midway between the people and a great vision, and measuring the excellence of his art by its contribution to human welfare. In his endowment there must be combined three qualities: an original bent, an ability for steady and accurate observation, and a capacity for sustained application. By the Hellenism or humanism in Milton's estimate, the poet is vitally connected with society. But his consecration to mankind brings with it a right to many hours of musing, and many years of that 'learned and liberal leisure,' which in Milton's opinion is ‘nutritive to ... genius and conservative of its good health';2 he comes to the active life of society from a kingdom of God established within himself. In youth he is dedicated to study, observation, and thought; throughout his life, to the speculative activity that issues, as Dante said of Saint Bernard, in a ‘lively charity."

12 Defence, Works 6.273. Trans. by Fellowes, 6.387: "True poets are the objects of my reverence and my love, and the constant sources of my delight.'

'Prolus. 7, Works 7.456-457, trans. by Masson, Life of Milton 1.297. ''Vivace carità.' See Paradiso 31.109-110.

With this general notion of the poet in mind, we turn to examine his training. To begin with, he is allowed by Milton his dreams upon Parnassus, for, like other men, the poet passes through his acts or ages; as he contemplates his boyish visions

On summer eves by haunted stream,1

or in 'trim gardens' holds youthful converse with the Muse, he is but stamping upon an early scene the rare and exquisite shape of its 'decorum.' Touched with a dignity not always accorded to the immature-but a dignity as spirited as it is gracious, for Milton's bard could interpose 'a cheerful hour,' and waste, or even 'drench in mirth,' 'a sullen day' -the youth of the ideal poet is a beautiful and inviolate period. Of his own indulgence in the leisure cherished by artists and wise men since the world began, Milton speaks in the seventh of his Prolusiones Oratoriae:

This I would fain believe to be the divine sleep of Hesiod; these to be Endymion's nightly meetings with the moon; this to be that retirement of Prometheus, under the guidance of Mercury, to the deepest solitudes of Mount Caucasus, where he became the wisest of gods and men, so that even Jupiter himself is said to have gone to consult him about the marriage of Thetis. I call to witness for myself the groves and rivers, and the beloved village-elms, under which in the last past summer (if it is right to speak the secrets of the goddesses) I remember

'L'All. 130.

Il Pens. 50.

See Elegia 6. 55-78, where the austere and simple life appropriate to the writer of heroic poems is described.

Cf. Letter to a Friend (1632? 1633?), in Masson, Life of Milton 1.324: 'If you think that too much love of learning is in fault, and that I have given up myself to dream away my years in the arms of studious retirement, like Endymion with the Moon, as the tale of Latmus goes.' Compare Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 10.8 (trans. by Welldon, p. 341), where the myth of Endymion's sleep is differently employed, in illustration of complete inactivity.

with such pleasure the supreme delight I had with the Muses; where I, too, amid rural scenes and sequestered glades, seemed as if I could have vegetated through a hidden eternity.'

To the 'incomparable youth' of the poet belong also admirations, not less real because transient, and aspirations which were the forerunners of achievement. Milton, it seems, put away childish things with a gentle hand, and remembered with Sidney that 'most men are childish in the best things till they be cradled in their graves,' and yet also with Dante that 'it is meet both to speak and to act differently at different ages.' He writes:

I had my time, Readers, as others have, who have good learning bestowed upon them, to be sent to those places where the opinion was it might be soonest attained; and, as the manner is, was not unstudied in those authors which are most commended; whereof some were grave orators and historians, whose matter methought I loved indeed, but as my age then was, so I understood them. Others were the smooth elegiac poets, whereof the schools are not scarce. Whom, both for the pleasing sound of their numerous writing, which in imitation I found most easy, and most agreeable to nature's part in me, and for their matter, which what it is there be few who know not, I was so allured to read, that no recreation came to me better welcome. For that it was then those years with me which are excused though they be least severe, I may be saved the labor to remember ye.

And now the apology strikes a lofty note, for Milton reveres the young poet's ambition:

When, [he continues,] having observed them to account it the chief glory of their wit, in that they were ablest to judge, to praise, and by that could esteem themselves worthiest to love, those high perfections which under one or other name they took to celebrate, I thought with myself

-298.

Prolus. 7, Works 7.457, trans. by Masson, Life of Milton 1. 297 Cf. Bucer: Divorce, (To the Parliament), Works 4.293. The expression shows Milton's pleasure in the gracious boyhood of Edward VI.