Holy memorials, acts of zeal and love Doubtless the capture of a Dutch vessel, the defeat of the Spaniards in the Downs. The king brings forward his son, "anoints him, declares him "his great vicegerent: " "To him shall bow All knees in heaven. . . . Him who disobeys, Me disobeys;" 2 And such were, in fact, expelled from heaven the same day. "All seem'd well pleased; all seem'd, but were not all." Yet "That day, as other solemn days, they spent ... In song and dance about the sacred hill. Desirous." 8 Milton describes the tables, the dishes, the wine, the vessels. It is a popular festival; I miss the fireworks, the bell-ringing, as in London, and I can fancy that all would drink to the health of the new king. Then Satan revolts; he takes his troops to the other end of the country, like Lambert or Monk, toward "the quarters of the north," Scotland perhaps, passing through wellgoverned districts, "empires," with their sheriffs and lord-lieutenants. Heaven is partitioned off like a good map. Satan holds forth before his officers against royalty, opposes in a word-combat the good royalist Abdiel, who refutes his "blasphemous, false, and proud" arguments, and quits him to rejoin his prince at Oxford. Well armed, the rebel marches with his pikemen and artillery to attack the fortress. The two parties slash each other with the sword, mow each other down with cannon, knock each other down with political arguments. These sorry angels have their mind as well disciplined as their limbs; they have passed their youth in a class of logic and in a drill school. Satan holds forth like a preacher: "What heaven's Lord had powerfulest to send 1 Paradise Lost, book v. l. 588-594. Ibid. 1. 617-631. 2 Ibid. l. 607-612. The Miltonic Deity is so much on the level of a king and man, that he uses (with irony tertainly) words like these: "Lest unawares we lose This our high place, our Sanctuary, our Hill." His son, about to flesh his maiden sword, replies: "If I be found the worst in heaven," etc. Book v.. 731-742. Sufficient to subdue us to his will, But proves not so: then fallible, it seems, He also talks like a drill sergeant. "Vanguard, to right and left the front unfold." He makes quips as clumsy as those of Harrison, the former butcher turned officer. What a heaven! It is enough to disgust a man with Paradise; any one would rather enter Charles I.'s troop of lackeys, or Cromwell's Ironsides. We have orders of the day, a hierarchy, exact submission, extraduties, disputes, regulated ceremonials, prostrations, etiquette, furbished arms, arsenals, depots of chariots and ammunition. Was it worth while leaving earth to find in heaven carriageworks, buildings, artillery, a manual of tactics, the art of salutations, and the Almanach de Gotha? Are these the things which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart to conceive?" What a gap between this monarchical frippery and the visions of Dante, the souls floating like stars amid the harmonies, the mingled splendors, the mystic roses radiating and vanishing in the azure, the impalpable world in which all the laws of earthly life are dissolved, the unfathomable abyss traversed by fleeting visions, like golden bees gliding in the rays of the deep central sun! Is it not a sign of extinguished imagination, of the inroad of prose, of the birth of practical genius, replacing metaphysics by morality? What a fall! To measure it, read a true Christian poem, the Apocalypse. I copy half-a-dozen verses; think what it has become in the hands of the imitator: 2 "And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. saw seven golden candlesticks; And being turned, I "And in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. "His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; "And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. 1 Paradise Lost, book vi. l. 425-430. 2 When Raphael comes on earth, the angels who are "under watch," "in honour rise." The disagreeable and characteristic feature of this heaven is, that the universal motive is obedience, while in Dante's it is love. "Lowly reverent they bow. . . . Our happy state we hold, like yours, while our obedience holds." "And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. "And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead." 1 When Milton was arranging his celestial show, he did not fall as dead. But if the innate and inveterate habits of logical argument, joined with the literal theology of the time, prevented him from attaining to lyrical illusion or from creating living souls, the splendor of his grand imagination, combined with the passions of Puritanism, furnished him with an heroic character, several sublime hymns, and scenery which no one has surpassed. The finest thing in connection with this Paradise is hell; and in this history of God, the chief part is taken by the devil. The ridiculous devil of the middle age, a horned enchanter, a dirty jester, a petty and mischievous ape, band-leader to a rabble of old women, has become a giant and a hero. Like a conquered and banished Cromwell, he remains admired and obeyed by those whom he has drawn into the abyss. If he continues master, it is because he deserves it; firmer, more enterprising, more scheming than the rest, it is always from him that deep counsels, unlookedfor resources, courageous deeds, proceed. It was he who invented "deep-throated engines . . . disgorging, . . . chained thunderbolts, and hail of iron globes," and won the second day's victory; he who in hell roused his dejected troops, and planned the ruin of man; he who, passing the guarded gates and the boundless chaos, amid so many dangers, and across so many obstacles, made man revolt against God, and gained for hell the whole posterity of the new-born. Though defeated, he prevails, since he has won from the monarch on high the third part of his angels, and almost all the sons of his Adam. Though wounded, he triumphs, for the thunder which smote his head left his heart invincible. Though feebler in force, he remains superior in nobility, since he prefers suffering independence to happy servility, and welcomes his defeat and his torments as a glory, a liberty, and a joy. These are the proud and sombre political passions of the constant though oppressed Puritans; Milton had felt them in the vicissitudes of war, and the emigrants who had taken refuge amongst the wild beasts and savages of America, found them strong and energetic in the depths of their hearts. 1 Rev. i. 12. "Is this the region, this the soil, the clime, Said then the lost Archangel, this the seat That we must change for heaven? this mournful gloom Who now is Sovran, can dispose and bid What shall be right: farthest from him is best, Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields, Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrours; hail, Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven." This sombre heroism, this harsh obstinacy, this biting irony, these proud stiff arms which clasp grief as a mistress, this concentration of invincible courage which, cast on its own resources, finds everything in itself, this power of passion and sway over passion, ⚫ "The unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, Are features proper to the English character and to English literature, and you will find them later on in Byron's Lara and Conrad. Around the fallen angel, as within him, all is great. Dante's hell is but a hall of tortures, whose cells, one below another, descend to the deepest wells. Milton's hell is vast and vague. "A dungeon horrible on all sides round As one great furnace flamed, yet from those flames Served only to discover sights of woe, Paradise Lost, book i. I. 242–263. 2 Ibid. l. 106-109. 3 Ibid. l. 61-65. "Beyond this flood a frozen continent Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms The angels gather, innumerable legions: "As when heaven's fire Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines, With singed top their stately growth, though bare, Milton needs the grand and infinite; he lavishes them. His eyes are only content in limitless space, and he produces colossal figures to fill it. Such is Satan wallowing on the surges of the livid sea: "In bulk as huge . . . as . . . that sea-beast Moors by his side under the lee, while night Invests the sea, and wished morn delays." 3 Spenser has discovered images just as fine, but he has not the tragic gravity which the idea of hell impresses on a Protestant. No poetic creation equals in horror and grandeur the spectacle that greeted Satan on leaving his dungeon: "At last appear Hell bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof, And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brass, Three iron, three of adamantine rock, Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire, Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat On either side a formidable shape; The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair, 1 Paradise Lost, book ii. l. 587-591. 2 Ibid. book i. Z. 612-615. 3 Ibid. I 196-208. |