sense of the phrase, is utterly preposterous. Indeed, some of the books have been cited less from any knowledge of their contents than from confidence in their titles as casually seen in book-catalogues. One conclusion, pertinent to the subject, which might have been suggested by the mere titles of so many books, appears to have been missed. The subject of Paradise Lost, it would seem, if only on the bibliographical evidence so collected, was one of those which already possessed in a marked degree that quality of hereditary and widely diffused interest which fits subjects for the purposes of great poets. Milton, it may be said, inherited it as a subject with which the imagination of Christendom had long been fascinated, and which had been nibbled at again and again by poets in and out of England, though by none managed to its complete capabilities. There are traces in his juvenile poems,―as, for example, in his Latin poem In Quintum Novembris,—of his very early familiarity, in particular, with some of those conceptions of the personality and agency of Satan, and the physical connexion between Hell and Man's World, which may be said to motive his great epic. Nothing is more certain, however, than that, though thus signalled in the direction of his great subject by early presentiments and experiments, he came to the actual choice of it at last through considerable deliberation. It was in 1639, after his return from his Italian tour, in his thirty-first year, that Milton first bethought himself seriously of some great literary work, on a scale commensurate with his powers, and which posterity should not willingly let die. He had resolved that it should be an English poem; he had resolved that it should be an epic; nay, he had all but resolved, —as is proved by his Latin poem to Manso, and by his Epitaphium Damonis,—that his subject should be taken from the legendary history of Britain, and should include the romance of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Suddenly, however, this decision was shaken. He became uncertain whether the dramatic form might not be fitter for his purpose than the epic, and, letting go the subject of Arthur, he began to look about for other subjects. The proof exists in the form of a list,-written by Milton's own hand in 1640-1, or certainly not later than 1642, and pre served among the Milton MSS. in Trinity College, Cambridge, -of about one hundred subjects, many of them Scriptural, and the rest from British History, which he had jotted down, with the intention, apparently, of estimating their relative degrees of capability, and at last fixing on the one, or the one or two, that should appear best. Now, at the head of this long list of subjects is PARADISE LOST. There are no fewer than four separate drafts of this subject as then meditated by Milton for dramatic treatment. The first draft consists merely of a list of dramatis persona, as follows: "The Persons:-Michael; Heavenly Love; Chorus of Angels; Lucifer; Adam, Eve, with the Serpent; Conscience; Death; Labour, Sickness, Discontent, Ignorance, with others, Mutes; Faith; Hope; Charity." This Draft having been cancelled, another is written parallel with it, as follows: "The Persons:-Moses [originally written 'Michael or Moses,' but the words 'Michael or' deleted, so as to leave 'Moses' as preferable for the drama]; Justice, Mercy, Wisdom; Heavenly Love; the Evening Star, Hesperus; Lucifer; Adam; Eve; Conscience; Labour, Sickness, Discontent, Ignorance, Fear, Death, [as] Mutes; Faith; Hope; Charity." This having also been scored out, there follows a third Draft, more complete, as follows: "PARADISE LOST :-The Persons: Moses роλoуiget, recounting how he assumed his true body: that it corrupts not, because of his [being] with God in the mount; declares the like of Enoch and Eliah, besides the purity of the place-that certain pure winds, dews, and clouds preserve it from corruption; whence exhorts to the sight of God; tells them they cannot see Adam in the state of innocence by reason of their sin.— [Act I.] Justice, Mercy, Wisdom, debating what should become of Man if he fall. Chorus of Angels sing a hymn of the Creation.-Act II.: Heavenly Love; Evening Star. Chorus sing the marriage song and describe Paradise.-Act III.: Lucifer contriving Adam's ruin. Chorus fears for Adam and relates Lucifer's rebellion and fall.-Act IV.: Adam, Eve, fallen; Conscience cites them to God's examination. Chorus bewails, and tells the good Adam hath lost.-Act V.: Adam and Eve, driven out of Paradise, presented by an Angel with Labour, Grief, Hatred, Envy, War, Famine, Pestilence, Sickness, Discontent, Ignorance, Fear, [as] Mutes-to whom he gives their names-likewise Winter, Heat, Tempest, &c.; Death entered into the world; Faith, Hope, Charity, comfort and instruct him. Chorus briefly concludes." VOL. II. This is left standing; but in another part of the MS., as if written at some interval of time, is a fourth Draft, as follows: "ADAM UNPARADIZED :-The Angel Gabriel, either descending or entering-showing, since the globe is created, his frequency as much on Earth as in Heaven-describes Paradise. Next the Chorus, showing the reason of his coming-to keep his watch after Lucifer's rebellion, by the command of God-and withal expressing his desire to see and know more concerning this excellent and new creature, Man. The Angel Gabriel, as by his name signifying a Prince of Power, passes by the station of the Chorus, and, desired by them, relates what he knew of Man, as the creation of Eve, with their love and marriage. After this, Lucifer appears, after his overthrow; bemoans himself; seeks revenge upon Man. The Chorus prepares resistance at his first approach. At last, after discourse of enmity on either side, he departs; whereat the Chorus sing of the battle and victory in Heaven against him and his accomplices, as before, after the first Act, was sung a hymn of the Creation.—Here again may appear Lucifer, relating and consulting on what he had done to the destruction of man. Man next and Eve, having been by this time seduced by the Serpent, appear confusedly, covered with leaves. Conscience, in a shape, accuses him; Justice cites him to the place whither Jehovah called for him. In the meantime the Chorus entertains the stage and is informed by some Angel of the manner of the Fall. Here the Chorus bewails Adam's fall.—Adam and Eve return and accuse one another; but especially Adam lays the blame to his wife-is stubborn in his offence. Justice appears, reasons with him, convinces him. The Chorus admonishes Adam, and bids him beware Lucifer's example of impenitence. -The Angel is sent to banish them out of Paradise; but, before, causes to pass before his eyes, in shapes, a masque of all the evils of this life and world. He is humbled, relents, despairs. At last appears Mercy, comforts him, promises him the Messiah; then calls in Faith, Hope, Charity; instructs him. He repents, gives God the glory, submits to his penalty. The Chorus briefly concludes.. -Compare this with the former Draft." These schemes of a possible drama on the subject of Paradise Lost were written out by Milton as early as between 1639 and 1642, or between his thirty-first and his thirty-fourth year, and included in a list of about a hundred subjects which occurred to him, in the course of his readings at that time, as worth considering for the great English Poem which he hoped to give to the world. From the place and the proportion of space which they occupy in the list, it is apparent that the subject of Paradise Lost had then fascinated him more strongly than any of the others, and that, if his notion of an epic on Arthur was then given up, a drama on Paradise Lost had occurred to him as the most likely substitute. It is also more probable than not that he then knew of previous dramas that had been written on the subject, and that, in writing out his own schemes, he had the schemes of some of those dramas in his mind. Vondel's play was not then in existence; but Andreini's was. Farther, there is evidence in Milton's prose-pamphlets published about this time that, if he did ultimately fix on the subject he had so particularly been meditating, he was likely enough to make himself acquainted with any previous efforts on the same subject, and to turn them to account for whatever they might be worth. Thus, in his Reason of Church Government (1641), taking the public into his confidence in various matters relating to himself, and informing them particularly how his mind had been recently occupied with thoughts of a great English poem (whether an epic or a drama he had not, he hints, quite determined), and with what reluctance he felt himself drawn away from that design to engage in the political controversies of the time, he thus pledges himself that the design, though necessarily postponed, shall not be abandoned :-"Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader that for some few years yet I may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the trencher-fury of a riming parasite, nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her Siren daughters, 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 the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs,―till which in some measure be compassed, at mine own peril and cost I refuse not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loth to hazard so much credulity upon the best pledges that I can give them." There is evidence that, about the time when Milton thus announced to the public his design of some great English poem, to be accomplished at leisure, and when he was privately considering with himself whether a tragedy on the subject of Paradise Lost might not best fulfil the conditions of such a design, he had actually gone so far as to write not only the foregoing drafts of the tragedy, but even some lines by way of opening. Speaking of Paradise Lost, and of the author's original intention that it should be a tragedy, Milton's nephew, Edward Phillips, tells us, in his memoir of his uncle (1694): "In the Fourth Book of the Poem there are six [ten?] verses, which, several years before the Poem was begun, were shown to me, and some others, as designed for the very beginning of the said tragedy." The verses referred to by Phillips are those (P. L. IV. 32-41) that now form part of Satan's speech on first standing on the Earth, and beholding, among the glories of the newly-created World, the Sun in his full splendour in the Heavens : : "O thou, that, with surpassing glory crowned, Till pride and worse ambition threw me down, Warring in Heaven against Heaven's matchless King!" Phillips's words "several years before the Poem was begun would not, by themselves, fix the date at which he had seen these lines. But in Aubrey's earlier Memoir of Milton (1680), containing information which Aubrey had derived from Phillips, this passage occurs, "In the 4th book of Paradise Lost there are about 6 verses of Satan's exclamation to the Sun wch Mr. E. Phi. remembers, about 15 or 16 years before ever his poem was thought of; wch verses were intended for the beginning of a tragoedie, wch he had design'd, but was diverted from it by other besinesse." Here we have indirectly Phillips's own authority that he had read the verses in question at a date which we shall presently see reason to fix at 1642. He was then a pupil of his uncle, and living with him in his house in Aldersgate Street. Alas! it was not "for some few years" only, as Milton had thought in 1641, that the execution of the great work so solemnly then promised had to be postponed. For a |