exhibit the intensity and force of Milton's genius: they were the ebb of a mighty tide.' The survey of Greece and Rome in 'Paradise Regained,' and the poet's description of the banquet in the grove, are as rich and exuberant as anything in Paradise Lost;' while his brief sketch of the thunder-storm in the wilderness, in the same poem, is perhaps the most strikingly dramatic and effective passage of the kind in all his works. The active and studious life of the poet was now near a close. It is pleasing to reflect that Poverty, in her worst shape, never entered his dwelling, irradiated by visions of Paradise; and that, though long a sufferer from hereditary disease, his mind was calm and bright to the last. He died without a struggle in his house in the Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields-a small house rated at 'four hearths'-on Sunday the 8th of November 1674. By his first rash and ill-assorted marriage, Milton left three daughters, whom, it is said, he taught to read and pronounce several languages, though they only understood their native tongue. He complained that the children wereundutiful and unkind' to him; and they were all living apart from their illustrious parent for some years before his death. His widow inherited a fortune of about £1000, of which she gave £100 to each of his daughters.* Milton's early poems have much of the manner of Spenser, particularly his Lycidas.' In Comus' there are various traces of Fletcher, Shakspeare, and other poets. Dryden, in his preface to the Fables,' says: 'Milton has acknowledged to me that Spenser was his original.' Browne, Fletcher, Burton, and Drummond also assisted: Milton, as has been happily remarked, was a great collector of sweets from these wild-flowers. Single words, epithets, and images he freely borrowed, but they were so combined and improved by his own splendid and absorbing imagination, as not to detract from his originality. His imperial fancy, as was said of Burke, laid all art and nature under tribute, yet never lost its own original brightness.' Milton's diction is peculiarly rich and pictorial in effect. In force and dignity, he towers over all his contemporaries. He is of no class of poets; his soul was like a star, and dwelt apart.' The style of Milton's verse was moulded on classic models, chiefly the Greek tragedians; but his musical taste, his love of Italian literature, and the lofty and solemn cast of his own mind, gave strength and harmony to the whole. His minor poems alone would have rendered his name immortal, but there still wanted his great epic to complete the measure of his fame and the glory of his country. 'Paradise Lost,' or the fall of man, had long been familiar to Milton as a subject for poetry. He at first intended it as a drama, and *Their acknowledgments of the sums received from the widow still exist, and facsimiles of them have been engraved. Anne, the eldest daughter, was unable to write, and makes her mark. The second, Mary, was barely able to trace the letters, in a very rude manner, and she misspells her name Milton. The third, Deborah, makes a tolerably distinct signature. Their education must have been very defective. two draughts of his scheme are preserved among his manuscripts in Trinity College Library, Cambridge. His genius, however, was better adapted for an epic than a dramatic poem. His 'Samson,' though cast in a dramatic form, has little of dramatic interest or variety of character. His multifarious learning and uniform dignity of manner would have been too weighty for dialogue; whereas in the epic form, his erudition was well employed in episode and illustration. He was perhaps too profuse of learned illustration, yet there is something very striking and imposing even in his long catalogues of names and cities. They are generally sonorous and musical. 'The subject of "Paradise Lost,' says Campbell,' was the origin of evil--an era in existence-an event more than all others dividing past from future time-an isthmus in the ocean of eternity. The theme was in its nature connected with everything important in the circumstances of human history; and amidst these circumstances, Milton saw that the fables of paganism were too important and poetical to be omitted. As a Christian, he was entitled wholly to neglect them; but as a poet, he chose to treat them, not as dreams of the human mind, but as the delusions of infernal existences. Thus anticipating a beautiful propriety for all classical allusions, thus connecting and reconciling the co-existence of fable and truth, and thus identifying his fallen angels with the deities of "gay religions full of pomp and gold," he yoked the heathen mythology in triumph to his subject, and clothed himself in the spoils of superstition.' The first two books of Paradise Lost' are remarkable for their grandeur and sublimity. The delineation of Satan and the fallen angels' hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,' and their assembled deliberations in the infernal council, are astonishing efforts of human genius- their appearance dwarfs every other poetical conception.' At a time when the common superstition of the country presented the Spirit of Evil in the most low and debasing shapes, Milton invested him with colossal strength and majesty, with unconquerable pride and daring, with passion and remorse, sorrow and tears-'the archangel ruined, and the excess of glory obscured.' Pope has censured the dialogues in heaven as too metaphysical, and every reader feels that they are prolix, and, in some instances, unnecessary and unbecoming. The taste of Milton, and that of the age in which his mind was formed, inclined towards argumentative speech and theology, and this at times overpowered his poetical imagination. It has also been objected that there is a want of human interest in the poem. This objection, however, is not felt. The poet has drawn the characters of Adam and Eve with such surpassing art and beauty, and has invested their residence in Paradise with such an accumulation of charms, that our sympathy with them is strong and unbroken; it accompanies them in their life of innocence, their daily employment among fruits and flowers, their purity, affection, and piety, and it continues after the ruins of the Fall. More perfect and entire sympathy could not be excited by any living agents. In these tender and descriptive scenes, the force and occasional stiffness of Milton's style, and the march of his stately sonorous verse, are tempered and modulated with exquisite skill. The allegorical figures of Sin and Death have been found fault with: they will not bear exact criticism,' says Hallam, yet we do not wish them away.' They appear to us to be among the grandest of Milton's conceptions-terrific, repulsive, yet sublime, and sternly moral in their effects. Who but must entertain disgust and hatred at sin thus portrayed? The battle of the angels in the sixth book is perhaps open to censure. The material machinery is out of place in heaven, and seems to violate even poetical probability. The reader is sensible how the combat must end, and wishes that the whole had been more veiled and obscure. 'The martial demons,' remarks Campbell, who charmed us in the shades of hell, lose some portion of their sublimity when their artillery is discharged in the daylight of heaven.' The discourses of the angel Raphael, and the vision of Michael in the last two books-leading the reader gently and slowly, as it were, from the empyrean heights down to earth-have a tranquil dignity of tone and pathos that are deeply touching and impressive. The Christian poet triumphs and predominates at the close. 6 No war, or battle's sound, Was heard the world around: The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked chariot stood Unstained with hostile blood: The trumpet spake not to the armed throng: And kings sat still with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by. But peaceful was the night, Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began: The winds, with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kissed, Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave. When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet, As never was by mortal finger strook, Divinely warbled voice, Answering the stringed noise, As all their souls in blissful rapture took : The air, such pleasure loath to lose, With thousand echoes still prolong each heavenly close. Nature, that heard such sound, Beneath the hollow round Of Cynthia's seat, the airy region thrilling, Now was almost won, To think her part was done, And that her reign had here its last fulfilling; She knew such harmony alone Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union, At last surrounds their sight A globe of circular light, That with long beams the shamefaced night arrayed; The helmed cherubim, And sworded seraphim, Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born heir. Such music, as 'tis said, Before was never made, But when of old the Sons of Morning sung, While the Creator great His constellations set, And the well-balanced world on hinges hung, And cast the dark foundations deep, And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep. Ring out, ye crystal spheres, Once bless our human ears (If ye have power to touch our senses so), And let your silver chime Move in melodious time; And let the base of Heaven's deep organ blow; And, with your ninefold harmony, Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. For if such holy song Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back, and fetch the Age of Gold; And speckled Vanity Will sicken soon and die; And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould; And Hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. Yea, Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between, Throned in celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; And Heaven, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall. But wisest Fate says no, This must not yet be so, The babe yet lies in smiling infancy, That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss, So both himself and us to glorify: Yet first, to those ychained in sleep, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep, With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang, While the red fire and smouldering clouds out brake: The aged earth aghast. With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake; When at the world's last session, The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne. |