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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.

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.

The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picturewriting of Mexico. The images which Dante employs speak for themselves; they stand simply for what they are. Those of Milton have a signification which is often discernible only to the initiated. Their value depends less on what they directly represent than on what they remotely suggest. However strange, however grotesque, may be the appearance which Dante undertakes to describe, he never shrinks from describing it. He gives us the shape, the colour, the sound, the smell, the taste; he counts the numbers; he measures the size. His similes are the illustrations 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 Phle-limbs." gethon 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.

Once more, compare the lazar-house in the eleventh book of the Paradise Lost with the last ward of Malebolge in Dante. Milton avoids the loathsome details, and takes refuge in indistinct but solemn and tremendous imagery. Despair hurrying from couch to couch to mock the wretches with his attendance, Death shaking his dart over them, but, in spite of supplications, delaying to strike. What says Dante? "There was such a moan there as there would be if all the sick who, between July and September, are in the hospitals of Valdichiana, and of the Tuscan swamps, and of Sardinia, were in one pit together; and such a stench was issuing forth as is wont to issue from decayed

We will not take upon ourselves the invidious office of settling precedency between two such writers. Each in his own department is incomparable; and each, we may remark, has wisely, or Now let us compare with the exact fortunately, taken a subject adapted to details of Dante the dim intimations exhibit his peculiar talent to the greatest of Milton. We will cite a few ex-advantage. The Divine Comedy is a amples. The English poet has never personal narrative. Dante is the eyethought of taking the measure of Satan. witness and ear-witness of that which He gives us merely a vague idea of he relates. He is the very man who

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therefore infer that there exists something which is not material. But of this something we have no idea. We can define it only by negatives. We can reason about it only by symbols. We use the word; but we have no image of the thing; and the business of poetry 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 canvass and a box of colours to be called a painting.

has heard the tormented spirits crying | must be incapable. But these objecout for the second death, who has read tions, though sanctioned by eminent the dusky characters on the portal names, originate, we venture to say, in within which there is no hope, who has profound ignorance of the art of poetry. hidden his face from the terrors of the What is spirit? What are our own Gorgon, who has fled from the hooks minds, the portion of spirit with which and the seething pitch of Barbariccia we are best acquainted? We observe and Draghignazzo. His own hands certain phænomena. We cannot exhave grasped the shaggy sides of Lu-plain them into material causes. cifer. 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 adventures 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 docu- Logicians may reason about abstracments transcribed at full length, and all tions. But the great mass of men must the unmeaning gossip and scandal of have images. The strong tendency of the court, springing out of nothing, and the multitude in all ages and nations tending to nothing. We are not shocked to idolatry can be explained on no at being told that a man who lived, other principle. The first inhabitants nobody knows when, saw many very of Greece, there is reason to believe, strange sights, and we can easily aban- worshipped one invisible Deity. But don ourselves to the illusion of the ro- the necessity of having something more mance. But when Lemuel Gulliver, definite to adore produced, in a few surgeon, resident at Rotherhithe, tells centuries, the innumerable crowd of us of pygmies and giants, flying islands, Gods and Goddesses. In like manner and philosophising horses, nothing but the ancient Persians thought it impious such circumstantial touches could pro-to exhibit the Creator under a human duce for a single moment a deception form. Yet even these transferred to the on the imagination. Sun the worship which, in speculation, Of all the poets who have introduced they considered due only to the Suinto their works the agency of super-preme Mind. The history of the Jews natural beings, Milton has succeeded is the record of a continued struggle best. Here Dante decidedly yields to between pure Theism, supported by him and as this is a point on which the most terrible sanctions, and the many rash and ill-considered judg- strangely fascinating desire of having ments have been pronounced, we feel some visible and tangible object of adoinclined to dwell on it a little longer. ration. Perhaps none of the secondary The most fatal error which a poet can causes which Gibbon has assigned for possibly commit in the management of the rapidity with which Christianity his machinery, is that of attempting to spread over the world, while Judaism philosophise too much. Milton has scarcely ever acquired a proselyte, been often censured for ascribing to operated more powerfully than this spirits many functions of which spirits feeling. God, the uncreated, the in

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comprehensible, the invisible, attracted | ployed to represent that which is at few worshippers. A philosopher might once perceived to be incongruous and admire so noble a conception; but the absurd. Milton wrote in an age of crowd turned away in disgust from philosophers and theologians. It was words which presented no image to necessary, therefore, for him to abstain their minds. It was before Deity em- from giving such a shock to their bodied in a human form, walking among understandings as might break the men, partaking of their infirmities, lean-charm which it was his object to throw ing on their bosoms, weeping over their over their imaginations. This is the graves, slumbering in the manger, bleed-real explanation of the indistinctness ing on the cross, that the prejudices of and inconsistency with which he has the Synagogue, and the doubts of the often been reproached. Dr. Johnson Academy, and the pride of the portico,cknowledges that it was absolutely neand the fasces of the Lictor, and the cessary that the spirit should be clothed swords of thirty legions, were humbled with material forms. "But," says he, in the dust. Soon after Christianity "the poet should have secured the conhad achieved its triumph, the principle sistency of his system by keeping imwhich had assisted it began to corrupt materiality out of sight, and seducing it. It became a new Paganism. Patron the reader to drop it from his thoughts." saints assumed the offices of household This is easily said; but what if Milton gods. St. George took the place of could not seduce his readers to drop Mars. St. Elmo consoled the mariner immateriality from their thoughts? for the loss of Castor and Pollux. The What if the contrary opinion had Virgin Mother and Cecilia succeeded taken so full a possession of the minds to Venus and the Muses. The fascina- of men as to leave no room even for tion of sex and loveliness was again the half belief which poetry requires ? joined to that of celestial dignity; and Such we suspect to have been the case. the homage of chivalry was blended It was impossible for the poet to adopt with that of religion. Reformers have altogether the material or the immateoften made a stand against these feel-rial system. He therefore took his stand ings; but never with more than ap-on the debatable ground. He left the parent and partial success. The men whole in ambiguity. He has doubtless, who demolished the images in cathe- by so doing, laid himself open to the drals have not always 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.

charge of inconsistency. But, though philosophically in the wrong, we cannot but believe that he was poetically in the right. This task, which almost any other writer would have found impracticable, was easy to him. The peculiar art which he possessed of communicating his meaning circuitously through a long succession of associated ideas, and of intimating more than he expressed, enabled him to disguise those incongruities which he could not avoid.

From these considerations, we infer that no poet, who should affect that Poetry which relates to the beings of metaphysical accuracy for the want of another world ought to be at once which Milton has been blamed, would mysterious and picturesque. That of escape a disgraceful failure. Still, how-Milton is so. That of Dante is pictuever, 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 colouring can produce no illusion, when it is em

resque indeed beyond any that ever was written. Its effect approaches to that produced by the pencil or the chisel. But it is picturesque to the exclusion of all mystery This is a fault on the right side, a fault inseparable from the plan of Dante's poem, which, as we

have already observed, rendered the | ful porticoes in which his countrymen utmost accuracy of description neces- paid their vows to the God of Light sary. 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-faw-fum 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 to gigantic dimensions, and veiled in mysterious gloom.

and Goddess of Desire, than with those huge and grotesque labyrinths of eternal granite in which Egypt enshrined her mystic Osiris, or in which Hindostan still bows down to her seven-headed idols. His favourite gods are those of the elder generation, the sons of heaven and earth, compared with whom Jupiter himself was a stripling and an upstart, the gigantic Titans, and the inexorable Furies. Foremost among his creations of this class stands Prometheus, half fiend, half redeemer, the friend of man, the sullen and implacable enemy of heaven. Prometheus bears undoubtedly a considerable resemblance to the Satan of Milton. In both we find the same impatience of control, the same ferocity, the same unconquerable pride. In both characters also are mingled, though in very different proportions, some kind and generous feelings. Prometheus, however, is hardly superhuman enough. He talks too much of his chains and his uncasy posture: he is rather too much depressed and agitated. His resolution seems to depend on the knowledge which he possesses that he holds the fate of his torturer in his hands, and that the hour of his release will surely come. But Satan is a creature of another sphere. The might of his intellectual nature is victorious over the extremity of pain. Amidst agonics which cannot be conceived without horror, he deliberates, resolves, and even exults. Against the sword of Michael, against the thunder of Jehovah, against the flaming lake, and the marl burning with solid fire, against the prospect of an eternity of unintermitted misery, his spirit bears up unbroken, resting on its own innate energies, requiring no support from any thing external, nor even from hope itself.

Perhaps the gods and dæmons of Eschylus may best bear a comparison with the angels and devils of Milton. The style of the Athenian had, as we have remarked, something of the Ori- To return for a moment to the paental character; and the same pecu- rallel which we have been attempting liarity may be traced in his mythology. to draw between Milton and Dante, we It has nothing of the amenity and would add that the poetry of these elegance which we generally find in great men has in a considerable degree the superstitions of Greece. All is taken its character from their moral rugged, barbaric, and colossal. The legends of schylus seem to harmonize less with the fragrant groves and grace

qualities. They are not egotists. They rarely obtrude their idiosyncrasies on their readers. They have nothing in

common with those modern beggars for | foreign climates their unconquerable fame, who extort a pittance from the hatred of oppression; some were pining compassion of the inexperienced by ex-in dungeons; and some had poured posing the nakedness and sores of their minds. Yet it would be difficult to name two writers whose works have been more completely, though undesignedly, coloured by their personal feelings.

forth their blood on scaffolds. Venal and licentious scribblers, with just sufficient talent to clothe the thoughts of a pandar in the style of a bellman, were now the favourite writers of the Sovereign and of the public. It was a The character of Milton was pecu- loathsome herd, which could be comliarly distinguished by loftiness of spirit; pared to nothing so fitly as to the that of Dante by intensity of feeling. In rabble of Comus, grotesque monsters, every line of the Divine Comedy we half bestial, half human, dropping with discern the asperity which is produced wine, bloated with gluttony, and reelby pride struggling with misery. There ing in obscene dances. Amidst these is perhaps no work in the world so that fair Muse was placed, like the deeply and uniformly sorrowful. The chaste lady of the Masque, lofty, spotmelancholy of Dante was no fantastic less, and serene, to be chattered at, and caprice. It was not, as far as at this pointed at, and grinned at, by the distance of time can be judged, the whole rout of Satyrs and Goblins. If effect of external circumstances. It ever despondency and asperity could was from within. Neither love nor be excused in any man, they might glory, neither the conflicts of earth nor have been excused in Milton. But the the hope of heaven could dispel it. It strength of his mind overcame every turned every consolation and every calamity. Neither blindness, nor gout, pleasure into its own nature. It re- nor age, nor penury, nor domestic sembled that noxious Sardinian soil of afflictions, nor political disappointwhich the intense bitterness is said to ments, nor abuse, nor proscription, nor have been perceptible even in its honey. neglect, had power to disturb his seHis mind was, in the noble language date and majestic patience. His spirits of the Hebrew poet, " a land of dark- do not seem to have been high, but ness, as darkness itself, and where the they were singularly equable. light was as darkness." The gloom of temper was serious, perhaps stern; his character discolours all the passions but it was a temper which no sufferof men, and all the face of nature, and ings could render sullen or fretful. tinges with its own livid hue the flowers Such as it was when, on the eve of of Paradise and the glories of the eternal great events, he returned from his throne. All the portraits of him are travels, in the prime of health and singularly characteristic. No person manly beauty, loaded with literary discan look on the features, noble even to tinctions, and glowing with patriotic ruggedness, the dark furrows of the hopes, such it continued to be when, cheek, the haggard and woful stare of after having experienced every calamity the eye, the sullen and contemptuous which is incident to our nature, old, curve of the lip, and doubt that they poor, sightless and disgraced, he rebelong to a man too proud and too tired to his hovel to die. sensitive to be happy.

Milton was, like Dante, a statesman and a lover; and, like Dante, he had been unfortunate in ambition and in love

He had survived his health and his sight, the comforts of his home, and the prosperity of his party. Of the great men by whom he had been distinguished at his entrance into life, some had been taken away from the avil to come; some had carried into

His

Hence it was that, though he wrote the Paradise Lost at a time of life when images of beauty and tenderness are in general beginning to fade, even from those minds in which they have not been effaced by anxiety and disappointment, he adorned it with all that is most lovely and delightful in the physical and in the moral world. Neither Theocritus nor Ariosto had a finer or a more healthful sense of the plea

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