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CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS

CONTRIBUTED TO

THE EDINBURGHI REVIEW.

MILTON. (August, 1825.) Joannis Miltoni, Angli, de Doctrinâ Christiana libri duo posthumi. A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alene. By JOHN MILTON, translated from the Original by Charles R. Sumner, M.A. &c. &c. 1825. TOWARDS the close of the year 1823, Mr. Lemon, deputy keeper of the state papers, in the course of his researches among the presses of his office, met with a large Latin manuscript. With it were found corrected copies of the foreign despatches written by Milton while he filled the office of Secretary, and several papers relating to the Popish Trials and the Rye-house Plot. The whole was wrapped up in an envelope, superscribed To Mr. Skinner, Merchant. On examination, the large manuscript proved to be the long lost Essay on the Doctrines of Christianity, which, according to Wood and Toland, Milton finished after the Restoration, and deposited with Cyriac Skinner. Skinner, it is well known, held the same political opinions with his illustrious friend. It is therefore probable, as Mr. Lemon conjectures, that he may have fallen under the suspicions of the government during that persecution of the Whigs which followed the dissolution of the Oxford parliament, and that, in consequence of a general seizure of his papers, this work may have been brought to the office

in which it has been found. But what-
ever the adventures of the manuscript
may have been, no doubt can exist that
it is a genuine relic of the great poct

Mr. Sumner, who was commanded
by his Majesty to edite and translate
the treatise, has acquitted himself of
his task in a manner honourable to his
talents and to his character. His ver-
sion is not indeed very easy or elegant;
but it is entitled to the praise of clear-
ness and fidelity. His notes abound
with interesting quotations, and have
the rare merit of really clucidating the
text.

The preface is evidently tho
work of a sensible and candid man, firm
in his own religious opinions, and tole-
rant towards those of others.

The book itself will not add much
to the fame of Milton. It is, like all
his Latin works, well written, though
not exactly in the style of the prize
essays of Oxford and Cambridge.
There is no elaborate imitation of
classical antiquity, no scrupulous purity,
none of the ceremonial cleanness which
The author does
characterises the diction of our aca-
demical Pharisees.
not attempt to polish and brighten his
composition into the Ciceronian gloss
and brilliancy. He does not in short
sacrifice sense and spirit to pedantic
refinements. The nature of his subject
compelled him to use many words
"That would have made Quintilian stare
and gasp."

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But he writes with as much ease and freedom as if Latin were his mother tongue; and, where he is least happy, his failure seems to arise from the carelessness of a native, not from the ignorance of a foreigner. We may apply to him what Denham with great felicity says of Cowley. He wears the garb, but not the clothes of the ancients.

Throughout the volume are discernible the traces of a powerful and independent mind, emancipated from the influence of authority, and devoted to the search of truth. Milton professes to form his system from the Bible alone; and his digest of scriptural texts is certainly among the best that have appeared. But he is not always so happy in his inferences as in his citations.

of the interest, transient as it may be, which this work has excited. The dexterous Capuchins never choose to preach on the life and miracles of a saint, until they have awakened the devotional feelings of their auditors by exhibiting some relic of him, a thread of his garment, a lock of his hair, or a drop of his blood. On the same principle, we intend to take advantage of the late interesting discovery, and, while this memorial of a great and good man is still in the hands of all, to say something of his moral and intellectual qualities. Nor, we are convinced, will the severest of our readers blame us if, on an occasion like the present, we turn for a short time from the topics of the day, to commemorate, in all love and reverence, the genius and virtues of John Milton, the poet, the statesman, the philosopher, the glory of English literature, the champion and the martyr of English liberty.

It is by his poetry that Milton is best known; and it is of his poetry that we wish first to speak. By the general suffrage of the civilised world, his place has been assigned among the greatest masters of the art. His detractors, how

Some of the heterodox doctrines which he avows seemed to have excited considerable amazement, particularly his Arianism, and his theory on the subject of polygamy. Yet we can scarcely conceive that any person could have read the Paradise Lost without suspecting him of the former; nor do we think that any reader, acquainted with the history of his life, ought to be much startled at the latter. The opinions which he has expressed respect-ever, though outvoted, have not been ing the nature of the Deity, the eternity of matter, and the observation of the Sabbath, might, we think, have caused more just surprise.

But we will not go into the discussion of these points. The book, were it far more orthodox or far more heretical than it is, would not much edify or corrupt the present generation. The men of our time are not to be converted or perverted by quartos. A few more days, and this essay will follow the Defensio Populi to the dust and silence of the upper shelf. The name of its author, and the remarkable circumstances attending its publication, will secure to it a certain degree of attention. For a month or two it will occupy a few minutes of chat in every drawing-room, and a few columns in every magazine; and it will then, to borrow the elegant language of the play-bills, be withdrawn to make room for the forthcoming novelties.

We wish however to avail ourselves

silenced. There are many critics, and some of great name, who contrive in the same breath to extol the poems and to decry the poet. The works they acknowledge, considered in themselves, may be classed among the noblest productions of the human mind. But they will not allow the author to rank with those great men who, born in the infancy of civilisation, supplied, by their own powers, the want of instruction, and, though destitute of models themselves, bequeathed to posterity models which defy imitation. Milton, it is said, inherited what his predecessors created; he lived in an enlightened age; he received a finished education, and we must therefore, if we would form a just estimate of his powers,make large deductions in consideration of these advantages.

We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as the remark may appear, that no poet has ever had to struggle with more unfavourable circumstances than Milton. He doubted, as he has

century of study and meditation.
But it is not thus with music, with
painting, or with sculpture. Still less
is it thus with poetry.
The progress

of refinement rarely supplies these arts

himself owned, whether he had not been | years to mathematics, learn more than born" an age too late." For this no- the great Newton knew after half a tion Johnson has thought fit to make him the butt of much clumsy ridicule. The poet, we believe, understood the nature of his art better than the critic. He knew that his poetical genius derived no advantage from the civilisa-with better objects of imitation. It may tion which surrounded him, or from the learning which he had acquired; and he looked back with something like regret to the ruder age of simple words and vivid impressions.

indeed improve the instruments which are necessary to the mechanical operations of the musician, the sculptor, and the painter. But language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particu

the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilised people is poetical.

We think that, as civilisation advances, poetry almost necessarily declines. Therefore, though we fervently admire those great works of imagina-lar images to general terms. Hence tion which have appeared in dark ages, we do not admire them the more because they have appeared in dark ages. On the contrary, we hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilised age. We cannot understand why those who believe in that most orthodox article of literary faith, that the earliest poets are generally the best, should wonder at the rule as if it were the exception. Surely the uniformity of the phænomenon indicates a corresponding uniformity in the cause.

This change in the language of men is partly the cause and partly the effect of a corresponding change in the nature of their intellectual operations, of a change by which science gains and poetry loses. Generalisation is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularity is indispensible to the creations of the imagination. In proportion as men know more and think more, they look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theories and worse poems. They give us vague phrases instead of images, and personified qualities instead of men. They may be better able to analyse human nature than their predecessors. But analysis is not the business of the poet. His office is to portray, not to dissect. He may believe in a moral sense, like Shaftesbury; he may refer all human actions to self-interest, like Helvetius; or he may never think about the matter at all. His creed on such

The fact is, that common observers reason from the progress of the experimental sciences to that of the imitative arts. The improvement of the former is gradual and slow. Ages are spent in collecting materials, ages more in separating and combining them. Even when a system has been formed, there is still something to add, to alter, or to reject. Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages. In these pursuits, there-subjects will no more influence his fore, the first speculators lie under great poetry, properly so called, than the disadvantages, and, even when they notions which a painter may have confail, are entitled to praise. Their ceived respecting the lacrymal glands, pupils, with far inferior intellectual or the circulation of the blood will affect powers, speedily surpass them in actual the tears of his Niobe, or the blushes attainments. Every girl who has read of his Aurora. If Shakespeare had Mrs. Marcct's little dialogues on Poli-written a book on the motives of human tical Economy could teach Montague actions, it is by no means certain that or Walpole many lessons in finance. it would have been a good one. It is Any intelligent man may now, by re- extremely improbable that it would solutely applying himself for a few have contained half so much able rea

soning on the subject as is to be found in the Fable of the Bees. But could Mandeville have created an Iago? Well as he knew how to resolve characters into their elements, would he have been able to combine those elements in such a manner as to make up a man, a real, living, individual man?

there are no wolves in England. Yet in spite of her knowledge she believes; she weeps; she trembles; she dares not go into a dark room lest she should feel the teeth of the monster at her throat. Such is the despotism of the imagination over uncultivated minds.

In a rude state of society men are children with a greater variety of ideas. It is therefore in such a state of society that we may expect to find the poetical temperament in its highest perfection. In an enlightened age there will be much intelligence, much science, much philosophy, abundance of just classification and subtle analysis, abundance

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind, if any thing which gives so much pleasure ought to be called unsoundness. By poetry we mean not all writing in verse, nor even all good writing in verse. Our definition excludes many metrical compositions which, on other grounds, de-of wit and eloquence, abundance of serve the highest praise. By poetry we mean the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination, the art of doing by means of words what the painter does by means of colours. Thus the greatest of poets has described it, in lines universally admired for the vigour and felicity of their diction, and still more valuable on account of the just notion which they convey of the art in which he excelled:

"As the imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name."

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verses, and even of good ones; but little poetry. Men will judge and compare; but they will not create. They will talk about the old poets, and comment on them, and to a certain degree enjoy them. But they will scarcely be able to conceive the effect which poetry produced on their ruder ancestors, the agony, the ecstasy, the plenitude of belief. The Greek Rhapsodists, according to Plato, could scarce recite Homer without falling into convulsions. The Mohawk hardly feels the scalping knifo while he shouts his death-song. The power which the ancient bards of Wales and Germany exercised over their auditors scems to modern readers almost

miraculous. Such feelings are very rare in a civilised community, and most rare among those who participate most in its improvements. They linger longest among the peasantry.

These are the fruits of the "fine frenzy" which he ascribes to the poet, a fine frenzy doubtless, but still a frenzy. Truth, indeed, is essential to poetry; but it is the truth of madness. The reasonings are just; but the premises are false. After the first suppo- Poetry produces an illusion on the sitions have been made, every thing eye of the mind, as a magic lantern ought to be consistent; but those first produces an illusion on the eye of the suppositions require a degree of credu- body. And, as the magic lantern acts lity which almost amounts to a partial best in a dark room, poetry effects its and temporary derangement of the in-purpose most completely in a dark age. tellect. Hence of all people children As the light of knowledge breaks in are the most imaginative. They aban-upon its exhibitions, as the outlines of don themselves without reserve to every illusion. Every image which is strongly presented to their mental eye produces on them the effect of reality. No man, whatever his sensibility may be, is ever affected by Hamlet or Lear, as a little girl is affected by the story of poor Red Riding-hood. She knows that it is all false, that wolves cannot speak, that

certainty become mere and more definite and the shades of probability more and more distinct, the hues and lineaments of the phantoms which the poet calls up grow fainter and fainter. We cannot unite the incompatible advantages of reality and deception, the clear discernment of truth and the exquisite enjoyment of fiction.

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