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 observa5 tions, the affected delicacy about names, the

official documents transcribed at full length, and all the unmeaning gossip and scandal of the court, springing out of nothing, and tending to nothing.

We are not shocked at being told that a man who 10 lived, nobody knows when, saw many very strange

sights, and we can easily abandon ourselves to the illusion of the romance.

But when Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon, resident at Rotherhithe, tells us

of pygmies and giants, flying islands, and philoso15 phizing horses, nothing but such circumstantial

touches could produce for a single moment a deception on the imagination.

Of all the poets who have introduced into their works the agency of supernatural beings, Milton 20 has succeeded best. Here Dante decidedly yields

to him; and as this is a point on which many rash and ill-considered judgments have been pronounced, we feel inclined to dwell on it a little

longer. The most fatal error which a poet can 25 possibly commit in the management of his machin

ery, is that of attempting to philosophize too much. Milton has been often censured for ascribing to spirits many functions of which spirits

must be incapable. But these objections, though 30 sanctioned by eminent names, originate, we ven

ture to say, in profound ignorance of the art of poetry.

What is spirit? What are our own minds, the portion of spirit with which we are best acquainted? We observe certain phenomena. We cannot explain them into material causes. We 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 10 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 15 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 canvas and a box of colors to be called a painting. Logicians may reason about abstractions.

But 20 the great mass of men must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained on no other principle. The first inhabitants of Greece, there is reason to believe, worshipped one invisible 25 Deity. But the necessity of having something more definite to adore produced, in a few centuries, the innumerable crowd of gods and goddesses. In like manner the ancient Persians thought it impious to exhibit the Creator under a 80 human form. Yet even these transferred to the Sun the worship which, in speculation, they considered due only to the Supreme Mind. The his

tory of the Jews is the record of a continued 5 struggle between pure Theism, supported by the

most terrible sanctions, and the strangely fascinating desire of having some visible and tangible object of adoration. Perhaps none of the second

ary causes which Gibbon has assigned for the 10 rapidity with which Christianity spread over the

world, while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a proselyte, operated more powerfully than this feeling. God, the uncreated, the incomprehensible,

the invisible, attracted few worshippers. A philos15 opher might admire so noble a conception; but

the crowd turned away in disgust from words which presented no image to their minds. It was before Deity, embodied in a human form, walking

among men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning 20 on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slum

bering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of the Synagogue, and the doubts of the Academy, and the pride of the Portico, and

the fasces of the Lictor, and the swords of thirty 25 legions, were humbled in the dust. Soon after

Christianity had achieved its triumph, the principle which had assisted it began to corrupt it. It became a new Paganism. Patron saints assumed

the offices of household gods. St. George took 30 the place of Mars. St. Elmo consoled the mariner for the loss of Castor and Pollux. The Virgin Mother and Cecilia succeeded to Venus and the Muses. The fascination of sex and loveliness was again joined to that of celestial dignity; and the homage of 5 chivalry was blended with that of religion. Reformers have often made a stand against these feelings; but never with more than apparent and partial success. The men who demolished the images in cathedrals have not always been able to 10 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 15 is more easily interested for the most unmeaning badge, or the most insignificant name, than for the most important principle.

From these considerations, we infer that no poet who should affect that metaphysical accuracy for 20 the want of which Milton has been blamed, would escape a disgraceful failure. Still, however, there was another extreme which, thongh far less dangerous, was also to be avoided. The imaginations of men are in a great measure under the control of 25 their opinions. The most exquisite art of poetical coloring can produce no illusion when it is employed to represent that which is at once perceived to be incongruous and absurd. Milton wrote in an age of philosophers and theologians. It was 30 necessary, therefore, for him to abstain from giring such a shock to their understandings as might break the charm which it was his object to throw

over their imaginations. This is the real expla5 nation of the indistinctness and inconsistency with

which he has often been reproached. Dr. Johnson acknowledges that it was absolutely necessary that the spirits should be clothed with material

forms. “But,” says he, “the poet should have 10 secured the consistency of his system by keeping

immateriality out of sight, and seducing the reader to drop it from his thoughts.” This is easily said; but what if Milton could not seduce his

readers to drop immateriality from their thoughts? 15 What if the contrary opinion had taken so full a possession of the minds of men as to leave no

even for the half-belief requires? Such we suspect to have been the case. It was impossible for the poet to adopt altogether 20 the material or the immaterial system. He there

fore took his stand on the debatable ground. He left the whole in ambiguity. He has doubtless, by so doing, laid himself open to the charge of

inconsistency. But, though philosophically in the 25 wrong, we cannot but believe that he was poetic

ally 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 30 through a long succession of associated ideas, and

room

which poetry