each other. We are by no means in- | dialogue, however, impose a constraint upon the writer, and break the illusion of the reader. The finest passages are those which are lyric in form as well as in spirit. "I should much commend," says the excellent Sir Henry Wotton in a letter to Milton, "the tragical

with a certain Dorique delicacy in your songs and odes, whereunto, I must plainly confess to you, I have seen yet nothing parallel in our language." The criticism was just. It is when Milton escapes from the shackles of the dialogue, when he is discharged from the labour of uniting two incongruous styles, when he is at liberty to indulge his choral raptures without reserve, that he rises even above himself. Then, like his own good Genius bursting from the earthly form and weeds of Thyrsis, he stands forth in celestial freedom and beauty; he seems to cry exultingly,

sensible to the merits of this celebrated piece, to the severe dignity of the style, the graceful and pathetic solemnity of the opening speech, or the wild and barbaric melody which gives so striking an effect to the choral passages. But we think it, we confess, the least suc-part if the lyrical did not ravish me cessful effort of the genius of Milton. The Comus is framed on the model of the Italian Masque, as the Samson is framed on the model of the Greek Tragedy. It is certainly the noblest performance of the kind which exists in any language. It is as far superior to the Faithful Shepherdess as the Faithful Shepherdess is to the Aminta, or the Aminta to the Pastor Fido. It was well for Milton that he had here no Euripides to mislead him. He understood and loved the literature of modern Italy. But he did not feel for it the same veneration which he entertained for the remains of Athenian and Roman poetry, consecrated by so many lofty and endearing recollections. The faults, moreover, of his Italian predecessors were of a kind to to skim the earth, to soar above the which his mind had a deadly anti-clouds, to bathe in the Elysian dew of the pathy. He could stoop to a plain rainbow, and to inhale the balmy smells style, sometimes even to a bald style; of nard and cassia, which the musky but false brilliancy was his utter aver- winds of the zephyr scatter through sion. His muse had no objection to a the cedared alleys of the Hesperides. russet attire; but she turned with disgust from the finery of Guarini, as tawdry and as paltry as the rags of a chimney-sweeper on May-day. Whatever ornaments she wears are of massive gold, not only dazzling to the sight, but capable of standing the severest test of the crucible.

Milton attended in the Comus to the distinction which he afterwards neglected in the Samson. He made his Masque what it ought to be, essentially lyrical, and dramatic only in semblance. He has not attempted a fruitless struggle against a defect innerent in the nature of that species of composition; and he has therefore succeeded, wherever success was not impossible. The speeches must be read as majestic soliloquies; and he who so reads them will be enraptured with their eloquence, their sublimity, and their music. The interruptions of the

"Now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly or I can run,"

There are several of the minor poems of Milton on which we would willingly make a few remarks. Still more willingly would we enter into a detailed examination of that admirable poem, the Paradise Regained, which, strangely enough, is scarcely ever mentioned except as an instance of the blindness of the parental affection which men of letters bear towards the offspring of their intellects. That Milton was mistaken in preferring this work, excellent as it is, to the Paradise Lost, we readily admit. But we are sure that the superiority of the Paradise Lost to the Paradise Regained is not more decided, than the superiority of the Paradise Regained to every poem which has since made its appearance. Our limits, however, prevent us from discussing the point at length. We hasten on to that extraordinary production which the general

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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

What is spirit? What are our own minds, the portion of spirit with which we are best acquainted? We observe certain phænomena. 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 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 objec out 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 Gorgon, who has fled from the hooks and the seething pitch of Barbariccia and Draghignazzo. His own hands have grasped the shaggy sides of Lucifer. 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 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 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 philosophising horses, nothing but such circumstantial touches could produce for a single moment a deception on the imagination.

Logicians may reason about abstractions. But 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 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 human form. Yet even these transferred to the 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, heen 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, acknowledges 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.

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 Oriental character; and the same peculiarity may be traced in his mythology. It has nothing of the amenity and elegance which we generally find in the superstitions of Greece. All is rugged, barbaric, and colossal. The legends of schylus seem to harmonize less with the fragrant groves and grace

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 uneasy 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 agonies 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.

To return for a moment to the parallel which we have been attempting to draw between Milton and Dante, we would add that the poetry of these great men has in a considerable degree taken its character from their moral qualities. They are not egotists. They rarely obtrude their idiosyncrasies on their readers. They have nothing in