We may now begin a new paragraph. 'No two kinds of composition are so,' &c., and to this the rest of the matter will fit admirably, notwithstanding the excess of illustration. P. 21. 1. 1.-A change of subject followed by a consequent change of paragraph; we expect a discussion of the attempts made to amalgamate these incompatible elements. Re-arrange: 'To amalgamate these hostile elements has often been attempted but never with complete success.' 7. 3.-It only tends to confusion to introduce this reference to Samson. Omit it, and join on the next sentence, 'The Greek Drama had a lyrical origin; it began by engrafting dialogue on the ode or chorus, and this lyrical origin in co-operation with the distinctive lyrical genius of Æschylus - the greatest of Athenian dramatists, served for a time to give it a lyrical character'. This is much briefer, more proportionate, and clearer. It is a habit of Macaulay's, when he comes upon a historical topic like this, to linger over it, for its own sake, longer than is necessary for the immediate purposes of his exposition. 1. 10. In his time. We might with advantage condense the sentences here too, in order to shorten our route to the discussion of Comus and Agonistes, to which this is but a All explanation subsidiary to the main theme prelude. Say-In his time the Greeks had large intercourse with the East, and having not yet acquired that immense superiority, &c., which in the following generation led them to treat Asiatics with contempt, they still (Herodotus tells us) looked up to Egypt and Assyria with the veneration of disciples. Their literature was naturally tinctured with the Oriental style. Eschylus shows the influence; his work often reminds us of Hebrew writers; some of his dramas in particular bear strong resemblance to the Book of Job. Considered as plays his works are absurd'; &c. P. 22. 7. 10.-Sophocles. A new aspect introduced without warning. Try—‘After Æschylus, Sophocles made the Greek drama as dramatic as was consistent with its original lyric form,' or 'its lyrical origin'. 7. 13.-Not of a painting but of a bas-relief. clearness - intelligible enough. 7. 14.- Balance again. Illustration for 7. 15.-Or-'Euripides attempted to improve upon Sophocles' reforms, but the task was beyond his powers, perhaps beyond any powers'. ll. 17-20.-These two sentences, being Iterations, should be conjoined by a semicolon. The balance resumed in 1. 14 is here again active to the end of the paragraph. The metaphors 'crutches' and 'stilts' are not very intelligible. 1. 21.- Our digression is at an end, and now we have the application. We should get into it more rapidly. It is not till line 3 of p. 23, that we reach the point. The subject of the paragraph is Milton's veneration for Euripides and its effect on the Agonistes. Say:-' Milton's high admiration for Euripides, -a misplaced and incongruous admiration—was injurious to the Samson Agonistes'. This cuts away the reference to Titania and Bottom, which, however, is far too grotesque, inaccurate and exaggerated. It is forced in here without any appositeness. The paragraph then proceeds in good order. Mark the repetition of 'Euripides'; 'he' might be ambiguous. Further on, he varies to 'the Athenian'. 'Macaulay has a perfect hatred of pronouns, and for fear of a possible entanglement between "hims," and "hers," and "its," he will repeat not merely a substantive but a whole group of substantives; sometimes to make his sense unmistakable he will repeat a whole formula with only a change in the copula '. (Leslie Stephen, p. 308.) P. 23. 7. 11. Two sentences of perfect balance and antithesis. 1. 14.-Like an acid and an alkali mixed. - A happy simile for aiding the Understanding. But it is necessary to make the remark here, that except the reader knows some chemistry the illustration will serve no good purpose. One condition of intellectual similes is, that they be more intelligible to those addressed than the thing compared. No doubt Macaulay would justify its introduction by reference to the audience he is addressing. He writes for educated men. 1. 15.-We. This pronoun has a reference different from those in lines II and 13. Here it is the editorial 'we,' standing for Macaulay; there it represents the readers by a kind of Humanity use. The sentence is characteristic of Macaulay-balanced and expanded with an oratorical cadence. 1. 23. So much for the Samson-a new paragraph handles the Comus. The opening sentence is balanced. We are to expect some account of the Italian origin of the poem. P. 24. 7. 2.-This is off the rail, and we begin to suspect Dislocation. 1. 4. Carries on the previous sentence, though, two of the poems referred to being Italian, there is a side reference to the Italian model. This kind of criticism is quite Macaulayan. He seems to have poems and poets ranged in his mind on a scale of merit, and, is able, when any poem crosses his path, to give it its proper relative place. Comus: Faithful Shepherdess :: Faithful Shepherdess : Aminta. Faithful Shepherdess : Aminta :: Aminta: Pastor Fido. Compare the Essay on Machiavelli :- Mandrogola is superior to the best of Goldoni and inferior only to the best of Molière'. So again in the essay on Addison :-'We need not hesitate to admit that Addison has left us some compositions which do not rise above mediocrity, some heroic poems hardly equal to Parnell's, some criticism as superficial as Dr. Blair's, and a tragedy not very much better than Dr. Johnson's'. 1. 6.-It was well for. Or merely,' Milton had here no Euripides to mislead him'. This carries us back to the opening sentence. 7. 7.--So does this, and the same strain continues to the end of the paragraph. What then are we to do with the two obstructive sentences at lines 2 and 4? Might we not begin thus?-'The Comus, on the other hand, is a masque, and is certainly the noblest production of the kind in any language. It is as far superior, &c. It is framed on the Italian model, as Samson is framed on the Greek. Milton had here no Euripides to mislead him. Although he understood and loved the literature of modern Italy he did not feel for it, &c.' This destroys the undue prominence of Milton's love for Italian literature, and makes the facts more in consonance with his antipathy to its faults in the next sentence. l. 12.- The faults. Keep up the Parallel Construction by saying:- 'His mind had a deadly antipathy to the faults of his Italian predecessors. He could stoop to a plain style,' &c. 7. 17. - A relapse to the figurative style. As paltry as the rags of a chimney-sweeper on May-day. A degrading similenot at all happy. The particularity is a merit, and a characteristic, as before noted; but 'rags' is not finery. In trying to say a strong thing, Macaulay sometimes weakens the effect by making it too strong. Mr. Cotter Morison remarks (p. 61) on Macaulay's 'low pitched strain of allusion,' and criticising him for his coarse comparisons quotes the following- "The victuallers soon found out with whom they had to deal, and sent down to the fleet casks of meat which dogs would not touch, and barrels of beer which smelt worse than bilge water". On this, he observes--' Nothing is gained by such crudity of language; and truth is sacrificed if that is a consideration. Dogs have no objection to tainted meat, and nothing can smell worse than bilge water.' 7. 20.- Much better-though hackneyed. P. 25. 7. 3.-In order to strike the right key-note of the paragraph we should weld the two first sentences into one, by means of a semicolon. P. 26. 1. I.-We feel ourselves being drawn on to an eloquent closethe highest point yet reached in the essay; the method being to heap up synonymous phrases. 'He rises even above himself''-an every-day epigram. 7. 11.-By culling abundantly from Milton's own lyrical phrases in the Comus, Macaulay concludes his paragraph with a poetic and eloquent flourish. The word 'smells' is out of harmony with the situation, - having acquired a different meaning since Milton's day. It is a very fair stroke of originality in Macaulay to compare Milton to the Good Spirit in the Comus. The |