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 5 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 10 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 colours to be called a painting.

Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the great mass of mankind can never feel an interest in 15 them. They 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 every reason to believe, worshipped one invisible deity. But the necessity of 20 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 25 the worship which, speculatively, they considered due only to the Supreme Mind. The history of the Jews is the record of a continued 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 secondary causes which Gibbon * has assigned for the rapidity with which Christianity spread over the world, 5 while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a proselyte, operated more powerfully than this feeling. God, the uncreated, the incomprehensible, the invisible, attracted few worshippers. A philosopher might admire so noble a conception, but the crowd turned away in 10 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 on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the cross15 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 legions, were humbled in the dust! Soon after Christianity had achieved its triumph, the principle which 20 had assisted it began to corrupt it. It became a new Paganism. Patron saints assumed the offices of house

Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794), the historian, who wrote 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'.

+ The Synagogue stands for the Jews; the Academy for the Platonic philosophers (Plato's lectures were delivered in the Academy a garden in Athens planted by Academos); the Portico for the Stoics, disciples of the philosopher Zeno who taught under a portico in Athens; the fasces of the Lictor for the highest authorities of Rome, before whom the Lictors carried the fasces or bundle of rods, clearing the way and enforcing marks of respect.

hold gods. St. George* took 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, 5 and the homage of 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 demolish 10 those which were enshrined in their minds. It would not be difficult to shew 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 15 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 the want of which Milton has been blamed, would escape 20 a disgraceful failure. Still, however, there was another extreme which, though far less dangerous, was also to be avoided. The imaginations of men are in a great

* St. George, the patron saint of England; Mars, the god of war.

+ St. Elmo's fire, the electric light seen playing about the masts of ships

in stormy weather. The Romans called it Castor and Pollux.

St. Cecilia, the patroness of music, regarded as the inventor of the organ.

§ Venus, the goddess of love.

|| Muses, the nine fabled goddesses of poetry, music, dancing, &c.

measure under the control of their opinions. The most exquisite art of poetical colouring can produce no illusion, when it is employed to represent that which is at once perceived to be incongruous and 5 absurd. Milton wrote in an age of philosophers and theologians. It was necessary, therefore, for him to abstain from giving such a shock to their understandings as might break the charm which it was his object to throw over their imaginations. This is the Io real explanation of the indistinctness and inconsistency with which he has often been reproached. Dr. Johnson acknowledges that it was absolutely necessary for him to clothe his spirits with material forms. 'But,' says he, he should have secured the consistency of 15 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 he could not seduce the reader to drop it from his thoughts? What if the contrary opinion had taken so full a possession of the 20 minds of men as to leave no room even for the halfbelief which poetry requires? Such we suspect to have been the case. It was impossible for the poet to adopt altogether the material or the immaterial system. He therefore took his stand on the debateable 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 wrong, we cannot but believe that he was poetically in the right. This task, which almost any

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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 5 incongruities which he could not avoid.

Poetry which relates to the beings of another world ought to be at once mysterious and picturesque. That of Milton is so. That of Dante is picturesque indeed, beyond any that ever was written. Its effect 10 approaches to that produced by the pencil or the chisel; but it is picturesque to the exclusion of all mystery. This is a fault, indeed, on the right side, a fault inseparable from the plan of his poem, which, as we have already observed, rendered the utmost 15 accuracy of description necessary. Still, it is a fault. His supernatural agents excite an interest, but it is not the mysterious interest which is proper to supernatural agents. We feel that we could talk with his ghosts and demons, without any emotion of unearthly 20 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 25 between the poet and Facinata is justly celebrated.

* Don Juan-The story referred to is not in Byron's Poem of 'Don Juan,' but in Mozart's Opera of 'Don Giovanni'. Don Juan asks a statue to a banquet, and to his amazement, sees the statue place itself at the board.