ters, and think only of the poetry, we shall admit that it has never been surpassed in energy and magnificence. Sophocles made the Greek drama as dramatic as was consistent with its original form. His portraits of men have a sort of similarity; but it is the similarity, not of painting, but of a bas-relief. It suggests a resemblance, but it does not produce an illusion.1 Euripides attempted to carry the reform further. But it was a task far beyond his powers, perhaps beyond any powers. Instead of correcting what was bad, he destroyed what was excellent. He substituted crutches for stilts, bad sermons for good odes.* 27. Milton, it is well known, admired Euripides highly --much more highly than, in our opinion, Euripides deserved. Indeed the caresses which this partiality leads him to bestow on "sad Electra's poet," sometimes remind us of the beautiful Queen of Fairyland kissing the long ears of Bottom.4 At all events, there can be no doubt

1Sophocles (495-406 B.C.), the second and greatest of the Greek tragedians. He excelled in sharp and delicate character-drawing; and he knew, in spite of tragedy's "sceptred pall," how to exhibit the complexities of human life as it is. Of course all his work was done under the traditions of the Greek stage. The Greek drama is always suggestive of sculpture rather than of painting; it aims at symmetry, rhythm, and equipoise, rather than at vivacity and color. The art of Sophocles in particular is characterized by a refined and balanced perfection wrought quietly out in harmonious and beautiful details. But it is quite too much to say that it "does not produce an illusion." 2 Euripides (480-406 B.C.), the third of the Greek tragedians. Macaulay modified this unfavorable judgment of Euripides in his later years. He wrote in his copy of Euripides in 1835, “I can hardly account for the contempt which I felt, at school and college, for Euripides. I own I like him better now than Sophocles." But there is some justice nevertheless in these strictures on the art of Euripides. In trying to adapt the form of Greek tragedy to the representation of scenes from life Euripides overpassed the limits of possibility. 3 See Milton's Sonnet VIII.

See Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iv., Sc. 1.

that his veneration for the Athenian, whether just or not, was injurious to the Samson Agonistes. Had he taken Eschylus for his model, he would have given himself up to the lyric inspiration, and poured out profusely all the treasures of his mind, without bestowing a thought on those dramatic proprieties which the nature of the work rendered it impossible to preserve. In the attempt to reconcile things in their own nature inconsistent, he has failed, as every one else must have failed. We cannot identify ourselves with the characters as in a good play. We cannot identify ourselves with the poet, as in a good ode. The conflicting ingredients, like an acid and an alkali1 mixed, neutralize each other. We are by no means insensible 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 successful effort of the genius of Milton.

2

28. 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 Shep

Two groups of substances of which each group possesses the qual ity of destroying the characteristic chemical properties of the member; of the other group.

2 A Masque or mask, a form of dramatic spectacle much in vogue in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It contained spoken verse, music, and dancing. "The origin of the dramatic masque of the sixteenth century has been traced by antiquaries as far back as the time of Edward III. But in its perfected shape it was a genuine offspring of the English Renaissance, a cross between the English mystery-play and the Greek drama." As the taste for open-air pageant died out, masques yielded to operas, their modern equivalent. They flourished most in the reigns of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I.

herdess 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 which his mind had a deadly antipathy. He could stoop to a plain style, sometimes even to a bald style; but false brilliancy was his utter aversion. His muse had no objection to a russet attire; but she turned with disgust from the finery of Guarini, as tawdry and as paltry as the rags of a chimneysweeper 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.3

29. Milton attended in the Comus to the distinction which he 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 inherent in the nature of that species of composition; and he has therefore succeeded

1 The Faithful Shepherdess, by John Fletcher (1579–1625), the literary partner of Beaumont. "It is a lyric poem, in semi-dramatic shape, to be judged only as such, and as such almost faultless." Swinburne. The Aminta is by Tasso (1544--1595). The Pastor Fido is by Guarini (1537-1612). These three pastoral dramas are all of about the same date, depicting the loves of swains and shepherd

esses.

2 See Charles Lamb's essay on Chimney-sweepers, Essays of Elia. May-day was the great holiday for the poor little wretches, who were forced in Macaulay's youth to climb up the inside of English chimneys to clean out the soot. They went about decorated on this day with ribbons and garlands.

3 Crucible, a vessel or melting pot for chemical tests. The word is connected with "crock, crockery."

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 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 part, if the lyrical did not ravish me 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 labor 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

3

"Now my task is smoothly done

I can fly or I can run,"

1 Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639), a wit and scholar of James the First's court. Admired and trusted by the King, he might have had high place in English history had he been willing to become one of the courtiers and advisers of James. But he chose pleasanter paths of literary and political life. He was made at his own request ambassador to Venice, as he said, "to tell lies for the good of his country." He was promoted thence to be Provost of Eton, becoming a neighbor and friend of Milton. See Walton's Lives for a beautiful account of him. 2 Greek pastoral poetry was written in Doric Greek of Sicily. Hence "Doric "" means "pastoral or rural in sound." "The tragical part"

means simply the dialogue.

3 An old Saxon word for a garment, now disused except in the phrase "widow's weeds."

4 Thyrsis, a name for shepherds in Greek pastoral poetry. The verses are lines 1012, 1013 of Comus.

2

to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to bathe in the Elysian1 dew of the rainbow, and to inhale the balmy smells of nard and cassia, which the musky wings of the zephyr scatter through the cedared alleys of the Hesperides.3

30. There are several of the minor poems of Milton on which we would willingly make a few remarks.4 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 that 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 must 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

S$ 30-47. Fifth topic: Paradise Lost. Parallel between Milton and Dante. A discussion of Milton's superiority in the management of the agency of supernatural beings.

'Elysium, the abode of the blessed, according to Greek mythology. All these pretty phrases are quoted from the same song in Comus, vss. 774 to the end.

"All thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia." Psalms xlv. 8. Milton's phrases are often culled from the English Bible.

Hesperides, daughters of Hesperus, who dwell in some mysterious earthly paradise, lying in the unknown West (in Greek, Hesperos).

Macaulay dismisses in this little sentence Lycidas, and the great Ode on the Nativity, without further allusion, together with a large number of other interesting short poems. The student of Milton must be prepared to supplement Macaulay's essay with many other books. See Suggestions for Teachers and Students, iii. (2).

"There is no evidence that Milton thought this work superior to Paradise Lost. His nephew, Philips, simply says that when people said it was inferior, "he could not hear with patience any such thing related to him." It is a short poem of three books, telling very simply of Christ's temptation.