predecessor. Compare with this poem the two incessantly quoted lines in L'Allegro (133-4):

...

sweetest Shakespear, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild.'

Which of the two tributes seem to you to contain the more satisfying conception of Shakespeare's real power? Compare also with this poem Matthew Arnold's, Browning's, and Swinburne's sonnets on Shakespeare. When a poet chooses a great subject for a brief poem, it is always instructive to note the phase of the subject that seems to him most worthy of the emphasis he puts upon it, by singling it out for treatment.

ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER; ANOTHER ON THE SAME.

Is the editor's comment just: that these poems are not in very good taste? What does the expression, ‘in good taste' mean to you?

MARCHIONESS OF WINCHESTER.

Is Milton's tone as sympathetic as in his poem on the death of his niece, the fair infant'? Is the metre adapted to the expression of sad or tender thoughts?

L'ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO.

One must avoid the notion that L'Allegro and Il Penseroso are diametric opposites. The supposed diametric contrast arises chiefly from the preludes, rather than from the poems taken as a whole. When the joys of cheerfulness and of meditation are compared in themselves, they are seen to be not irreconcilable; they may easily enough be different moods of the same man. It is not needful, nor, perhaps, possible, to regard all of the descriptions as pertaining to some one place or

season.

The poems, then, are not studies of two different kinds of men. The theme is really a consideration, a balancing, of two kinds of pleasure,—the pleasure that grows out of good spirits, and the deeper pleasure that grows out of good thinking. The latter is naturally that towards which a man of Milton's fine fibre would most incline. Therefore upon this pleasure is laid the greater stress.

L'Allegro.-1. 6. Why jealous wings? 28. What image have we in mind when we speak of a person's face as 'wreathed in smiles'? 34. Why should this expression have passed into familiar use? 43. Is the image apt? 49-52. Is Milton's description of familiar little things of this sort as effective as his description (59-62) of the sunrise, for instance? 73-74. Does the movement of these two lines resemble the movement of the next two? Read them aloud and note if your voice pauses in the same place in each line. Does the sound of the lines seem to suit the subject? 84. What is gained by the use of such adjectives as 'savoury,' in this line, neat-handed' (86), 'jocund' (94), 'drudging' (105), 'shadowy' (108), ' whispering' (116), ‘haunted' (130), ‘eating' (135), ‘melting' (142)? 151. In brief, what are ‘these delights'?

Il Penseroso. 1. Does Milton mean that all joys are vain and deluding, or does he disapprove only of such joys as are, in themselves, vain and deluding? 13. What is gained by this ingenious explanation of the somber hue of Melancholy? 24. Why is Saturn called 'solitary'? 31. The poet's vision of the coming of Melancholy and her train is, of course, markedly different from his vision of the coming of Mirth and her followers: how, then, is this fact to be reconciled with the statement that the speaker in the first poem is not the opposite of the speaker in the second? 46. What does this line mean? Would it be fair to call it a foreshadowing of Wordsworth's expression,—' plain living and high thinking'? 50. Does 'trim' define some one kind of garden Milton may have in mind, or does it

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characterize his general notion of gardens? 75. Does ' wide-watered' add anything to 'far-off'? 76. Is ' roar an expressive word for the sound of the far-off curfew' ? 77. What must air' mean here? 80. What does this line mean? 88. It will be seen that Milton's philosophical reading is not so much melancholy as serious. He also reads tragedy, however: does his conception of it seem melancholy? As far as you can tell from his words, what kind of poetry attracted Milton? 127. What difference in tone between Milton's description of the rainy morning, and Longfellow's 'dark and dreary' day: 'It rains and the wind is never weary'? Does this comparison throw any light on Il Penseroso's melancholy? 151. Does Milton's description of music here and elsewhere (161-166) tell what music is like, or does it merely tell how much Milton likes music? Cf. Sol. Mus. p. 44. 175. What in brief, are these pleasures? Is there any significance in Milton's speaking of the 'delights' of Mirth (Ľ’All. 151) and the pleasures' of Melancholy? or is the second word used merely to avoid a repetition of the first?

་

AT A SOLEMN MUSIC.

Note here, as in the following poem, the poet's tendency to rise above the immediate demands of his subject. Milton leaves one in no doubt as to the upward direction of his thought. In these two poems to what extent are the ideas similar? what differences are there? Is the conclusion of either one of the poems more majestic or more appropriate than that of the other?

ON TIME.

This poem is as sincere and sustained as The Passion is unequal and artificial. Is this statement true? What effect has the varying length of the lines? 1. 1. Why 'envious'?

ARCADES.

How can one tell whether this mask is given indoors or out of doors, before or after dark? Is there a series of incidents or but one main situation? Does anything happen between the first and second songs? Are the characteristics of those who sing or speak brought out clearly? How had Fame been lavish (1. 9)? To whom does the speech of the Genius pay compliment? Does the somewhat elaborate description of the Genius (44–67) detract from the complimentary effect of the mask, or does it emphasize it? Is the speech as poetical as the lyrics? 1. 51. The last three words of this line are adjective, noun, adjective,-the two adjectives referring to the one noun. In his Imaginary Conversation between Southey and Landor, Landor says: 'Milton was very Italian, as you know, in his custom of adding a second epithet after the substantive, where one had preceded it.' Find other examples of this arrangement. Was Landor right in thinking that a similar instance was to be found in Il Pens. 156 (Cf. note on that line, p. 216)?

COMUS.

Before the following questions are taken up, the entire mask should be read.

At what points in the story (as Milton gives it) is your interest strongest? What parts of the action seem to you the most important, so far as helping the story to its conclusion is concerned? What situations (which we may take to be those places in the plot, in which our interest is centered in what may be going to happen) seem most full of human interest? Which persons are the most interesting in themselves? Who cause things to happen? Into what parts, or stages of action, do you think this mask is divided (e. g., the first conversation of the Lady and Comus is one stage of the action, and makes an inter

esting situation)? Can any of these parts be grouped into larger parts? The more interesting moments might be regarded as situations, the smaller parts as scenes, the groups as acts. Do the several persons show enough points of resemblance (in kind, character, or in what they do) to warrant your placing them together in small groups, or must they be regarded as separate in all these respects? Do the persons who do the most appear most prominently at the exciting times? What character could best be spared, so far as the mere plot is concerned? Can you say of any character that he or she could least be spared? Does anything happen that could be omitted without affecting the story? Can you say of any one incident that it is absolutely necessary in order that the story come to its present conclusion? Upon what incidents does the story depend? Upon what characters? What share have these characters in these incidents? How much time does the action cover?

First Scene. In the first performance, as the Bridgewater MS. indicates (the handwriting is probably Lawes's), the mask does not open with the Spirit's speech, but with a song by the Spirit. This song of twenty lines consists of part of what is now the epilogue.* Why was the song transferred to the beginning? Why, do you suppose, did

Milton not leave it there?

1-92. Note the long sentences of the opening speech: what effect have they? Is this speech plain and simple, or elaborate? Do the details make it clearer, or more beautiful?

*It begins,' From the heavens now I fly,' instead of, 'To the ocean'; omits the four lines, 'Along the crisped shades bounties bring'; inserts a line after the present line 995; omits the present line 997; and ends with line 999, changed to 'Where many a cherub soft reposes.' In brief, this prologue looks like a revised and condensed form of the passage 976-1011, but in reality it is much nearer Milton's first draft of the epilogue (Cambridge MS.) than is the epilogue as it appears in print, or in the second draft (Cambridge MS.).