women, an ability to put himself in another's place: these characteristics are clearly not Milton's. Perhaps he would have been the less Milton if they were. Certainly, no lover of great verse would exchange the poetry that springs from Milton's strenuous insistence on right toward man and duty toward God, for the poetry that grows out of mere happy kindliness, charming as such poetry may be. But, and the point must be insisted upon, in choosing Milton to read, one is not choosing the austere and rejecting the beautiful; one is accepting the eminently beautiful and the eminently lofty: not exhaustively either of them, but more of both than may be found in harmony in any other poet, save one, of our English race.

THE SOURCES OF COMUS.

The fundamental conception of Comus is thoroughly Miltonic: the idea of the strength of right against evil,-more specifically of chastity against lust, is instinctive with Milton, and is therefore not to be traced to any other source than the heart of the poet. Such a conception was bound to come' into expression, and might as readily have found its occasion elsewhere as it did in the invitation to write a mask. But this invitation presented the adequate opportunity, and Milton grasped it. How his thoughts happened to turn to the specific subject, Comus, we have no certain means of know

ing. We may only guess what sent his thoughts to this personage, Comus, rather than to Diana or Vesta on the one hand, or to Venus, Silenus, or still lower divinities on the other, whether it was an impulse entirely spontaneous, or bookish. It seems more than likely that in his reading Milton had found suggested to him in the character of Comus a type of the insinuating sensuality so repugnant to his own clean nature.

At any rate, there is at least one work with which Milton might have come into contact, the Comus✶ of Puteanus, which was probably written in 1608. A second edition was printed in 1611 in Louvain; and another edition came out in Oxford in 1634.

If Milton owes anything to this work, it is, as has been said, a suggestion only. It is, however, at very least, a matter of interest to consider for a moment a literary work called Comus, whose appearance in England in the year of the presentation of Milton's mask is such a striking coincidence. The Comus in question is a long and rather tedious Latin composition in prose, interspersed with verse, by a Dutch writer, Hendrik van der Putten, a professor of Eloquence at the university of Louvain. The work is in the familiar form of a dream. The author is carried in vision to the Cimmerian regions

*The full title of the book is Comus, sive Phagesiposia Cimmeria. Somnium. The copy that I have used makes part of a collection of satires, bearing date 1655.

to the palace of Comus, where a banquet (Phagesiposia) is held. Pleasures and passions are among the riotous guests, and the ideals of the hermaphrodite Comus (Paucis: totum Voluptatis regnum meum est; nec felix quisquam, nisi, qui meus) are duly insisted upon. An old man, Tabutius, seeks to expose the hollowness of these ideals of delight, and discusses at great length the significance of the several vices. When Tabutius finally ceases to expound, the dreamer awakes.

It is obvious that nothing of the plot of Milton's Comus came from this work, which is neither an orderly narrative nor a well-arranged dialogue. Comus, the main character, is really kept in the background while the other characters talk pedantically. At most, Milton may have read the work, approved its underlying idea, and have recognized in its title figure a personage possible to treat more fully, or more effectively. And thus he was provided with an inspiring suggestion, which in due time he would work out in his own way. So much and no more may be accounted the debt of Milton to the Comus of Puteanus.

There was another portrayal of the god Comus that was still more easily accessible to Milton: Ben Jonson's mask Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (1619). This mask had as one of its principal figures Comus himself; not the rather subtle Comus of the Phagesiposia, but a rollicking god of good eating and abundant drinking, a 'belly-god.'

This character has practically nothing in common with Milton's Comus, and the whole mask could have had very little direct effect on Milton,* as the following analysis will show. The scene is the base of Mt. Atlas. Comus rides in in triumph, 'to a wild music of cymbals, flutes and tabors.' His attendants sing a boisterous song of praise,-chiefly of Comus's culinary exploits. The Bowlbearer of Hercules in a free and easy way comments facetiously on the qualities of Comus, and on the power of hard drinkers to transform themselves into drinking vessels. This speech serves to introduce the antimask, a dance of men in the shape of bottles, tuns, etc.' Hercules enters, and denounces the merrymakers for abusing the wine that should be the reward of thirsty heroes. The Comus rout vanishes, and there appear Pleasure and Virtue and

*The final song in Jonson's mask, however, is more in accord with the spirit of Milton than the commentators seem to have noticed. These lines upon Virtue might readily find a place in Comus:

་

She, she it is in darkness shines,
'Tis she that still herself refines,

By her own light to every eye;

More seen, more known, when Vice stands by:
And though a stranger here on earth,

In heaven she hath her right of birth.

'There, there is Virtue's seat:

Strive to keep her your own;

'Tis only she can make you great,
Though place here make you known.'

their attendants, who sing a short ode in praise of Hercules, urging him to sleep after his labors. Immediately follows a second antimask, this time of pigmies, who, seeing Hercules asleep, determine to capture him. Before doing it, however, they display in a pigmy dance their pigmy joy over their coming triumph. The music awakens Hercules, and the pigmies run to their holes. Mercury appears: he crowns Hercules with a garland of poplar, and declares that this night Pleasure is reconciled to Virtue. A song of the followers of Pleasure and Virtue succeeds, and the wise Dædalus enters to give them laws. Three songs from him follow, interspersed with dances of the maskers, the songs interpreting the significance of the dances. Then Mercury sums up the meaning of the mask, in a song, of which the lines to Virtue (quoted above) are a part. The mask ends in another dance.

Putting this into a compacter form will show the proportions of a typical mask, so far as poetry and dancing are concerned.