each other. We are by no means in- | dialogue, however, impose a constraint sensible to the merits of this celebrated upon the writer, and break the illusion piece, to the severe dignity of the style, of the reader. The finest passages are the graceful and pathetic solemnity of those which are lyric in form as well as the opening speech, or the wild and in spirit. "I should much commend," barbaric melody which gives so striking says the excellent Sir Henry Wotton an effect to the choral passages. But in a letter to Milton, "the tragical we think it, we confess, the least suc- part if the lyrical did not ravish me cessful effort of the genius of Milton. 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 labour 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,

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 Shepherdess 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 to which his mind had a deadly anti-clouds, to bathe in the Elysian dew of the pathy. 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 chimney-sweeper 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.

"Now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly or I can run,'

skim the earth, to soar above the

rainbow, and to inhale the balmy smells of nard and cassia, which the musky winds of the zephyr scatter through the cedared alleys of the Hesperides.

There are several of the minor poems of Milton on which we would willingly make a few remarks. 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 Milton attended in the Comus to the blindness of the parental affection distinction which he afterwards neg- which men of letters bear towards the lected in the Samson. He made his offspring of their intellects. That MilMasque what it ought to be, essentially ton was mistaken in preferring this lyrical, and dramatic only in sem- work, excellent as it is, to the Parablance. He has not attempted a fruit- dise Lost, we readily admit. But we less struggle against a defect inherent are sure that the superiority of the in the nature of that species of com- Paradise Lost to the Paradise Reposition; and he has therefore suc- gained is not more decided, than the ceeded, wherever success was not im- superiority of the Paradise Regained to possible. The speeches must be read as every poem which has since made its majestic soliloquies; and he who so appearance. Our limits, however, prereads them will be enraptured with vent us from discussing the point at their eloquence, their sublimity, and length. We hasten on to that extratheir music. The interruptions of the ordinary production which the general

suffrage of critics has placed in the highest class of human compositions. The only poem of modern times which can be compared with the Paradise Lost is the Divine Comedy. The subject of Milton, in some points, resembled that of Dante; but he has treated it in a widely different manner. We cannot, we think, better illustrate our opinion respecting our own great poet, than by contrasting him with the father of Tuscan literature.

The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picturewriting of Mexico. The images which Dante employs speak for themselves; they stand simply for what they are. Those of Milton have a signification which is often discernible only to the initiated. Their value depends less on what they directly represent than on what they remotely suggest. However strange, however grotesque, may be the appearance which Dante undertakes to describe, he never shrinks from describing it. He gives us the shape, the colour, the sound, the smell, the taste; he counts the numbers; he measures the size. His similes are the illustrations of a traveller. Unlike those of other poets, and especially of Milton, they are introduced in a plain, business-like manner; not for the sake of any beauty in the objects from which they are drawn; not for the sake of any ornament which they may impart to the poem; but simply in order to make the meaning of the writer as clear to the reader as it is to himself. The ruins of the precipice which led from the sixth to the seventh circle of hell were like those of the rock which fell into the Adige on the south of Trent. The cataract of Phlegethon was like that of Aqua Cheta at the monastery of St. Benedict. The place where the heretics were confined in burning tombs resembled the vast cemetery of Arles.

Now let us compare with the exact details of Dante the dim intimations of Milton. We will cite a few examples. The English poet has never thought of taking the measure of Satan. He gives us merely a vague idea of

vast bulk. In one passage the fiend lies stretched out huge in length, floating many a rood, equal in size to the earth-born enemies of Jove, or to the sea-monster which the mariner mistakes for an island. When he addresses himself to battle against the guardian angels, he stands like Teneriffe or Atlas: his stature reaches the sky. Contrast with these descriptions the lines in which Dante bas described the gigantic spectre of Nimrod. "His face seemed to me as long and as broad as the ball of St. Peter's at Rome; and his other limbs were in proportion; so that the bank, which concealed him from the waist downwards, nevertheless showed so much of him, that three tall Germans would in vain have attempted to reach to his hair." We are sensible that we do no justice to the admirable style of the Florentine poet. But Mr. Cary's translation is not at hand; and our version, however rude, is sufficient to illustrate our meaning.

Once more, compare the lazar-house in the eleventh book of the Paradise Lost with the last ward of Malebolge in Dante. Milton avoids the loathsome details, and takes refuge in indistinct but solemn and tremendous imagery. Despair hurrying from couch to couch to mock the wretches with his attendance, Death shaking his dart over them, but, in spite of supplications, delaying to strike. What says Dante? "There was such a moan there as there would be if all the sick who, between July and September, are in the hospitals of Valdichiana, and of the Tuscan swamps, and of Sardinia, were in one pit together; and such a stench was issuing forth as is wont to issue from decayed limbs."

We will not take upon ourselves the invidious office of settling precedency between two such writers. Each in his own department is incomparable; and each, we may remark, has wisely, or fortunately, taken a subject adapted to exhibit his peculiar talent to the greatest advantage. The Divine Comedy is a personal narrative. Dante is the eyewitness and ear-witness of that which he relates. He is the very man who

has heard the tormented spirits crying must be incapable. But these objec

tions, though sanctioned by eminent names, originate, we venture to say, in profound ignorance of the art of poetry.

What is spirit? What are our own minds, the portion of spirit with which we are best acquainted? We observe certain phænomena. We cannot explain 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 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 eye. And if they are not so disposed, they are no more entitled to be called poetry than a bale of canvass and a box of colours to be called a painting.

out for the second death, who has read the dusky characters on the portal within which there is no hope, who has hidden his face from the terrors of the Gorgon, who has fled from the hooks and the seething pitch of Barbariccia and Draghignazzo. His own hands have grasped the shaggy sides of Lucifer. His own feet have climbed the mountain of expiation. His own brow has been marked by the purifying angel. The reader would throw aside such a tale in incredulous disgust, unless it were told with the strongest air of veracity, with a sobriety even in its horrors, with the greatest precision and multiplicity in its details. The narrative of Milton in this respect differs from that of Dante, as the adventures of Amadis differ from those of Gulliver. The author of Amadis would have made his book ridiculous if he had introduced those minute particulars which give such a charm to the work of Swift, the nautical observations, the affected delicacy about names, the official docu- Logicians may reason about abstrac ments transcribed at full length, and all tions. But the great mass of men must the unmeaning gossip and scandal of have images. The strong tendency of the court, springing out of nothing, and the multitude in all ages and nations tending to nothing. We are not shocked to idolatry can be explained on no at being told that a man who lived, other principle. The first inhabitants nobody knows when, saw many very of Greece, there is reason to believe, strange sights, and we can easily aban- worshipped one invisible Deity. But don ourselves to the illusion of the ro- the necessity of having something more mance. But when Lemuel Gulliver, definite to adore produced, in a few surgeon, resident at Rotherhithe, tells centuries, the innumerable crowd of us of pygmies and giants, flying islands, Gods and Goddesses, In like manner and philosophising horses, nothing but the ancient Persians thought it impious such circumstantial touches could pro- to exhibit the Creator under a human duce for a single moment a deception form. Yet even these transferred to the on the imagination. Sun the worship which, in speculation, Of all the poets who have introduced they considered due only to the Suinto their works the agency of super-preme Mind. The history of the Jews natural beings, Milton has succeeded is the record of a continued struggle best. Here Dante decidedly yields to between pure Theism, supported by him and as this is a point on which the most terrible sanctions, and the many rash and ill-considered judg- strangely fascinating desire of having ments have been pronounced, we feel some visible and tangible object of adoinclined to dwell on it a little longer. ration. Perhaps none of the secondary The most fatal error which a poet can causes which Gibbon has assigned for possibly commit in the management of the rapidity with which Christianity his machinery, is that of attempting to spread over the world, while Judaism philosophise too much. Milton has scarcely ever acquired a proselyte, been often censured for ascribing to operated more powerfully than this spirits many functions of which spirits feeling. God, the uncreated, the in

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comprehensible, the invisible, attracted | ployed to represent that which is at few worshippers. A philosopher might once perceived to be incongruous and admire so noble a conception; but the absurd. Milton wrote in an age of crowd turned away in disgust from philosophers and theologians. It was words which presented no image to necessary, therefore, for him to abstain their minds. It was before Deity em- from giving such a shock to their bodied in a human form, walking among understandings as might break the men, partaking of their infirmities, lean- charm which it was his object to throw ing on their bosoms, weeping over their over their imaginations. This is the graves, slumbering in the manger, bleed-real explanation of the indistinctness ing on the cross, that the prejudices of and inconsistency with which he has the Synagogue, and the doubts of the often been reproached. Dr. Johnson Academy, and the pride of the portico, acknowledges that it was absolutely neand the fasces of the Lictor, and the cessary that the spirit should be clothed swords of thirty legions, were humbled with material forms. But," says he, in the dust. Soon after Christianity "the poet should have secured the conhad achieved its triumph, the principle sistency of his system by keeping imwhich had assisted it began to corrupt materiality out of sight, and seducing it. It became a new Paganism. Patron the reader to drop it from his thoughts.' saints assumed the offices of household This is easily said; but what if Milton gods. St. George took the place of could not seduce his readers to drop Mars. St. Elmo consoled the mariner immateriality from their thoughts? for the loss of Castor and Pollux. The What if the contrary opinion had Virgin Mother and Cecilia succeeded taken so full a possession of the minds to Venus and the Muses. The fascina- of men as to leave no room even for tion of sex and loveliness was again the half belief which poetry requires? joined to that of celestial dignity; and Such we suspect to have been the case. the homage of chivalry was blended It was impossible for the poet to adopt with that of religion. Reformers have altogether the material or the immateoften made a stand against these feel-rial system. He therefore took his stand ings; but never with more than ap-on the debatable ground. He left the parent and partial success. The men who demolished the images in cathedrals have not always been able to demolish those which were enshrined in their minds. It would not be difficult to show 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 the most unmeaning badge, or the most insignificant name, than for the most important principle.

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 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 incongruities which he could not avoid.

From these considerations, we infer that no poet, who should affect that Poetry which relates to the beings of metaphysical accuracy for the want of another world ought to be at once which Milton has been blamed, would mysterious and picturesque. That of escape a disgraceful failure. Still, how- Milton is so. That of Dante is pictuever, there was another extreme which, resque indeed beyond any that ever was though far less dangerous, was also to written. Its effect approaches to that be avoided. The imaginations of men produced by the pencil or the chisel. are in a great measure under the con- But it is picturesque to the exclusion of trol of their opinions. The most ex-all mystery. This is a fault on the quisite art of poetical colouring. can right side, a fault inseparable from the produce no illusion, when it is em- plan of Dante's poem, which, as we

have already observed, rendered the | ful porticoes in which his countrymen utmost accuracy of description neces- paid their vows to the God of Light sary. Still it is a fault. The supernatural agents excite an interest; but it is not the interest which is proper to supernatural agents. We feel that we could talk to the ghosts and dæmons, without any emotion of unearthly 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 between the poet and Farinata is justly celebrated. Still, Farinata in the burning tomb is exactly what Farinata would have been at an auto da fe. Nothing can be more touching than the first interview of Dante and Beatrice. Yet what is it, but a lovely woman chiding, with sweet austere composure, the lover for whose affection she is grateful, but whose vices she reprobates? The feelings which give the passage its charm would suit the streets of Florence as well as the summit of the Mount of Purgatory.

and Goddess of Desire, than with those huge and grotesque labyrinths of eternal granite in which Egypt enshrined her mystic Osiris, or in which Hindostan still bows down to her seven-headed idols. His favourite gods are those of the elder generation, the sons of heaven and earth, compared with whom Jupiter himself was a stripling and an upstart, the gigantic Titans, and the inexorable Furies. Foremost among his creations of this class stands Prometheus, half fiend, half redeemer, the friend of man, the sullen and implacable enemy of heaven. Prometheus bears undoubtedly a considerable resemblance to the Satan of Milton. In both we find the same impatience of control, the same ferocity, the same unconquerable pride. In both characters also are mingled, though in very different proportions, some kind and generous feelings. Prometheus, however, is hardly superhuman enough. He talks too much of his chains and his uneasy posture: he is rather too much depressed and agitated. His resoluThe spirits of Milton are unlike those tion seems to depend on the knowledge of almost all other writers. His fiends, which he possesses that he holds the in particular, are wonderful creations. fate of his torturer in his hands, and They are not metaphysical abstrac- that the hour of his release will surely tions. They are not wicked men. They come. But Satan is a creature of anoare not ugly beasts. They have nother sphere. The might of his intelhorns, no tails, none of the fee-faw-fum lectual nature is victorious over the of Tasso and Klopstock. They have just enough in common with human nature to be intelligible to human beings. Their characters are, like their forms, marked by a certain dim resemblance to those of men, but exaggerated to gigantic dimensions, and veiled in mysterious gloom.

Perhaps the gods and dæmons of Eschylus may best bear a comparison with the angels and devils of Milton. The style of the Athenian had, as we have remarked, something of the Oriental character; and the same peculiarity may be traced in his mythology. It has nothing of the amenity and elegance which we generally find in the superstitions of Greece. All is rugged, barbaric, and colossal. The legends of Eschylus seem to harmonize less with the fragrant groves and grace

extremity of pain. Amidst agonies which cannot be conceived without horror, he deliberates, resolves, and even exults. Against the sword of Michael, against the thunder of Jehovah, against the flaming lake, and the marl burning with solid fire, against the prospect of an eternity of unintermitted misery, his spirit bears up unbroken, resting on its own innate energies, requiring no support from any thing external, nor even from hope itself.

To return for a moment to the parallel which we have been attempting to draw between Milton and Dante, we would add that the poetry of these great men has in a considerable degree taken its character from their moral qualities. They are not egotists. They rarely obtrude their idiosyncrasies on their readers. They have nothing in