required the united work of the two great van- | he does in writing " thou empowered," instead quishers of all mankind. Southey. Pity that he could not abstain from a Of Satan to the self-same place where he I would place all the words after "Satan," of empoweredst. Ver. 380, Parted by the empyreal bounds, Again the schoolmen, and the crazy philosophers He through the midst unmaskt Landor. In his emendations, as he calls them, What noble verses, fifteen together! both of Milton and of Horace, for one happy Southey. It is much to be regretted that most conjecture, he makes at least twenty wrong, and of the worst verses and much of the foulest lanten ridiculous. In the Greek poets, and some-guage are put into the mouth of the Almighty. times in Terence, he, beyond the rest of the pack, For instance, v. 630, &c. I am afraid you will be was often brought into the trail by scenting an less tolerant here than you were about the quaunsoundness in the metre. But let me praise him drature. where few think of praising him, or even of suspecting his superiority. He wrote better English than his adversary Middleton, and established for his university that supremacy in classical literature which it still retains. In v. 369 I find, "Thou us empowered." This is ungrammatical: it should be empoweredst, since it relates to time past: had it related to time present, it would still be wrong; it should then be empowerest. I wonder that Bentley has not remarked this, for it lay within his competence. Southey. That is no reason why he omitted to remark it. I like plain English so much that I can not refrain from censuring the phraseology of v. 345, "With joy and tidings fraught," meaning joyful tidings, and defended by Virgil's munera lætitiamque dei. Phrases are not good, whether in Latin or English, which do not convey their meaning unbroken and unobstructed. The best understanding would with difficulty master such expressions, of which the signification is traditional from the grammarians, but beyond the bounds of logic, or even the liberties of speech. You, who have ridiculed Virgil's odor attulit auras, and many similar foolish tricks committed by him, will pardon my animadversion on a smaller (though no small) fault in Milton. It Landor. Right. Again I go forward to punc- Thou hast achieved our liberty, confined With this portentous bridge, the dark abyss. The punctuation should be, Thou hast achieved our liberty: confined My hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth... .. till crammed and gorged, nigh burst.. With suckt and glutted offal We are come To the other five, Their planetary motions and aspects, In sextile, square, and trine, and opposite. .... Although he is partial to this scansion, I am Now from the north. And, if it is not too presumptuous, I should express a doubt whether the poet wrote Is his wrath also? Be it: man is not so. Not so and also, in this position are disagreeable to the ear; which might have been avoided by omitting the unnecessary so at the close. Landor. You are correct. "Ay me." So I find it spelt (v. 813), not ah me! as usually. It is wonderful that, of all things borrowed, we should borrow the expression of grief. One would naturally think that every nation had its own, and indeed every man his. Ay me! is the ahime! of the Italians. Ahi lasso! is also theirs. gadso, less poetical and sentimental, comes also from them: we need not look for the root. Our Southey. Again I would curtail a long and somewhat foul excrescence, terminating with coarse invectives against the female sex, and with reflections more suitable to the character and experience of Milton than of Adam. I would insert my pruning-knife at v. 871, To warn all creatures from thee.. and cut clean through, quite to "household peace Within hell-gates till now, thou us empoweredst, &c. I wonder that Milton should a second time have committed so grave a grammatical fault as confound," v. 908. Landor. The reply of Eve is exquisitely beau-| word defend as the English of education then tiful, especially Both have sinned, but thou Against God only, I against God and thee. At last her voice fails her, Me, me only, just object of his ire. Bentley, and thousands more, would read, "Me, only me!" But Milton did not write for Bentley, nor for those thousands more. Similar, in the trepidation of grief, is Virgil's, "Me, me, adsum qui feci," &c. Why stand we longer shivering under fears, That show no end but death, and have the power Of many ways to die the shortest choosing, Destruction with destruction to destroy. V. 1003, &c. This punctuation is perhaps the best yet published: but, after all, it renders the sentence little better than nonsense. Eve, according to this, talks at once of hesitation and of choice, "shivering under fears," and both of them "choosing the shortest way," yet she expostulates with Adam why he is not ready to make the choice. perplexity would be solved by writing thus: The Why stand we longer shivering under fears If we persist in retaining the participle choosing, instead of the imperative choose, grammar, sense, and spirit, all escape us. I am convinced that it was an oversight of the transcriber: and we know how easily, in our own works, faults to which the eye and ear are accustomed, escape our detection, and we are surprised when they are first pointed out to us. Southey. I wish you could mend as easily, Landor. In the very first verse of the Eleventh Book, Milton is resolved to display his knowledge of the Italian idiom. We left Adam and Eve prostrate; and prostrate he means that they should still appear to us, although he writes, Thus they, in loneliest plight, repentant stood Stavano pregando would signify they continued praying. The Spaniards have the same expression: the French, who never stand still on any occasion, are without it. Southey. It is piteous that Milton, in all his strength, is forced to fall back on the old fable of Deucalion and Pyrrha. And the prayers which the son of God presents to the Father in a "golden censer, mixed with incense," had never yet been offered to the Mediator, and required no such accompaniment or conveyance. There are some noble lines beginning at 72; but one of them is prosaic in itself, and its discord is profitless to the others. In v. 86, Of that defended fruit. I must remark that Milton is not quite exempt from the evil spirit of saying things for the mere pleasure of defending them. Chaucer used the used it, in common with the French. It was obsolete in that sense when Milton wrote; so it was even in the age of Spenser, who is forced to employ it for the rhyme. Landor. This evil spirit which you find hanging about Milton, fell on him from two schoolrooms, both of which are now become much less noisy and somewhat more instructive, although Phillpots is in the one, and although Brougham is in the other; I mean the school-rooms of theology and criticism. Southey. You will be glad that he accents contrite (v. 90) on the last syllable, but the gladness will cease at the first of receptacle, v. 123. Landor. I question whether he pronounced it so. My opinion is, that he pronounced it receptacle, Latinizing as usual, and especially in B. 8, v. 574, By attributing overmuch to things, &c. We are strange perverters of Latin accentuations. From irrito we make irritate; from excito, excite. But it must be conceded that the latter is much for the better, and perhaps the former also. You will puzzle many good Latin scholars in England, and nearly all abroad, if you make them read any sentence containing irrito or excito in any of their tenses. I have often tried it; and nearly all, excepting the Italians, have pronounced both words wrong. Southey. Watchful cherubim, four faces each Better left this to the imagination: double Spangled with eyes, more numerous than those At the restoration of learning it was very pardonable to seize on every remnant of antiquity, and to throw together into one great store-room whatever could be collected from all countries, and from all authors, sacred and profane. Dante has done it; sometimes rather ludicrously. Milton here copies his Argus. And four lines farther on, he brings forward Leucothoë, in her own person, although she had then no existence. cles or anything else: yet we find "but Fate Landor. Nor indeed had subscriptions, to artisubscribed not," v. 182. And within three more lines, "The bird of Jove." Otherwise the passage is one of exquisite beauty. Among the angels, and close at the side of the archangel, “Iris had dipt her woof." Verse 267, retire is a substantive, from the Italian and Spanish. How divinely beautiful is the next passage! It is impossible not to apply to Milton himself the words he has attributed to Eve From thee How shall I part? and whither wander down My ear, I confess it, is dissatisfied with everything, for days and weeks after the harmony of Paradise Lost. Leaving this magnificent temple, I am hardly to be pacified by the fairy-built chambers, the rich cupboards of embossed plate, and the omnigenous images of Shakspeare. Southey. I must interrupt your transports. His eye might there command where-ever stood Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy, Southey. And in mine too. He might have afforded to strike out the two preceding verses when these noble ones were presented. Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs, are better to be understood than to be expressed. A melancholy damp of cold and dry. Nobody could understand this who had not read the strange notions of physicians, which continued down to the age of Milton, in which we find such nonsense as "adust humours." I think you would be unreluctant to expunge vv. 624, 625, 626, 627. Landor. Quite: and there is also much verbiage about the giants, and very perplexed from v. 88 to 97. But some of the heaviest verses in the poem are those on Noah, from 717 to 737. In the following we have "vapour and exhalation," which signify the same. Sea covered sea, This is very sublime and indeed I could never Omnia pontus erant; deerant quoque litora ponto. How didst thou grieve then, Adam, to behold Thee another flood, It is wonderful how little reflection on many occasions, and how little knowledge on some very obvious ones, is displayed by Bentley. To pass over his impudence in pretending to correct the words of Milton (whose hand-writing was extant) just as he would the corroded or corrupt text of any ancient author, here in v. 895. "To drown the world with man therein, or beast," he tells us that birds are forgot, and would substitute "With man or beast or fowl." He might as well have said that fleas are forgot. Beast means everything that is not man. It would be much more sensible to object to such an expression as men and animals, and to ask, are not men animals? and even more so than the rest, if anima has with men a more extensive meaning than with other creatures. Bentley in many things was very acute; but his criticisms on poetry produce the same effect as the water of a lead mine on plants. He knew no more about it than Hallam knows, in whom acuteness is certainly not blunted by such a weight of learning. Southey. We open the Twelfth Book: we see land at last. Landor. Yes, and dry land too. Happily the twelfth is the shortest. In a continuation of six hundred and twenty-five flat verses, we are prepared for our passage over several such deserts of Paradise Regained. But at the close of the poem almost equal extent, and still more frequent, in now under our examination, there is a brief union of the sublime and the pathetic for about twenty lines, beginning with "All in bright array." dence had not abandoned our first parents, but We are comforted by the thought that ProviParadise, they were not debarred from Eden; was still their guide; that, although they had lost and sorrowing, he left them "yet in peace." The that, although the angel had left them solitary termination is proper and complete. fairness of which many have complained. Among In Johnson's estimate I do not perceive the unhis first observations is this: "Scarcely any recital is wished shorter for the sake of quickening the main action." This is untrue: were it true, why remark, as he does subsequently, that the poem is mostly read as a duty; not as a pleasure. I think it unnecessary to say a word on the moral or the subject; for it requires no genius to select a grand one. The heaviest poems may be appended to the loftiest themes. Andreini and others, whom Milton turned over and tossed aside, are evidences. It requires a large stock of patience to travel through Vida; and we slacken in our march, although accompanied with the livelier sing-song of Sannazar. Let any reader, who is not by many degrees more pious than poetical, be asked whether he felt a very great interest in the greatest actors of Paradise Lost, in what is either said or done by the angels or the Creator; and whether the humblest and weakest does not most attract him. Johnson's remarks on the allegory of Milton are just and wise; so are those on the nonmateriality or non-immateriality of Satan. These faults might have been easily avoided but Milton, with all his strength, chose rather to make Antiquity his shield-bearer, and to come forward under a protection which he might proudly have disdained. Southey. You will not countenance the critic, nor Dryden whom he quotes, in saying that Milton "saw Nature through the spectacles of books." Landor. Unhappily both he and Dryden saw Nature from between the houses of Fleet-street. If ever there was a poet who knew her well, and described her in all her loveliness, it was Milton. In the Paradise Lost how profuse in his descriptions, as became the time and place! in the Allegro and Penseroso, how exquisite and select! Johnson asks, "What Englishman can take delight in transcribing passages, which, if they lessen the reputation of Milton, diminish, in some degree, the honour of our country!" I hope the honour of our country will always rest on truth and justice. It is not by concealing what is wrong that anything right can be accomplished. There is no pleasure in transcribing such passages, but there is great utility. Inferior writers exercise no interest, attract no notice, and serve no purpose. Johnson has himself done great good by exposing great faults in great authors. His criticism on Milton's highest work is the most valuable of all his writings. He seldom is erroneous in his censures, but he never is sufficiently excited to admiration of what is purest and highest in poetry. He has this in common with common minds (from which however his own is otherwise far remote), to be pleased with what is nearly on a level with him, and to drink as contentedly a heady beverage with its discoloured froth, as what is of the best vintage. He is morbid, not only in his weakness, but in his strength. There is much to pardon, much to pity, much to respect, and no little to admire in him. After I have been reading the Paradise Lost, I can take up no other poet with satisfaction. I seem to have left the music of Handel for the music of the streets, or at best for drums and fifes. Although in Shakspeare there are occasional bursts of harmony no less sublime, yet, if there were many such in continuation, it would be hurtful, not only in comedy, but also in tragedy. The greater part should be equable and conversational. For, if the excitement were the same at the beginning, the middle, and the end; if consequently (as must be the case) the language and versification were equally elevated throughout; any long poem would be a bad one, and, worst of all, a drama. In our English heroic verse, such as Milton has composed it, there is a much greater variety of feet, of movement, of musical notes and bars, than in the Greek heroic; and the final sounds are incomparably more diversified. My predilection in youth was on the side of Homer; for I had read the Iliad twice, and the Odyssea once, before the Paradise Lost. Averse as I am to everything relating to theology, and especially to the view of it thrown open by this poem, I recur to it incessantly as the noblest specimen in the world of eloquence, harmony, and genius. Southey. Learned and sensible men are of opinion that the Paradise Lost should have ended with the words Providence their guide." It might very well have ended there; but we are unwilling to lose sight all at once of our first parents. Only one more glimpse is allowed us: we are thankful for it. We have seen the natural tears they dropped; we have seen that they wiped them soon. And why was it? Not because the world was all before them, but because there still remained for them, under the guidance of Providence, not indeed the delights of Paradise, now lost for ever, but the genial clime and calm repose of Eden. Landor. It has been the practice in late years to supplant one dynasty by another, political and poetical. Within our own memory no man had ever existed who preferred Lucretius, on the whole, to Virgil, or Dante to Homer. But the great Florentine, in these days, is extolled high above the Grecian and Milton. Few, I believe, have studied him more attentively or with more delight than I have; but beside the prodigious disproportion of the bad to the good, there are fundamental defects which there are not in either of the other two. In the Divina Commedia the characters are without any bond of union, any field of action, any definite aim. There is no central light above the Bolge; and we are chilled in Paradise even at the side of Beatrice. Southey. Some poetical Perillus must surely have invented the terza rima. I feel in reading it as a school-boy feels when he is beaten over the head with a bolster. Landor. We shall hardly be in time for dinner. What should we have been if we had repeated with just eulogies all the noble things in the poem we have been reading? Southey. They would never have weaned you from the Mighty Mother who placed her turreted crown on the head of Shakspeare. Landor. A rib of Shakspeare would have made Milton: the same portion of Milton, all poets born ever since. a RHADAMISTUS AND ZENOBIA. Zenobia. My beloved! my beloved! I can endure the motion of the horse no longer; his weariness makes his pace so tiresome to me. Surely we have ridden far, very far from home; and how shall we ever pass the wide and rocky stream, among the whirlpools of the rapid and the deep Araxes? From the first sight of it, O my husband! you have been silent: you have looked at me at one time intensely, at another wildly have you mistaken the road? or the ford? or the ferry? Rhadamistus. Tired, tired! did I say? ay, thou must be. Here thou shalt rest: this before us is the place for it. Alight; drop into my arms: art thou within them? Zenobia. Always in fear for me, my tender thoughtful Rhadamistus! Rhadamistus. Rhadamistus then once more embraces his Zenobia! can you tell that? Do you think it? I do not. Rhadamistus. What reason, O unconfiding girl! from the day of our union, have I ever given you, to accuse, or to suspect me? Zenobia. None, none: your love, even in these sad moments, raises me above the reach of fortune. How can it pain me so? Do I repine? Worse may it pain me; but let that love never pass away! Rhadamistus. Was it then the loss of power and kingdom for which Zenobia was prepared? Zenobia. The kingdom was lost when Rhadamistus lost the affection of his subjects. Why did they not love you? how could they not? Tell me so strange a thing.* Rhadamistus. Fables, fables! about the death Zenobia. And presses her to his bosom as with of Mithridates and his children: declamations, the first embrace. outcries as if it were as easy to bring men to life again as I know not what to call after Rhadamistus. What is the first to the last! once more. Zenobia. So: with a kiss: which you forget to take. Rhadamistus (aside). And shall this shake my purpose? it may my limbs, my heart, my brain; but what my soul so deeply determined, it shall strengthen as winds do trees in forests. Zenobia. Come, come! cheer up. How good you are to be persuaded by me back again at one word! Hark! where are those drums and bugles on which side are these echoes? Rhadamistus. Alight, dear, dear Zenobia! And does Rhadamistus then press thee to his bosom? Can it be ! Zenobia. Can it cease to be? you would have said, my Rhadamistus ! Hark! again those trumpets? on which bank of the water are they? Now they seem to come from the mountains, and now along the river. Men's voices too! threats and yells! You, my Rhadamistus, could escape. Rhadamistus. Wherefore? with whom? and whither in all Asia? Zenobia. Fly! there are armed men climbing up the cliffs. Rhadamistus. It was only the sound of the waves in the hollows of them, and the masses of pebbles that rolled down from under you as you knelt to listen. Zenobia. Turn round; look behind! is it dust yonder, or smoke? and is it the sun, or what is it, shining so crimson? not shining any longer now, but deep and dull purple, embodying into gloom. Rhadamistus. It is the sun, about to set at mid-day; we shall soon see no more of him. them. Zenobia. But about the children? Rhadamistus. In all governments there are secrets. Zenobia. Between us? Rhadamistus. No longer time presses: not a moment is left us, not a refuge, not a hope! Zenobia. Then why draw the sword? Rhadamistus. Wanted I courage? did I not fight as becomes a king? Zenobia. True, most true. Rhadamistus. Is my resolution lost to me? did I but dream I had it? Zenobia. Nobody is very near yet; nor can they cross the dell where we did. Those are fled who could have shown the pathway. Think not of defending me. Listen! look! what thousands are coming. The protecting blade above my head can only provoke the enemy. And do you still keep it there? You grasp my arm too hard. Can you look unkindly? Can it be? O think again and spare me, Rhadamistus! From the vengeance of man, from the judgments of heaven, the unborn may preserve my husband. Rhadamistus. We must die! They advance; they see us; they rush forward! Zenobia. Me, me would you strike? Rather let me leap from the precipice. Rhadamistus. Hold! Whither would thy desperation? Art thou again within my grasp? Zenobia. O my beloved! never let me call you cruel! let me love you in the last hour of seeing you as in the first. I must, I must.. and be it my thought in death that you love me so! I would have cast away my life to save you from * From the seclusion of the Asiatic women, Zenobia Zenobia. Indeed! what an ill omen! but how may be supposed to have been ignorant of the crimes Rhadamistus had committed. |