A. He was born in London, in 1608, was graduated at the University of Cambridge, spent some years in rural retirement, then traveled on the Continent, sojourning a while in Italy. Upon his return, he became Latin secretary to Cromwell, having gained distinction by writing in favor of the Commonwealth. In 1652, he was deprived of sight, yet continued to publish political pamphlets, until Cromwell's death and the restoration of the Stuart family to the throne. He then retired and composed his immortal work, the Paradise Lost, which was first published in 1667. For this noble work he received only ten pounds from his publisher, while his widow received but eight more; so little was the work appreciated in that age of loose morality. Q. What are the most important features of this poem? A. It is written in the finest style of blank verse. As soon as we open it, we find ourselves introduced all at once into an invisible world, and surrounded with celestial and infernal beings. Angels and devils are not the machinery, but the principal actors in the poem, and what, in any other composition, would be the marvelous, is here only the natural course of events. The subject suited the daring sublimity of his genius. He narrates the circumstances of the fall of man, for which the Scriptures furnish only scanty materials, but the imagination of the poet has supplied a wonderful variety and abundant incidents. Considerable portions of the work describe scenes and events above this world; and as man can form no ideas of which the objects around him have not supplied, at least, the elements, the poet may be said to have fallen short of his design. His heaven is only a more magnificent kind of earth, and his most exalted supernatural beings only a nobler order of men. These passages, however, are the finest in the book. The artful change of objects: the scene laid now in earth, now in hell, and now in heaven, affords a suff cient diversity; while unity of plan is, at the same time, supported. Still life and calm scenes are presented in the employments of Adam and Eve in Paradise; while busy scenes and great actions occur in the enterprise of Satan and in the wars of the angels. Satan makes a striking figure, and is considered the best drawn character in the poem-though Milton has not described him as an infernal spirit should, in truth, have been described. He appears no worse than some bold factious chief sometimes read of in history. The different characters of Beelzebub, Moloch, Belial, are exceedingly well painted in eloquent speeches, which they make in the second book. Among the good angels are the finely-drawn characters of the dignified Michael, the mild and affable Raphael, and the faithful Abdiel. The poet has greatly failed, however, in the attempt he has made to describe the Almighty, and to recount dialogues between the Father and the Son. With respect to the human characters, the innocence of our first parents and their love are finely and delicately painted-perhaps overdrawn, however, in some respects. Almost the whole of the first and second books is a specimen of continued instances of the highest sublimity, in which quality he surpasses Homer, and especially Virgil. The sixth book affords other specimens of sublimity, particularly in relating the appearance of the Messiah. Some parts of that book are justly censured; for instance, the witticisms of the devils upon the effect of their artillery. Beauty and pathos distinguish other portions of this great poem. The latter part of the poem is not so well sustained as the former. With the fall of our first parents, the genius of the author seems to have declined, yet there are striking passages of a tragic and pathetic nature, those which relate to the remorse and contrition of the guilty pair, and their lamentations over the loss of Paradise. Fancy, learning, vividness of description, stateliness, decorum, are exhibited throughout the poem. The style is elaborate and powerful, and the versification, with occasional harshness and affectation, is superior in variety and harmony to all other blank verse. It has the effect of a fine piece of music. It affords the most complete example of the elevation which our language is capable of attaining by the force of numbers. As to defects of the work, besides those mentioned already, he is thought to deal too profoundly in theological and metaphysical speculations-his language is often harsh-words technical-and too great a display is made of his learning-but these faults were those of his age. The above criticisms have been selected chiefly from Blair. They are sufficient to awaken a desire and a determination to read this immortal poem, and to prepare for a profitable and agreeable reading of it; but the subject will justify a few additional lines from the pen of a late writer in our own country. He says, that probably, of all poems now in existence, this is the most learned, the most original, and the most sublime. In his descriptions, the poet seems a volcano, pouring forth floods of fire, shaking nature to her centreshaking earth and heaven-all but the throne of God. It must, indeed, be confessed, that sometimes he seems extinguished; his thunderings are hushed; and we see nothing but the dark lava, the cinders, and the ashes. But he is still a great mountain. But sublimity and originality, though the chief glories of this amazing poem, are not the whole. He dips his pencil in heavenly fountains, and gives us pictures scarcely less beautiful than others are grand. He can paint the dew-drop, and show us the humble violet in all its brilliancy, in all its humble loveliness, as well as the battle-field of heaven, convulsed with warring angels, blazing and smoking with the artillery of Satan, and tempestuous with flying mountains. As a sequel to the Paradise Lost, Milton afterwards composed the Paradise Regained, in which are represented the circumstances of the Redemption of man. By some it is more highly esteemed than the former. It was so by the author, but it is generally considered an inferior production, probably because the subject is less favorable to poetical invention and fancy. A dramatic poem on the story of Samson, and a beautiful masque entitled Comus, are admired productions of the same great author. We shall close our critical remarks on the works of Milton by quoting from Hazlitt, an acute and dis criminating English writer, though, apparently, not always candid. Milton wrote with a resolution to leave nothing undone which it was in his power to do. He strives hard to say the finest things in the world, and he does say them. He adorns and dignifies his subject to the utmost; he surrounds it with every possible association of beauty or grandeur, whether moral, intellectual, or physical. He refines on his descriptions of beauty; loading sweets on sweets, till the sense aches at them; and raises his images of terror to a gigantic elevation, that "makes Ossa like a wart." Milton's learning has all the effect of intuition. He describes objects of which he could only have read in books, with the vividness of actual observation. His imagination has the force of nature. He makes words tell as pictures. "Him follow'd Rimmon, whose delightful seat Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks Of Abbana and Pharpar, lucid streams." The word lucid here gives to the idea all the sparkling effect of the most perfect landscape. And again : "As when a vulture on Imaus bred, Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar hounds, To gorge the flesh of lambs and yearling kids On hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams; But in his way lights on the barren plains Of Sericana, where Chineses drive With sails and wind their cany wagons light." If Milton had taken a journey for the express purpose, he could not have described this scenery and mode of life better. Again, nothing can be more magnificent than the portrai of Beelzebub : "With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear The weight of mightiest monarchies." Or the comparison of Satan, as he "lay floating many rood," to "that sea beast," "Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean stream!" What a force of imagination is there in this last expression! What an idea it conveys of that hugest of created beings, as if it shrank up the ocean to a stream, and took up the sea in its nostrils as a very little thing! Force of style is one of Milton's greatest excellences. Hence, perhaps, he stimulates us more in the reading, and less afterward. The way to defend Milton against all impugners is to take down the book and read it. Milton's blank verse is the only blank verse in the language, except Shakspeare's (the author would also except some American poets, and some other British poets too), that deserves the name of verse. Dr. Johnson, who had modeled his ideas of versification on the regular sing-song of Pope, condemns the Paradise Lost, as harsh and unequal. This is, indeed, sometimes the case; but I imagine that there are more perfect examples in Milton of musical expression, or of an adaptation of the sound and movement of the verse to the meaning of the passage, than in all our other (English) writers put together, with the exception mentioned. The sound of his lines is moulded into the expres sion of the sentiment, almost of the very image. They rise or fall, pause or hurry on, with exquisite art, but without the least trick or affectation, as the occasion seems to require. The following are some of the finest instances. "His hand was known In heaven by many a tower'd structure high; In ancient Greece: and in the Ausonian land "But chief the spacious hall |