Page images
PDF
EPUB

As thou art wont, my prompted song else mute
And bear, through height or depth of nature's bounds,
With prosperous wing full summ'd, to tell of deeds

Above heroick, though in secret done,

And unrecorded left though many an age;

Worthy to have not remain'd so long unsung."

(B. I. 1-17.)

The summons of Satan to "all his mighty peers in mid air, is justly admired by all persons of taste. Suddenly stricken with amazement and fear at the Divine Inauguration of the Messiah at his baptism, be,

[ocr errors]

"With envy fraught and rage,

Flies to his place, nor rests but in mid air,
To council summons all his mighty peers,
Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved,
A gloomy consistory, and them amidst,

With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake.

(B. I. 39-43.

How fine the contrast with that splendid passage of mock magnificence and affected triumph, with which the same fallen and baughty spirit displayed his proud imaginings," at the opening of the internal council, in the introductory lines of the second Book of Paradise Lost.

"High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,

Or where the gorgeous east with richest band

Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat."

The comparison of these two wonderfully fine passages of the two poems will show the perfect propriety and beauty of each; and that neither suffers by the comparison, because each is in its proper place, and each speaks in a suitable tone and temper. The undisguised sadness and n.elancholy of the crest-fallen "Adversary in the Paradise Regained; his confession that the Messiah's

that

"Growth now to youth's flower, displaying
All virtue, grace, and wisdom to achieve
Things highest, greatest, multiplies fear;"

"in his face

(B. I. 66-69.

The glimpses of his Father's glory shone,"

that these and other circumstances made him "see their danger on

"

the utmost edge of hazard;" all these are such exquisite and touching pictures of despair, that the contemplation of the entire passage, especi ally in contrast with the vaunting character of the similar one in the Paradise Lost, raises the mind to the highest conception and admiration of the wonderful powers of the Poet, thus almost to excite our interest in the fate of that Evil One, who afterwards, with deep remorse and deeper subulty, calls himself "that Spirit unfortunate." But the moral is equally fine with the art of this great master as a poet for it is impossible to feel any thing like true compasion, but the utmost abhorrence of the fraud and malice of the Devil, which he exhibits as the poem proceeds.

The mind and style of the author of Paradise Lost are recog nized in the following lines at the breaking up of the council of demons, when

"Unanimous they all commit the care
And management of this main enterprise
To him, their great dictator, whose attempt
At first against mankind so well had thrived
In Adam's overthrow, and led their march
From hell's deep vaulted den to dwell in light,
Regents, and potentates, and kings, yea, Gods,
Of many a pleasant realm and province wide."
B. I. III-118.

The excellence of this passage, like many of the finest parts of Paradise Lost, consists in the nerve and plainness of the language, and its perfect destitution of figure. It is like fine, simple, and solemn music,-the notes of the deep toned organ, too grand to admit of the added sound of minor instruments. Of the same character is the affecting confession of Satan when discovered through his disguises by our Saviour. It is a fine lesson on the eternal misery necessarily entailed by sin upon the Enemy of man,

"'Tis true, I am that spirit unfortunate,

Who leagued, with millions more in rash revolt,

The perfect passage which is the parallel to that in the text, in Paradise Lost, beginning with the noble climax, followed by the most melancholy conclusion, is perhaps the finest in that mighty poem.

"Godlike shapes and forms

Excelling human, princely diginities,

And powers that erest in heaven sat on thrones;
Though of their names in heavenly record now
Be no memorial, blotted out and razed

By their rebellion from the Book of Life."

(P. L. B. I. 358-363

Kept not my happy station, but was driven
With them from bliss to the bottomless deep,
Yet to that hideous place not so confined

By rigour unconniving, but that oft,
Leaving my dolorous prison, I enjoy

Large liberty to round this globe of earth,

Or range in the air; nor from the heaven of heavens

Hath he excluded my resort sometimes."

B. I. 358-367.

There is something profoundly affecting in the confession of misery, thus wrung from this Spirit of inveterate evil, who, by a stroke of melancholy self-deception, too common to erring spirits among men, terms himself "unfortunate," when he was voluntarily wicked. I have heard that it has been said by a great modern Poet, that he could never read without tears that celebrated passage of Paradise Lost, in which Satan, struggling with his feelings, sheds "tears such as angels weep," ere he could deliver his sentiments to the assembly of revolted angels. The same kind of emotion, in a yet higher degree, is excited on the perusal of this confession before an infinitely more awful presence than of

"Millions of spirits for his fault amerc'd

Of heaven, and from eternal splendours flung
For his revolt."

P. I. B. 1. 609.

There is a yet finer passage of a similar character which we shall hereafter cite, in the third Book, of which there is also a paraile! one in Paradise Lost; but in this instance the passage of Paradise Regained will be found to be the finest. ↑

Satan continues his apologetic speech to our Lord in the most artful and insinuating style. He mentions how he

"Came among the sons of God, when he

Gave up into his hands Uzzean Job,

To prove him and illustrate his high worth,

B. 1. 368-370.

He boasts of his " drawing the proud Ahab into fraud:" and he adds a fine, yet reluctant, eulogium on goodness and virtue. "Though I have lost

Much lustre of my native brightness, lost

Thrice he assay'd, and thrice, in spite of scorn,
Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth; at last
Words, interwove with sighs, found out their way."
P. L. B. 1. 619.

+ Compare P. R. B. III. 204 with P. L. B. IV. 108.

To be beloved of God; I have not lost
To love, at least contemplate and admire,
What I see excellent in good, or fair,
Or virtuous; I should so have lost all sense."
B. 1. 377-382.

to see and approach whom he He alleges that although he was he was their friend; and boasts consummate art of the Poet this He proves himself to be the grand

He then insinuates his desire
knew declared the Son of God."
thought a foe to all mankind,"
of his services to them. By the
boast becomes his condemnation.
Deceiver of men, as he was of their progenitors.
"I lend them oft my aid,

Oft my advice by presages and signs,
And answers, oracles, portents, and dreams,
Whereby they may direct their future life."

B. 1. 393-396,

He ends very finely by confessing that, though he might

[ocr errors]

"Gain

Companions of his misery and woe;"

This fellowship" alleviated not his pain; and that, it was" small consolation to ruin man; for it "wounded" him to reflect

"That man,

Man fallen shall be restored, I never more."

The first part of our Lord's reply to this artful speech of Satan is too fine not to be cited.

"To whom our Saviour sternly thus replied:
Deservedly thou grievest, composed of lies
From the beginning, and in lies wilt end;

Who boast'st release from hell, and leave to come

Into the heaven of heavens: thou comest indeed,

As a poor miserable captive thrall

Comes to the place where he before had sat
Among the prime in splendour, now deposed,
Ejected, emptied, gazed, unpitied, shunn 'd,
A spectacle of ruin, or of scorn,

To all the host of heaven: the happy place
Imparts to thee no happiness, no joy ;
Rather inflames thy torment; representing
Lost bliss, to thee no more communicable,
So never more in hell than when in heaven."
B. 1. 406-420;

There are two species of Milton is eminently skilled.

excellence in the art of poetry, in which
These are
These are the exquisite melody and

euphony of some of his most delicious passages, and the picturesque power of his descriptions. Homer and Virgil, his great precursors, were masters of the various melody of versification, as of other and mightier powers. But the fullness and almost infinite variety of the Greek language, and the strength and melody of the Latin, rendered the achievement of perfection in melody and variety of verse comparatively easy in those beautiful languages. Milton conquered the difficulties of a modern irregular language; and his verse itself is scarcely inferior even to those mighty masters, with all the superiority of their several languages. In the picturesque, among modern poets, Dante is perhaps preeminent. Our Chaucer is also a master in this species of painting, notwithstanding the antique structure of his dialect. Spenser is full of it. Milton has furnished very perfect specimens of both these excellencies of the art in all his poems. Paradise Regained is not deficient of them. I will conclude with one specimen of melody from the first book, and shall reserve my extracts from the other books to a future essay. The difficulty of attaining to truth, and its sweetness when attained, were perhaps never more beautifully expressed than in the following exquisite lines.

"Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk,

Smooth on the longer discoursed, pleasing to the car,
And tunable as sylvan pipe or song."

B. 1-478-480.

The first line labours like Sisyphus rolling his stone up the bill. In the concluding verses the flowers laugh in the valleys, and the birds sing, as in the groves of Arcadia.

B.

SONNET.

(Written at the end of Paradise Regained. 1832,)

"He unobserved

Home to his mother's house private returned.

Concluding lines of Par. Regd:

THUS ended the blind Bard his second song;
A song with sacred eloquence replete,—
With wisdom overflowing, and as sweet
As the last voice of evening borne along

By the cool breeze ;-sublime in thought, and strong
As when man held his unattempted seat
In Paradise, or when the indiscreet
Yet lovely Eve was tempted by the tongue
Of the faise fiend to taste the fatal fruit.
The Bard hath hung up his melodious lute,
As on the weeping trees of Babylon;
Death impotently hovered o'er his head.
But ere the spirit from her mansion fled,
Bright immortality around him shone.

[ocr errors]

B.

« PreviousContinue »