August 18, 2025 • 29 mins
John Milton (1608-1674) was an English poet, classicist, and a bold champion of civil liberty who played a significant role in the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He is perhaps best remembered for his monumental epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), a work that weaves together stunning imagery and profound themes of heresy. In this insightful essay, Macaulay merges literary critique with political history, asserting that Milton, unlike many of his contemporaries, rightfully earned the glory of the battle he fought for the most precious and least understood freedom of all—the freedom of the human mind. (Summary by Pamela Nagami, M.D.)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section two of Milton by Thomas Babington mac caulay. This
librovox recording is in the public domain. Read by Pamelinagami
Part two. In support of these observations, we may remark
that scarcely any passages in the poems of Milton are
(00:20):
more generally known or more frequently repeated, than those which
are little more than muster rolls of names. They are
not always more appropriate or more melodious than other names,
but they are charmed names. Every one of them is
the first link in a long chain of associated ideas.
Like the dwelling place of our infancy revisited in manhood,
(00:44):
like the song of our country heard in a strange land,
they produce upon us an effect wholly independent of their
intrinsic value. One transports us back to a remote period
of history. Another places us among the novel scenes and
manners of a distant region. A third evokes all the
(01:04):
dear classical recollections of childhood, the school room, the dog
eared Virgil, the holiday, and the prize. A fourth brings
before us the splendid phantoms of chivalrous romance, the trophied lists,
the embroidered housings, the quaint devices, the haunted forests, the
enchanted gardens, the achievements of enamored knights, and the smiles
(01:28):
of rescued princesses. In none of the works of Milton
is his peculiar manner more happily displayed than in the
Allegro and the Penseroso. It is impossible to conceive that
the mechanism of language can be brought to a more
exquisite degree of perfection. These poems differ from others as
(01:49):
attar of roses differs from ordinary rose water, the close
packed essence from the thin, diluted mixture. They are indeed
not so much poem as collections of hints, from each
of which the reader is to make out a poem
for himself. Every epithet is a text for a stanza.
(02:10):
The Komus and the samson Agonistes are works which, though
a very different merit, offer some marked points of resemblance.
Both are lyric poems. In the form of plays. There
are perhaps no two kinds of composition so essentially dissimilar
as the drama and the ode. The business of the
(02:31):
dramatist is to keep himself out of sight and to
let nothing appear but his characters. As soon as he
attracts notice to his personal feelings, the illusion is broken.
The effect is as unpleasant as that which is produced
on the stage by the voice of a prompter or
the entrance of a scene shifter. Hence it was that
(02:52):
the tragedies of Byron were his least successful performances. They
resemble those paste for pictures invented by the friend of children,
mister Newberry, in which a single movable head goes round
twenty different bodies, so that the same face looks out
upon us successively from the uniform of a hussar, the
(03:14):
furs of a judge, and the rags of a beggar.
In all the characters patriots and tyrants, haters and lovers.
The frown and sneer of Harold were discernible in an instant.
But this species of egotism, though fatal to the drama,
is the inspiration of the ode. It is the part
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of the lyric poet to abandon himself without reserve to
his own emotions, between these hostile elements. Many great men
have endeavored to effect an amalgamation, but never with complete success.
The Greek drama, on the model of which the Samson
was written sprang from the ode. The dialog was engrafted
(03:56):
on the chorus, and naturally partook of his character. The
genius of the greatest of the Athenian dramatists co operated
with the circumstances under which tragedy made its first appearance.
Eschylus was head and heart a lyric poet. In his time,
the Greeks had far more intercourse with the East than
(04:17):
in the days of Homer, and they had not yet
acquired that immense superiority in war, in science, and in
the arts, which in the following generation led them to
treat the Asiatics with contempt. From the narrative of Herodotus,
it should seem that they still looked up with the
veneration of disciples to Egypt and Assyria at this period. Accordingly,
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it was natural that the literature of Greece should be
tinctured with the Oriental style, and that style we think
is discernible in the works of Pindar and Eschylus. The
latter often reminds us of the Hebrew writers. The Book
of Job and d in Conduct and Diction bears a
(05:02):
considerable resemblance to some of his dramas. Considered as plays,
his works are absurd considered as choruses, they are above
all praise. If, for instance, we examine the address of
Clytemnestra to Agamemnon on his return, or the description of
the seven Argive Chiefs by the principles of dramatic writing,
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we shall instantly condemn them as monstrous. But if we
forget the characters and think only of the poetry, we
shall admit that it has never been surpassed in energy
and magnificence. Sophocles made the Greek drama as dramatic as
was consistent with its original form. His portraits of men
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have a sort of similarity, but it is the similarity
not of painting, but of bas relief. It suggests a resemblance,
but it does not produce an alla illion. Euripides attempted
to carry the reform further, but it was a task
far beyond his powers, perhaps beyond any powers. Instead of
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correcting what was bad, he destroyed what was excellent. He
substituted crutches for stilts, bad sermons for good odes. Milton,
it is well known admired Euripides highly, much more highly
than in our opinion, Euripides deserved. Indeed, the caresses which
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this partiality leads our countrymen to bestow on sad Electra's
poet sometimes reminds us of the beautiful Queen of Fairyland
kissing the long ears of bottom. At all events, there
can be no doubt that this veneration for the Athenian,
whether just or not, was injurious to the Samson agonistes.
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Had Milton taken Eschylus for his model, he would have
given himself up to the lyric inspiration and poor word
out profusely all the treasures of his mind, without bestowing
a thought on those dramatic proprieties which the nature of
the work rendered it impossible to preserve. In the attempt
to reconcile things in their own nature inconsistent, he has failed,
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as everyone else must have failed. We cannot identify ourselves
with the characters as in a good play. We cannot
identify ourselves with the poet as in a good ode.
The conflicting ingredients, like an acid and an alkali mixed
neutralize each other. We are by no means insensible to
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the merits of this celebrated piece, to the severe dignity
of the style, the graceful and pathetic solemnity of the
opening speech, or the wild and barbaric melody which gives
so striking an effect to the choral passages. But we
think it, we confess the least sixlce sucessful effort of
the genius of Milton. The Comus is framed on the
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model of the Italian mask, 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
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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 recollections. The false, moreover,
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of his Italian predecessors were of a kind to which
his mind had a deadly antipathy. He could stoop to
a plain style, sometimes even to a bald style, but
false brilliant andy was his utter aversion. His muse had
no objection to rusted attire, but she turned with disgust
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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. Milton attended in the Comus to
the distinction which he afterwards neglected in the Sampson. He
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made his mask what it ought to be, essentially lyrical
and dramatic only in semblance. He has not attempted a
fruitless struggle against a defect inherent in the nature of
that species of composition, and he has therefore succeeded wherever
success was not impossible. The speeches must be read as
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majestic soliloquies, and he who so reached them will be
enraptured with their eloquence, their sublimity, and their music. The
interruptions of the dialogue, however, impose a constraint upon the
writer and break the illusion of the reader. The finest
passages are those which are lyric in form as well
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as in spirit, I should much commend, says the excellent
Sir Henry Wotten in a letter to Milton, the tragical
part if the lyrical did not ravish me with a
certain doric 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
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when Milton escapes from the shackles of the dialogue, when
he is discharged from the labor 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 thersis, he stands forth in celestial freedom and beauty.
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He seems to cry exultingly. Now my task is smoothly done.
I can fly, or I can run, to skim the earth,
to soar above the clouds, to bathe in the elysian
dew of 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
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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 blindness of the parental
affection which men of letters bear toward the offspring of
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their intellects. That Milton was mistaken in preferring this work,
excellent as it is, to the Paradise Lost, we readily admit.
But we are sure that the superiority of the Paradise
Lost to the Paradise Regained is not more decided than
the superiority of the Paradise Regained to every poem which
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has since made its appearance. Our limits, however, prevent us
from discussing the point at length We hasten on to
that extraordinary 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
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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 regarding our own great poet than
by contrasting him with the father of Tuscan literature. The
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poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante, as the
hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picture writing of Mexico.
The images which Dante employees 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
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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 color,
the sound, the smell, the taste. He counts, the numbers,
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he measures the size. His similes are the illustrations of
a traveler. 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
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in order to make them 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, are like those of the
rock which fell into the Adijay on the south of Trent.
The cataract of Phlegethon was like that of Aqua Cata.
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At the monastery of Saint Benedict, the place where the
heretics were confined in burning tombs, resembled the vast cemetery
of Arle. 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
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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 rude,
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
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Guardian angels, he stands like Teneriff or Atlas. His stature
reaches the sky. Contrast with these descriptions the lines in
which Dante has described the gigantic specter of Nimrod. His
face seemed to me as long and as broad as
the ball of Saint Peter's in Rome, and his other
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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.
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But mister Carey'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 Malabolgay and Dante.
Milton avoids the loathsome details and takes refuge in indistinct
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but solemn and tremendous imagery despair, hurrying from couch to
couch to mock the wretches with his attendants 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
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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
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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 eye witness and ear witness of that which
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he relates. He is the very man who has heard
the tormented spirits crying 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 Barbarica and Ragnazzo. His
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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 was told with the strongest air of veracity, with
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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
Amidas would have made his book ridiculous if he had
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introduced those minute particulars which give such a charm to
the work of Swift, the nautical observations, the affected delicacy
about names, the official documents transcribed at full length, and
all the unmeaning gossip and scandal of the court, springing
out of nothing and tending to nothing. We are not
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shocked at being told that a man who lived nobody
knows when saw many very strange sights, and we can
easily abandon ourselves to the illusion of the romance. But
when Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon resident at Rotherhithe tells us of
pygmies and giants, flying islands, and philosophizing horses. Nothing but
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such circle ccubstantial touches could produce, for a single moment
a deception on the imagination of all the poets who
have introduced into their works the agency of supernatural beings.
Milton has succeeded best here, Dante decidedly yields to him,
And as this is a point on which many rash
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and ill considered judgments have been pronounced, we feel inclined
to dwell on it a little longer. The most fatal
error which a poet can possibly commit in the management
of his machinery is that of attempting to philosophize too much.
Milton has been often censured for ascribing to spirits many
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functions of which spirits must be incapable. But these objections,
though sanctioned by eminent names, originate we venture to say,
in profound ignorance of the art of poetry? What is spirit?
What are our minds? The portion of spirit which we
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are best acquainted? We observe certain phenomena, 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
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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.
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And if they are not so disposed, they are no
more entitled to be called poetry than a bale of canvas,
and a box of colors is to be called a painting.
Logicians may reason about abstractions, the great mass of men
must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude in
all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained on
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no other principle. The first inhabitants of Greece, there is
reason to believe, worshiped one invisible deity, But the necessity
of having something more definite to adore produced in a
few centuries the innumerable crowd of gods and goddesses. In
like manner, the ancient Persians thought it impious to exhibit
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the Creator under a human form. Yet even these transferred
to the Sun the worship which, in speculation they consider
due only to the Supreme Mind. The history of the
Jews is the record of a continued struggle between pure theism,
supported by the most terrible sanctions, and the strangely fascinating
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desire of having some visible and tangible object of adoration.
Perhaps none of the second causes which Gibbon has assigned
for the rapidity with which Christianity spread over the world,
while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a proselyte operated more powerfully
than this feeling. God, the uncreated the incomprehensible, The invisible
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attracted few worshipers. A philosopher might admire so noble a conception,
but the crowd turned away in disgust from words which
presented no image to their minds. It was before Deity
embodied in a human form, walking among men, partaking of
their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over their graves,
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slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the
prejudices of the synagogue and the doubts of the academy,
and the pride of the Portico, and the fosses of
the Lictor, and the swords of thirty legions were humbled
in the dust. Soon after Christianity had achieved a triumph,
the principle which had assisted it began to corrupt it.
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It became a new paganism. Patron saints assumed the offices
of household gods. Saint George took the place of Mars.
Saint Elmo consoled the Mariner for the loss of Castor
and Polyx, the Virgin Mother, and Cecilia succeeded to Venus
and the muses. The fascination of sex and loveliness was
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again joined to that of celestial dignity, and the homage
of chivalry was blended with that of religion. Reformers have
often made a stand against these feelings, but never with
more than apparent and partial success. The men who demolished
the images and cathedrals have not always been able to
demolish those which were enshrined in their minds. It would
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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.
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From these considerations we infer that no poet who should
effect that metaphysical accuracy for the want of which Milton
has been blamed, would escape a disgraceful failure. Still, however,
there was another extreme, which, though far less dangerous, was
also to be avoided. The imaginations of men are in
a great measure under the control of their opinions. The
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most exquisite art of poetical coloring can produce no illusion
when it is employed to represent that which is at
once perceived to be incongruous and absurd. Milton wrote in
an Age of Philosophers and Theologians it was necessary, therefore
for him to abstain from giving such a shock to
their understandings as might break the charm which it was
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his object to throw over their imaginations. This is the
reas explanation of the indistinctness and inconsistency with which he
has often been reproached. Doctor Johnson acknowledges that it was
absolutely necessary that the spirit should be clothed with material forms,
but says he the poet should have secured the consistency
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of his system by keeping immateriality out of sight and
seducing the reader to drop it from his thoughts. This
is easily said. But what if Milton could not seduce
his readers to drop immateriality from their thoughts? What if
the contrary opinion had taken so full a possession of
the minds of men as to leave no room even
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for the half belief which poetry requires. Such we suspect
to have been the case, it was impossible for the
poet to adopt altogether the material or the immaterial system.
He therefore took his stand on the debatable ground. He
left the whole in ambiguity. He has, doubtless, by so doing,
(26:02):
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
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intimating more than he expressed, enabled him to disguise those
incongruities which he could not avoid. Poetry which relates to
the beings of another world ought to be at once
mysterious and picturesque. That of Milton is so. That of
Dante is picturesque, indeed beyond any that ever was written.
(26:50):
Its effect approaches to that produced by the pencil or
the chisel. But it is picturesque to the exclusion of
all mystery. This this is a fault on the right side,
a fault inseparable from the plan of Dante's poem, which,
as we have already observed, rendered the utmost accuracy of
description necessary. Still it is a fault. The supernatural agents
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excited interest, but it is not the interest which is
proper to supernatural agents. We feel that we could talk
to the ghosts and demons 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
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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,
Fardiinata in the Burning Tomb is exactly what Fadiinata would
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have been at an Auto dufey. Nothing can be more
touching than the first interview of Dante with 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
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passage its charm would suit the streets of Florence as
well as the summit of the Mount of Purgatory. The
spirits of Milton are unlike those of almost all other writers.
His fiends, in particular, are wonderful creations. They are not
metaphysical abstractions. They are not wicked men. They are not
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ugly beasts. They have no horns, no tales, none of
the fie fo fum 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
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eat exaggerated to gigantic dimensions and veiled in mysterious gloom.
And of section two
Section two of Milton by Thomas Babington mac caulay. This
librovox recording is in the public domain. Read by Pamelinagami
Part two. In support of these observations, we may remark
that scarcely any passages in the poems of Milton are
(00:20):
more generally known or more frequently repeated, than those which
are little more than muster rolls of names. They are
not always more appropriate or more melodious than other names,
but they are charmed names. Every one of them is
the first link in a long chain of associated ideas.
Like the dwelling place of our infancy revisited in manhood,
(00:44):
like the song of our country heard in a strange land,
they produce upon us an effect wholly independent of their
intrinsic value. One transports us back to a remote period
of history. Another places us among the novel scenes and
manners of a distant region. A third evokes all the
(01:04):
dear classical recollections of childhood, the school room, the dog
eared Virgil, the holiday, and the prize. A fourth brings
before us the splendid phantoms of chivalrous romance, the trophied lists,
the embroidered housings, the quaint devices, the haunted forests, the
enchanted gardens, the achievements of enamored knights, and the smiles
(01:28):
of rescued princesses. In none of the works of Milton
is his peculiar manner more happily displayed than in the
Allegro and the Penseroso. It is impossible to conceive that
the mechanism of language can be brought to a more
exquisite degree of perfection. These poems differ from others as
(01:49):
attar of roses differs from ordinary rose water, the close
packed essence from the thin, diluted mixture. They are indeed
not so much poem as collections of hints, from each
of which the reader is to make out a poem
for himself. Every epithet is a text for a stanza.
(02:10):
The Komus and the samson Agonistes are works which, though
a very different merit, offer some marked points of resemblance.
Both are lyric poems. In the form of plays. There
are perhaps no two kinds of composition so essentially dissimilar
as the drama and the ode. The business of the
(02:31):
dramatist is to keep himself out of sight and to
let nothing appear but his characters. As soon as he
attracts notice to his personal feelings, the illusion is broken.
The effect is as unpleasant as that which is produced
on the stage by the voice of a prompter or
the entrance of a scene shifter. Hence it was that
(02:52):
the tragedies of Byron were his least successful performances. They
resemble those paste for pictures invented by the friend of children,
mister Newberry, in which a single movable head goes round
twenty different bodies, so that the same face looks out
upon us successively from the uniform of a hussar, the
(03:14):
furs of a judge, and the rags of a beggar.
In all the characters patriots and tyrants, haters and lovers.
The frown and sneer of Harold were discernible in an instant.
But this species of egotism, though fatal to the drama,
is the inspiration of the ode. It is the part
(03:34):
of the lyric poet to abandon himself without reserve to
his own emotions, between these hostile elements. Many great men
have endeavored to effect an amalgamation, but never with complete success.
The Greek drama, on the model of which the Samson
was written sprang from the ode. The dialog was engrafted
(03:56):
on the chorus, and naturally partook of his character. The
genius of the greatest of the Athenian dramatists co operated
with the circumstances under which tragedy made its first appearance.
Eschylus was head and heart a lyric poet. In his time,
the Greeks had far more intercourse with the East than
(04:17):
in the days of Homer, and they had not yet
acquired that immense superiority in war, in science, and in
the arts, which in the following generation led them to
treat the Asiatics with contempt. From the narrative of Herodotus,
it should seem that they still looked up with the
veneration of disciples to Egypt and Assyria at this period. Accordingly,
(04:42):
it was natural that the literature of Greece should be
tinctured with the Oriental style, and that style we think
is discernible in the works of Pindar and Eschylus. The
latter often reminds us of the Hebrew writers. The Book
of Job and d in Conduct and Diction bears a
(05:02):
considerable resemblance to some of his dramas. Considered as plays,
his works are absurd considered as choruses, they are above
all praise. If, for instance, we examine the address of
Clytemnestra to Agamemnon on his return, or the description of
the seven Argive Chiefs by the principles of dramatic writing,
(05:26):
we shall instantly condemn them as monstrous. But if we
forget the characters and think only of the poetry, we
shall admit that it has never been surpassed in energy
and magnificence. Sophocles made the Greek drama as dramatic as
was consistent with its original form. His portraits of men
(05:49):
have a sort of similarity, but it is the similarity
not of painting, but of bas relief. It suggests a resemblance,
but it does not produce an alla illion. Euripides attempted
to carry the reform further, but it was a task
far beyond his powers, perhaps beyond any powers. Instead of
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correcting what was bad, he destroyed what was excellent. He
substituted crutches for stilts, bad sermons for good odes. Milton,
it is well known admired Euripides highly, much more highly
than in our opinion, Euripides deserved. Indeed, the caresses which
(06:31):
this partiality leads our countrymen to bestow on sad Electra's
poet sometimes reminds us of the beautiful Queen of Fairyland
kissing the long ears of bottom. At all events, there
can be no doubt that this veneration for the Athenian,
whether just or not, was injurious to the Samson agonistes.
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Had Milton taken Eschylus for his model, he would have
given himself up to the lyric inspiration and poor word
out profusely all the treasures of his mind, without bestowing
a thought on those dramatic proprieties which the nature of
the work rendered it impossible to preserve. In the attempt
to reconcile things in their own nature inconsistent, he has failed,
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as everyone else must have failed. We cannot identify ourselves
with the characters as in a good play. We cannot
identify ourselves with the poet as in a good ode.
The conflicting ingredients, like an acid and an alkali mixed
neutralize each other. We are by no means insensible to
(07:41):
the merits of this celebrated piece, to the severe dignity
of the style, the graceful and pathetic solemnity of the
opening speech, or the wild and barbaric melody which gives
so striking an effect to the choral passages. But we
think it, we confess the least sixlce sucessful effort of
the genius of Milton. The Comus is framed on the
(08:05):
model of the Italian mask, 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
(08:26):
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 recollections. The false, moreover,
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of his Italian predecessors were of a kind to which
his mind had a deadly antipathy. He could stoop to
a plain style, sometimes even to a bald style, but
false brilliant andy was his utter aversion. His muse had
no objection to rusted attire, but she turned with disgust
(09:08):
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. Milton attended in the Comus to
the distinction which he afterwards neglected in the Sampson. He
(09:31):
made his mask what it ought to be, essentially lyrical
and dramatic only in semblance. He has not attempted a
fruitless struggle against a defect inherent in the nature of
that species of composition, and he has therefore succeeded wherever
success was not impossible. The speeches must be read as
(09:52):
majestic soliloquies, and he who so reached them will be
enraptured with their eloquence, their sublimity, and their music. The
interruptions of the dialogue, however, impose a constraint upon the
writer and break the illusion of the reader. The finest
passages are those which are lyric in form as well
(10:13):
as in spirit, I should much commend, says the excellent
Sir Henry Wotten in a letter to Milton, the tragical
part if the lyrical did not ravish me with a
certain doric 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
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when Milton escapes from the shackles of the dialogue, when
he is discharged from the labor 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 thersis, he stands forth in celestial freedom and beauty.
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He seems to cry exultingly. Now my task is smoothly done.
I can fly, or I can run, to skim the earth,
to soar above the clouds, to bathe in the elysian
dew of 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
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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 blindness of the parental
affection which men of letters bear toward the offspring of
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their intellects. That Milton was mistaken in preferring this work,
excellent as it is, to the Paradise Lost, we readily admit.
But we are sure that the superiority of the Paradise
Lost to the Paradise Regained is not more decided than
the superiority of the Paradise Regained to every poem which
(12:09):
has since made its appearance. Our limits, however, prevent us
from discussing the point at length We hasten on to
that extraordinary 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
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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 regarding our own great poet than
by contrasting him with the father of Tuscan literature. The
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poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante, as the
hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picture writing of Mexico.
The images which Dante employees 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
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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 color,
the sound, the smell, the taste. He counts, the numbers,
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he measures the size. His similes are the illustrations of
a traveler. 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
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in order to make them 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, are like those of the
rock which fell into the Adijay on the south of Trent.
The cataract of Phlegethon was like that of Aqua Cata.
(14:18):
At the monastery of Saint Benedict, the place where the
heretics were confined in burning tombs, resembled the vast cemetery
of Arle. 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
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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 rude,
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
(15:03):
Guardian angels, he stands like Teneriff or Atlas. His stature
reaches the sky. Contrast with these descriptions the lines in
which Dante has described the gigantic specter of Nimrod. His
face seemed to me as long and as broad as
the ball of Saint Peter's in Rome, and his other
(15:23):
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.
(15:44):
But mister Carey'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 Malabolgay and Dante.
Milton avoids the loathsome details and takes refuge in indistinct
(16:05):
but solemn and tremendous imagery despair, hurrying from couch to
couch to mock the wretches with his attendants 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
(16:26):
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
(16:49):
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 eye witness and ear witness of that which
(17:10):
he relates. He is the very man who has heard
the tormented spirits crying 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 Barbarica and Ragnazzo. His
(17:32):
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 was told with the strongest air of veracity, with
(17:53):
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
Amidas would have made his book ridiculous if he had
(18:14):
introduced those minute particulars which give such a charm to
the work of Swift, the nautical observations, the affected delicacy
about names, the official documents transcribed at full length, and
all the unmeaning gossip and scandal of the court, springing
out of nothing and tending to nothing. We are not
(18:37):
shocked at being told that a man who lived nobody
knows when saw many very strange sights, and we can
easily abandon ourselves to the illusion of the romance. But
when Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon resident at Rotherhithe tells us of
pygmies and giants, flying islands, and philosophizing horses. Nothing but
(18:59):
such circle ccubstantial touches could produce, for a single moment
a deception on the imagination of all the poets who
have introduced into their works the agency of supernatural beings.
Milton has succeeded best here, Dante decidedly yields to him,
And as this is a point on which many rash
(19:20):
and ill considered judgments have been pronounced, we feel inclined
to dwell on it a little longer. The most fatal
error which a poet can possibly commit in the management
of his machinery is that of attempting to philosophize too much.
Milton has been often censured for ascribing to spirits many
(19:40):
functions of which spirits must be incapable. But these objections,
though sanctioned by eminent names, originate we venture to say,
in profound ignorance of the art of poetry? What is spirit?
What are our minds? The portion of spirit which we
(20:00):
are best acquainted? We observe certain phenomena, 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
(20:23):
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.
(20:45):
And if they are not so disposed, they are no
more entitled to be called poetry than a bale of canvas,
and a box of colors is to be called a painting.
Logicians may reason about abstractions, the great mass of men
must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude in
all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained on
(21:09):
no other principle. The first inhabitants of Greece, there is
reason to believe, worshiped one invisible deity, But the necessity
of having something more definite to adore produced in a
few centuries the innumerable crowd of gods and goddesses. In
like manner, the ancient Persians thought it impious to exhibit
(21:31):
the Creator under a human form. Yet even these transferred
to the Sun the worship which, in speculation they consider
due only to the Supreme Mind. The history of the
Jews is the record of a continued struggle between pure theism,
supported by the most terrible sanctions, and the strangely fascinating
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desire of having some visible and tangible object of adoration.
Perhaps none of the second causes which Gibbon has assigned
for the rapidity with which Christianity spread over the world,
while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a proselyte operated more powerfully
than this feeling. God, the uncreated the incomprehensible, The invisible
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attracted few worshipers. A philosopher might admire so noble a conception,
but the crowd turned away in disgust from words which
presented no image to their minds. It was before Deity
embodied in a human form, walking among men, partaking of
their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over their graves,
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slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the
prejudices of the synagogue and the doubts of the academy,
and the pride of the Portico, and the fosses of
the Lictor, and the swords of thirty legions were humbled
in the dust. Soon after Christianity had achieved a triumph,
the principle which had assisted it began to corrupt it.
(23:04):
It became a new paganism. Patron saints assumed the offices
of household gods. Saint George took the place of Mars.
Saint Elmo consoled the Mariner for the loss of Castor
and Polyx, the Virgin Mother, and Cecilia succeeded to Venus
and the muses. The fascination of sex and loveliness was
(23:25):
again joined to that of celestial dignity, and the homage
of chivalry was blended with that of religion. Reformers have
often made a stand against these feelings, but never with
more than apparent and partial success. The men who demolished
the images and cathedrals have not always been able to
demolish those which were enshrined in their minds. It would
(23:48):
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.
(24:09):
From these considerations we infer that no poet who should
effect that metaphysical accuracy for the want of which Milton
has been blamed, would escape a disgraceful failure. Still, however,
there was another extreme, which, though far less dangerous, was
also to be avoided. The imaginations of men are in
a great measure under the control of their opinions. The
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most exquisite art of poetical coloring can produce no illusion
when it is employed to represent that which is at
once perceived to be incongruous and absurd. Milton wrote in
an Age of Philosophers and Theologians it was necessary, therefore
for him to abstain from giving such a shock to
their understandings as might break the charm which it was
(24:55):
his object to throw over their imaginations. This is the
reas explanation of the indistinctness and inconsistency with which he
has often been reproached. Doctor Johnson acknowledges that it was
absolutely necessary that the spirit should be clothed with material forms,
but says he the poet should have secured the consistency
(25:18):
of his system by keeping immateriality out of sight and
seducing the reader to drop it from his thoughts. This
is easily said. But what if Milton could not seduce
his readers to drop immateriality from their thoughts? What if
the contrary opinion had taken so full a possession of
the minds of men as to leave no room even
(25:40):
for the half belief which poetry requires. Such we suspect
to have been the case, it was impossible for the
poet to adopt altogether the material or the immaterial system.
He therefore took his stand on the debatable ground. He
left the whole in ambiguity. He has, doubtless, by so doing,
(26:02):
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
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intimating more than he expressed, enabled him to disguise those
incongruities which he could not avoid. Poetry which relates to
the beings of another world ought to be at once
mysterious and picturesque. That of Milton is so. That of
Dante is picturesque, indeed beyond any that ever was written.
(26:50):
Its effect approaches to that produced by the pencil or
the chisel. But it is picturesque to the exclusion of
all mystery. This this is a fault on the right side,
a fault inseparable from the plan of Dante's poem, which,
as we have already observed, rendered the utmost accuracy of
description necessary. Still it is a fault. The supernatural agents
(27:15):
excited interest, but it is not the interest which is
proper to supernatural agents. We feel that we could talk
to the ghosts and demons 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
(27:35):
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,
Fardiinata in the Burning Tomb is exactly what Fadiinata would
(27:55):
have been at an Auto dufey. Nothing can be more
touching than the first interview of Dante with 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
(28:17):
passage its charm would suit the streets of Florence as
well as the summit of the Mount of Purgatory. The
spirits of Milton are unlike those of almost all other writers.
His fiends, in particular, are wonderful creations. They are not
metaphysical abstractions. They are not wicked men. They are not
(28:39):
ugly beasts. They have no horns, no tales, none of
the fie fo fum 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
(28:59):
eat exaggerated to gigantic dimensions and veiled in mysterious gloom.
And of section two
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