Milton

an any handled by Milton's predecessors. It concerns itself with the fortunes, not of a city or an empire, but of the whole human race, and with that particular event in the history of the rac

ures. And all these are exhibited in the clearest and most inevitable relation with the main event, so that there is n

er rash hand

o the fruit, she

wound, and Natu

all her works, g

ll was

tes some of them--"Heaven opening to eject her rebellious children; the unvoyageable depths of ancient Chaos, with its 'anarch old' and its eternal war of wrecks; these traversed by that great leading Angel that drew after him the third part of the heavenly host; earliest Paradise dawning upon the warrior-angel out of this far-distant 'sea without shore' of chaos; the dreadful phantoms of Sin and Death, prompted b

nt of Paradise Lost that in it "Milton has taken a scheme of life for life itself," and that it requires a violent effort from the modern reader to accommodate his conceptions to the anthropomorphic theology of the poem. The world is now thickly peopled with men and women who, havin

lace where he

e in splendour

ed, gazed, unp

tacle

hero who is already dear to that people." But how if the hero subsequently fall out o

d into admiration by any whole-hearted fellowship in belief. Dryden laments the presence in the poem of so many "machining persons,"--as he calls the supernatural characters of Paradise Lost. At almost the same date Dr. Thomas Burnet was causing a mild sensation in the theological world by expounding the earlier chapters of the Book of Genesis in an allegorical sense, and denying to them the significance of a literal history. Voltaire, while he praise

ing of the nature of a tour de force. He had to give physical, geometric embodiment to a far-reaching scheme of abstract speculation and thought,--p

ly is Hell; m

to Adam, after his exp

ithin thee;

nation bore in the presentment of other and greater figures in the poem. In some respects he tried rather to impose a scheme of thought and imagination upon his age than to express the ideas that he found current. His theology and his cosmical conceptions are equally tainted with his individual heresies. He fl

man, by merit

ng, while paying the utmost deference to his authorities, he yet exercised many a choice with regard to matters indifferent or undefinable. Thus, for instance, he borrows from the Talmud the notion that Satan first learned the existence of a prohibited tree from overhearing a conversation between Adam and Eve. He was surely conscious of what he was doing, and would have been not ill-pleased to learn that the Universe, as he conceived of it, has since been called by his name. It is Milton's Paradise Lost, lost by Milton's Adam and Eve, who are tempted by Milton's Satan, and punished by Milton's God. The stamp of his clear hard imagination is on the whole fabric; and it is not much harder for us to coax ourselves into the belief that his is indeed the very world we inhabit than it was for the men of hi

and his own habits of thought. The Paradise Lost is like the sculptured tombs of the Medici in Florence; it is not of Night and Morning, nor of Lorenzo and Giuliano, that we think as we look at them, but solely of the great creator, Michael Angelo. The same dull convention that calls the Paradise Lost a rel

nd, and that the warlike achievement of heroes was the aspect of it that most attracted him. After his return to England in 1639, it is mentioned once again in his elegy on Charles Diodati, and then we hear no more of it

spiritual signification. The national cause, maintained heroically in a hundred battles, and overwhelmed at last by the brute violence of the foreign oppressor, was subject enough for him; he would never have marred his epic

, more

n a silent

angelical t

oic deeds, an

ttle, and com

uld enthrall to

s partial; bu

ess when Spirits

l, and took w

onging

Lost where, before he is well aware of it, we catch Mil

terary peerage and set her by the side of countries of older fame must deal with a theme of truly national import. Some of the subjects that he jotted down were obviously of too incidental and trivial a nature for his purpose, and a wise instinct confined him to the earlier history of the is

Eden, till on

nd regain the

hout the noisome accretions of later ceremonial. His attitude to the Laudian movement is eloquently expressed, at this same time, in the treatise Of Reformation in England, where he describes how the religious teachers of his own and preceding ages "began to draw down all the divine intercourse betwixt God and the soul, yea, the very shape of God himself into an exterior and bodily form, urgently pretending a necessity and obligement of joining the body in a formal reverence and worship circumscribed; they hallowed it, they fumed it, they sprinkled it, they bedecked it, not in robes of pure innocency, but of pure linen, with other deformed and fantastic dre

ot ritualists. They recite their evening hymn of prais

animous, and

one, but ad

best, into the

d the

The happy Garden, Adam is told, will be destroyed after the Flood, for a reas

that God attri

if none be th

re frequent, o

is built by Satan's host

r greatest mon

and art, are

its rep

emark that Puritanism has nothing to do with Art, and that the

heme of Paradise Lost by the scope it pro

bowery lo

of Eden maz

rofuse and

the town passe by in Procession, with musick and song, to the temple of Venus Urania." The opening Chorus is to relate the course of the city, "each evening every one with mistresse, or Ganymed, gitterning along the streets, or solacing on the banks of Jordan, or down the stream." But in th

bly outlined, a worthy adversary of the Most High. But it happened to him, as it has happened to others who have found themselves in a position where Satan could do them a service; before long, as if by some medi?val compact, the relations are reversed, and the poet is in the service of the Devil. He can hardly have foreseen this chance; although there are not wanting signs in the poem itself that, before it was half completed, he became uneasily conscious of what was happening, and attempted, too

spent in the earthly paradise, and the difficulty of giving verisimilitude to the conversation between the woman and the snake. But he waxes most eloquent on the last and greatest difficulty--"since the composition must remain deprived of those poetic ornaments so dear to the Muses; deprived of the power to draw comparisons from implements of art introduced in the course of years, since in the time of the first man there was no such thing; deprived also of naming (at least while Adam speaks or discourse is held with him), for example,

is lacking in poetic ornament. Milton has successfully surmounted or evaded many of this formidable catalogue of limitations, without the sacrifice of d

now

teaming lake,

nt your fleecy s

Book Michael is guilty of a graver lapse where he mentions baptism without explanation or apology. On the other hand, Raphael, who had a pleasanter occasion and more time for his retrospective summary, explains the military man?uvring of angels by what Adam had already seen of the fl

es at t

r of armies th

standard, so th

ling aft

the Universe before the Creation of Man; and Michael's narration, in the Eleventh and Twelfth Books, consoling and strengthening Adam, before the Expulsion from the Garden, by a rapid survey of the prospective history of the World from that event down to the Millennium. Considered as a narrator, Michael is very subject to dullness; were it not for the unfailing dignity and magniloquence of his dic

us by natu

erto the o

, chief maste

tedious havoc

igned (the be

e and hero

o describe ra

rniture, embl

int, capariso

el trappings,

urnament; then

all with sewer

artifice an

h justly give

r to poem!

or studious,

ficient of i

ess an age too

ears, damp my

much they may

brings it nig

n Heaven" caused by the great rebellion, and had indulged his imagination with some most extravagant fantasies; such as the digging in the soil of Heaven for

fro with jac

iding forth in single majesty, drives the rebel host over the crystal bounds of Heaven into the wastefu

med a c

is up

nts are not absent from Paradise Lost, but they are introduced by the second of the devices which enable Milton to extend the scope of his

eld, where c

med, and at the

best of Pan

bat, or caree

ong-tailed simile," or, as it is better called, the decorative comparison, used for its ennobling, rather than for its elucidating virtue. Here he parts company with Homer, and even with Virgil, who could draw on no such vast and various store of history, geography, and romance. From Herodotus to Olaus Magnus, and onward to the latest discoveries in geography and astronomy, the researches of Galileo, and the descriptions given by

. This is the Fall of the Angels as it is narrated at greater length in the recently recovered apocryphal Book of Enoch, and alluded to, perhaps in the Epistles of Peter and of Jude, where are mentioned "the angels that sinned," and "the angels which kept not their first estate." Milton's version brings these angels to the earth, not as protectors of mankind, but as conquerors come from Hell, to possess and occupy the spacious world delivered over to them by the victory of Satan. From that point forward, however, he adopts the tradition whereby Jerome, Lactantius, and others had identified the fallen angels with the gods of the heathen. Whether as conquerors or as corrupted guardians of the human race, they seek the same ends,--to divert worship from the true God, and by the destruction of man, to contrive a solace for their own perdition. They are the inventors of astrology, sooth-saying, divination, necromancy, and black magic; they were once the ministers of God, and still have a presentiment of his acts, so that they can sometimes speak truly of the future by means of oracles and magicians, claiming the while the credit of bringing that to pass which in fact they only foresaw. Milton, in adopting this doctrine, merely followed current belief, and did no

e

ssed later than

oasted

ctrine, it was of enormous use to him; it gave him names for his devils, and characters, and a detaile

d topics, we are surprised to find how many of them Milton has found a place for. He does introduce points of history, sacred and profane; he relates fictions of fabulous deities; he re

en of Heavens,

*

acclamation,

ten thousand h

c harm

of course, none; and, although it is an heroic poem, the horse takes little part in the celestial war, is hardly known in hell, and is unheard of on earth until Adam beholds in vision the armed concourse of his corrupt descendants. Nevertheless, the general impression left by the poem is one of richness rather than poverty of poetic ornament. The wealth is most profusely displayed in the books treating of Satan and his followers, but it is not absent from Eden nor from the empyreal Heaven, although in the one case the m

Evening on, a

ber livery al

panied; for b

assy couch, thes

l but the wake

long her amoro

ased. Now glowe

apphires; Hes

, rode brightes

ouded majest

, unveiled her

ark her silver

the moon--these are all the material of this wonderful passage. Yet did

and the Fletchers--Milton's first task was to reduce it to the strict relations of time and space. His blindness probably helped him by relieving him from the hourly solicitations of the visible world, and giving

extent, diversified with hills, valleys, woods a

nded

ndetermined s

to the abyss; the rebels, tortured with plagues and thunder, fling themselves in desperation over the verge. They fall for nine days, through Chaos. Chaos is the realm of a king of the same name, who reigns over it with his consort Night. It is of immeasurable extent, quite dark, and turbulent with the raw material of the Cosmos. Just as Milton, for the purposes of his poem, followed the older astronomy, and gave to it a new lease of life in the popular imagination, so also he abides by the older physics. The orderly created World, or Cosmos, is conceived as compounded of four elements, Earth, Air, Fi

f which the devils build their palace, and hold their assembly. The nine-fold gates of Hell, far distant, are guarded by Sin and Death, the paramour and the son of Satan. No one has plausibly explained how they ca

he spheres, that is to say, of the seven planets (the Sun and the Moon being reckoned as planets), the sphere of the fixed stars, and the crystalline sphere. The outermost sphere, or primum mobile, is opaque and impervious. The whole orbicular World hangs by a golden chain from that part of the battlem

le. Its single gate, hewn out of a rock of alabaster, faces eastward, and is accessible only by a pass leading up from the plain and overhung by craggy cliffs. Through Eden runs a river which passes by a tunnel under Paradise, and, rising through the porous earth, waters the garden with springs.

gates. Provision had to be made under the new dispensation for the peopling of the whole surface of the Earth; so the axis was turned askew, and the beginning ordained of extrem

tionally honoured by poetry, throws suspicion on the efforts of the exact commentators. Even in his statements with regard to spatial relations the poet was not always minutely consisten

from God and

tre thrice to t

aches two-thirds of the way down to Hell. Yet in the Second Book S

World, in big

agnitude clos

real Heaven. But it is not easy to conceive how, in the limited

s out in his speech at the Infernal Council, was to them less natural than rising; and Raphael, who was subsequently sent to guard the gates of Hell during the Creation, made the ascent easily in part of a day. If we allow a day and a night for Satan's exploratory voyage, the action of the poem, from the heavenly decree which occasioned

eir fall both Satan and Beelzebub mention a rumour which had long been current in Heaven of a new race, called Man, shortly to be created. That rumour could hardly have reached the rebels during the progr

heart exalt

to have disp

ndly deemed,

nt, if such

nd in a mome

d; out of on

innum

dramatic superiority of this version, which makes the Creation of Man a minor

ass and fell

hty op

e that this view had not the

n in the Treatise of Christian Doctrine. He consigned the Fathers to limbo, and built up his entire system from the words of Scripture. Now the Scriptures, in a hundred passages, attribute human passions and actions to Divine beings. We have no choice, said Milton, but to accept these expressions as the truest to which we can attain. "If after the work of six days it be said of God that 'He rested and was refreshed,' Exodus, xxxi. 17; if it be said that 'He feared the wrath of the enemy,' Deuteronomy, xxxii. 27; let us believe that it is not beneath the dignity of God ... to be refreshed in that

ons, Princedoms,

ce enjoyed by Michael. In the poem he finds employment for only four, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel,

aradise on the evening when Satan first appeared there. They wear so

d they

as spirits,

raction or re

on followed, a

avoid a sense of shock--they even blush when an indiscreet question is asked of them. When Raphael

if

ow of Heaven, a

ke more than on

y, and those sudden felicities of insight, which abound in the Elizabethans. Subtleties of thought, fine observation of truths that almost evade the attempt to express them, sentences and figures illuminative of the mysteries of human destiny and the intricacies of human character--of all these there is none. If an author's

alse dissemble

man nor ange

the only ev

except to

e will, through

Wisdom wake, S

gate, and

ge, while Goodne

no ill

ch reflections are common in Shakespeare would be too moderate a statement; they are the very air he breathes. And even in the lesser dramatists the happy embodiment of observatio

h for

the rankness

ce bears up

usher comes first, and is soon followed by the grimacing antics of the page, while each in his own way implies that the advances of courtesy are a pomp and

Pity in Love's

the rosy t

going; but

him now bes

that I Love's

rple doors have

arther even from that wonderful analysis of emotion which is the pastime of Shakespeare and of Meredith. Beautiful f

ike bubbles. There is concerted song, feasting, and gratulation; dire plots are hatched and blaze forth into light; will clashes with will; Heaven opens, and a torrent of flaming ruin is poured forth into the deep. The Victor, ensconced in his omnipotence, is fiercely triumphant; and in the dark below there is the dull gleam of unconquered pride, deadly courage, and immortal despair. But in the midst of all this vast rivalry of interests and

in Hell are taken from the incidents of simple rustic life, and by their contrast with the lurid creatures of his imagination come like a draught of cold water to a traveller in a tropical waste of sand and thorns. It is almost as if the poet himself

ry

t revels, by

some belated

ees, while ove

s, and nearer

her pal

nsultation, are described in a figure that makes a l

mountain-tops

the North-wind

ful face, the

darkened landski

adiant sun, wit

ning beam, the

notes renew, a

y, that hill an

ontrast--first, the use of architectural terms in describing Paradise; next, the exhibition of a banquet in the desert in Paradise Regained--"stimulating the sense of its utter solitude and remotion from men and cities"; and, last and best, the comparison of Satan, in the same po

s a sense of pathos, almost of tears, in being allowed, for one moment only, to taste reality again, to revisit familiar scenes, before we are once more bound on the slow wheel of unnatural

ong in populo

hick and sewer

on a summer's

easant villa

ach thing met co

ain, or tedded

rural sight, ea

ymph-like step f

eemed for her n

in her look su

took the Ser

lot, the sweet

l, to breathe the morning air of Eden.

bre

easant villa

hat most human of symbols, the thin blue scarf of smoke rising from a wayside encampment. Even when we are privileged

all kinds

rined, or bearde

of cooking, and do not ferment the juice of the grape. A short stay in Eden teaches us the sad truth that we are dependent, not only for the pleasures of our life, but even for many of the dearest pleasures of our imagination, on the devic

owder magazine. None of these edifying speeches could be made in the presence of such an auditor, or such a critic. The whole system would be blown into fragments; the artificial perspective that Milton preserves wit

calculated and allowed for. The poise and balance are so minutely exact that it just stands, and no more. But that it should stand at all is the marvel, seeing that it is spanned on frail arches over the abyss of the impossible, the unnatural, and the grotesque. Let it be granted that, in its main features, the system of Paradise Lost does correspond with what was and is the religious creed of not a few people. There is many a religious creed, strongly held, which is convincing enough until the imagination begins to work it out in detail, to try to realise it, in a clear light, as a connected whole. Then either the imagination or the creed must give way. The remarkable thing about Milton's achievement is that Paradise Lost is both a creed and a cosmical scheme of imagination, and that, except here and there, it is impossible to point to parts of the poem and say,