Milton

he most part, in the intractable and barren nature of his chosen theme. The dangers that beset him, and someti

ighth of this

rt Eternal

the ways o

more sensitive man might well have hesitated at the entrance. But Milton hesitated at nothi

hrone, the s

tremble, wh

s

ly ascertained and expounded. Everything, in short, is as plain as a pikestaff. So he came to picture scenes which c

sions." And again:--"The characters in the Paradise Lost which admit of examination are those of angels and of man." It is impossible not to respect Johnson's attitude, but later critics

Alterity, and in those addresses slips in, as it were by stealth, language of affection, or thought, or sentiment.... He was very wise in adopting the strong anthropomorphism of the Hebrew Scriptures at once." Yet this is hardly an answer to the chief objections that have been urged against Milton's conduct of the poem. These are grounded, not on his adoption of the strong anthropomorphism of the Hebrew Scriptures, but on the nature of the m

penalties. As promulgated by human authority, laws are to be obeyed only if they do not clash with the dictates of a higher Power. The laws of God are subject to no such restraint. They are; and, save by faith, there is no further word to be said. But Milton had set himself to justify these laws by reason. Destitute as he was of speculative

creatures an obedience that differs from brute submission in one point only, that by the gift of free-will it is put within their power to disobey. His commands, like his laws, are issued from time to time. Sometimes they enjoin the impossible on his subjects; as when Michael and Gabriel, at the head of the h

urst without hi

nds upon his

sovran King,

mpt obe

e done to him, are announced "on a day" to the host of Angels assembled by special summons for this purpose. During the night following, one of the chief Archangels, thereafter called Satan, draws off his forces to the north under

e, and to th

force is left,

ce, lest una

lace, our sanct

sdom of Solomon, "is to conceal a thing; the glory of the King is to find it out." But the glory of Milton's Deity is to explain a thing. The proud voluble candour of some of these speeches reminds us onl

urther and further along that perilous way without being fully conscious of whither he was tending. Yet his persistent accumulation of harsh and dread traits seems wilful in its nature; he bases

iterated cri

himself

ot of the stairway that j

then let down,

easy ascent

ion from the d

el," has perhaps been made a difficult subject in

bric of t

heir disputes-

t their quaint

t happened when the builders of the tow

ghter was

wn to see the

ear t

of the God that hardened Pharaoh's heart,

e of Satan. He avoids calling Paradise Lost "an heroic poem"; when it was printed, in 1667, the title-page ran merely--Paradise Lost, A Poem in Ten Books. Had he inserted the word "heroic," the question as to who is the hero would have been broached at once. And to that question, if it be fairly faced, only one answer can be given,--the answer that has already been given by Dryden and Goethe, by Lord Cheste

ither a fool or a hero, and Milton is far indeed from permitting us to think him a fool. The nobility and greatness of his bearing are brought home to us in some half-dozen of the finest poetic passages

ther

ht be called th

e in member, j

ht be called tha

either--black it

Furies, terr

adful dart: wha

of a kingly

at hand, and

moving onwar

des; Hell trembl

se. But as it stands in the poem its elevation is a scaffo

end what this mi

eared (God and

naught valued

estion is wrought even more subtly

th

d his dark p

the wast

ats; he asks guidance in his quest; and, with politic forethought, promises that that quest, if successful, shall rest

the ana

speech and vi

ow thee, strange

leading Ange

Heaven's King, t

ghting line, like Cromwell; he fortifies his comrades to endurance

had yet

nal brightnes

angel ruined,

ry obs

Heaven and with Gabriel on Earth

t contend

best--the sende

l at

poet has replied that a crime will serve as a measure for the spirit. Certainly to Satan there could never be imputed the s

is eye,

rse and passi

his crime, the

e beheld in bl

to have their

pirits for hi

from eternal

--yet faithful

lory wi

ts to address th

ite o

s Angels weep

is own"; and the only scene of rejoicing recorded in the annals of Hell, before the Fall of Man, is at

n Heaven and in Hell. In the one Satan takes upon himself the unknown dangers of the enterprise that has been approved by th

will be mor

me, and just, th

l Heaven cha

l the Heavenly Q

s in Heaven: o

tercessor no

durst upon hi

orfeiture, a

nto the comment, "I know not what interest Milton could have had in making Satan so august a creature, and so ready to share the dangers and sorrows of the angels he had seduced. I know not, on the other hand, what

ck with admiration for their grace and infused divinity. He could love and pity them--so he muses--though himself unpitied. He seeks alliance with them, and is prepared to give them a share in all h

Fiend, and wi

ea, excused his

shatter it in the pursuit of his high political aims. In the same way, when he finds Eve alone, on the morning of the temptation, he is disarm

en the Great Dissenter, the undaunted and considerate leader of an outcast minority. But now, in the description of the war in Heaven, there came a chance of doing something to right the balance. Milton makes th

thless faithf

r example wit

ruth, or change

gh s

er the outbreak of the war, glories in hi

u s

thy train; th

piety to God

t visible

world errone

t thou seest; no

es may know whe

perhaps devised to cast a slur upon the success of his mission. Some critics have professed to discern a certain progressive degradation and shrinkage in Satan as the poem proceeds. But his original creation lived on in the imagination and memory of Milton, and was rev

ament Milton could easily find examples of the types he has embodied under the names of Belial, Mammon, Moloch, and Beelzebub. Nor has he forgott

t sat on a

re elevate, an

Foreknowledge,

e will, forekno

nd, in wanderi

rges with much dogmatism and some arrogance on the difference between foreknowledge and foreordination. He rejects predestination decisively, but he not only does not answer, he does not even so much as mention, the difficulty that arises in attempting to distinguish between what is foreordained by Omniscience and wh

hung untouched on a tree. And Adam, from the wealth of his inexperience, is lavishly sententious; when anything is to do, even if it is only to go to sleep, he does it in a high style, and makes a speech. Milton plainly saw the danger of arousing a sense of incongruity and ludicrous disproportion from the contest between these harmless tame creatures and the great forces of Satan's empire. So he makes man strong in innocence, and, unlik

enter all those questions concerning the comparative worthiness and the relative authority of husband a

nly, she for

y one knows

ovelier c

n to study h

s in her husb

ht his fate on himself, for since Eve was the mother of mankind, he thought fit to make her the embodiment of a doctrine. But he also (a thing of far deeper interest) coloured his account by the introduction of personal memories and feelings. Of Eve, at least, he never writes indifferently. When he came to write Samson Agonistes, the intensity of his feelings concerning D

usted--longi

the Devi

he daughters of men ar

g, to

oll the tongue,

, was also the author of that beautif

I app

ss, so absol

f complete, s

what she wil

irtuousest, dis

wledge in her

sdom in disc

enanced, and li

nd Reason o

ded first, n

; and, to co

ind and noblen

loveliest, an

s a guard an

Florizel's praise of Perd

u speak

do it ever: w

uy and sell so

for the orderi

o; when you do

sea, that yo

hat; move sti

er function: e

r in each

are doing in t

our acts a

in in his conversations with Eve. And now comes a point worthy of remark. The Angel, to whom, it cannot be doubted, Milton committed the exposition of his own views, after hearing this confession

nothing pr

em, grounded o

that skill the

ill acknowledg

ties yield a

d failed to profit by this advice. He might have be

cometh, the go

ges and, farew

ately to resent this susceptibility. It was the joint in his harness, the main breach in his Stoicism, the great anomaly in a life regulated as for his Task-master. He felt that beauty was a power not himself, unbalancing and disturbing the rational self-centred poise of his soul. There have been poets whose service

gh injurious, ha

ce returnin

nce po

self to a statement which a longer experience of the world would have enabled him to correct. But Milton wished it true; and perhaps even lured himself into a belief

ty s

ation only o

se to admire, an

d shrink into

en slighting

the delightful heroine of Congreve's comedy, was no

spare me,

more for tha

sh trifle

e,' with Bunyan's works, to entertain you." But all unawares she has answered the contention of Satan:--"O the vanity of these men!--Fainall, d'ye hear him? If they did not commend us, we were not handsome! Now

and enforcing their beliefs on others, such men find enough to do within the citadel of their own personality. To judge from some passages of his works, one half of the human race was to Milton an illusion to which the other half was subject. One who is in love with his own ideas cannot but be d

ei

find out fit

tune brings hi

shes most sha

erseness, but sh

e; or, if she

his happiest

ready linked a

ersary, his h

rawn and the more human. Milton did not intend that it should be

nly, she for

aid that Milton "thought woman made only for obedience and man only for rebellion." It would be truer, and weaker, to say that Milton thought woman made for the exercise of private, and man for the exercise of public, virtues. Hence in their mutual relations Eve carries off all the honours, for h

ow le

delay; wit

e; without the

ce unwilling

under Heaven, a

ful crime art

e is a fair companion picture to set over against Dalila, and is utterly incapable of Dalila's hypocrisy in justifying private treachery by reasons of public policy. There is even a certain dramatic de

al, and

undesirabl

eri

refully maintained superiority. On thinking, however, of the judgment that she may have to suffer, and of her own d

ed to ano

in the handling of a human situation

s as if analysis of character were his aim, and truth of psychology his touchstone, is to do a wrong to the artist. He is an epic, not a dramatic, poet; to find him at his best

oral truth his handling is tight, pedantic, and disagreeably hard. But when he comes to describe his epic personages and his embodied visions, all is power, and vaguen

n a few strokes, effects of multitude and vastnes

l the Sancti

tars, and from h

e past u

rrior host

to confirm hi

ing swords, draw

erubim; the

d illumi

ir coming shone!'--makes the whole one image." He describes at a greater range of vision than any other poet: the frame-work of his single scenes is often not less than a third of universal space. When he has added f

oud that all t

l reso

me reference to a larger setting, wherein all is seen at a glance, may b

sign, which, fu

eteor streamin

golden lustre

and trophies

al blowing m

e universal

ore Hell's con

eign of Chaos

t through the

banners rise

lours waving:

of spears; and

serried shield

h immea

ing of one of these epic scenes, immense and vivid. The ruin

eraph rollin

ered arms

of the East ri

white silken t

s of his blindness. Since the veil had fallen he had lived with the luminous shapes that he could picture against the dark. The human face had lost, in his recollection of it, something of its minuter delineation, but nothing of its radiance. On the other hand, the human

eiled; yet to

, goodness, in

n no face wit

of Mount Niphates, looking down on Eden spread out at his feet, and then with fierce gesticulation addressing himself to the sun at the zenith, is one of the dim solitary figures

midst, exalt

n his sun-brig

jesty divi

Cherubim and

of his encounte

, ala

l his might,

ff or Atlas

ched the sky, a

med; nor wante

both spear

ages are as simple and broad as the emotional effects tha

guration of a landscape by the distant view of a small compact array of walls and towers perched on a vantage-ground among the hills of the horizon. The lawlessness of Nature, the homelessness of the surface of the earth, and the fears that haunt uninhabited places, are all accentuated by the distrust that frowns from the battlements of such a stronghold of militant civility. For this reason, perhaps, the architectural features in certain pictures and drawings have an indescribable power of suggestion. The city, self-contained and fortified, overlooking a wide expanse of country, stands for safety and society; the little group of figures, parleying at the gate, or movi

lton's Abdiel, who escape

ted scorn his

wers, to swift de

indicated by a few admirable touche

dreadless An

ide champaign held

ircling Hours,

the gates

erful close of Paradise Lost, where Adam and Eve are led down from the gard

ack, all the ea

so late the

that flaming b

faces thronged

s they dropped, b

ll before them,

est, and Provide

nd, with wanderi

took their

apology for "the smallest Alteration in this divine Work," boldly recommends amputation; while Bentley, with the caution of a more experienced surgeon, offers to crutch the lines on certain wooden contrivances of his own. The three epithets, "wandering," "slow," and "solitary," are all censured by him. Our first parents, he remarks, were guided by P

nd with social

k, with Heav'nly

of M. Bossu, and the enumeration of the books of the ?neid, he might have found leisure to notice that the two later poems, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, are each brought to a close which exactly resembles the close of Paradise Lost. After the splendours in the last book of Parad

nobse

ther's house p

s as glorious a triumph to

mind, all pa

and is the form of ending preferred by

enhanced severity of a style which rejects almost all ornament was due in part, no doubt, to a gradual change in Milton's temper and attitude. It is not so much that his po

r for

e and hero

stellated glories of Paradise Lost itself. It should be remembered that Paradise Lost, although it was written by Milton between the fiftieth and the fifty-seventh years of his age, was conceived by him, in its main outlines, not later than his thirty-fourth year. Two of the passages noticed above, where Satan addresses himself to the Sun and where the Angel l

d the hasteni

gering

d, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife,... an

, but sate some time in a muse, then brake off that discourse and fell upon another subject." Perhaps while he sat in a muse Milton was attempting to sound, with the plummet of conjecture, the abyss of human folly, "dark, wasteful, wild." So early as in the fourth line of Paradise Lost, and already very fully in the Third Book, he had treated of Paradise Found as an integral part of his subject. The episode of the Eleventh and Twelfth Books was wholly concerned with it. It seems not unlikely, however, that he caught at the suggestion as an excuse for a new and independent work. One of the commonest kinds of critical stupidity is the kind that discovers something "unfinished" in a great work of art, and suggests desirable trimmings and additions. Milton knew that Paradise Lost was finished, in every sense. But room had not been found in it for all that now held the chief place in his matured thought. When he chose the theme of his great work, the actual temptation of man probably bulked much larger in his design than it does in the completed poem. His epic creatures, from being the machinery of the poem, usurped a share of the control. With all Milton's care and skill, there is very little interest in

rm obedience

ptation, and th

les, defeated

those more strenuous and maturer passions of pride, ambition, love of wealth, and love of power. Instead of the innocent and instinctive purity of the Lady, which unmasks the fallacies of Comus, there is he

nd prosaically, in the Twelfth Book of Paradise Lost; but there is no escaping from the conclusion that the central mystery of the Christian religion occupied very little space in Milton's scheme of religion and thought. Had he chosen this subject, the account given, in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, of the Descent into Hell might have furnished him with

g in upon us. Then the father of all mankind and all the patriarchs and prophets rejoiced, saying: 'That light is the author of everlasting light, who hath promised to translate us to everlasting light.' And Isaiah cried out, and said: 'This is the Light of the Father, the Son of God, according to my prophecy t

Adam, told how Michael the Archangel had refused him oil from the tree of mercy for the anointing of the body of Adam when he was sick,

corruption, whom I kept as dead?' And Satan answered and said, 'It is the same.' And when Hades heard this he said to him, 'I adjure thee by thy powers and mine, bring him not to me. For when I heard the power of his word I trembled for fear, and all my officers were struck with amazement.' And while they were thus disputing, suddenly there was a voice as of thunder

orm of a man, the Lord of Majesty, and lighted up the eternal darkness, and burst asunder the indissoluble ch

ion of angels and scorn of the just, why didst thou do this thing? All thy riches which thou hast acquired by the tree

l the Archangel, and all the saints followed Michael the Archan

tred rather in the sayings of the wise than in the deeds of the mighty. The "crude apple that diverted Eve" was indeed a simple theme compared with the profound topics that are treated in Samson Agonistes. The dark tangle of human life; the inscrutable course of Divine providence; the punishment so unwittingly and ligh

the way

ifiable

ho in Samson'

these evils h

myself have br

hor I, s

et only with the irony of Job: "Am I a sea, or a sea-monster, that thou settest a watch over me?... What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him, and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him, and that thou shouldest visit h

ese thus dign

eir heigh

tenance, and thy

est fav

em, or them to

r, heard and answered with Divine ir

this once thy g

y strength and

How hast thou

his state calam

r thou canst, t

to him both distant and barren, Milton had sought for triumph, in action and in a