Milton

critic, who, lecturing on the Venus of Milo, devoted the last and briefest of his lectures to the shape of that noble work of art. In truth

difficulty, that those who attempt it should be humoured if they play long with

on were the product of the history and literatures of the world. Cycles ferried hi

sion that Milton may have borrowed from Homer and Virgil, from Ariosto and Shakespeare. Here is a far-fetched conceit, and there is an elaborately jointed comparison. But these choice fragments and samples were to be had by any one for the taking; what it baffles us to explain is how they came to be of so much more use to Milton than ever they were to us. In any dictionary of quotations you may find great thoughts and happy expressions as plentiful and as cheap as sand, and, for the most part, quite as useless. These are dead thought

rected Spir

ven in Heaven his

ownward bent,

eaven's pavemen

ivine or hol

ion be

les in the mosaic; and wherever there is w

ince style is the expression of a living organism, not a problem of cunning tesselation, it is permissible, in this place, to pass over what he borrowed f

mannerisms, are too likely to underestimate the degree of his originality. Coleridge was probably wrong when he said that "Shakespeare's poetry is characterless; that is, it does not reflect the individual Shakespeare." But he was u

ber to King Henry the Eighth. Inspired perhaps by the example of a better poet, Clement Marot, Sternhold thrust some of the Psalms of David into a carterly metre, "thinking thereby," says Anthony à Wood, in his delightfully colloquial fashion, "that the courtiers would sing them instead of th

s, we forsoth at le

thnickes' trade? Come

or Cupide lord? Dot

Psalms, made by Sir Philip Sidney and his sister, remained in manuscript for centuries. Drayton's Harmonie of the Church was suppressed.

ts are 'stilli

the sweetest v

kes few have the

ime with better success--"to reprove the vanity of those many love poems that are daily writ a

t thy

ir Cupid eas

ys are deep, and

run smooth that

t to break with the past, and to lead poetry back to Zion. Nature and precedent seemed allied against the innovation. The worst of religious poetry, as Johnson more than once pointed out, is its poverty of subject, and its enforced chastity of treatment. You cannot make a picture out of light alone; there must be something to break it on. Then, too, there was Shakespeare

Beaumont, afterwards Master of Peterhouse, and Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, published his poem called Psyche, or Love's Mystery, in twenty cantos. "My desire is," he says in the preface, "that this book may prompt better wits to believe that a divine theam is as capable and happy a subject of poetical ornament, as any pagan or humane device whatsoever." The poem is about four times as long as Paradise Lost, and was written in eleven months, which circumstance, his admiring biographer allows, "may create some surprise in a reader unacquainted with the vigorous imagination, and fertile flow of fancy, which so remarkably distinguished our author from the common class of wri

eal of violence" in his sacred poem entitled Davideis. In

Muses-Lands h

ong were Devils,

al World, hast

o convert that

harms that in s

at Truth is

so vigorously introduced, soon languished; and by the time he had completed a Fourth Book, it lay, for all

shows traces of the prevalent ambition. He rejects all supernatural fables, and makes it a point of so

, and a long prose demonstration that its theme was the grandest a French poet could choose. The real supernatural of the Christian religion, so he argued, is a subject much nobler for poetry than the pagan mythology, as the sunlight is brighter than the shadow. The contr

iction give t

ost unquestio

ious enterta

Satan and his

ssail your Hero'

lf they wage a

leau as Boileau knew of him, had published some six years earlier. Paradise Lost, it might almost be said, is superior to Clovis in nothing, except the style. By the force of his genius and the magi

one, before Milton, had maintained in argument that blank verse was the best English measure for narrative poetry dealing with lofty themes, so no critic had ever been at the pains to refute that opinion. In the year of the publication of Paradise Lost, Dryden delivered his judgment, that the rhymed couplet was best suited for tragic passages in the drama, and that blank verse should be employed chiefly for the lighter and more colloquial purposes of comedy. Some echo of the courtly dispute then in progress between Dryden and his brother-in-law,

called a warning. His matter was to be arranged and his verse handled by his own ingenuity and at his own peril. He left a highroad behind him, along which many a tuneful pauper has since limped; but before him he

f Spenser and the influence of Donne. Only the very slightest traces of either can be discerned in Milton's early ve

of the gold

lad thyself i

thy prefixed s

t abode fly ba

hat creatures H

t the hearts

did world, and u

owever faintly. Meanwhile, in the hymn On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, he had struck a note that was his own,

as touched by him, or, for that matter, that he had read any of his poe

led toys and t

late fantastic

certain number of conceits, few and poor enough, is to be found scattered here and there in his early poem

amorous on t

eek envermeil,

and then bewaile

ers, frozen to statues by the wonder and astonishment that they feel when they read the plays. But perhaps the nearest approach to a

evish

ou, but for som

ntern thus clo

in heaven, and f

ting oil to

ed and lone

on seems to bring the most wildly dissimilar things together with ease. To his unfettered and questioning thought the real seems unreal, the unreal real; he moves in a world of shadows, cast by the lurid light of his own emotions; they take

ee a cloud th

etime like a

itadel, a p

ntain, or bl

n't that nod u

with air: thou has

ack Vesper'

he manner of Milton, or less likely to overcome his own positive

u canst not

s world behi

u from this

ld vapours wi

agai

rice had I

new thy fa

e, so in a s

us oft, and

express a subtlety, but merely a vicious trick of the intellect. The virtues of the metaphysical school were impossible virtues for one whose mind had no tincture of the metaphysic.

else great

solemn tun

and of tro

and enchan

meant than m

nite moral signification affixed to certain characters and stories--not the mystic

sand f

hrong into

es, and beckoni

es that syllab

hores and dese

the metaphysical school were beyond his reach, its vices touched him wonderfu

self to write a masque he was doubtless well acquainted with the works of the chief master in that kind, Ben Jonson. William Godwin, in his Lives of Edward and John Phillips, expresses the opinion that Milton studied the works of Jonson more a

keep thy w

of Jonson's Hy

n thy si

wonted ma

r to all but the tribe of Ben. Milton doubtless studied Jonson's works; and, if specific resemblances are both weighed and counted, a good case can be made out for the influence of Jonson's prose on the author of the Areopagitica. But the fact is that criticism finds itself here in a region where this minute matching of p

me, till thou r

azy leaden-st

but the heavy

lf with what t

magination into acquiescence by the flow of the melody. Lines like these might well occur in Richard II. The

more than human

for a fa

creatures of

olours of the

plighted clouds.

, I worshipped.

rney like the

you fi

uial abbreviation of "in the"; not to mention the fanciful vein of the whole passage, which might lead any one unacquainted with Milton to look for this quotation

his

firmament i

base built

tyle, this description of the Lady's singing is

t and solemn-

am of rich dist

n the air, th

e was ware, and

ture, and b

o displaced.

rains that mig

e ribs o

ess diffuse and playful. When the nightingale sings, in Paradise Lost, "Silence was pleased." When Adam begs the Angel to tell the story of the Creation

ss rhythmical prose. Suckling and Davenant and their fellows not only used the utmost license of redundant syllables at the end of the line, but hustled and slurred the syllables in the middle till the line was a mere gabble, and interspersed broken lines so plentifully that it became impossible eve

gious petticoa

rch-histories.

my cushion

s have such hol

arned, that I

arel will

structor. Ye

that has a p

discourse con

speak nought bu

's a par

s called upon to utter. Peele, Marlowe, and Shakespeare made the drama lyrical in theme and treatment; the measure, adapting itself to the change, became lyrical in their hands. As the drama grew in scope and power, addressing itself to a greater diversity of matter, and coming to closer grips with the realities of life, the lyrical strain was lost, and blank verse was stretched and loosened and made elastic. During the twenty years of Shakespeare's dramatic activity, from being lyrical it tended more and more to become conversational in Comedy, and in Tragedy to depend for its effects rather on the rhetorical rise and fall of the period th

he makes a sparing use of the double ending. The redundant syllable in the middle of the line, which he sometimes allows himself in Comus, does not occur in Paradise Lost. In the later poem he adopts strict practices with regard to elision, which, with some trifling exceptions, he permits only in the case of contiguous o

occasion, even after the first or ninth syllables. His chief study, it will be found, is to vary the word in relation to the foot, and the sentence in relation to the line. No other metre allows of anything like the variety of blank verse in this regard, and no other metrist makes so splendid a use of its freedom. He never forgets the pattern; yet he never stoops to teach it by the repetit

ight to consist in "apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another." By "apt numbers" he probably meant the skilfu

s ordinary uninspired moods. Tennyson's blank verse, when it is not carefully guarded and varied, drops into a

were safe from

art of Arthur

re, lord; heart, Arthur; ways, safe, pain. The alliteration is without complexity,--a dreary procession of sibilants. Worst of

the advancing march of a body of troops skilfully handled, with incessant changes in their disposition as they pass over broken ground. He can furnish them with wings when it so pleases him. No analysis of his prosody ca

d all the cons

their station l

ght pomp asce

d on the last syllable of the line, or with words of fewer than three syllables apiece, and he will have to confess that, however abstruse the rules of its working may be, there is virtue in metrical cunning. Th

ough H

ide her blazi

rnal house d

are very subtle, and, it must be added, very imperfectly ascertained; so that those who dogmatise on them generally end by slipping into fantasy or pedantry. How carefully and i

opene

ng gates, har

n hinges

ing of those

dden op

s recoil and

ors, and on the

that the lowe

Ere

e treats merely as a point of departure or reference, a background or framework to carry the variations imposed upon it by the luxuriance of a perfectly controlled art. The great charm of the metre of Wither, which Charles Lamb admired

Nymph, and b

youthful

into the solem

due feet

studious clo

ising stress, shifting the weights from place to place, and often compensating a light patter of syllables in the one half of the line by the int

y it is, and

of just men l

the hands of t

vincibl

his marvel of beaut

new character to English blank verse. But this is not all. Quite as importa

sk me no more," with its long train of imitations, to the latest banality of the music-halls, the songs that catch the ear catch it by the same device. The lyric, that is to say, is almost always dependent for its music on easy idiomatic turns of speech. The surprising word occurs rarely; with all the greater e

liding connectives; no polysyllabic conjunctive clauses, which fill the mouth while the brain prepares itself for the next word of value; no otiose epithets, and very few that court neglect by their familiarity. His poetry is like the eloquence of the Lord Chancellor Bacon, as described by Ben Jonson:--"No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss." It is this quality of Milton's verse that makes the exercise of reading it aloud a delight and a trial. Every word is of value. T

practised very early by Milton. It occur

far upon th

zards haste wit

t them with t

owly at his

one after another rounding and falling like clear

ina

ere thou

ssy, cool, tr

raids of lil

n of thy amber

in a letter to Milton, as "a certain Doric delicacy in your songs and odes, wher

ardly necessary: miss it once and you can often join it again at very near the same point. "But a reader of Milton," as an early critic of Milton remarks, "must be always upon duty; he is surrounded with sense; it rises in every line, every word is to the purpose. There are no lazy intervals: all has been considered, and demands and merits observation. Even in the best writers you sometimes find words and sentences which hang on so loosely, you

Spenser's diffuser style, taken from the second book of the Faerie Queene. Guyo

there satt a f

es the theme,

auty and of fr

ng man was fa

bud to blos

young man

aire above hi

, fairer even than his equal

comparison of his hair to the rays of t

t curled with

ace adorned wi

and two sharp

erse plumes, li

is back to cut

s mature style. His verse, "with frock of mail, Adamantean proof," advances proudly and irresistibly, gaini

rocky pillar

ngelic guards,

touch he sketches t

field

night under

d, This is the

scent of

a's son

mes, that heavenl

ircui

he Original and Progress of Satire, Dryden has called attention to the close-wrought quality of Virgil's work. "Virgil," he says, "could have written sharper satires than either Horace or Juvenal, if he would have employed his talent that way. I will

riviis, indo

um, stipula, dis

t, blockhead, in

crannel pipe,

urposes of satire. At its best, his own satire attains to something lik

wildly will a

gling in the

venal wit fo

f into the sai

nd prayed, while g

gpipe of the s

value of condensation; but he works in antithetic phrases, so that his single words are less telling; and wher

ng! that actin

ead, or the co

let, flatterer

ady, and now

thus the Rabbi

ce, a reptile

s you, parts that

ep, and pride th

Pope; and the nearest parallel to the manner of Virgil is

za, at the mil

at every step. Or, to take a passage in a very different key of feeling

with ge

elded, by him

oy submission,

eluctant, am

as well as emphatic, a line of terrific weight and impact. What more heartbreaking effect of weariness and eternit

frozen, many

, fens, bogs, dens,

apman has a line (he repeats it in the Tragedy of Biron) which owes

r, broken with l

face to face to

s give the line a

specially, "a tattler, who is incessantly repeating the same things in the same idle ridiculous epithets,--the swift-footed Achilles, the ox-eyed Juno, far-darting Apollo." Milton felt none of this contempt for Homer, but he discarded the practice. His epithets are chosen to perform one exploit, and are

in divine

ry word; and when the thing is

attention, he says, was first called to these by Sir George Mackenzie, who repeated many of them from Waller and Denham. Thereupon he searched other authors, Cowley, Davenant, and Milton, to find further examples of them; but in vain. At

a new aspect. There is an almost epigrammatic neatness about some of the examples that he cites from Ovid and Catullus. It is not surprising that he failed to find these ele

eath of Morn, h

arliest birds;

his delightful

on herb, tree, f

dew; fragrant

wers; and swee

ening mild; th

olemn bird, and

ems of Heaven,

eath of Morn,

earliest birds

ul land; nor her

dew; nor fragran

vening mild; n

solemn bird, n

ar-light, withou

at the close of the Tenth Book, where the humble prostration of Adam and Eve is described in exactly the form of speech used by Adam to propose it. But the repetition in this case is too exact to suit Dryden's meaning; by a close verbal coincidence the ritual of penitence is emphasised in detail, and t

autum dementia

em, scirent si

Hell"--may easily be matched in Milton. In the Sec

rns the bi

s, extremes by ch

aphael arrives at the gat

is s

ssage high in

age high they gu

it is noted that n

ge more th

ease than str

like these are not many, and the tricky neatness of

a scholar's memory they suggest also another. It became the habit of Milton to make use of both values, to assess his words in both capacities. Any page of his work furnishes examples of his delicate care for the original meaning of Latin words, such as intend--"intend at home ... what best may ease the present misery"; arrive--"ere he arrive the happy Isle"; obnoxious--"obnoxious more to all the miseries of life"; punctual--"this opacous Earth, this punctual spot"; sagacious--"sagacious of his quarry from

the vague or weak English acceptation; he often kept both senses, and l

onster, my acco

e Samson calls the secret of his strength "my capital secret." Where light, again, is called the "prime work of God," or where we are told that Hell saw "Heaven ruining from Heaven," the original and derivative senses of the words "prime" and "ruin" are unit

empt with w

bottomed, in

he palpable o

ncout

the "huge affliction and dismay" that he feels, gives a hint of the woe

. There is a modern idea that a pun is a thing to laugh at. Milton's puns, like Shakespeare's, give no smallest countenan

ound high overl

wo words, and so fancied that he was drawing attention to an original unity of meaning. Some such hyp

with their

h bringing ev

ught to abstain fro

rmitted in charity to suppose that he deriv

reason--that they are made the weapons of mocke

shalt

supplicatio

o begirt the A

ng or be

ies the more usual form of the Miltonic pun. When he introduces the newly

appointe

in charge, an

d, and loud tha

ect, scattering the heavenly hos

als once agai

pel them to a

s artillery are buried under a weight heavier than themselves. On this whole scene Landor remarks that "the first overt

Mixture of metaphors in poetry is often caused merely by the speed of thought, which presents a subject in a new aspect without care taken to adjust or alter the figure.

my oat p

to the Heral

orderly, but it is compressed into too few words.

Eye, whose s

hts, from forth

n the golden l

him, saw with

ing--saw in w

s of Morn, wh

to oppose hi

to his only

rder of thoughts. He trusts the reader to follow his thought without grammatical readjustment--to drop the symbol and remember only the thing symbolised. His trust was war

what heart of

yed b

d not sleep all the next night for thinking of it. What months of inso

e attention that it demands, word by word, and line by line, could not profitably be given to most books; so that many readers, trained by a long course of novel

y to say it in due season. "Brevity is attained in matter," says a master of English prose, "by avoiding idle compliments, prefaces, protestations, parentheses, superfluous circuit of figures and digressions: in the composition, by omitting conjunctions--not only ... but also, both the one and the other, whereby it cometh to pass, and such like idle particles." Either sort of brevity may be learned from Milton. But any one who has been compelled to make efforts of unprompted eloquence, and to choose his expressions while he is on his feet, knows well how necessary is the function performed by these same prefaces, protestations, parentheses, and idle particles. Suavely uttered, they keep expectation alive in the audience, and give the orator time to think. Whether in speaking or in writing, no fluent and popular style can well

tle mincing societies addicted to intellectual and moral culture the creative zest is lost. The painful inhibition of a continual rigorous choice, if it is never relaxed, cripples the activity of the mind. Those who can talk the best and most compact sense have often found irresponsible paradox and nonsense a useful and pleasant recreation ground. It was Milton's misfortune, not the least of those put upon him by the bad age in which he lived, that what Shakespeare found in the tavern he had to seek in the Church. Denied the wild wit-combats of the Mer