"Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not! His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow!" So far from the genius of Milton being repugnant to his success as a dramatic poet, it is evident that his mind had an early and decided tendency towards tragedy, and he had a desire to shoot in this Ulyssean bow to the latest period of his life. Yielding to the earliest bias of his mind, Milton intended to have represented the subject of Paradise Lost dramatically, but was probably deterred by considerations which would most likely have determined Shakspere in his first choice. The subject was too extensive, too full, too varied, for the limited province which he attributed to the tragic muse. The action was too great for the established regulations by which he had elected to abide. Perceiving that his argument could not at all be included within those limits, he tried it in the shape of a Mystery or Morality; but, apparently not being able to reconcile his mind to extravagance of style and structure, happily resolved to exhibit it in an epic connexion. Since, from its nature, the subject of the Paradise Lost could not be represented on the stage, for the closet it was best written in the form of a narrative poem. Milton's mind was ever instinctively abhorrent of extravagance. Even when he tried his early strength in a less irregular species of the drama, the masque, he moulded his " Comus" into a stricter conformity with the ancient models, and deprived that form of composition of many fanciful caprices in which much of its charm consists, the loss of which, however, he compensated by a successful elevation of the entire work into a more imaginative and purer element. Among the excellences of Paradise Lost are to be found thosewhich are proper to the ancient drama-earnestness, energy, and compression. Though constructed after the "diffuse model," as he calls it, it has none of the diffuseness of Homer; and in some parts there is a vehemence and passion only elsewhere to be found in the productions of Melpomene. The paucity of human persons also reminds us of the simple groups of Eschylus; and the solitary adventure of Satan, gives a prominence to his part, resembling the continual presence of the hero on the Grecian stage. With this there is a studious admixture of the liberties of the modern theatre. The stormy councils in Pandeomonium-and the meeting of Satan with Sin and Death, have a strong dramatic effect. The change of scene and variety of action, so far as the subject was capable of such mutations, suggest resemblances to the modern play, though peculiarly proper to the ancient epopee. In his diction he is like none of his prototypes whether tragic or epic. It is complex and elaborated, such as could not be written until a certain stage of progression had been attained in the poetical art, and is equally beyond imitation and rivalry. It will have been seen that Milton was no servile adherent to classical authorities. That he recognised other models is evident from his fre quent imitations of the minor poets in his own language-his intentions regarding the Mysteries and Moralities-and his adoption of the Masque. In fact, in all these he absolutely evinced the independence and originality of his genius. We have shewn, that though he strictly observed the regularity of his great poem, he was no enemy to any innovation that might be considered an improvement; and, in his adoption of the Masque, he was equally careful to modify it after his own manner, and to perfect it by the addition of extrinsic improvements. He selected all that was poetical in his exemplars, purified of whatever was profane; and fulfilled better than any other poet, the beau ideal of that form of composition. All poetry is a translation of nature into intelligence, or an attempt to reduce the purely intellectual to the conditions of external reality. It is a struggle to express the ideal in the types of material sublimity and beauty. In this struggle the poet is generally baffled; very seldom he finds language capable of doing justice to his thoughts. The reader, also, if imaginative, is equally hard to be satisfied; and it may be doubted whether the same impression is ever received which the poet intended to convey; for almost every one reads with associations of his own, and modifies the meaning of the finest passages. But whatever approaches nighest to this ideal, whether of poet or reader, has the best claim to the title of poetry. Milton has surpassed the ideal of most readers, as far as he has fallen short of his own; for that he had not satisfied himself even in his "Paradise Lost," is evident from his preference of the "Paradise Regained." What the ground of his preference was it may be difficult to determine; but it was probably partly on account of the more dramatic form in which the poem was cast, and the more intellectual nature of the subject, which was of a "great duel, not of arms, But to vanquish by wisdom hellish wiles," and was free from that necessity which was imposed upon him by the subject of "Paradise Lost," to embody the spiritual in images derived from matter, of which so much has been said by Dr. Johnson relative to the battle of the Angels; upon which we reserve our remarks to a subsequent part of this paper. In the Masque of Comus," Milton has elevated an unimportant incident occurring in real life, into the shadowy magnificence of a vision or fable, in which the romantic and classic are harmoniously blended. He transplanted it into the pleasant land of faëry, of which the two Brothers and their Sister became instantly naturalized as the denizens, and where "All the shadowy tribes of mind, In braided dance, their murmurs joined, There is a severity of versification in Milton's " Comus," to which "The Faithful Shepherdess" is an utter stranger, but which is partaken in a great degree by the "Midsummer Night's Dream," and the "Tempest." In "the Fair Shepherdess" the versification is bound by N. S.-VOL. I. 3 c no laws; controlled by no propriety. Like "the great deity for earth too ripe, it lets its divinity overflowing die in music." The rhyme is to it as a dam stopping its course for a while, but to provoke its resistless overflow; and sometimes it descends "-with the voice of thunder, and in brightness, O'er its precipitous way, yet musical”— as a magnificent cataract, on which rests a morning iris, evanescent but beautiful, like Hope upon a death-bed," or "Love watching Madness," softening its rugged progress and lawless violence. It has no mechanism, it disdains all rules, and will have its own sweet will and way; and he who would observe its course must submit to its tortuous windings, its angular projections, its abrupt divisions, well content with the more manifold images with which, by those means, it makes him acquainted-the momentary prospects which are thus opened-the glimpses of varying scenery-the many paths, light or obscure, whence heaven is seen in its infinite expansion-" the freshness of space"-or partially perceived between "the swell of turf and slanting branches”— and with the melody by which the wavelets of the pellucid current are ever accompanied, making the air pregnant with magic, and the banks pleasant with enchantment. The hand that would touch with effect the "oat of pastoral stop" must be a wizard's. He must "bid it discourse" dulcet and lofty music, but must produce this by no reference to the gamut, by none of the common means, not by attention to rule and measure; but it must come upon the ear like the unearthly sounds of an Æolian shell, as fearlessly and freely-like "The vague sighings of the wind at even, That wakes the wavelets of the slumbering sea, Fletcher has, indeed, successfully produced these sounds. The stories of Shakspere's two Pastorals are certainly superior to Fletcher's Fable. They are imagined with more delicacy and more dignity; but not executed with more sweetness of sentiment, or so much delicious wilfulness of versification-a versification which may sometimes cloy from its lusciousness, but which is so redolent of Spring, and Love, and Poesy, that none other appears so suited to the simplicity of the subject, or so capable of expressing the fantastic combinations which it admits and requires-so capable of echoing the sating, yet faint breath of music, that fills out its voice and dies away again," proper to pastoral poetry, which is as a dream “Of idleness in groves Elysian," and, like our ideas of Arcady, indistinct as all our notions of happiness must inevitably be. It may be said that the imagery and the sense are dependant on the rhyme. Blank verse might have been more consonant to the free exuberant soul of the poet; but Fletcher wears his chains gracefully, and shews, by the use to which he puts them, and the assistance which he makes them render, that he knew how to overleap the barriers that opposed his genius, and betrays the sportive purpose for which they are assumed-for which the happy captivity is willingly endured. Nor though the thought appear evolved from the rhyme, is the thought dependant on the rhyme. Still sense predominates over the sound, that at the termination of each line seems to listen for an invisible echo from the intellectual voice-for some new idea, which shall as unexpectedly comport with the current one, as the concluding syllable of the following line will chime-in with that which terminates the present, surprising the ear and the mind with a complicated sensation of difficulty and ease, mysteriously united in harmonious correspondence. Thus is the material medium of the poet's thoughts kept in perpetual reference to the idea which, in the rhythm and rhyme of a later period, is mechanised, and contracted or extended to suit the Procrustes' couch of a monotonous versification. The extracts we shall have occasion to make from "The Fair Shepherdess" will illustrate our meaning. A contrast of these passages, with some from Gay's Pastoral Tragedy of "Dione," would illustrate the appositeness or impropriety of this sort of versification. It is a matter of feeling-it would be absurd to reason upon it. Milton, in the lyrical portion of "Comus," has imitated this luxuriancy, but chastened with a "Doric delicacy;" and has released himself from all restraint in the dialogue by the adoption of blank verse, in which he has endeavoured to produce a similar effect, by means of an ornate diction, and the interposition of rural images and mythological allusions. But it is principally by means of allegorical embellishment that he preserves the story in an ideal region. The same purpose in the "Fair Shepherdess" is accomplished by a continual reference to the moral of the piece, which is the same as that of "Comus." This continually recurring moral is illustrated by the reverence which the rude Satyr observes towards Clorin, who has sworn eternal constancy to her "buried love"-a reverence referred to the peculiar power with which the poet has endowed chastity. Milton has concentrated and improved Fletcher's idea, as indeed he improved every thing that he honoured with imitating. In Fletcher it is spread over the poem, and the interest of the plot hinges upon it. It meets the reader at every turn, combined and complicated in every possible manner. Thenot, in love with Clorin, is attracted because of her constancy to the dead; and this romantic passion is only to be subdued by the inconstancy of Clorin. In this novel and perplexing situation, he may well ask, "Where shall be found that man that loves a mind Made up in constancy, and dares not find His love rewarded?" In this strain of high enthusiasm he addresses the constant virgin. "Tis not the white or red Inhabits in your cheek that thus can wed Able in endless error to enfold The wondering soul; not the true perfect mould Shake off these drops of weakness, and be free The enthusiasm, throughout "The Fair Shepherdess," expressed of the saving quality created by poetry for maidenhood, is noble-it has all the fervour of original conception, and all the rapture which genius feels when a new idea is born into the world. The thoughts breathe, and the words burn. Milton has entered as fully and freely into this sentiment as if it originated with himself; and perhaps the discovery of it, in the works of a precursor, served only as an echo to the suggestions of his own chaste spirit: "Chastity She that has that is clad in complete steel, And, like a quivered nymph with arrows keen, By grots, and caverns shagged with horrid shades, To testify the arms of chastity? Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow," &c. And so the poet proceeds increasing in solemnity while treating of "the sublime notion, and high mystery, That must be uttered to unfold the sage In Spenser's "Fairy Queen," also, the Lion is made to pay homage to the Virgin Una, and to defend her. The "Sad Shepherd" of Ben Jonson presents a perfect contrast to these examples. It is impossible to sufficiently admire the dexterity with which Milton, in the due exercise of his art, and his right of selection, has blended the |