let me then be of all men the weakest, provided that immortal and better vigour exert itself with an efficacy proportioned to my infirmity, provided the light of God's countenance shine with intense brilliance upon my dark

ness.

Then shall I at once be most feeble and most mighty, completely blind and thoroughly sharp-sighted. O may this weakness insure my consummation, my perfection; and my illumination arise out of this obscurity. In truth, we blind men are not the lowest objects of the care of Providence, who deigns to look upon us with the greater affection and benignity, as we are incapable of looking upon any thing but himself. Woe to those that mock or hurt us, protected as we are, and almost consecrated from human injuries, by the ordinances and favour of the Deity; and involved in darkness, not so much from the imperfection of our optic powers, as from the shadow of the Creator's wings- a darkness, which he frequently irradiates with an inner and far superior light ?” *

This is a quotation which certainly unveils

* Wrangham's Version. Vide Works, vol. iii.

the mind and creed of Milton on the topic of his blindness, in a manner more clear and decisive than any other passage which can be extracted from his writings; and it leads irresistibly to the conclusion, that, however deplorable, in a merely personal and domestic point of view, his privation may be deemed, it was nevertheless essentially contributive to the perfectibility of his genius as the poet of Paradise Lost.

The same inference, indeed, will be drawn from the exquisite opening of the third book of this inimitable poem; an exordium which, as not only in itself exhibiting an almost unparallelled degree of pathos and beauty, but as giving additional strength to the deductions flowing from the preceding quotation, it would be unpardonable on such a topic not to bring forward, however familiar it may be to the memory of my readers. More especially do I wish for its introduction here, as a counterpart to Ossian's Address to the Sun, quoted in a previous paper, and which, estimable as it is both for tenderness and sublimity, is undoubtedly surpassed in both by these admirable lines of Milton.

Assuredly, if ever human hatred dropped its purpose through the influence of the lyre, political enmity itself must have lost its rancour whilst listening to these strains!

Hail, holy light, offspring of Heaven first-born,
Or of the Eternal, coeternal beam

May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather, pure etherial stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters, dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.

Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,

Escap'd the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphéan lyre,

I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare: Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sov'reign vital lamp; but thou

Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain

To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt,
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song: but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two, equall'd with me in fate,
So were I equall'd with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris, and blind Moonides,
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But clouds instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways
of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expung'd and ras'd,

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

During the time, however, which elapsed between the appearance of his Defence of the People of England and the Death of Cromwell, a period including the publication of his Second Defence, and the composition of the third book of Paradise Lost, Milton, we must recollect, though blind, and an object of unqualified abuse to the opposite party, was yet on the triumphant side of the question, and had acquired the most extensive literary celebrity as the result of his contest with Salmasius. His Reply to this champion of the unfortunate Charles, was, he tells us, circulated throughout Europe with the utmost avidity, and no ambassador from any state or sovereign ever met him in London, even by chance, without congratulations on his success, or without expressing a wish either to visit him, or to be visited by him. His blind