Nothing is more useful in literary biography than to endeavour to ascertain by what means others have attained extraordinary excellence: there must always be a concurrence of causes, of which some may perhaps be accidental: the inborn gift is first, and indispensable; but encouragement, discipline, and toil are also necessary. It is clear that Milton showed the superiority of his endowments at ten years old; and all other concurrences would have done nothing without these.

Can any case be shown where true genius did not exhibit itself in early childhood? It appears to me very improbable. I know no ascertained case. An extreme sensibility is a primary ingredient: this must show itself early. Sometimes common observers have mistaken the symptons of genius; but this does not alter the case. Vulgar censors often take the appearances of genius in childhood for folly; as has been beautifully described by Beattie, in "Young Edwin."

CHAPTER XIX.

RECAPITULATION OF MILTON'S PERSONAL CHARACTER.

I KNOW not that much can be added to the traits of Milton's character which I have already given. As in almost all cases of great genius, there is a consonance in the qualities of the poetry and the poet. Grandeur, inflexibility, sternness, originality, naked force,-all true splendour, or strength, arises from internal conviction or belief. The poet was never compliant to the ways of the world: from his very childhood he kept himself aloof: he nursed his visions in solitude, and soothed his haughty hopes of future loftiness of fame by lonely musing: the ideal world in which his mind lived would not coalesce with the rude concourse of raankind.

As to his own purity and sanctity of soul, the declarations and enthusiastic apostrophes in his own prose writings render it impossible to doubt it: he made them in the hearing of his most bitter enemies,-public enemies through all Europe,-rendered furious by a common cause, in which all the principles of ancient institutions were involved. The extent to which he carried his arguments appears to me wrong, and I cannot deem his conclusions other than harsh and vindictive; but, as I have said before, I do not think that tenderness of feeling was his distinction. His gigantic heart was not easily melted into tears: he knew how to paint rebellious angels, mighty even in their defeat.

All his excitements were intellectual: his thoughts were compound: but it is surprising how a mind habituated for twenty years to the coarse routine of public business could at once throw it all off, and produce a poetical texture so close-wrought, and of Euch unmingled majesty. Plain as the style is, it never sinks into colloquiality or the language of business: he had kept his genius aloof from his daily occupation, and suffered not the world to blow or breathe upon it.

Jn the commencement of the ninth book of the "Paradise Lost," the poet speaks of his subject as more heroic than the subjects of the Iliad and Æneid :

If answerable style I can obtain

Of my celestial patroness, who deigns

Her nightly visitation unimplored,

And dictates to me slumbering, or inspires

Easy my unpreraeditated verse,

Since Erst this subject for heroic song

Pleased me, long chusing and beginning late;

Not redulous by nature to indite

Wars, nitherto the only argument

Heroic deem'd.

So before, in book vii., addressing himself to his Muse Urania, he says:-
Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole,
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
To hoarse or mute: though fall'n on evil days,
On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues;
In darkness, and with dangers compass'd round,
And solitude: yet not alone, while thou
Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn

1

Purples the east. Still govern thou my song,
Urania and fit audience find, though few.

That his inward light became more radiant from his outward darkness I cannot doubt, This he expresses himself in the sublime opening of his third book:—

Thee I revisit safe,

And feel thy sovereign 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 Mæonides,
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 eve or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off; and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with an universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
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.

There is nothing in all the materials of biography more applicable to an author's character than this affecting and majestic burst of egotism: though it will be repeated in the poetry, I should consider myself worse than tasteless if I omitted to insert it here. If we do not dwell on these parts of the poet's thoughts and feelings, we pass over his principal and most exalted traits. The metrical writer, whose life is not a poem, is of an inferior class, and a mere poetical artist. No assumed character,-nothing which does not proceed from "a believing mind" (to use Collins's expression), will be efficient. Milton, while he was composing "Paradise Lost," battled with the angels, and lived in the garden of Eden. While he was dictating the passages I have cited, how unutterably grand must have been the exaltation of his mind!

Great pains have been taken to discover what is called the origin of "Paradise Lost." Such conjectures may amuse the curious in bibliography; for higher purposes they are but empty trifles. The great number of authors, to whom it is pretended to track the poet, is alone a proof how little certainty there is in such researches. It appears to me that these critics mistake the nature of originality. It is not so much in the novelty of the ingredients, as in their selection and new combinations, that originality consists. In confirmation of what the poet has said of his "long chusing, and beginning late," he thus expresses himself in his second book of the "Reformation of Church Government," in 1641:

"Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader, that for some few years yet I may go on trust with him towards the payment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine; like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the

trencher fury of some rhyming parasite; nor to be obtained of dame Memory and her siren daughters; but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs."

I am convinced that this is the only true account of the origin of "Paradise Lost." Shakspeare's originality might be still more impugned, if an anticipation of hints and similar stories were to be taken as proof of plagiarism. In many of the dramatist's most beautiful plays the whole tale is borrowed, as for instance, "Romeo and Juliet" from Luigi da Porto: but Shakspeare and Milton turn brass into gold. This sort of passage-hunting has been carried a great deal too far, and has disgusted and repelled the reader of feeling and taste. The novelty is in the raciness, the life, the force, the just association, the probability, the truth; that which is striking because it is extravagant, is a false novelty. He who borrows to make patches is a plagiarist; but what patch is there in Milton? All is interwoven, and forms part of one web.

No doubt, the holy bard was always intent upon sacred poetry, and drew his principal inspirations from Scripture. This distinguishes his style and spirit from those of all other poets; and gives him a solemnity which has not been surpassed save in the Book whence welled that inspiration.

The poem is one which could not have been produced solely by the genius of Milton, without the addition of an equal extent and depth of learning, and an equal labour of reflection. Neither Shakspeare, nor Spenser, nor any other great poet, of any country, could have produced it. It is never an effusion. I conjecture that it was produced slowly, after long musing on each passage; though he hints otherwise himself. It has always a great compression. Perhaps its perpetual allusions to all past literature and history are sometimes carried a little too far for the popular reader; and the latinized style requires to be read with the attention due to an ancient classic.

Probably all the author's diversified mental faculties and acquirements worked together in the production of almost every portion of this majestic edifice. There is nothing of mere simple imagination in any part: all is moral, didactic, wise, sublime, as well as creative and visionary.

All language appears diluted in every other poet, compared with Milton's: it has few transpositions; and is never guilty of flowery ornaments, which vulgar taste mistakes for poetical richness. Serious, profound, devoted, gigantic in conception, and sublime in words, he speaks as an inspired emanation of a higher state of being! There is a sombre awe in him, to which we listen as to an oracle. He dictates and imposes a force of authority, which we dare not question. We tremble while we believe.

In the Life which I have thus attempted of the most sublime of all English authors, it has not been my purpose to be minute, and to collect together all which had been previously told of the great poet.

It has seemed to me on the present occasion even judicious to adhere to the leading features only; and to give them, not from the representations of others, but from my own feelings, reflections, and convictions. I am afraid that there are many who admire Milton, principally, if not solely, upon the force of authority. All the admiration I have myself expressed is strictly sincere: I have uttered no affected raptures; and I have not spoken but from the unchanging opinion of a long and studious life. To have given novelty to a subject so often treated, would be almost a hopeless wish. In stating the dry facts of such a topic there can be little variety of expression: but I have rather relied upon the force of opinions and comments, than of facts already known of the justness and taste of these, and of the manner in which they are expressed, others must judge: the quality on which I rely is their sincerity. I have not been pleading as a plausible advocate for one whom I have undertaken the task of praising the difficulty has not been in finding pleas for admiration, but in finding language adequate to the demands for which excellence gave occasion. The personal character of the poet should be all along concurrent with the genius of his poetry. From his very childhood he was a worshipper of the Muse Urania.

It has been unfortunate for Milton that his most popular biographer should be Johnson, whose Memoir is written in such a deliberate spirit of detraction as to fix on the writer a certain degree of moral turpitude. As a critic he has here shown extreme insensibility and want of taste, except on the "Paradise Lost," of which his eulogy, though strongly expressed, is, as I shall attempt to prove, little more in substance than a copy from Addison.

He who criticised Milton with the most congenial spirit was Thomas Warton. Hayley had an amiable enthusiasm; but his style was languid, diffuse, and often sickly, full of colloquial and feminine superlatives; such as "most affectionate"-" most tender"-"most afflicting." Hayley was full of elegant erudition, but he had no imagination: Bishop Newton was classical, but feeble and unoriginal: Bentley and Warburton were acute but fantastic. It is hardly necessary to characterize minor annotators.

CHAPTER XX.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CRITICISMS ON "PARADISE LOST," BY ADDISON AND JOHNSON. THE two grand criticisms on the "Paradise Lost" are those of Addison and Johnson. Whatever praise Johnson may have obtained for what he has written on this subject, a strict examination will show that he owes entirely to his predecessor: all is drawn from Addison. It is true, that he has clothed it in his own diction; and that it had passed through the ordeal of his own mind, so as not to be reproduced identical; but yet precisely similar: it has a more compressed contexture; and more point, which is taken for more force.

Both critics consider this divine poem under the four heads of fable, characters, sentiments, and language; and both concur in all the necessary requisites of each, and that Milton has fulfilled them all. As an epitome of Addison, that which Johnson has written is valuable; as an original, it has no merit at all. In one respect it is more adapted to modern taste; that it less often insists on bringing those questions to the standard models of Homer and Virgil; which, however excellent, must be now admitted to be sometimes arbitrary in general, however, they are founded on reason, and therefore indispensable.

As greatness is the first quality, the superiority of Milton's fable to those of Homer and Virgil cannot be disputed: nor is his manner of conducting it less skilful and perfect; having unity, always going forward to its end, and never interrupted by irrelevant episodes. The vastness of the invention of the outline, when little could be drawn from tradition, history, or observation, is stupendous.

The characters are equally out of the conception of mere human musing. The delineation of Satan, and the other Fallen Angels, would have appeared to any other mind but Milton's beyond the reach of human ability. The ideas of Adam and Eve before the fall might not appear so utterly hopeless: but as they then partook of divinity, nothing but the boldest imagination could have ventured upon the subject.

The sentiments appropriate to such characters could only be supplied by a genius partaking of an inspiration above humanity. The grandeur of thought must have been incessant, and liable to no depressions: the imagination of many may be strong enough to invent and communicate the workings of human passions and human intellects; but of angels in obedient bliss, of angels in rebellion, who but Milton could venture to paint the designs or emotions?

Nor is the difficulty of adequate language less than of adequate conception. How are we to express the spiritual, but by the aid of signs drawn from materiality? And this is liable to the objection, that what is divine is degraded by an illustration from what is earthly. Even Milton himself has not escaped this censure. However, there is a considerable portion of Milton's poem which does not consist in the sublimity of imagery, but in what Johnson, I think, calls "argumentative sublimity;"-thoughts which are purely intellectual.

Johnson has not followed Addison through all the details in which these grand principles are examined and exemplified; but such as he has selected are mainly the

same: nor has he failed to insist on the faults which have struck his predecessor. I am not sure that Addison himself, with all his candour, has not sometimes censurea causelessly: I think that he has done so in the famous allegory of Sin and Death in the tenth book; and I am fortified in this opinion by Bishop Atterbury, whose taste was not only unquestionable, but exquisite. It is an invention of inexpressible magnificence, both in conception and expression: its materiality is the object of disapprobation by the critics.

It seems to me impossible to draw the line how far the shadowy beings of spirit may be represented by poets as taking part in material agency: if not allowed at all, there must be an end to the sublimest allegories.

It is true that Sin and Death might have passed from the gates of hell to earth without building a bridge of such materials as Milton supposes: but though it was not necessary, I cannot consider it an unpardonable license upon the ground of its materiality. It may be said that it is allowable to personify abstract ideas, and give them some minglement of action; but not to carry it far. Thus Gray, in his " Hymn to Adversity," speaks of her "iron hand;" and Collins, in his "Ode to the Passions," exhibits Fear as striking the "chords" of the harp. But such ideal creatures may surely be allowed to act a little more on reality than this. The rule is good, that the invention ought not to go beyond what we are capable of believing, at least in our moments of enthusiasm. Whether the allegory of Sin and Death, under the effect of such vivid and sublime description, goes beyond this, will depend on the different structure of different minds. For my part, I can see the gates of hell open, and the bridge in the progress of its formation! There are many passages in the poetry of the Bible not less typified by material description; but many of these objectors are the very people who have least genuine taste for spirituality.

One of the finest passages of Johnson is the following:-"The appearances of nature, and the occurrences of life, did not satiate Milton's appetite of greatness. To paint things as they are requires a minute attention, and employs the memory rather than the fancy: Milton's delight was to sport in the wide regions of possibility; reality was a scene too narrow for his mind: he sent his faculties out upon discovery into worlds where only imagination can travel, and delighted to form new modes of existence, and furnish sentiment and action to superior beings, to trace the counsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven." But this is far above the general tone of his criticisms; and is half undone again by a passage in a subsequent page, where he speaks of the inconvenience of the design, which requires the description of what cannot be described, -the agency of spirits: he is sometimes raised above himself by the inspiration of Addison's noble essay; then he sinks again to his own level. It was not Addison's opinion that the agency of spirits could not be described; he only says that spirits must not be too particularly engaged in action. Bishop Newton justifies these agencies of imaginary beings: I have no doubt that they are the very essences of the highest poetry. It is true that to bring Violence, Strength, and Death on the stage, as active persons, is absurd; and that what may be introduced in poetry may be sometimes improper for the definite lines and colourings of sculpture and painting. What is most sublime is often vague and half enveloped in mists.

Addison says, "Milton seems to have known perfectly well wherein his strength lay, and has therefore chosen a subject entirely conformable to those talents of which he was master. As his genius was wonderfully turned to the sublime, the subject is the noblest that could have entered into the thoughts of man: everything that is truly great and astonishing has a place in it: the whole system of the intellectual world,-the chaos, and the creation-heaven, earth, and hell,-enter into the constitution of his poem."

Johnson follows in the same steps, and begins almost in the same words:-" He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius; and to know what it was that nature had bestowed upon him more bountifully than upon others,-the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the splendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful: he therefore chose a subject on which too much could not be said; on which he might tire his fancy without the censure of extravagance." So much for Johnson's originality!