all things visible,-man's primeval state of innocence, and his fall from it by disobedience, as revelation has recorded these ;- the history of the world, downward from Adam, who lost Paradise, to Christ the Redeemer, who more than restored it, when He "brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel ;" with which are involved whatever prophecy had foreshown, or but dimly shadows forth, respecting subsequent revolutions of empire on the face of the globe and among its inhabitants, till the consummation of all things, when "the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and (the living) shall be changed."

How he has handled these themes all the world of readers may be presumed to know. How he prepared himself for the task he has left on record, while the project was yet but in embryo.-"I do not think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader, that, for some few years yet, I may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now indebted (an heroic poem), 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 amourist, or the trencher-fury of a rhyming parasite; nor to be obtained by the invocation of dame Memory and her syren daughters, but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all knowledge and utterance, 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, and insight into all seemly and generous acts and affairs; till which, in some measure, be compassed, at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loath to hazard so much credulity upon the best pledges that I can give."

With what dignity of modesty are these pledges offered, and with what magnificence of execution were they redeemed!

But to the judgment of each individual, among his readers, it must be left, to determine for himself, how far, in the course of his "adventurous song," the poet's prayer for divine illumination has been answered in the sequel. The theology of the poem, in various passages of the deepest interest, may be seriously questioned, but shall here be left with one remark only (not affecting its doctrinal points), namely, that he would be a bold critic who, as a believer in the Christian faith, should venture to justify the extent to which the author has employed the doubtful, though, hitherto, undisputed licence of fiction in the supernatural agency of his poem. At the same time, far be it from the present writer to arraign the poet, either of wilful or negligent impiety. It need not be mooted here, whether he considered himself fully authorized to exercise such perilous freedom, but, assuredly, he was mistaken. Tasso, Marini, Camoens, and other epic poets, have likewise intermeddled with "things that were too high for them," and these have all egregiously miscarried, their spiritual agents having been uniformly the most indifferent, and the least effective personages in their stories. Milton far transcends all his predecessors in the use of such preternatural machinery, while none, that have come after, have been able to approach the power and ability with which he has wielded it. His angels and his demons are of the highest class of human creation of ideal beings, and there is admirable diversity and consistency of conduct in the exhibition of individuals of either species. But when he "presumes," not only "into the heaven of heavens"-" an earthly guest"-and "draws empyreal

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air," but into the very presence of Deity, and affects to disclose the secret things that belong to God" alone, he has failed lamentably, and, in some places, cannot be acquitted of irreverence; for example, in Book V., when the Eternal Father, in the night of the conspiracy, while Satan and his malcontent legions are meditating treason in the north, thus speaks to the Son, whom, on the previous day, he had proclaimed as his anointed king, and commanded all the angels to worship him :

"Son, thou in whom my glory I behold

In full resplendence, heir of all my might,
Nearly it now concerns us to be sure
Of our omnipotence, and with what arms
We mean to hold what anciently we claim
Of deity or empire: such a foe

Is rising, who intends to erect his throne
Equal to ours,

Let us advise, and to this hazard draw
With speed what force is left, and all employ
In our defence, lest unawares we lose

This our high place, our sanctuary, our hill."

The Son replies in a less offensive vein of irony.

Again, in Book X., the Almighty, on occasion of the operations of Sin and Death following the track of Satan from hell gates to the new world, and forming a bridge across the desolate abyss, addresses his Son in language of human passion, too gross to be read without horror, and, therefore, not necessary to be quoted here.

In other discourses between the two divine personages, while there is godlike authority in the speeches of the Father, and a majesty of meekness, most beautifully characteristic of the Redeemer, in the replies of the Son, it may be allowed to the adventurous poet, that what man could do, he has done; and if even there he fell

short of "the height of (his) great argument," he stopped only where

"The force of nature could no further go."

In describing the glories and felicities of heaven, and recording the songs of the angels, he has exceeded, both in splendour and sanctity of thought and utterance, all precedents of forerunners and imitations of successors on similar themes. In Book III., after the long and abstruse colloquy, in the presence of all the hierarchies around the throne, wherein the Father foretels the fall of man, and the Son offers himself as a sacrifice for the sinner, in the scene that follows, Milton transcends himself, and seems only to lack inspiration to stamp authenticity on the record:

"No sooner had the Almighty ceased, but all
The multitude of angels, with a shout,

Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
As from blest voices, uttering joy, heaven rung
With jubilee, and loud hosannas fill'd
The eternal regions: lowly reverent

Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground,
With solemn adoration, down they cast

Their crowns, inwove with amarant and gold:
Immortal amarant, a flower which once

In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,

Began to bloom; but soon, for man's offence,

To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows,

And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life,

And where the river of bliss, through 'midst of heaven,
Rolls o'er Elysian flowers her amber stream:

With these, that never fade, the spirits elect

Bind their resplendent locks, inwreathed with beams :
Now in loose garlands thick thrown off, the bright
Pavement, that like a sea of jasper shone,
Impurpled with celestial roses, smiled.

Then, crown'd again, their golden harps they took,

Harps ever tuned, that glittering by their side
Like quivers hung, and with preamble sweet
Of charming symphony they introduce
Their sacred song, and waken raptures high;
No voice exempt, no voice but well could join
Melodious part, such concord is in heaven.
'Thee, Father,' first they sung, 'Omnipotent,
Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,

Eternal King,'" &c.

The reader may turn, for himself, to the song. In describing the persons and deeds of angels, Milton has excelled Dante, Tasso, Marini, and other Italian poets, though to each of these he has been indebted for some traits of beauty or grandeur. Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel, Ithuriel, Zephon, Abdiel, and Michael, are each as individual as though they were beings of flesh and blood. With yet stronger features and bolder strokes of the pen, or, rather, of the pencil, has he portrayed “ the apostate host." Satan, Moloch, Beelzebub, Chemos, Thammuz, Ashtaroth, Belial, Mammon, and others,-fiends in hell, who were worshipped as gods in Palestine, are each represented to the life, and each distinct in wickedness. Satan alone is complete in all the elements of evil.

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One of the wonderful faculties of Milton's mind was the power of finding fit employments for the actors and sufferers in his song, the scenes of which are laid either "beyond this visible diurnal sphere," among spiritual beings, without bodily parts and passions, or with the first human pair in their state of innocence. The various modes in which the fallen angels, during Satan's absence, try to find "truce to (their) restless thoughts, and entertain the irksome hours, till (their) great chief return," display singular invention. The following are brief examples: