has it, is the art of doing by means of words what the painter does by means of colors. It does more; it infinitely transcends painting: "painting gives the object itself; poetry, what it implies. Painting embodies what a thing contains in itself: poetry suggests what exists out of it, in any manner connected with it." It breaks down the distinctions between the real and the ideal, between the spiritual and the material, and spiritualizes and adorns the whole with the splendors of a new creation. It brings to light the unseen and reveals the unknown it breaks down the distinctions of nature and forms all things anew for the gratification of the most sacred and lofty aspiration of the soul: and it needs must be something more than human; it "has something divine in it," says Lord Byron, "because it raises the mind and hurries it into sublimity, by conforming the shows of things to the desires of the soul." Such is the nature of poetry, and he is a poet who feels the operations of the Divinity in his own breast, “and seeing its infinitely changing play upon the wide theatre of the universe, suffers the eye of reason to survey the banks between which the stream of inspiration is to leap and sparkle."

In comparing these four great poets together, certain characteristics are seen which are radically opposed to the established canons of criticism. Chaucer lived in the most unenlightened age, and yet he "excels as the poet of manners, or of real life." Milton lived in the most enlightened, nevertheless he is the "the sublimest of men." Spenser is identified with romance, and the luxury and affluence of his muse have given to his age

the distinction of being the most POETICAL. Shakspeare is the poet of nature, and in this respect no other name is put in competition with his.

The superiority of Milton is accounted for by attributing to him the superiority of genius, a genius that overcomes the obstacles, real or supposed, that the advancement of learning and civilization, present to the production of pure poetry.

Nothing is more evident than that Milton is not yet appreciated; his sublimity and morality are the only characteristics that are willingly ascribed to him. These, together with his learning, seem almost to exclude him from the pale of pure poetry. "He is held in distant reverence," rather than cherished in the heart. "The grandeur of his mind has thrown some shade over his milder beauties."

His admiration for Dante and Petrarch; his love, as he expresses it, for the transparent wave of the Illissus, the banks of Arno, and the hills of Fæsolæ, are betrayed in his diction; but he has poured out so many of the richest fancies, and combined so many inimitable forms of beauty and loveliness, that those who appreciate him, will, like all true lovers, see beauty even in this deformity.

His mind was enriched with "all utterance and knowledge," and to this was "added industrious and select reading, steady observation and insight into all seemly and generous arts, and affairs," and if he was not a born-poet, still greater praise is due to him, for the heat of his mind is such as to sublimate his learning, and to refine and vivify his almost limitless

knowledge into the highest order of poetry;-poetry which is the production of the noblest powers of the mind. So intense and ardent is his imagination, that it penetrates the whole mass of his learning, and makes it radiant with beauty. As the central fires of the earth have converted the common rocks, dull and opake, and filled with fragments of skeletons and shells, into white crystalline marble,-so did Milton's genius transform, metamorphise, his erudition into divine verse.

His genius was not confined within the narrow limits of this world; not satisfied with painting pictures of the real, he was constantly aiming to sketch the unknown; he goes out into Chaos and night, where imagination alone can bear him, and there creates worlds, and peoples them with a corresponding order of beings, and enlarges the bounds of the universe. Rising above things before attempted, “in prose or rhyme," he winged his daring flight to heaven, and projected a movement that involved the destiny of the universe. He did not, like Homer, bring the gods down to earth to mingle in the contest with men, but, with his mighty forces, he besieges the Eternal Throne; and it trembles; the foundations of the universe are shaken. He does not bring forth a silver-footed goddess, to inspire his hosts, nor does he send out a sullen hero to disperse the rebels with a shout, but he imbues his followers with a native energy equal to the contest, and he sends forth one, at whose mere frown the victors are vanquished. Though cast out of heaven, and overwhelmed,

With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,

he can raise them up again to aspire, with confident hope, against the Throne that they have once shaken :

But see! the angry victor hath recall'd

His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of heaven: the sulphurous hail,
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid
The fiery surge, that from the precipice

Of heaven received us falling; and the thunder,
Wing'd with red lightning, and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.
Let us not slip the occasion, whether scorn,
Or satiate fury, yield it from our Foe.
Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,

Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Cast pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;
There rest, if any rest can harbor there;
And re-assembling our afflicted Powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy; our own loss repair,
How overcome this dire calamity;

What reinforcement we may gain from hope:
If not, what resolution from despair.

Milton's fancy is seldom seen unaccompanied by imagination: he is too serious, too much imbued with austere feeling, with the spirit of a solemn and severe religion, to indulge freely in the playfulness of fancy. He is too intent upon his subject to sport with mere resemblances; to amuse himself with airy and fantas

tic creations. He never descends to a witticism; nor calls up those lively images which enter the mind with gayety, and as by a sudden flash. This is the reason why he is not universally admired. The mind recoils from continued vigor of thought, and retires into itself, or sports with fanciful relations. He is intent upon truth and beauty; but his fancy can paint such flowers as grow in paradise. In the picture of his Eden, he has combined every object that is beautiful in nature. Spenser's Bower of Bliss does not compare with it, and it far surpasses the Elysian fields of ancient song. To the perfect art of the painter he has added the peculiar charm of poetry. The painter that should portray this scene, and realize the impression which the reading of a single passage gives, would triumph completely over the obstacles: to a successful mingling of the lofty with the low, the wild with the gentle, the beautiful with the sublime, sunshine with shade. Here are honey for the taste, odor for the smell, beauty for the eye, and grandeur for the mind.

So on he fares, and to the border comes
Of Eden, whose delicious Paradise,

Now nearer, crowns with her enclosures green,
As with a rural mound, the champaign head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and over-head up-grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,

Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A silvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theater

Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops