ages, the opinions of the wisest men, the superstitions of the most benighted nations, the truths of philosophy and science, and the most solemn mysteries of religion, were all explored by the great author, and he poured out the whole vast treasure of his mind into the golden vase his imagination had formed. But to decide upon the true character of his genius, we must not be content with the examination of his larger works. They were composed after his mind was more than furnished, after it was enveloped with learning; and it is sometimes, therefore, not clear whether knowledge have not mastered thought instead of being its auxiliary. From the earlier poems of Milton we are able to discover, with some degree of certainty, the prin cipal and original characteristics of his genius. In them we trace the love of truth, the creative imagination, the power over language, which form the features of his subsequent productions. But we see them in their origin. With him the love of truth was the offspring of a tranquil but noble soul, and from the dawning of his mind it was the object he most earnestly sought. But he sought it chiefly among books, or among those who derived their materials of thinking solely from them. The fashion of the times was not in favour of original thinking, and hence he, like the other great men of the period, principally employed himself in heaping together all the knowledge which the accumulated learning of ages could afford. One consequence of this was the subjection of passion, thought, and feeling, to memory; and there is, therefore, to be discovered no beauty of a sentimental kind, even in his freshest and earliest poems. The same cause will also account for the absence of that heartreaching, spiritual eloquence with which poetry sometimes awakens us. There are scarcely any thoughts to be found in Milton which can be ascribed to his sympathy with individual suffering, or to his consideration of human nature in its simple but deep workings. He gave himself no time for this unincumbered view of humanity. He sought the true philosophy of nature, but it was in the history of sects and kingdoms; and he learnt to excite wonder but not passion. Whatever, therefore, might have been the tendencies of his nature truth in his poetry is a reflected not primitive truth; the truth which learning searches for and discovers, not what every heart feels and recognizes. But Milton possessed an imagination of the highest order; an imagination which could combine or create at will the noblest objects of contemplation. His early poet is sufficiently attest the energy of this divine power in his mind. The classical style of his verses never affect its originality; and they run like a stream of light and beauty wherever the imagination is free to operate. All the other faculties of his intellect received their tone from this. His power of description was raised by it into a creative faculty; the objects of memory passed through it, and became godlike and eternal. It elevated his thoughts to other worlds of beings, which it alone could make visible; and reason in ber severest moods was led by it to take her weapons from the splendid and ethereal armoury of poetry. In Comus, the Allegro, and Penseroso, and the religious Odes, we see all this power of the imagination operating, but producing only beautiful and holy forms; we are entertained with the sight of nature suffused with heavenly light, with the discourse of bright and spiritual beings, and with the view of past scenes, over which hangs the cloud of divine glory. All here is fresh and spring-like. The poet's imagination was a bird of Paradise, that had not strength of wing to explore the dark world beyond it. When years, continued study, and experience of the world, had altered the general tone of his feelings, this distinguishing power of his genius assumed, with increasing strength, a severer character. The world of interminable being was all before it, and it chose out of the tremendous wilderness of space the most fearful spot it could discover. Here it rejoiced in its power. The great void grew instinct with life. The universe of thought became substantial, and night and ruin stood palpably dis tinct in the outflooding and creating light of heaven. с reading populace, no book-clubs, provincial libraries, or facilities for circulating literary works through the mass of the public; intelligence was in general confined to the small portion of the community who were possessed of fortune and talents, and the productions of taste had, consequently, to wait for the slow succession of those select readers before they could obtain a decided establishment in the list of classical works. There were, it is true. literary productions in the reign of Charles the Second, which acquired a reputation that might be called popular, but they were such as appealed, by their ribaldry and loose sentiments, to the lowest of men's passions, and were, therefore, equally sure of vulgar, as of fashionable attention. The poetry of Milton, on the contrary, touched upon no topic which the lewd spirit of the age could relish; it fed no unhallowed desire, perverted no principle of morality, and gave splendour to no character which was not rendered illustrious by holiness. The comedies of the most popular authors of the period, and the licentious verses of the wits of Charles's court, were greedily devoured by all classes, but no purity of taste was required to enjoy them, and no depth of thought to fathom their meaning. Milton's verse was a magic stream that had music for but few ears, and the levity and vicious abandonment of the times had degraded king, courtiers, and people, to the lowest character of vulgarity. Hence the comparative neglect which attended the original publication of Paradise Lost; hence the fear of the bookseller to give more than five pounds for the copyright, and the slowness of its sale, compared with that of works infinitely inferior in merit. When, however, these circumstances are considered, there was no particular bad fortune atten ling the publication of this poem. It was sold, in the first instance, to one Simmons, a printer, and the real wonder is, that it was disposed of for no more than five pounds, with the agreement that five more should be paid after the sale of thirteen hundred of the first edition, and the same sum after the sale of as many of the second; which stipulation was als No mortal ever saw that vision so distinct as Milton, and seeing it he could but write as he did. His imagination was a sense, not the result of emotion. It was from sight, not feeling, his inspiration came, and hence the grandeur, but coldness, of his genius -the distinctness and reality of his creations-the cramped scholasticism of his philosophy. There are other points of a minor but highly interesting nature in considering the genius of Milton. His deficiency of passion was the only element which was wanting to the perfection of his poetic character. When we examine it in respect to every other, we find it full and complete; perfect, not only in the higher and rarer requisites of genius, but in those lighter qualities from which inferior minds derive their sole claim to consideration. Milton had as perfect a knowledge of the art of poetry as any cold, formal writer of verses, who has no other means of gaining respectability. He had also an equal degree of judgment in arranging the different parts of his subject, and while there was no species of learning which he had not pursued, there was no, not even the commonest kind of, information which he could not accommodate, with the nicest skill, to his purpose. But of all these minor features of his genius, that which most deserves consideration is the exquisite power he possessed over every kind of metre. The versification of his shorter poems is the most beautiful specimen we possess of the music of our language. The blank metre of Paradise Lost is more various, more rich in the melody of cadences, than that of any other English poem. This, perhaps, is owing to a circumstance not generally observed, that Milton is almost the only writer in blank verse who had previously made himself a perfect master of rhyme and the rhyming measures. |