the eye can reach; though he keeps aloof from them in his own mind, and holds supreme counsel only with his own breast. An outcast from Heaven, Hell trembles beneath his feet, Sin and Death are at his heels, and mankind aré his easy prey. "All is not lost; the unconquerable will, are still his. The loss of infinite happiness to himself is compensated in thought by the power of inflicting infinite misery on others. Yet Milton's Satan is not the principle of malignity, or of the abstract love of evil, but of the abstract love of power, of pride, of self-will personified. He expresses the sum and substance of all ambition in one line: "Fallen cherub, to be weak is miserable, After his conflict and defeat, he founds a new empire in Hell, and from it conquers this new world, whither he bends his undaunted flight, forcing his way through nether and surrounding fires. Wherever the figure of Satan is introduced, whether he walks or flies, "rising aloft, incumbent on the dusky air," it is illustrated with the most striking and appropriate images: so that we see it always before us, gigantic, irregular, portentous, uneasy, and disturbed, but dazzling in its faded splendor. The deformity of Satan is only in the unparalleled depravity of his will. He has no bodily depravity to excite our loathing or disgust. He has neither horns, nor tail, nor cloven foot. Some think, and perhaps justly, that Milton has erred in drawing the character of Satan too favorably, or, rather, in making him the chief person in his poem; and they have ascribed this to Milton's love of rebellion against the magistracies of his own day. Satan's final departure from Heaven, and the sentiments with which he approaches and enters Hell, are portrayed in the most masterly style: "Farewell, happy fields, T What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than He Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least Perhaps of all the passages in Paradise Lost, the descrip tion of the employments of the angels during the absence of Satan, some of whom, "retreated in a silent valley, sing with notes angelical to many a harp their own heroic deeds and hapless fall by doom of battle," is the most perfect example of mingled pathos and sublimity. The character which a living poet has given of Spenser would be much more true of Milton: "Yet not more sweet Than pure was he, and not more pure than wise; Milton has finely shown the power of discrimination in respect to character in EVE'S LAMENTATION ON BEING DRIVEN FROM PARADISE. "O unexpected stroke, worse than of death! At even, which I bred up with tender hand Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?" Thee, lastly, nuptial bower, by me adorn'd With what to sight or smell was sweet, from thee How shall I part, and whither wander down こ Into a lower world, to this obscure And wild? How shall we breathe in other air Less pure, accustom'd to immortal fruits?" Adam's reflections on the same mournful occasion are in a different strain, and still finer. After expressing his submission to the will of his Maker, he says, "This most afflicts me, that departing hence His bless'd countenance; here I could frequent On this mount He appear'd, under this tree Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone Offer sweet-smelling gums, and fruits, and flowers. SECTION III. SAMUEL BUTLER, Author of Hudibras. Strongly contrasted to Milton in every respect was his contemporary, Samuel Butler (1612-1680), the son of a farmer in Worcestershire, and at all times a poor man, but possessed of a rich fancy and a singular power of witty and pointed expression. His chief work was Hudibras, published in 1663 and subsequent years, a comic poem in shortrhymed couplets, designed to burlesque the characters of the zealously religious and Republican party, which had recently held sway. Notwithstanding the service which he thus performed to the Royalist cause and to Charles II., he was suffered to die in such poverty that the expense of his funeral was defrayed by a friend. In Hudibras, a Republican officer, of the most grotesque figure and accoutrements, s represented as sallying out, like a knight-errant, for the reformation of the state; and his character is thus, in the first place, described : CHARACTER OF SIR HUDIBRAS. A hair 'twixt south and southwest side; He'd run in debt by disputation, In mood and figure he would do. His mouth, but out there flew a trope; Teach nothing but to name his tools. But when he pleased to show 't, his speech A Babylonish dialect, Which learned pedants much affect; Of patch'd and py-bald languages; "Twas English, cut on Greek and Latin, SECTION IV. YOUNG (1681-1765). Night Thoughts. The principal work of Edward Young is the Nigni Thoughts. This poem, by some critics, has been pronounced mournful, angry, gloomy, and represented springing from disappointed ambition rather than from superior sentiments. It is thought, however, to exhibit a wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions—a wildness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odor. He was too fond of antithesis, and often too turgid in his style; yet he paints, with the most lively fancy, the feelings of the heart, the vanity of human things, its flecting honors and enjoyments, and he presents some of the strongest arguments in support of the immortality of the soul. The late Joseph Emerson speaks of this work as the dear companion of his early youth, most faithful counselor of his advancing days—a precious, invaluable friend-for more than thirty summers the balm of his sorrows, the pillow of his weary, throbbing head-the sweetener of his sweetest joys. "Dark and dismal, indeed, are many of his pictures; but I think not more so than their originals. If so, we should not blame the painter, but the subjects." But his pictures of redemption are most glorious. “To me, the Night Thoughts is a poem, on the whole, most animating and delightful-amazingly energetic-full of the richest instruction-improving to the mindmuch of it worthy of being committed to memorysome faults-some passages unfit to be read-obscure -extravagant-tinged occasionally with flattery." The work is well adapted for exercising the mind in the process of analysis and criticism. CONSCIENCE "Conscience, what art thou? Thou tremendous power' And act within ourselves, another self, As with a peal of thunder, to strange horrors, |