is possible that he may prefer ale to champagne; but let him not, therefore, hold up licence as the perfection of rule, or malt liquor, as the only pure wine. Hall, Donne, Hobbes, and Crashaw are as licentious in their pauses as Milton; and distribute them, with the same irregularity, through the verse, from the first to the ninth syllable; and, if this licence be so exquisite a beauty, and add so much to harmony, their versification ought to be preferred to that of Dryden, Pope, or Goldsmith: but, unfortunately, they have not deserved or acquired so great a name, in other respects, as Milton; and the authority of a name is a medium, through which critics of this class discover innumerable excellencies, which otherwise would have remained as imperceptible to them as to the rest of mankind. The great and transcendent merits of Milton's poetry may excuse even greater blemishes and defects than are to be found in it: but to hear these defects and blemishes, the stains of negligence and rust of antiquity, extolled and recommended as refinements of taste and artifice, cannot but excite the indignation of every writer, whose indignation is not stifled by contempt. 27. Poetry is the language of inspiration, and consequently of enthusiasm; and it appears to me that a methodical arrangement of CHAP. 1. Of improved .CHAP. I. Of improved the sound into certain equal or corresponding portions, called verses, the terminations of Perception. which are distinctly marked to the ear; and the subdivisions or pauses of which are limited within certain bounds, is absolutely necessary to sustain that steady rapidity of utterance and exaltation above the ordinary tone of common speech; which can alone give a continued character of enthusiastic expression to any extensive composition. It is only by a constant preconception of what is to follow, that the poetical flow of utterance and elevation of tone are sustained for unless the reader be generally apprized of what is to come, by what has gone before, he is like a person walking blindfolded over an uneven road; and knows as little how to modulate his voice, as such a person does how to regulate his steps: both march timidly, and consequently without vehemence or enthusiastic animation, in the just expression of which poetry consists; and to free it from metre and rhyme; restraints, with which, it has been said, that only the ignorance or necessities of a rude age have shackled it *, would be in fact to deprive it of its essence. 28. It is observed by Dr. Johnson, that the Paradise Lost is one of the books, which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to • See Alison's Essays on Taste, p. 318. take up again. None ever wished it longer CHAP. I. than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than Of improved a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, Perception. retire harassed and over-burdened, and look elsewhere for recreation*! If we dip into the Iliad, we are immediately borne along by the enthusiastic vehemence of the poet's diction, as it were by a torrent; and even in the Odyssey, the Æneid, or Jerusalem, we glide down the stream without labour or effort; but, in the Paradise Lost, we are perpetually tugging at the oar; and though we discover, at every turn, what fills us with astonishment and delight, the discovery is, nevertheless, a work of toil and exertion: consequently we can only enjoy it, when the powers of attention are fresh and vigorous; no man ever flying to the Paradise Lost, as he does to the works of other great epic poets, as a refuge from lassitude or dejection. Yet surely the first and most essential merit of poetry is to be pleasing-to exhilarate and exalt the spirits by brilliant imagery and enthusiastic sentiment, rather than to overawe and depress by gloomy grandeur and sour morality. "On peut être à la fois et pompeux et plaisant, Et je hais un sublime ennuyeux et pesant." 29. This great defect, the want of the power to please and amuse, I cannot but think as *Life of Milton. CHAP. Of improved much owing to the nature of his versification, as to that of his subject: for we feel no such lassitude or depression from the same subjects, when treated by Tasso or Vida; though, except in the lightness and elasticity of their versification, we cannot but allow that Milton has treated them more poetically, as well as more properly. In the scenes, too, of Paradise, and the loves of Adam and Eve, Milton's imagery is gay and beautiful, and his sentiments warm and rapturous; but, nevertheless, that very irregularity of the pauses, which certain critics have so much commended, gives the character of prose to his verse, and deprives it of all that fire and enthusiasm of expression, which Pope has happily preserved in his translation of the corresponding passages of the Iliad. But come, so well refreshed, now let us play, PARADISE LOST, ix. 1026.. These softer moments, let delight employ, When first entranced in Cranäe's isle I lay, Adam's argument, in this case, is certainly more pointed and logical, than that of the young Trojan; but pointed and logical argument is not what the case required. The rapturous glow of enthusiastic passion, with which the latter addresses his mistress, would have much more influence upon the affections of an amorous lady, though it may be less satisfactory to the understanding of a learned critic. The language of Homer and of Pope is such as Paris might have really used, and used with effect; but had he made love to Helen in the language of Milton, Menelaus might have trusted him with perfect security. In such passages, as the following, the admirers of the irregular variety of Miltonic pauses, will find some difficulty in discovering any thing like verse; since even scanning the syllables upon their fingers will scarcely enable them to measure the lines. "To whom the angel. Therefore what he gives, whose praise be ever sung, to man, in part spiritual, may, of purest spirits, be found no ungrateful food: and, food alike, those pure intelligential substances require, as doth your rational; and both contain, within them, every lower faculty of sense, whereby CHAP. I. Of improved Perception. |