"How poor, how rich, how abject, how angust,
How complicate, how wonderful is man!
How passing wonder He who made him such!
Who centr❜d in our make such strange extremes!
From different natures, marvellously mix'd,
Connexion exquisite of different worlds!
Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!"

Thus far the mind may keep pace with the writer, and, especially by the last two lines, must be impressed with ideas at once clear, imaginative, and sublime. Those which immediately follow are less happy.

"A beam ethereal, sullied, and absorb'd!

Though sullied and dishonour'd, still divine!

Dim miniature of greatness absolute!

An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!

A worm! a god! I tremble at myself,

And in myself am lost."—

How is night's sable mantle laboured o'er,
How richly wrought with attributes divine!
What wisdom shines! what love! This midnight pomp,
This gorgeous arch, with golden words inlaid!
Built with divine ambition! nought to thee:
For others this profusion. Thou, apart,
Above, beyond, O tell me, mighty Mind!
Where art thou? shall I dive into the deep?
Call to the sun, or ask the roaring winds,
For their Creator? shall I question loud
The thunder, if in that the Almighty dwells?
Or holds He furious storms in straiten'd reins,
And bids flerce whirlwinds wheel his rapid car?

"The nameless He, whose nod is nature's birth;
And nature's shield, the shadow of his hand;
Her dissolution, his suspended smile!
The great First-last! pavilion'd high he sits
In darkness, from excessive splendour, borne,
By gods unseen, unless through lustre lost.
His glory, to created glory bright

As that to central horrors: he looks down
On all that soars, and spans immensity."

"Lorenzo, blush at terror for a death

Which gives thee to repose in festive bowers,
Where nectars sparkle, angels minister,

And more than angels share, and raise, and crown,
And eternize, the birth, bloom, bursts of bliss."

It is really a relief to pass on from this laborious collection of disjointed ideas, to instances of more perfect sublimity, which also abound in the works of the same poet. What can exceed in power and beauty his first address to Night?

"Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,

In rayless majesty now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world.
Silence how dread! and darkness how profound!
Nor eye nor list'ning ear an object finds;
Creation sleeps. "Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end."

Again, his appeal to the Divine Inspirer of his solemn thoughts, is full of majesty and power.

"Man's Author, End, Restorer, Law, and Judge!

Thine, all; day thine, and thine this gloomy night,
With all her wealth, and all her radiant worlds.
What night eternal, but a frown from thee?
What heaven's meridian glory, but thy smile?
And shall not praise be thine, not human praise,
While heaven's high host in hallelujahs live!

O may I breathe no longer than I breathe
My soul in praise to Him who gave my soul,
And all her infinite of prospect fair,

Cut through the shades of hell, great Love, by thee,
O most adorable! most unadorn'd!
Where shall that praise begin which ne'er should end!
Where'er I turn, what claim on all applause!

"See from her tombs as from an humble shrine,
Truth, radiant goddess, sallies on my soul,
And puts delusion's dusky train to flight;
Dispels the mist our sultry passions raise
From objects low, terrestrial, and obscene,
And shows the real estimate of things,
Which no man, unafflicted, ever saw,
Pulls off the veil from virtue's rising charms;
Detects temptation in a thousand lies.
Truth bids me look on men as autumn leaves,
And all they bleed for as the summer's dust
Driven by the whirlwind: lighted by her beams,
I widen my horizon, gain new powers,
See things invisible, feel things remote,
Am present with futurities; think nought
To mau so foreign as the joys possess'd;
Nought so much his, as those beyond the grave."

After all, it is not so much in extended passages, as in distinct thoughts, and single expressions, that we feel and acknowledge the power of this dignified and majestic writer. "Silence and darkness! solemn sisters!" is a striking illustration of how great an extent of sublimity may be embodied in a few simple and well chosen words; and it is unquestionably to beauties of this description that Young is indebted for his high rank amongst our poets.

The same faculty of mind is exhibited under a different character in the writings of Pope. Power as an impulse is less apparent here, but in its mode of operation it is more uniform and efficient. Pope is less an enthusiast than Young, and therefore he pays more regard to means; whilst the agency by which these means are brought

to bear upon their object seems to be slumbering in silent pomp. The genius of Young gives us the idea of continued, extraordinary, and sometimes ineffectual effort-even in the dead of night counting the stars, grappling with darkness, and grasping at infinity; while we imagine that of Pope seated on a throne of majesty, collecting, combining, and controlling the elements of mind, by authority, rather than by direct force. The power of Young resembles that of a volcano, an earthquake, or a storm of thunder-that of Pope is like the flow of a broad and potent river-too copious to be interrupted in its course-too deep to be impetuous. And as it would be impossible to form any idea of the general agency of such a river by observing any particular portion of its surface, so it would be unjust to the character of Pope, to attempt to convey an adequate idea of his power as a poet, by any particular selection from his writings. One instance, almost too well known to need repetition, will serve our purpose.

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent,
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns;
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all."

As a proof that the exercise of power is not dependent upon the magnitude or sublimity of the subject described, we will add another passage from the same writer-a singular paradox-an example of power exhibited in the description of a spider's web!

"The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line."

Here we have distinct ideas of the most delicate sensibility, the most acute perception, and the wonderful expansion and duration of the principle of life, in connection with the frailest, and one of the least perceptible objects in nature, without in any way interfering with our distinct ideas of that object; an evidence of mental power, well

worthy of the genius that unbound the lyre of Homer, and awakened fresh music from his immortal strains.

But it is in contemplating the nature of Milton's genius, in its connection with power, that we behold at once the full force of a stupendous impulse, associated with the greatest possible facility in the use of the best means of action. The difference to be observed in the character of power, as exhibited in the poetry of Pope and Milton, is, that the former affects us rather as the written transcript of well concocted thoughts; while the latter, bursting forth from the natural, and immediate, and constantly operating force of an enlightened and vigorous mind, opens for itself-for us-for the whole world and for ages yet to come, the gates of a paradise of thought, pours in an overwhelming flood of light, and diffuses through a region of unexplored sublimity, the loveliness of nature and the harmony of truth.

In reading the poetry of Milton, we have perpetual evidence of his inspiration-of the fulness of the fountain of poetic feeing, whose copious streams are rich in majesty, and beauty, and spiritual life; and we are satisfied that the fountain could never have been sealed save by a hand divine. One tributary and mighty spring was closed, but the waters only became more pure and harmonious, and derived from their divine original a more seraphic sweetness-a grandeur more sublime. We feel that Milton could not but have written as he did. He was less capable of subduing the impulse of his soul, than of finding a language suited to its highest aspirations: and it is this uncontrollable impulse operating in conjunction with the noblest faculties of human nature, which constitutes his power.

We cannot better illustrate the power of Milton's muse, than by selecting from his works, passages descriptive of the two opposite principles of good and evil. On the character of Satan the poet has bestowed so much of the native energy of his genius, that we scarcely feel as we ought to, that it is the nature of evil to degrade and debase.

"Forthwith upright he rears from off the prol His mighty stature; on each hand the flames, Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and,

roll'd,

In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
That felt unusual weight; till on dry land
He lights, if it were land that ever burned
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire;
And such appeared in hue, as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fueled entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, and the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involved

With stench and smoke: such resting found the sole
Of unblessed feet."

-"he, above the rest

In shape and gesture proudly eminent,
Stood like a tower; his form had yet not lost
All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined, and the excess
Of glory obscured; as when the sun new risen
Looks through the horizontal misty air
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs."

"He spake and to confirm his words, outflew
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
Of mighty cherubim; the sudden blaze
Far round illumined hell: highly they raged
Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms
Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war,
Hurling defiance toward the vault of heaven."

"The other shape,

If shape it might be called, that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance might be called that shadow seemed,
For each seemed either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,

And shook a dreadful dart; what seemed his head,
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand, and from his seat
The monster moving, onward came as fast
With horrid strides hell trembled as he strode.
The undaunted fiend what this might be admired;
Admired, not feared; God and his Son except,
Created thing nought valued he, nor shunned;
And with disdainful look thus first began."

-“I fled, and cried out, Death! Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed From all her caves, and back resounded, Death!"

"Horror and doubt distract

His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The hell within him; for within him hell
He brings, and round about him, nor from hell
One step, no more than from himself, can fly
By change of place; now conscience wakes despair,
That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.
Sometimes towards Eden, which now in his view
Lay pleasant, his grieved look he fixed sad;
Sometimes towards heaven, und the full blazing sun,
Which now sat high in his meridiau tower.
Me miserable, which way shall I fly

Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;

And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep

Still threatening to devour me opens wide
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
Oh! then, at last relent: is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but my submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent! Ah me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain,
Under what torments inwardly I groan,
While they adore me on the throne of hell,
With diadem and sceptre high advanced,
The lower still I fall, only supreme

In misery: such joy ambition finds."

We now change the subject, and see how the same genius can ascend from the lowest depths of hell, to the highest regions of purity and bliss, tuning his harp to strains that harmonize with both.

"No sooner had the Almighty ceased, but all
The multitude of angels, with a shout
Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
As from blessed voices, uttering joy, Heaven rung
With jubilee, and loud hosannas filled
The eternal regions."

"Immortal amaranth, 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 those 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 stone,
Impearled with celestial roses smiled.
Then crowned 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."

"So spake the cherub; and his grave rebuke,
Severe in youthful beauty, added grace
Invincible: abashed the devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her shape how lovely saw, and pined
His loss."

"Hail, holy light, offspring of heaven first born,
Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam!
May I express thee unblamed 1 Since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite."

"And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all temples the upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss,
And mad'st it pregnant; what in me is dark,
Illumine; what is low, raise and support;
That to the height of this great argument,
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men."

"Henceforth I learn, that to obey is best,
And love with fear the only God; to walk
As in his presence; ever to observe
His providence; and on him sole depend,
Merciful over all his works, with good
Still overcoming evil, and by small
Accomplished great things, by things deemed weak
Subverting worldly strong, and worldly wise
By simply meek; that suffering for truth's sake
Is fortitude to highest victory,

And to the faithful, death the gate of life;
Taught this by his example, whom I now
Acknowledge my Redeemer ever blessed."

If power be the faculty which presents us most clearly and forcibly with ideas that lie beyond the scope of ordinary thought, there is then a power in beauty, as well as in sublimity-a power in the language of the affections to awaken their echo in the human heart, and in pure and holy aspirations, to call us back to all the good we have forsaken, and to lead us forward to all that yet may be attained.

That beautiful and majestic hymn in which Milton describes our first parents, as calling upon the creation-upon every bright and glorious creature-to join in the solemn praises of their universal Creator, comprehends all that we can imagine, both of the harmony of verse, and the force of mental power. Widely as we may have wandered from the purity and the innocence of the first inhabitants of paradise, this morning hymn seems to burst upon us like the dawn of a brighter day, when gratitude and love shall again become the natural language of the re-illumined soul. We see around us even now the same attributes of

divinity-the sun, the "eye of this great world," the moon that "meets the orient sun," and the "fixed stars”—we feel "the winds that from four quarters blow"-we hear the warbling flow of the fountains

"The birds,

That singing up to Heaven's gate ascend"we behold the world of animate and moving life-creatures that "in waters glide,"

or

stately tread the earth," or "lowly creep," and we acknowledge them to be the work and the care of an Almighty hand; but where is the fresh impulse of undeviating will to worship that Almighty Father? will it return with the contemplation of his attributes, and stimulate us to a more faithful service, or inspire a holier love?

We are not among those who would limit the means appointed by Omnipotence for winning back the wanderer from the fold, and we have no hesitation in saying, that it is impossible studiously to examine, and seriously to consider the well directed aim of Milton's genius, without feeling a fresh conviction that such should be the high and glorious purpose of all human intellect―to dignify the immortal nature of man-to throw open as far as human powers permit, the great plan of Divine benevolence, and to teach the important lesson, that where

we

cannot wholly understand, we may humbly admire, and where we cannot penetrate, we should trust.

In connexion with mental power, there remains some distinction to be made in its mode of operation. There is a power of intellect, and a power of feeling. The writings of Pope bear the most striking evidence of the former, those of Byron will serve as an example of the latter. Pope addresses himself to man's reason, and wields conviction like a thunderbolt. Byron appeals to the soul through its strong sympathies and passions, and spreads over it the shadow of the mighty wings of a dark angel. But the genius of Milton combining the powers of both, and pausing in its flight from heaven to hell, treads the verdant paths of Eden with the footsteps of humanity, reposes in the bowers of earthly bliss, and pours the lamentation of a broken and a contrite spirit over the first sad exile of the progenitors of sin and death.

We cannot complete our tribute to the power of Milton's mind, without referring to his prose, as well as to his poetical compositions; and here we find that strong internal evidence of his calling and capability to work out what mankind in future ages should wonder at and approve; accompanied with a deeply reverential feeling, that even with such capabilities, he was but an

humble instrument whose highest office was to assist and promote the purposes of the Most High. And when he levels the powerful aim of his majestic mind against the abuse, and the oppression of a suffering church, it is with the full conviction that such is the solemn duty laid upon his soul.

"For surely (he acknowledges) to every good and peaceable man, it must in nature needs be a hateful thing to be the displeaser and molester of thousands; much better would it like him doubtless to be the messenger of gladness and contentment, which is his chief intended business to all mankind, but that they resist and oppose

their own true happiness. But when God commands to take the trumpet, and blow a dolorous or jarring blast, it lies not in man's will what he shall say, or what he shall conceal.”

Milton then describes, in language scarcely less remarkable for its power than for its poetical fervour, the self-upbraidings he should ever have felt in after life, had he neglected this high and holy call to rescue the church from degradation.

"Timorous and ungrateful, the church of God is now again at the foot of her insulting enemies, and thou bewailest; what matters it for thee, or thy bewailing? when time was, thou couldst not find a syllable of all that thou hast read, or studied, to utter in her behalf. Yet ease and leisure was given thee for thy retired thoughts, out of the sweat of other men. Thou hast the diligence, the parts, the language of a man, if a vain subject were to be adorned or beautified; but when the cause of God and his church was to be pleaded, for which purpose that tongue was given thee which thou hast; God listened if he could hear thy voice among his zealous servants, but thou wert dumb as a beast; from henceforward be that which thine own brutish silence hath made thee. Or else I should have heard in the other ear; slothful and ever to be set light by, the church hath now overcome her late distresses after the unwea ried labours of many of her true servants that stood up in her defence; thou also wouldst take upon thee to share amongst them of their joy: but wherefore thou? where canst thou show any word or deed of thine which might have hastened her peace? whatever thou dost now talk, or write, or look, is the alms of other men's active prudence and zeal. Dare not now to say or do any thing better than thy former sloth and infamy; or if thou darest, thou dost impudently to make a thrifty purchase of boldness to thyself, out of the painful merits of other men; what before was thy sin, is now thy duty, to be abject and worthless. These, and such like lessons as these, would have been my matins daily, and my evening song. But now by this little diligence, mark what a privilege I have gained with good men

first stirrings of his youthful genius-the first impulse of inspiration, is worthy of the effect it has produced, and still continues to produce upon mankind.

"I began thus far to assent both to them and to divers of my friends at home, and not less to an inward prompting which now grew daily upon me, that by labour and intense study, (which I take to be my portion in this life,) joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after times, as they should not willingly let it die."

The poet then describes the high and mighty compass of the work which he contemplated, speaking uniformly of the great endowment of extraordinary intellect as a gift to be exclusively devoted to the honour and instruction of his country, and the glory of his God.

"To celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the

throne and equipage of God's almightiness, and what he works, and what he suffers to be wrought with high providence in his church; to sing victorious agonies of martyrs and saints; the deeds and triumphs of just and pious nations, doing valiantly through faith against the enemies of Christ; to deplore the general relapses of kingdoms from justice and God's true worship. Lastly, whatsoever in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or grave, whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all the changes of that which is called fortune from without, or the wily subtleties or refluxes of man's thoughts from within; all these things with a solid and treatable smoothness to point out and describe. Teaching over the whole book of sanctity and virtue through all the instances of example, with such delight to those especially of soft and delicious temper, who will not so much as look upon truth herself, unless they see her elegantly dressed; that whereas the paths of honesty and good life appear now rugged and difficult, though they be indeed easy and pleasant, they will then appear to all men easy and pleasant, though they were rugged and difficult indeed.

"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 siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge; and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases."

This is indeed quoting at great length, but the temptation is great also, to support with the highest authority what has been asserted, that true mental power is always accom

of the church, if she should suffer, when others, that have ventured nothing for her sake, have not the honour to be admitted mourners. But if she lift up her drooping head and prosper among those that have something more than wished her welfare, I have my charter and freehold of rejoicing to me and my heirs."

The manner in which Milton speaks of the

ence, and that the noblest exercise of this power is to promote the intellectual happiness, as well as the moral good of the human family, and to "justify the ways of God to

man."

We know not that our language contains