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THE CREATIVE FACULTY.

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seeking relief and joy in imaginings of unseen and ideal being. This view of our nature, which has never been fully developed, and which goes further towards explaining the contradictions of human life than all others, carries us to the foundations and sources of poetry. In an intellectual nature, framed for progress and for higher modes of being, there must be creative energies, powers of original and ever-growing thought; and poetry is the form in which these energies are chiefly manifested. It is the glorious prerogative of this art, that it 'makes all things new' for the gratification of a divine instinct. It indeed finds its elements in what it actually sees and experiences in the worlds of matter and mind, but it combines and blends these into new forms, and according to new affinities; breaks down, if we may so say, the distinctions and bonds of nature; imparts to material objects life, and sentiment, and emotion, and invests the mind with the powers and splendours of the outward creation; describes the surrounding universe in the colours which the passions throw over it, and depicts the soul in those modes of repose or agitation, of tenderness or sublime emotion, which manifest its thirst for a more powerful and joyful existence. To a man of a literal and prosaic character, the mind may seem lawless in these workings; but it observes higher laws than it transgresses, the laws of the immortal intellect; it is trying and developing its best faculties; and, in the objects which it describes or in the emotions which it awakens, anticipates those states of progressive power, splendour, beauty, and happiness for which it was created." *

Here, assuredly, is where Milton's great strength lies-he is strong in the sense-surmounting, time-transcending faculty. We are entranced by his music; we are startled by the flashes of selfrevealing intuition which his universal knowledge enables him ever and anon to dart into our minds; but we become his unresisting captives whenever he spreads his immortal pinions,

* Dr Channing "On the Character and Writings of Milton."

and bears us up to regions where we ourselves could not have risen, but where in such a grasp we feel it an awful joy to hover.

Yes, Milton is perhaps the sublimest among the sons of men; but it is quite possible that, had his sublimity been somewhat relieved by homely and everyday attributes, he would have passed through the house of his pilgrimage more cheerfully, and in after times might have numbered-if not more worshippers of his genius-more readers of his peerless work. Less soaring, less seraphic, we could not wish to see him; but we sometimes wish to see him fold his wings, and come walking towards our tent, if he should not even sit under the oak and rest a while. We would like sometimes to forget the angel in the man. Perhaps, could he have so far forgotten himself, Mary Powell would not have been seized, a few weeks after their marriage, with such a longing for the home of her girlhood as actually to run away; and the daughters, to whom he dictated the tale of "Paradise," might not have shewn such an undutiful impatience to hurry through the task and get back to their embroidery. At all events, a few softer moments and kindlier outbursts would have gratified many a reader. Shakspeare is occasionally as sublime as Milton; but in virtue of his genial humour he is every one's acquaintance, and he is always thought of with a large amount of human fondness. To many the Shakspearian genius looks like Etna, a fiery mountain, with flowery skirts and a merry vintage at its feet; whilst the genius of Milton, sequestered from his kind, and flaming upwards towards heaven, might rather be imaged by the great Antarctic volcano, which, tall as Etna, is destined never to be trodden by man-an altar ever burning on an Alp of virgin snow.

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MILTON'S PROSE.

The Burden of the Lord.

[MILTON's prose is too poetical, and in the spacious sweep and manifold windings and regurgitations of its tidal current, a feeble pinnace is apt to be helplessly borne navigator loses sight of land and loses himself.

away, till the

Still it is very magnificent; and in a work of this nature, we perhaps render a greater service by quoting from the less known prose than from the familiar poetry.

The great drawback is, that the prose writings are all polemical. The second of the following extracts possesses uncommon literary interest, from indicating, as early as 1642, his lofty aspirations in authorship; but, like our first extract, it occurs in a treatise against Episcopacy, and some of its language is abundantly bitter. If, however, such a passage is to be given at all, there is no alternative but to present it entire.]

How happy were it for this frail and, as it may be called, mortal life of man, since all earthly things which have the name of good and convenient in our daily use are withal so cumbersome and full of trouble, if knowledge, yet which is the best and lightsomest possession of the mind, were, as the common saying is, no burden; and that what it wanted of being a load to any part of the body, it did not with a heavy advantage overlay upon the spirit! For not to speak of that knowledge that rests in the contemplation of natural causes and dimensions, which must needs be a lower wisdom, as the object is low, certain it is, that he who hath obtained in more than the scantiest measure to know anything distinctly of God and of His true worship, and what is infallibly good and happy in the state of man's life, what in itself evil and miserable, though vulgarly not so esteemed; he that hath obtained to

know this, the only high valuable wisdom indeed, remembering also that God, even to a strictness, requires the improvement of these His intrusted gifts, cannot but sustain a sorer burden of mind and more pressing than any supportable toil or weight which the body can labour under, how and in what mannerhe shall dispose and employ those sums of knowledge and illumination which God hath sent him into this world to trade with. And that which aggravates the burden more is, that, having received amongst his allotted parcels certain precious truths, of such an orient lustre as no diamond can equalwhich, nevertheless, he has in charge to put off at any cheap rate, yea, for nothing to them that will-the great merchants of this world, fearing that this course would soon discover and disgrace the false glitter of their deceitful wares, wherewith they abuse the people, like poor Indians with beads and glasses, practise by all meaus how they may suppress the vending of such rarities, and at such a cheapness as would undo them, and turn their trash upon their hands. Therefore, by gratifying the corrupt desires of men in fleshly doctrines, they stir them up to persecute with hatred and contempt all those that seek to bear themselves uprightly in this their spiritual factory; which they foreseeing, though they cannot but testify of truth, and the excellency of that heavenly traffic which they bring, against what opposition or danger soever, yet needs must it sit heavily upon their spirits, that, being in God's prime intention, and their own, selected heralds of peace, and dispensers of treasure inestimable, without price to them that have no peace, they find in the discharge of their commission that they are made the greatest variance and offencea very sword and fire both in house and city over the whole earth. This is that which the sad prophet Jeremiah laments: "Wo is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me, a man of strife and contention!" And although Divine inspiration must certainly have been sweet to those ancient prophets,

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yet the irksomeness of that truth which they brought was so unpleasant unto them that everywhere they call it a burden. Yea, that mysterious book of Revelation, which the great evangelist was bid to eat, as it had been some eyebrightening electuary of knowledge and foresight, though it were sweet in his mouth and in the learning, it was bitter in his belly, bitter in the denouncing. Nor was this hid from the wise poet Sophocles, who in that place of his tragedy where Tiresias is called to resolve king Edipus in a matter which he knew would be grievous, brings him in bemoaning his lot that he knew more than other men. For surely 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 a jarring blast, it lies not in man's will what he shall say or what he shall conceal. If he shall think to be silent, as Jeremiah did, because of the reproach and derision he met with daily, "and all his familiar friends watched for his halting," to be revenged on him for speaking the truth, he would be forced to confess as he confessed: "His word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary with forbearing, and could not stay." Which might teach these times not suddenly to condemn all things that are sharply spoken or vehemently written as proceeding out of stomach, virulence, and ill-nature; but to consider rather, that if the prelates have leave to say the worst that can be said, or do the worst that can be done, while they strive to keep to themselves, to their great pleasure and commodity, those things which they ought to render up, no man can be justly offended with him that shall endeavour to impart and bestow, without any gain to himself, those sharp but

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