bright, betwixt the Centaur and the Scorpion steering his zenith, while the sun in Aries rose." Arriving at home, he, through the midst of his legions assembled in Pandemonium, passes "in show plebeian, as an angel militant of lowest order," till, "from the door of that Plutonian hall, invisible ascending his high throne, * * * * * * down awhile he sat, and round about him saw, unseen at last, as from a cloud, his fulgent head and shape star-bright appeared, or brighter, clad with what permissive glory since his fall was left him, or false glitter:-all amazed at that so sudden blaze, the Stygian throng bent their aspect, and whom they wish'd beheld, their mighty chief return'd: loud was the acclaim."-But the triumph was brief; and, after all his own successful metamorphoses, an involuntary transformation was suddenly wrought upon him, and not on him only, but on all his peers, when, after he had made an oration setting forth his exploits, "he and his horrid crew", were changed into reptiles of that class which he had chosen for perpetrating his fraud upon Eve. Being met with "a dismal universal hiss from innumerable tongues on every side," when he expected their plaudits at the close of his speech,

-"He wonder'd, but not long

Had leisure, wondering at himself now more;
His visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare;
His arms clung to his ribs; his legs entwining
Each other, till, supplanted, down he fell,
A monstrous serpent on his belly prone,
Reluctant, but in vain ;—a greater Power
Now ruled him, punish'd in the shape he sinn'd,
According to his doom; he would have spoke,
But hiss for hiss return'd with forked tongue
To forked tongue; for now were all transform'd
Alike, to serpents all, as accessories

To his bold riot."-PARADISE LOST, Book X.

Of the human actors, or, rather, sufferers, throughout this poem, the war in heaven, the creation of the world,

and the prophetic disclosures with which it closes, analysis or exposition would be vain in this place. The first appearance of Adam and Eve, in Book IV., is a vision of beauty, unequalled in poetry. Their innocent endearments, their conjugal affection, their sweet and delicate discourse, their pastimes, their labours, their devotions, are all conceived and expressed with consummate ability. In the first pair Milton has delineated the ideal, which he fondly cherished, but never realized, of "wedded love." "Here Love his golden shafts employs; here lights his constant lamp, and waves his purple wings; reigns here and revels." In all this author's poems there are no love-verses, addressed either to a living or an imaginary mistress-no Beatrice, no Laura, no Leonora.—In some of his schoolboy elegiacs, in Latin, there are allusions to a tender passion, and a very ornate dream of a lady whom he saw in sleep, and sought, in vain, through the world afterwards, but it was manifestly head-work; there is not a trace of heartlove there, or elsewhere, except in the sonnet on his "late deceased saint," his second wife, formerly noticed. And yet no man of woman born has more glorified woman, in prose or rhyme, than he has done in Paradise Lost, in Comus, and even in his Treatise on Divorce.

Against one insuperable difficulty Milton had to wrestle, all the way through his subject, in Paradise Lost ;-the inexplicable and inextricable confusion continually recurring between the properties of matter and spirit in his preternatural agency. Dante before him had bravely encountered this perplexity; and, though not in one instance has he succeeded in disentangling the knot, yet it neither fettered nor hindered him from pursuing his resolute course through a Hell, a Purgatory, and a Heaven, of his own creation, in which impossibilities on earth were the events of every day in his new universe. Milton, in the battle of angels especially, has achieved prodigies of invention, and his triumph, though far from being complete, sufficiently

proves that he came short only from the absolute impracticability of any attempt to symbolize eternal realities by temporal things. The close of the conflict, by the interposition of the Messiah, is, beyond comparison, great as the record of what might have been, in such a case:— "So spake the Son, and into terror changed his countenance, too severe to be beheld," to the end of Raphael's narrative. The whole power of the poet's mind, and the whole strength of the English language, are here summoned to describe the one act of the conquerer, routing, expelling and pursuing the enemy, till, from the precipice into the infernal gulf,

"headlong themselves they threw,

Down from the verge of heaven; eternal wrath
Burnt after them to the bottomless pit."

PARADISE LOST, Book VI.

Much criticism has been expended to prove that the allegorical parts of this poem are faults which no law of epic poetry can absolve. But not one of the censors has ventured to demand that execution should be done upon "Sin and Death," "Chaos and ancient Night," nor even the phantasms that people "the Limbo of Vanity." Offences if these be, what poet would not wish to have committed them; or would not go and do likewise, if he could, at his peril?

The burthen of Paradise Regained is our Saviour's temptation by the devil in the wilderness. This production has been unworthily disparaged; a sober judgment will, probably, pronounce it inferior to its predecessor only in proportion as the action, passion, and moral of the subject are necessarily inferior. Our Lord's obedience, in that hour and power of darkness, was but one step in his suffering life, and towards his atoning death, by which, at his glorious resurrection and ascension, "he opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers."

The following extracts from this neglected poem will sufficiently show that, where the theme admitted of noble expressions, there was no falling-off of genius in the author to give utterance to such. The tempter plays his part, with consummate address, under the various disguises which he assumes. Through all of these, however, Jesus discerns him, and defeats his devices; confuting his arguments, and confounding his sophistries, though both are set forth with all the splendour of eloquence, and the subtlety of perverted logic; while the Redeemer's replies are in the plainest language that human invention could put into the mouth of Him, of whom it was said, "never man spake like this man." The narrative and descriptive portions of the work are of the richest materials and the rarest workmanship.

When Satan, from "the specular mount," is showing to our Saviour all the kingdoms of earth and their glory, the discovery of the Parthian armies in motion affords a magnificient spectacle:

"now the Parthian king

In Ctesiphon, hath gather'd all his host
Against the Scythian, whose incursions wild
Have wasted Sogdiana; to her aid

He marches now in haste; see, though from far,

His thousands, in what martial equipage

They issue forth, steel bows and shafts their arms,

Of equal dread in flight or in pursuit;

All horsemen, in which fight they most excel;
See how in warlike muster they appear,

In rhombs, and wedges, and half-moons, and wings.'
He look'd, and saw what numbers numberless
The city gates out-pour'd, light-armed troops

In coats of mail and military pride;

In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong,
Prancing their riders bore, the flower and choice
Of many provinces from bound to bound.

How quick they wheel'd, and, flying, behind them shot
Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face
Of their pursuers, and overcame by flight;
The field all iron cast a gleaming brown:
Nor wanted clouds of foot, nor, on each horn,
Cuirassiers, all in steel for standing fight,
Chariots, or elephants indorsed with towers
Of archers; nor of labouring pioneers
A multitude, with spades and axes arm'd,
To lay hills plain, fell woods, or valleys fill,
Or, where plain was, raise hill, or overlay
With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke;
Mules after these, camels and dromedaries,
And wagons fraught with utensils of war."

Our mighty poet here marshals the words of the English language like disciplined troops, and makes them move, advance, shift, and perform all the feats and monœuvres which, in this marvellous paragraph, he represents the Parthian armies as performing. So perfectly do the sounds, the turns, and the pauses of the verse, though addressed to the ear, convey to the eye the images which they are intended to depict.

The greater part of Book IV. is equal to anything corresponding with the subjects in the former poem. The vision of Athens excels in beauty and splendour all that her own poets, historians, and orators have said in her praise. But another scene will be as seasonable here, to exhibit the undiminished talents of the author of Paradise Lost in Paradise Regained.

"Darkness now rose,

As daylight sunk, and brought in lowering night,

Her shadowy offspring.

Our Saviour, meek, and with untroubled mind,

After his airy jaunt, though hurried sore,

Hungry and cold, betook him to his rest,
Wherever, under some concourse of shades,

Whose branching arms thick intertwined might shield,
From dews and damps of night, his shelter'd head,