tered age from the imaginative life of a whole nation; but granted the age of sophistication in which it was produced, it did in a remarkable way seize and draw together the imaginative elements of English thought. The Bible was in Milton's day the very centre and substance of that thought. It was for many years almost the only book accessible to the nation at large, and that too at a time when intellectual curiosity was profoundly stirred by the impulses of the Renaissance. The stories of the Bible, its cosmogony, its chronology, its imagery, had sunk into the tissue of English thought like a rich and sombre dye. When Milton adopted the story of Genesis as his subject, he was seizing with true epic instinct upon material genuinely national, -much more national than the story of King Arthur or any of the historical British kings could have been, because not only the belief but the passion of the race was engaged by it. Unfortunately for one part of Milton's appeal, the fabric upon which he wrought had in it elements of decay of which no one of his generation, and he least of all, had an inkling. As we have come to apprehend more clearly the essentials of religious truth as distinguished from its accidental outlines, one great hold which the poem had over the minds of readers has failed. But in this case "less is more." Our fathers saw in Paradise Lost a system of irrefragable truth such as we cannot see, but as a consequence of this falling away of the veil of dogma, we see in it qualities of beauty which escaped their pious gaze. No crash of systems can drown its noble music, and the fading away of dogma leaves the splendor of its symbolism only the more essentially worthy of regard. Then, too, as we get farther away from the conditions which gave the poem birth, its human meaning takes on a pathos which the very sternness of their belief prevented our forefathers from seeing. It It is style, both in the broad and in the narrow sense, which gives Paradise Los its surest claim to enduring admiration Everywhere there is an indefinable distinc tion of thought and image; the imagination speaks with a divine largeness of idiom Or if not quite everywhere, if Christ's marking off of the creation with golder compasses, if the description of Sin and Death as guardians of the gates of Hell if the cannonading of the celestial armies in Heaven, are instances of unplastic imagination, these exceptions serve only to throw into relief a myriad other pictures of commanding vitality and splendor. is questionable whether any other poem except the Divine Comedy affords so many unforgettable pictures. Milton's blindness. which at first thought might be deemed crushingly against him here, really helped him. Cut off forever from the light of the sun, he turned his imagination passionately in upon the memories of color and form which he had carried with him into darkness, and took delight in giving to the obscure shades of hell and the vague glories of heaven a startling concreteness and actuality. And these pictures, almost without exception, possess a quality very rare in the history of imagination, a quality which can only be hinted at by the abused epithet "sublime." Even the pictures of Dante, placed beside them, have an everyday colloquial look. Milton's all "dilated stand like Teneriffe or Atlas." De Quincey was right in declaring that the pervading presence of this quality gives Paradise Lost its unique worth, and makes of it a work which, if lost, could not be guessed at from the work of other minds. And to match this quality in the manner of thought there is everywhere present a corresponding quality of expression, a diction and a rhythm so large that they seem made for more than mortal lips to tell of more than earthly happenings, yet so harmoniously adjusted to their task that their largeness is felt less than their justice. William Blake, gument Held me a while misdoubting his intent, That he would ruin (for I saw him strong) The sacred truths to fable and old song (So Samson groped the temple's posts in spite), The world o'erwhelming to revenge his sight. Yet, as I read, soon growing less severe, I liked his project, the success did fear Through that wide field how he his way should find O'er which lame Faith leads Understanding blind; Lest he perplexed the things he would explain, And what was easy he should render Thou hast not missed one thought that could be fit, And all that was improper dost omit; The majesty which through thy work doth reign Draws the devout, deterring the profane. And things divine thou treat'st of in such state As them preserves, and thee, inviolate. Where could'st thou words of such a compass find? Whence furnish such a vast expense of mind? Just Heaven, thee like Tiresias to requite, Rewards with prophecy thy loss of sight. Well might'st thou scorn thy readers to allure With tinkling rime, of thy own sense se cure; While the Town-Bayes writes all the while and spells, And, like a pack-horse, tires without his bells. Their fancies like our bushy points appear; Thy verse, created, like thy theme sublime, In number, weight, and measure, needs not rime. ANDREW MARVELL. THE VERSE The measure is English heroic verse without rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virg in Latin-rime being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longe works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lam metre; graced indeed since by the use of some famous modern poets, carried away by custon but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwis and for the most part worse, than else they would have expressed them. Not without caus therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rime both in longe and shorter works, as have also long since our best English tragedies, as a thing of itself, all judicious ears, trivial and of no true musical delight; which consists only in apt numbers, f quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in th jingling sound of like endings- a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and a good oratory. This neglect then of rime so little is to be taken for a defect, though it ma seem so perhaps to vulgar readers, that it rather is to be esteemed an example set, the first English, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem from the troublesome and modern bondag of riming. BOOK I THE ARGUMENT This First Book proposes, first in brief, the whole subject -Man's disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise, wherein he was placed: then touches the prime cause of his fall-the Serpent, or rather Satan in the Serpent; who, revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of Angels, was, by the command of God, driven out of Heaven, with all his crew, into the great Deep. Which action passed over, the Poem hastes into the midst of things; presenting Satan, with his Angels, now fallen into Hell-described here not in the Centre (for heaven and earth may be supposed as yet not made, certainly not yet accursed), but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest called Chaos. Here Satan, with his Angels lying on the burning lake, thunderstruck and astonished, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion; calls up him who, next in order and dignity, lay by him: they confer of their miserable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded. They rise: their numbers; array of battle; their chief leaders named, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To these Satan directs his speech; comforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven; but tells them, lastly, of a new world and new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy, or report, in Heaven - for that Angels were long before this visible creation was the opinion of many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council. What his associates thence attempt. Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises, suddenly built out of the Deep: the infernal Peers there sit in council. Or Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Moved our grand Parents, in that happ state, Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall off sides. Who first seduced them to that foul revolt Here swallowed up in endless misery. But what if He our Conqueror (whom now Of force believe almighty, since no less Than such could have o'erpowered such force as ours) Have left us this our spirit and strength entire, Strongly to suffer and support our pains, That we may so suffice his vengeful ire, Or do him mightier service as his thralls By right of war, whate'er his business be, 15 Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire, Or do his errands in the gloomy Deep? What can it then avail though yet we feel Strength undiminished, or eternal being To undergo eternal punishment?" Whereto with speedy words the Arch Fiend replied: 16 "Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable, |