And above human flight dost soar aloft So never flags, but always keeps on wing. Where couldst thou words of such a compass find? Well mightst thou scorn thy readers to allure I too, transported by the mode, offend; And, while I meant to praise thee, must commend : In number, weight, and measure, needs not rhyme. DRYDEN *. THREE Poets, in three distant ages born, ADDISON t. BUT Milton next, with high and haughty stalks, No vulgar hero can his Muse engage, Nor earth's wide scene confine his hallow'd rage. What sound of brazen wheels, with thunder, scare But when, with eager steps, from hence I rise, And view the first gay scene of Paradise ; What tongue, what words of rapture, can express THOMSON FOR lofty sense, Creative fancy, and inspection keen Through the deep windings of the human heart, * Epigram on Milton. From an Account of the Greatest English Poets. The Seasons-"Summer." Of classic ages in thy MILTON met? Of blowing Eden fair; as Heaven sublime! GRAY*. NOR second HE that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of ecstacy; He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time: COLLINS +. HIGH on some cliff, to Heaven up-piled, Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock; An Eden, like HIS OWN, lies spread; I view that oak the fancied glades among, By which, as MILTON lay, his evening ear, From many a cloud that dropp'd ethereal dew, Nigh sphered in Heaven, its native strains could hear, On which that ancient trump he reach'd was hung; From Waller's myrtle shades retreating, With many a vow from Hope's aspiring tongue, My trembling feet his guiding steps pursue; In vain :- -Such bliss to one alone Of all the sons of Soul was known; And Heaven and Fancy, kindred Powers, Have now o'erturn'd the inspiring bowers, Or curtain'd close such scene from every future view. MASON. RISE, hallow'd MILTON! rise and say, How, at thy gloomy close of day; How, when "depress'd by age, beset with wrongs;" Exiled the sovereign lamp of light; Say, what could then one cheering hope diffuse? * Progress of Poesy. + Ode on the Poetical Character. Ode to Memory. And thence "the nightly Visitant," that came That whilom shot from Nature's face When God, in Eden, o'er her youthful breast Spread with his own right hand Perfection's gorgeous vest. DR. ROBERTS*. POET of other times! to thee I bow With lowliest reverence. Oft thou takest my soul, And waft'st it by thy potent harmony To that empyreal mansion, where thine ear COWPER t. AGES elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd, COWPER. PHILOSOPHY, baptized In the pure fountain of eternal love, Has eyes indeed; and, viewing all she sees As meant to indicate a God to man, Gives Him his praise, and forfeits not her own. And in his word sagacious. Such too thine, WORDSWORTH §. MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour: * Epistle on the English Poets. The Task, Book III. + Table Talk. § Sonnet, written in 1802. h Have forfeited their ancient English dower And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. I. HE, most sublime of bards, whose lay divine Naked and stern; and to effeminate ears Perchance ev'n harsh; but who will dare dispute His strength and grandeur? what bright glories shine Upon the towers of his gigantic pile, Which neither storms nor Time's destruction fears, Eternal growth of an eternal root! How plain the words, that with essential thought, Pure, heavenly, incorporeal,-by the skill Of angels' tongues how marvellously wrought, The web ethereal, where the serpent's ill Brought woe and ruin into Paradise, And drove the sire of man from Eden's bliss! II. Nor Milton's holy genius could secure In life his name from insult and from scorn, Upon the vilest tribe of human kind; Nor yet untainted could his heart endure The calumnies his patience should have borne: And blotted the effulgence of his mind. But, O, how frail the noblest soul of man ! Not o'er aggressive blame the bard arose; His monarch's deeds 'twas his with spleen to scan; And on his reign the gates of mercy close! He had a hero's courage; but, too stern, He could not soft submission's dictates learn! E. B. PARADISE LOST. BOOK I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THIS BOOK on the whole is so perfect from beginning to end, that it would be difficult to find a single superfluous passage. Milton's poetical style is more serried than any other: rhymed metre leads to empty words, involutions, and circumlocutions; but it is in the thought, still more than in the language, that this closeness is apparent. The matter, the illustrations, and the allusions, are historically, naturally, or philosophically true. The learning is of every extent and diversity; -recondite, classical, scientific, antiquarian. But the most surprising thing is how he vivifies every topic he touches by poetry: he gives life and picturesqueness to the driest catalogue of buried names, personal or geographical. They who bring no learning, yet feel themselves charmed by sounds and epithets which give a vague pleasure to the mind, and stir up the imagination into an indistinct emotion. Notwithstanding all that has been said so copiously about poetical imagination, by critics ancient and modern, I still think that the generality of authors and readers have a very confused idea of it. It is the power, not only of conceiving, but creating embodied illustrations of abstract truths, which are sublime, or pathetic, or beautiful. But those ideas, which Milton has embodied, no imagination would have dared to attempt but his own: none else would have risen "to the highth of this great argument." Every one else would have fallen short of it, and degraded it. Johnson says, that an "inconvenience of Milton's design is, that it requires the description of what cannot be described,—the agency of Spirits. He saw that immateriality supplied no images, and that he could not show angels acting but by instruments of action; he therefore invested them with form and matter. This being necessary, was therefore defensible, and he should have secured the consistency of his system by keeping immateriality out of sight, and enticing his reader to drop it from his thoughts." Surely this was quite impossible for the reason Johnson himself has given. The imagination, by its natural tendencies, always embodies Spirit. Poetry deals in pictures, though not exclusively in pictures. In this respect Milton's poetry is different from almost all other; that it is always founded on our belief, and a belief, which we consider a matter of duty and religion. Milton's imagination is always conscientious: and here again is his peculiarity. Almost every imaginative poet, except Milton, falls occasionally into fantasticality:—perhaps I ought to except also Shakspeare. This is the vice of poetry, where there is not the severest judgment and the most profound control; B |