Page images
PDF
EPUB

Will deem in outward rites and specious forms
Religion satisfy'd. Truth shall retire

Bestuck with sland'rous darts, and works of faith
Rarely be found. So shall the world go on,
To good malignant, to bad men benign,

535

Under her own weight, groaning till the day
Appear of respiration to the just

540

And vengeance to the wicked at return
Of him so lately promised to thy aid,

The Woman's Seed, obscurely then foretold;

Now amplier known thy Saviour and thy Lord:
Last in the clouds from Heav'n to be reveal'd
In glory of the Father, to dissolve

545

Satan with his perverted world, then raise

From the conflagrant mass, purged and refined,
New Heav'ns, new Earth, ages of endless date

Founded in righteousness, and peace, and love, 550
To bring forth fruits, joy and eternal bliss.
He ended; and thus Adam last reply'd:
How soon hath thy prediction, Seer blest,
Measured this transient world, the race of time,
Till time stand fix'd! Beyond is all abyss,
Eternity, whose end no eye can reach.
Greatly instructed, I shall hence depart,
Greatly in peace of thought, and have my fill

555

Of knowledge, what this vessel can contain;
Beyond which was my folly to aspire.
Henceforth I learn that to obey is best,

560

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

565

Accomplishing great things, by things deem'd 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 blest.

To whom thus also th' Angel last reply'd:

540. Of respiration; in Scripture, the times of
refreshing. Acts iii. 19.

570

$49. 2 Pet. iii. 13. See foriner note on the same expression.

580

This having learn'd, thou hast attain'd the sum 575
Of wisdom; hope no higher, though all the stars
Thou knew'st by name, and all th' ethereal pow'rs,
All secrets of the deep, all Nature's works,
Or works of God in Heav'n, air, earth, or sea,
And all the riches of this world enjoy'dst,
And all the rule, one empire; only add
Deeds to thy knowledge answerable; add faith,
Add virtue, patience, temperance, add love,
By name to come call'd Charity, the soul
Of all the rest, then wilt thou not be loath
To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess
A Paradise within thee, happier far.

Let us descend now therefore from this top

Of speculation; for the hour precise

585

Exacts our parting hence: and see the guards, 590
By me encamp'd on yonder hill, expect

Their motion, at whose front a flaming sword,
In signal to remove, waves fiercely round.

We may no longer stay. Go, waken Eve;
Her also I with gentle dreams have calm'd,
Portending good, and all her spirits composed
To meek submission. Thou at season fit
Let her with thee partake what thou hast heard,
Chiefly what may concern her faith to know,
The great deliv'rance by her seed to come
(For by the Woman's seed) on all mankind:
That ye may live, which will be many days,
Both in one faith unanimous though sad

595

600

With cause for evils past, yet much more cheer'd With meditation on the happy end.

605

He ended, and they both descend the hill; Descended, Adam to the bower where Eve

Lay sleeping ran before, but found her waked;
And thus with words not sad she him received:
Whence thou return 'st, and whither went'st, I know:
For God is also' in sleep, and dreams advise,
Which he hath sent propitious, some great good

581. 2 Pet. i. 5.

611

588. Top of speculation; an eminence of contemplation, from which the eye of the mind saw the mysteries of Providence all cleared up.

608. An inconsistency is pointed out between this line and the argument to the book, in which it will be found that Adam is aid to waken Eve, while he is here represented as tinding her

Presaging, since with sorrow' and heart's distress
Weary'd I fell asleep: but now lead on;
In me is no delay. With thee to go,

613

Is to stay here; without thee here to stay,
Is to go hence unwilling; thou to me
Art all things under Heav'n, all places thou,
Who for my wilful crime art banish'd hence.
This further consolation yet secure

620

I carry hence; though all by me is lost,
(Such favour I unworthy am vouchsafed)
By me the promised Seed shall all restore.

So spake our mother Eve; and Adam heard

Well pleased, but answer'd not; for now too nigh
Th' Arch-Angel stood, and from the other hill
To their fix'd station, all in bright array
The Cherubim descended; on the ground
Gliding meteorous, as evening mist
Risen from a river o'er the marish glides,
And gathers ground fast at the labourer's heel
Homeward returning. High in front advanced,
The brandish'd sword of God before them blazed
Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat,
And vapour as the Libyan air adust,
Began to parch that temp'rate clime: whereat
In either hand the hast'ning Angel caught
Our ling'ring parents, and to th' eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappear'd.
They looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise (so late their happy seat)
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces throng'd and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon:
The world was all before them, where to choose 648
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow
Through Eden took their solitary way.

620

630

635

640

630. Marish; from the French Marais, a marsh. 648. The conclusion of this wonderful poem is not inferior is beauty to its progress. Ceasing from the calm and unadorned narrative which occupies the former part of the last hook, the author rises again into his accustomed sublimity, and then with the most admirable skill closes the poem with an appeal, deep and powerful, to all the feelings of awe and tenderness which it ubject can awaken. Never, I think, nas worse taste been shew" than by the critics who would have had the last two lines omitted

END OF PARADISE LOST.

PARADISE REGAINED.

BOOK I.

THE ARGUMENT.

The subject proposed. Invocation of the Holy Spirit. The poem opens with John baptizing at the river Jordan. Jesus coming there is baptized; and is attested by the descent of the Holy Ghost, and by a voice from heaven, to be the Son of God. Satan, who is present, upon this immediately flies up into the regions of the air where, summoning his infernal council, he acquaints them with his apprehensions that Jesus is that seed of the woman destined to destroy all their power, and points out to them the immediate necessity of bringing the matter to proof, and of attempting, by snares and fraud, to counteract and defeat the person from whom they have so much to dread. This office he offers himself to undertake; and, his offer being accepted, sets out on his enterprise. In the mean time God, in the assembly of holy angels, declares that he has given up his Son to be tempted by Satan; but foretells that the tempter shall be completel defeated by him: upon which the angels sing a hymn of triumph. Jesus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness, while he is meditating on the commencement of his great office of Saviour of mankind. Pursuing his meditations he narrates, in a soliloquy, what divine and philanthropic impulses he had felt from his early youth, and how his mother Mary, on perceiving these dispositions in him, had acquainted him with the circumstances of his birth, and in formed him that he was no less a person than the Son of God; to which he adds what his own inquiries and reflections had supplied in confirmation of this great truth, and particularly dwells on the recent attestation of it at the river Jordan. Our Lord passes forty days, fasting, in the wilderness; where the wild beasts become mild and harmless in his presence. Satan now appears under the form of an old peasant; and enters into dis course with our Lord, wondering what could have brought him alone into so dangerous a place, and at the same time professing to recognise him for the person lately acknowledged by John, at the river Jordan, to be the Son of God. Jesus briefly replies. Satan rejoins with a description of the difficulty of supporting life in the wilderness; and entreats Jesus, if he be really the Son of God, to manifest his divine power, by changing some of the stones into bread. Jesus reproves him, and at the same time tells him that he knows who he is. Satan instantly avows himself, and offers an artful apology for himself and his conduct. Our blessed Lord severely reprimands him, and refutes every part of his justi. acation. Satan, with much semblance of humility, still endeavours

to justify himself; and professing his admiration of Jesus, and his regard for virtue, requests to be permitted at a future time to hear more of his conversation; but is answered, that this must be as ne shall find permission from above. Satan then disappears, and the book closes with a short description of night conung on.

I

WHO ere while the happy Garden sung,

By one Man's disobedience lost, now sing

Recover'd Paradise to all mankind.

By one Man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foil'd
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste wilderness.

5

1. Milton's Paradise Regained has afforded a fruitful subject for critical dispute and consideration, but it is universally agreed that it by no means occupies the next degree in excellence to Paradise Lost. Imperfect in the design, and evincing few of those mighty efforts of invention which distinguish the former work of its great author, it has never possessed the popularity which any composition of Milton might seem to challenge. But it should be inpressed upon the reader's mind, that if the poem be imperfect in its plan, considered as a regular epic, this is no objection to it when examined according to the plan which the author himself laid down. Milton, I think it is beyond doubt, never intended to imitate his Paradise Lost in this poem, uor to take any of the classical models to work by. His object appears to have been to shew the coming of the Messiah, or rather his awful and mysterious entry into the kingdom which was to supplant for ever that of Satan, and form, as it were, the vestibule of an eternal Paradise. Commentators have taken it for granted that he meant to give the whole history of man's restoration; he did not do this, but intended only to shew Christ co. e in the flesh, and b. that the completion of those grand promises of the Father which predicted the restoration of mankind. Supposing this to have been his purpose, the temptation in the wilderness was the best point in the New Testament histories he could determine on. It represented the Messiah in the full development of al' his human characteristics as born of the woman, and it represented him as warring visibly with Satan before the gate of Paradise. The promised Deliverer thus come in the flesh, thus sprung from the chosen race, contending with the prince of this world, and p oving his divinity by his triumph-the poet might well consider the title of Paradise Regained was not too high a name for a work which shews Christ as truly man, and, by his conquest over Satan at the first outset, as truly the Son of God. This, I think, may be said in answer to many criticisms on this poem, but if it be less defective as a whole than is commonly believed, it is more imperfect in its general execution than many are disposed to consider it. There is little or no passion, no stirring description, an 1 scarcely any dialogues, distinguished for more than ordinary power. The character of Christ is very weakly developed, its mysterious nature is reduced to a commonplace humanity, and the scenes in which he is attacked by Satan, present nothing but prettinesses of invention or paraphrases of Scripture.

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »