TALBOYS.

And what a locution he, Bentley, thus bestows on Milton-"Leddest under thy conduct!"

NORTH.

Or that if Milton means "led," Bentley thinks he has lowered Satan by attributing to the subordinate powers endangered," ," "put to proof;" not discerning that all that all do under Satan becomes much more majestically and superbly and sublimely Satan's than if he did it personally. He is their Soul, and to him they owe that which they do. Note the grave, touching, and magnificent composition of the first and following verses:-" O Prince!" is a full address; but satisfies not Beelzebub, who proceeds to reproduce and expand his compellation. And first by translating "O Prince!" into "O Chief of many throned Powers!" But neither is that enough; and all that is hung in the following lines upon the Powers becomes only an immense explication and amplification of that first "O Prince!" For you must not, for the world, for an instant think of such a construction as "O Prince-of many throned Powers;" for that would go down at once from "Prince" to "Chief." But decidedly "O Prince" is insulated, entire, independent, self-sufficient; and all the rest is a second birth, unbosomed out of it. Observe, too, the instantaneous resumption by Beelzebub of his old relationship to Satan-as a follower, loyal, admiring, attached, justifying, only not having yet received from him the courage to hope on; there is not a word of displaying his own zeal, but in perfect simplicity, and as a mere follower, of course. There they are together, master and servant, or rather brother and brother, for it is a mixed relationship. What they were before, that they are after; the "horrid change" has in this made none. There is here a moral sublimity; and

"Study of revenge, immortal hate!"

like a seed cast into the soil of the future-like an end of thread put between the fingers of Destiny, which she shall spin on. There is, in three words, the fall of man spoken. And observe how slowly the reacquisition of will, fitting for corporal act, ensues. Lifting up a face, eyes cast round, the project of a flight so heavily proposed, under such a depression of all physical energy! Herein, and in the flight which follows, and is described with care, the impressive representation of a quasi-annihilation, from which they have to revive, the aggrandisement which all this annihilation of a physical kind acquires, that herein is expressed the hand of God weighing them down, as indeed throughout the whole Poem the finite teems with an inly-born infinitude.

TALBOYS.

Compeers! but Beelzebub, methinks, "Here swallowed up in endless misery. But what if He our Conqueror (whom I 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,

is beginning to quail.

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,
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 undiminish'd, or eternal being,
To undergo eternal punishment?"

NORTH.

"Whereto with speedy words the Archfiend replied."

Good Dr Newton says, that what Beelzebub had last said hath startled Satan, and that he "thinks proper to make a speedy reply."

"Fallen Cherub! to be weak is miserable,
Doing, or suffering; but of this be sure,
To do aught good never will be our task,

But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to His high will,
Whom we resist. If then his providence

Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil:
Which oft-times may succeed, so as perhaps
Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb
His inmost counsels from their destined aim!"

Satan "thought proper" to make this speedy reply. And Beelzebub is mute. Satan follows up his triumph; and seeing that the "angry Victor"

has recalled his ministers of vengeance and pursuit back to the gates of heaven, and ceased to "bellow through the vast and boundless deep," "thinks it proper" not to let slip the occasion,

"Whether scorn,

Or satiate fury, yield it from our foe."

He must be up and doing.
"Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and
wild,

The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid
flames

Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;
There rest, if any rest can harbour there;
And, reassembling our afflicted powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend,
Our enemy-our own loss how repair-
How overcome this dire calamity-

What re-enforcement we may gain from
hope-

If not-what resolution from despair.

Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature! On each hand the flames,

Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and roll'd

In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale: Then with expanded wings he steers his flight

Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,

That felt unusual weight; till on dry land
He lights,-if it were land that ever burn'd
With solid as the lake with liquid fire."

The opening of his speech very beautifully brings out Satan's mournful regret. You can see his angelical senses offended, wrung by the change. He, too, loved light, and beauty, and serenity! He had love! Whither has it gone, or going? The excess of "glory obscured," answers to a like change of mind!

"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,
Said then the lost Arch-Angel, this the seat
That we must change for heaven, this mourn-
ful gloom

For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is
best,

Whom reason hath equal'd, force hath made
supreme

Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells: hail, horrors, hail
Infernal world, and thou, profoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor; one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at
least

We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence;
Here we may reign secure, and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell;
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
The associates and copartners of our loss,
Lie thus astonish'd on the oblivious pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion, or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regain'd in heaven, or what more lost in
hell?"

In part of the respect which we feel for Satan is our admiration of his understanding;-of its powers, at least, if not always of its conclusions. His greatness is twofold-first, the intellectual endowment is of the highest order, which was requisite in the Antagonist of Heaven, Author of Evil, Seducer of Man, Tempter of the Saviour. But we feel quite as much a moral grandeur in his intellect. Moral qualities must proceed, I suppose, from the will. There may be, and I suppose are, many unobvious ways of this proceeding from the will into the understanding in angel and in man-ways claiming the research of the Philosopher. But there is also one obvious way of this proceeding namely, to face and understand your own evil condition. There, every one feels that the collecting your intellectual powers, and the strength exerted in using them, are from a will full of power; and perhaps most of all, that the voluntary rejection of all self-delusion, of all hiding from seeing, the simple determination to know the worst that is to be known-is heroic. By power of intelligence, and by intellectual courage, Satan calmly looks into, and takes on him the condition which he has made for himself. There is only one exception to be made to his clearness of understanding— that is, his moral perversion—his monomania-to which he gives concentrated expression—

"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven!"

As he afterwards admits the inevitable and self-condemning consequences in a word-" Evil, be thou my Good!" which is the sublimest moral reductio ad absurdum; and yet you feel when he comes to it, not that he has found light, but that he has bound himself to darkness; only he shows that he thoroughly knows the darkness. He is a clear logician. The fixing of our admiration on Satan's intelligence began early, or at once-" as far as angels' ken he views!" His eyes are sublime visual organs. And you may know how far they can see, when Uriel sees, from the Sun, Satan's face on Niphates repeatedly change colour. He, the Leader, more than any other angel, takes penetrating and comprehensive views of his situation :

"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,

Said then the lost Archangel,-this the seat
That we must change for Heaven?"

SEWARD.

Beelzebub, at first, and throughout, is a grand, a sublime angel; beyond all the others, even Moloch, furious king. Moloch is above Mammon, and Mammon above Belial. But Beelzebub is not further above them, than he is below Satan. He does not dare to call on the Legions; but implores Satan to speak, knowing that his voice will prevail. That consternation, he knows, has not broken the power of that name. "Astonished on the oblivious pool,' they have still remembrance of his place in Heaven, "there sitting where they durst not war." In Bliss, or in revolt, or "in hideous ruin and combustion," equally the "Lord Paramount."

TALBOYS.

Lucifer, Son of the Morning, of Heaven, is now Hesperus in the Night of Hell. And Hesperus, who yet still leads the starry host, shines brightest; and they yet believe that, following Him, they shall repossess their native

seats.

"Leader of those armies bright,

Which but the Omnipotent none could have foil'd!

If once they hear THAT VOICE,"

they will soon resume new courage and revive, though now they lie

Satan will speak. But the Poet gives him time-not to prepare Him—for he has for nine days been thinking of his Address. Nay, he makes two Addresses, both equally suitable and appropriate; but the second being the Speech of the Evening. The Poet rejoices in the certainty of "thunder and lightning" worthy of the occasion, and is absolutely averse to the cessation of that Colloquy. He himself uses three hundred lines in telling us the final result! Yes, from the imploration of Beelzebub till the close of Satan-three hundred lines of such Poetry! Beelzebub 66 scarce had ceased," till the superior Fiend was moving "towards the shore." We have seen him-lying-rising-flying-now behold him walking—that is, "moving towards the shore."

"His ponderous shield,

Etherial temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast: the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders, like the moon whose
orb

Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening from the top of Fesolé,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe."

Here is, then, the whole sublime Figure detached and in motion; the most conspicuous piece of his warlike array singled out and presented under a first impression. The astronomer is placed in his observatory; his eye as if created anew by that wonderful organ of revelation which his hands have fabricated. He at least is for the moment "sublime with expectation." And still the sights, too, that he hopes for, are "here inwrapped in an expectant music."

"To descry new lands,

Rivers, or mountains."

How faithfully to his calling and to his own being has the Poet of a sudden put life into the Moon, by the suggestion of running waters! No matter, though Lord Rosse may have little hope of descrying rivers in a planet without an atmosphere! Young observation might hope everything. "In her spotty globe!" Spotty! You here see how harmoniously, and with what an accession of composure to the momentary leave-taking, one word of this final musical clause resumes the whole various imagery of the next preceding one, lands, rivers, mountains! Gigantic Spottings, when science has interpreted them! And an Art in the Versifier mated to the genius of the Thinker. Ay, there is a capacity resident in verse to reflect the stupendous creations of genius-Dread Action, Dread Passion, Dread Cogitation.

Eh?

BULLER.

TALBOYS.

sees

Beelzebub-and you and I are now standing beside Beelzebub Satan going from him;-were Satan coming towards him, where would be that Shield? That description of Satan's Shield?

Nowhere in Milton.

BULLER.

TALBOYS.

The Leader of the host now stands on the brink of that inflamed sea, and calls.

"He called so loud that all the hollow deep

Of Hell resounded."

An expecting hemistich! Listen! Hell listens! and all her forlorn myriads, grovelling, weltering, and powerless of will, as they lie, and for nine days and nights have lain upon the tossing of the fiery surge-they listen to the hardly less than omnipotent call! The voice of the Archangel, in the pride of his call, twice reaches a resting-place. Once in the words" To slumber here as in the vales of Heaven!" Observe here that repose is the very matter that is ironically presented; and observe that from this momentary repose break out, like lightnings and thunders which tear open the breast of some solid cloud, the fiercest scorn-shafts with which Satan will vex them up from their slumber as of annihilation!

NORTH.

But what follows the Shield, Talboys?

TALBOYS.

"His spear, to equal which the tallest pine,
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand,—
He walk'd with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps

On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called
His legions."

It was but a wand. Imagine his Shield, and you know the size of his Spear. Imagine his Stature, and you know his volume of Voice.

He makes two Addresses. its business.

NORTH.

The first, of which you have spoken well, did

"Princes, potentates, Warriors! the flower of heaven, once yours, now lost,

If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose

Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn

To adore the Conqueror? who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
With scatter'd arms and ensigns; till anon
His swift pursuers from heaven-gates discern
The advantage, and, descending, tread us
down

Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.
Awake!-arise!-or be for ever fallen!"

The Myriads are on wing-they heard, and were abashed, and up they spring

"Upon the wing,

"Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires."

They were like leaves-now they are like locusts.

"As when the potent rod

Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,

Waved round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud,
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile."

What would you more? At a signal given by the uplifted spear of their Great Sultan's waving to and fro to direct their course, in even balance they light on the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain. That night of locusts darkening all the land of Nile in Egypt's evil day was God-sent;-so is this night of locusts darkening the clime of Hell. And forthwith from every squadron and each band-of Locusts-the Heads and Leaders thither haste where stands their Great Commander! "Godlike shapes and forms excelling human!" "Princely Dignities" and "Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones."

SEWARD.

I hope, sir, you feel the poetical grandeur of Milton's picture of the old Mythology here-a strain of one hundred and forty lines, which has been found fault with by some critics as a digression or episode-out of place!

NORTH.

Out of place! Gloriously in place. The Poet thereby aggrandises Satan and his Angels all. Of them in heaven there is no memorial-blotted out and razed, by their rebellion, from the Book of life. Our imagination is moved by this splendid vision of gay religions full of pomp and gold, when "Devils were adored for Deities;" and all over the earth prevailed the worship of those very fallen angels, by the posterity of the two human beings whose Fall is yet to happen! What says Thomas Campbell? "The subject of Paradise Lost was the origin of evil-an era in existence-an event more than all others dividing past from future time,-an isthmus in the ocean of eternity. The theme was in its nature connected with everything important in the circumstances of human history; and amidst those circumstances Milton saw that the fables of Paganism were too important and poetical to be omitted. As a Christian, he was entitled wholly to neglect them; but as a Poet, he chose to treat them, not as dreams of the human mind, but as the delusions of infernal existences. Thus anticipating a beautiful propriety for all classical allusions; thus connecting and reconciling the coexistence of Fable and of Truth; and thus identifying the fallen angels with the deities of gay religions full of pomp and gold,' he yoked the heathen mythology in triumph to his subject, and clothed himself in the spoils of superstition."

Nobly said.

SEWARD.

NORTH.

And again, "The Powers of Milton's Hell are Godlike shapes and forms; their appearance dwarfs every other poetical conception. When we turn our dilated eyes from contemplating them, it is not their external attributes alone which expand the imagination, but their souls which are as colossal as their stature their thoughts that wander through eternity-the mind that burns amidst the ruins of their divine natures, and their genius that feels with the ardour, and debates with the eloquence of Heaven."

TALBOYS.

And I say, again and again, that in Satan we see Intellect of the highest order, next to divine-Invincibility of Will-the consciousness of that invincible will, and of all its resources-Ambition, which nothing less than the throne of God seems as if it could satisfy-the Imperial Consciousness of Command-the complacent accepting of the dominion in Hell-the scorn of Pain-the infinite capacity of Pain-the infinite active energy which forthwith produces new warfare with Heaven-the power of infusing hope and hate into others magnificent eloquence-glorying in the conduct and prowess of the past war-heroic trust in the unbroken zeal of and trust of his Followers