of Bridgewater, then president of Wales. This drama was founded on an actual occurrence. The Earl of Bridgewater then resided at Ludlow castle; his sons, Lord Brackley and Mr Egerton. and Lady Alice Egerton, his daughter, passing through Haywood forest in Herefordshire, on their way to Ludlow, were benighted, and the lady was for a short time lost. This accident being related to their father upon their arrival at his castle, Milton, at the request of his friend Henry Lawes, the musician (who taught music in the family), wrote the masque. Lawes set it to music, and it was acted on Michaelmas night, 1634, the two brothers, the young lady, and Lawes himself, bearing each a part in the representation. 'Comus' is better entitled to the appellation of a moral masque than any by Jonson, Ford, or Massinger. It is a pure dream of Elysium. The reader is transported, as in Shakspeare's Tempest,' to scenes of fairy enchantment, but no grossness mingles with the poet's creations, and his muse is ever ready to moralise the song' with strains of solemn imagery and lofty sentiment. Comus' was first published in 1637, not by its author, but by Henry Lawes, who, in a dedication to Lord Bridgewater, says, although not openly acknowledged by the author, yet it is a legitimate offspring, so lovely, and so much desired, that the often copying of it hath tired my pen to give my several friends satisfaction.' Lycidas' was also published in the same year. This exquisite poem is a monody on a college companion of Milton's, Edward King, who perished by shipwreck on his passage from Chester to Ireland. Milton's descriptive poems, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, are generally referred to the same happy period of his life; but from the cast of the imagery, we suspect they were sketched in at college, when he walked the studious cloisters pale,' amidst 'storied windows,' and 'pealing anthems.' And, indeed, there is a tradition that the scenery depicted in 'L'Allegro' is that around a country college retirement of the poet, at Forest Hill, about three miles from Oxford. In 1638 the poet left the paternal roof, and travelled for fifteen months in France and Italy, returning homewards by the Leman lake' to Geneva and Paris. His society was courted by the choicest Italian wits,' and he visited Galileo, then a prisoner of the Inquisition. The statuesque grace and beauty of some of Milton's poetical creations (the figures of Adam and Eve, the angel Raphael, and parts of Paradise Regained) were probably suggested by his study of the works of art in Florence and Rome. The poet had been with difficulty restrained from testifying against popery within the verge of the Vatican; and on his return to his native country, he engaged in controversy against the prelates and the royalists, and vindicated, with characteristic ardour, the utmost freedom of thought and expression. His prose works are noticed in another part of this volume. In 1643 Milton went to the country, and married Mary, the daughter of Richard Powell, a high cavalier of Oxfordshire, to whom the poet was probably known, as Mr Powell had, many years before, borrowed £500 from his father. He brought his wife to London, but in the short period of a month, the studious habits and philosophical seclusion of the republican poet proved so distasteful to the cavalier's fair daughter, that she left his house on a visit to her parents, and refused to return. Milton resolved to repudiate her, and published some treatises on divorce, in which he argues that the law of Moses, which allowed of divorcement for uncleanness, was not adultery only, but uncleanness of the mind as well as the body. This dangerous doctrine he maintained through life; but the year after her desertion (when the poet was practically enforcing his opinions by soliciting the hand of another lady), his erring and repentant wife fell on her knees before him, submissive in distress,' and Milton, like his own Adam, was fondly overcome with female charm.' He also behaved with great generosity to her parents when the further progress of the civil war involved them in ruin. In 1649 Milton was, unsolicited, appointed foreign or Latin secretary to the council of state. His salary was about £300 per annum, which was afterwards reduced one half, cottage at Chalfont, in Bucks, to which the poet had withdrawn from the plague, then raging in the metropolis; but it was not published till two years afterwards, when the copyright was purchased by Samuel Simmons, a bookseller, on the following terms: when the duties were shared, first with Philip Mea-him greater leisure; it was completed in 1665, at a dowes, and afterwards with the excellent Andrew Marvell. He served Cromwell when Cromwell had thrown off the mask and assumed all but the name of king, and it is to be regretted that, like his friend Bradshaw, the poet had not disclaimed this new and usurped tyranny, though dignified by a master mind. He was probably hurried along by the stormy tide of events, till he could not well recede. For ten years Milton's eyesight had been failing, owing to the 'wearisome studies and midnight watchings' of his youth. The last remains of it were sacrificed in the composition of his Defensio Populi (he was willing and proud to make the sacrifice), and by the close of the year 1652, he was totally blind, 'Dark, dark, irrecoverably dark.' His wife died about the same time; but he soon married again. His second partner died within a year, and he consecrated to her memory one of his simple, but solemn and touching sonnets: Methought I saw my late espoused saint And such as yet once more I trust to have I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night. An immediate payment of £5, and £5 more when 1300 copies should be sold; the like sum after the same number of the second edition (each edition to consist of 1500 copies), and other £5 after the sale of the third. The third edition was not published till 1678 (when the poet was no more), and his widow (Milton married a third time, about 1660) sold all her claims to Simmons for £8. It appears that in the comparatively short period of two years, the poet became entitled to his second payment, so that 1300 copies of Paradise Lost' had been sold in the Apnl 26 1669 Ruck then of Samuil Semmens five pound bemy the fecond five pounds mentioned in the Cordmant 9 Jay maid by me Witney's Cooring Joher millora The Restoration deprived Milton of his public employment, and exposed him to danger, but by the interest of Davenant and Marvell (as has been said), his name was included in the general amnesty. The great poet was now at liberty to pursue his private studies, and to realise the devout aspirations of his Milton's Cottage at Chalfont. youth for an immortality of literary fame. His spirit was unsubdued. Paradise Lost was begun in 1658, when the division of the secretaryship gave Lipton Fac-simile of Milton's Second Receipt to Simmons. two first years of its publication-a proof that the nation was not, as has been vulgarly supposed, insensible to the merits of the divine poem, then entering on its course of immortality. In eleven years from the date of its publication, 3000 copies had been sold; and a modern critic has expressed a doubt whether Paradise Lost,' published eleven years since, would have met with a greater demand! The fall of man was a theme suited to the serious part of the community in that age, independently of the claims of a work of genius. The Puritans had not yet wholly died out their beatific visions were not quenched by the gross sensualism of the times. Compared with Dryden's plays, how pure, how lofty and sanctified, must have appeared the epic strains of Milton! The blank-verse of Paradise Lost' was, however, a stumblingblock to the reading public. So long a poem in this measure had not before been attempted, and ere the second edition was published, Samuel Simmons procured from Milton a short and spirited explanation of his reasons for departing from the troublesome bondage of rhyming.' In 1671 the poet produced his Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. The severe simplicity and the restricted plan of these poems have rendered them less popular than Comus' or 'Paradise Lost;' but they exhibit the intensity and force of Milton's genius: they were 'the ebb of a mighty tide.' The survey of Greece and Rome in Paradise Regained,' and the poet's description of the banquet in the grove, are as rich and exuberant as anything in 'Paradise Lost;' while his brief sketch of the thunder-storm in the wilderness, in the same poem, is perhaps the most strikingly dramatic and effective passage of the kind in all his works. The active and studious life of the poet was now near a close. It is pleasing to reflect that Poverty, in her worst shape, never entered his dwelling, irradiated by visions of paradise; and that, though long a sufferer from hereditary disease, his mind was calm and bright to the last. He died without a struggle on Sunday the 8th of November, 1674. By his first rash and ill-assorted marriage, Milton left three daughters, whom, it is said, he taught to read and pronounce several languages, though they only understood their native tongue. He complained that the children were undutiful and unkind' to him; and they were all living apart from their illustrious parent for some years before his death. His widow inherited a fortune of about £1500, of which she gave £100 to each of his daughters. Milton's early poems have much of the manner of Spenser, particularly his Lycidas.' In Comus' there are various traces of Fletcher, Shakspeare, and other poets.* Single words, epithets, and images, he freely borrowed, but they were so combined and improved by his own splendid and absorbing imagination, as not to detract from his originality. His imperial fancy (as was said of Burke) laid all art and nature under tribute, yet never lost its own original brightness.' Milton's diction is peculiarly rich and pictorial in effect. In force and dignity he towers over all his contemporaries. He is of no class of poets: his soul was like a star, and dwelt apart.' The style of Milton's verse was moulded on classic models, chiefly the Greek tragedians; but his musical taste, his love of Italian literature, and the lofty and solemn cast of his own mind, gave strength and harmony to the whole. His minor poems alone would have rendered his name immortal, but there still wanted his great epic to complete the measure of his fame, and the glory of his country. remarkable for their grandeur and sublimity. The 'Paradise Lost,' or the fall of man, had long been familiar to Milton as a subject for poetry. He at first intended it as a drama, and two draughts of his scheme are preserved among his manuscripts in Trinity college library, Cambridge. His genius, how-tain disgust and hatred at sin thus portrayed? ever, was better adapted for an epic than a dramatic poem. His Samson,' though cast in a dramatic form, has little of dramatic interest or variety of character. His multifarious learning and uniform dignity of manner would have been too weighty for dialogue; whereas in the epic form, his erudition was vell employed in episode and illustration. He was perhaps too profuse of learned illustration, yet there is something very striking and imposing even in his long catalogues of names and cities. They are generally sonorous and musical. The subject of Paradise Lost,' says Mr Campbell, 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 these 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 co-existence of fable and truth, and thus identifying his 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.' The two first books of Paradise Lost' are * Dryden, in his preface to the Fables,' says, Milton has acknowledged to me that Spenser was his original.' Browne, Fletcher, Burton, and Drummond, also assisted: Milton, as has been happily remarked, was a great collector of sweets from these wild flowers. [Hymn on the Nativity.] It was the winter wild, With her great Master so to sympathise: To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour. To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; The saintly veil of maiden white to throw : 331 No war or battle's sound, Was heard the world around: The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked chariot stood Unstain'd with hostile blood; The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sov'reign lord was by. But peaceful was the night, Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began: The winds, with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kiss'd, Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave. The stars, with deep amaze, Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze, Bending one way their precious influence; And will not take their flight, For all the morning light, Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence; But in their glimmering orbs did glow, Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. And, though the shady gloom Had given day her room, The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, And hid his head for shame, As his inferior flame When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet, As never was by mortal finger strook, Divinely-warbled voice Answering the stringed noise, As all their souls in blissful rapture took: The air, such pleasure loath to lose, With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close. Nature, that heard such sound, Beneath the hollow round Of Cynthia's seat, the airy region thrilling, Now was almost won, To think her part was done, And that her reign had here its last fulfilling; She knew such harmony alone Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union. At last surrounds their sight A globe of circular light, Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold; And speckled Vanity Will sicken soon and die, And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould; And Hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. Yea, Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between, Thron'd in celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; And Heaven, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall. Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell, Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell. That with long beams the shamefac'd night array'd; The lonely mountains o'er, The helmed cherubim, And sworded seraphim, Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd, Harping in loud and solemn quire, With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born heir. And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale, Edg'd with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn, The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. In consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth, Sonnet on his own Blindness. When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, The Lars and Lemurs mourn with midnight plaint; Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent In urns and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat. Peor and Baälim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth, Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Libyac Hammon shrinks his horn; In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. And sullen Moloch, fled, Hath left in shadows dread His burning idol all of blackest hue; In vain with cymbals' ring They call the grisly king, In dismal dance about the furnace blue: The brutish gods of Nile as fast, Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste. Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, To serve therewith my Maker, and present [In Anticipation of the Attack of the Royalists upon Captain, or colonel, or knight in arms, Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud: Of sad Electra's poet had the power Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest ; Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark. He feels from Judah's land The dreaded infant's hand, The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the gods beside Longer dare abide, Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our babe, to show his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control the damned So, when the sun in bed, Curtain'd with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale, Troop to the infernal jail, Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted fays To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare. [On the Massacre of the Protestants in Piedmont.] Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd maze. But see, the Virgin blest Hath laid her Babe to rest; [Scene from Comus.] The LADY enters. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, Time is, our tedious song should here have ending: Stirs up among the loose unletter'd hinds, Hath fix'd her polish'd car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; On May Morning. Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger, When for their teeming flocks, and granges full, To meet the rudeness and swill'd insolence |