The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picture-writing of Mexico. The images which Dante employs speak for themselves:-they stand simply for what they are. Those of Milton have a signification which is often discernible only to the initiated. Their value depends less on what they directly re present, than on what they remotely suggest However strange, however grotesque, may be the appearance which Dante undertakes to describe, he never shrinks from describing it. He gives us the shape, the colour, the sound, the smell, the taste: he counts the numbers; he measures the size. His similes are the il

tion which he neglected in the Samson. He be compared with the Paradise Lost, is the made it what it ought to be, essentially lyrical, Divine Comedy. The subject of Milton, in and dramatic only in semblance. He has not some points, resembled that of Dante; but he attempted a fruitless struggle against a defect has treated it in a widely different manner. inherent in the nature of that species of com- We cannot, we think, better illustrate our position; and he has, therefore, succeeded, opinion respecting our own great poet, than wherever success was not impossible. The by contrasting him with the father of Tuscan speeches must be read as majestic soliloquies; literature. and he who so reads them will be enraptured with their eloquence, their sublimity, and their music. The interruptions of the dialogue, however, impose a constraint upon the writer, and break the illusion of the reader. The finest passages are those which are lyric in form as well as in spirit. “I should much commend," says the excellent Sir Henry Wotton, in a letter to Milton, “the tragical part, if | the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain dorique delicacy in your songs and odes, whereunto, I most plainly confess to you, I have seen yet nothing parallel in our language." The criticism was just. It is when Milton escapes from the shackles of the dialogue, when he is discharged from the labour of uniting two in-lustrations of a traveller. Unlike those of other congruous styles, when he is at liberty to indulge his choral raptures without reserve, that he rises even above himself. Then, like his own Good Genius, bursting from the earthly form and weeds of Thyrsis, he stands forth in celestial freedom and beauty; he seems to cry exultingly,

"Now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run,"

to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to
bathe in the Elysian dew of the rainbow, and
to inhale the balmy smells of nard and cassia,
which the musky winds of the zephyr scatter
through the cedared alleys of the Hesperides.
There are several of the minor poems of
Milton on which we would willingly make a
few remarks. Still more willingly would we
enter into a detailed examination of that ad-
mirable poem, the Paradise Regained, which,
strangely enough, is scarcely ever mentioned,
except as an instance of the blindness of that
parental affection which men of letters bear
towards the offspring of their intellects. That
Milton was mistaken in preferring this work,
excellent as it is, to the Paradise Lost, we
must readily admit. But we are sure that the
superiority of the Paradise Lost to the Para-
dise Regained is not more decided than the
superiority of the Paradise Regained to every
poem which has since made its appearance.
But our limits prevent us from discussing the
point at length. We hasten on to that extraor-
dinary production, which the general suffrage
of critics has placed in the highest class of
human compositions.

The only poem of modern times which can

"There eternal summer dwells,

And west winds with musky wing,
About the cedared alleys fling
Nard and cassia's balmy smells:
Iris there with hunnid bow
We.ers the odorous banks, that blow
Flowers of more mingled hue
Than her purfled scarf can show,
And drenches with Elysian dew,
(List, mortals, if your ears be true,)
Beds of hyacinths and roses,
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound.”

poets, and especially of Milton, they are introduced in a plain, business-like manner; not for the sake of any beauty in the objects from which they are drawn, not for the sake of any ornament which they may impart to the poem, but simply in order to make the meaning of the writer as clear to the reader as it is to himself. The ruins of the precipice which led from the sixth to the seventh circle of hell, were like those of the rock which fell into the Adige on the south of Trent. The cataract of Phlege thon was like that of Aqua Cheta at the mo nastery of St. Benedict. The place where the heretics were confined in burning tombs re sembled the vast cemetery of Arles!

Now, let us compare with the exact details of Dante the dim intimations of Milton. We will cite a few examples. The English poet has never thought of taking the measure of Satan. He gives us merely a vague idea of vast bulk. In one passage the fiend lies stretched out, huge in length, floating many a rood, equal in size to the earth-born enemies of Jove, or to the sea-monster which the mariner mistakes for an island. When he addresses himself to battle against the guardian angels, he stands like Teneriffe or Atlas; his stature reaches the sky. Contrast with these descriptions the lines in which Dante has described the gigantic spectre of Nimrod. "His face seemed to me as long and as broad as the ball of St. Peter's at Rome; and his other limbs were in proportion; so that the bank, which concealed him from the waist downwards, nevertheless showed so much of him, that three tall Germans would in vain have at tempted to reach his hair." We are sensible that we do no justice to the admirable style of the Florentine poet. But Mr. Cary's translation is not at hand, and our version, however rude, is sufficient to illustrate our meaning.

Once more, compare the lazar-house, in the eleventh book of the Paradise Lost, with the last ward of Malebolge in Dante. Milton avoids the loathsome details, and takes refuge in indistinct, but solemn and tremendous imageryDespair hurrying from couch to couch, to mock

the wretches with his attendance: Death shak- | portion of spirit with which we are best ac ing his dart over them, but in spite of supplications, delaying to strike. What says Dante? "There was such a moan there as there would be if all the sick, who, between July and September, are in the hospitals of Valdichiana, and of the Tuscan swamps, and of Sardinia, were in one pit together; and such a stench was issuing forth as is wont to issue from decayed limbs."

quainted? We observe certain phenomena We cannot explain them into material causes. We therefore infer that there exists something which is not material. But of this something we have no idea. We can define it only by negatives. We can reason about it only by symbols. We use the word, but we have no image of the thing: and the business of poetry is with images, and not with words. The poet uses words indeed; but they are merely the instruments of his art, not its objects. They are the materials which he is to dispose in such a manner as to present a picture to the mental eye. And, if they are not so disposed, they are no more entitled to be called poetry, than a bale of canvass and a box of colours are to be called a painting.

We will not take upon ourselves the invidious office of settling precedency between two such writers. Each in his own department is incomparable; and each, we may remark, has, wisely or fortunately, taken a subject adapted to exhibit his peculiar talent to the greatest advantage. The Divine Comedy is a personal narrative. Dante is the eye-witness and earwitness of that which he relates. He is the very man who has heard the tormented spirits crying out for the second death; who has read the dusky characters on the portal, within which there is no hope; who has hidden his face from the terrors of the Gorgon; who has fled from the hooks and the seething pitch of Barbariccia and Diaghignazzo. His own hands have grasped the shaggy sides of Lucifer. His own feet have climbed the mountain of expiation. His own brow has been marked by the purifying angel. The reader would throw aside such a tale in incredulous disgust, unless it were told with the strongest air of veracity, with a sobriety even in its horrors, with the greatest precision and multiplicity in its details. The narrative of Milton in this respect differs from that of Dante, as the adventures of Amidas differ from those of Gulliver. The author of Amidas would have made his book ridiculous if he had introduced those minute particulars which give such a charm to the work of Swift, the nautical observations, the affected delicacy about names, the official documents transcribed at full length, and all the unmeaning gossip and scandal of the court, springing out of nothing, and tending to nothing. We are not shocked at being told that a man who lived, nobody knows when, saw many very strange sights, and we can easily abandon ourselves to the illusion of the romance. But when Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon, now actually resident at Rotherhithe, tells us of pigmies and giants, flying islands and phi-their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumlosophizing horses, nothing but such circumstantial touches could produce, for a single moment, a deception on the imagination.

Of all the poets who have introduced into their works the agency of supernatural beings, Milton has succeeded best. Here Dante decidedly yields to him. And as this is a point on which many rash and ill-considered judgments have been pronounced, we feel inclined to dwell on it a little longer. The most fatal error which a poet can possibly commit in the management of his machinery, is that of attempting to philosophize too much. Milton has been often censured for ascribing to spirits many functions of which spirits must be incapable. But these objections, though sanctioned by eminent names, originate, we venture to say, in profound ignorance of the art of poetry.

What is spirit? What are our own minds, the

Logicians may reason about abstractions; but the great mass of mankind can never feel an interest in them. They must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained on no other principle. The first inhabitants of Greece, there is every reason to believe, worshipped one invisible Deity. But the necessity of having something more definite to adore produced, in a few centuries, the innumerable crowd of gods and goddesses. In like manner the ancient Persians thought it impious to exhibit the Creator under a human form. Yet even these transferred to the sun the worship which, speculatively, they considered due only to the Supreme mind. The history of the Jews is the record of a continual struggle between pure Theism, supported by the most terrible sanctions, and the strangely fascinating desire of having some visible and tangible object of adoration. Perhaps none of the secondary causes which Gibbon has assigned for the rapidity with which Christianity spread over the world, while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a proselyte, operated more powerfully than this feeling. God, the uncreated, the incomprehensible, the invisible, attracted few worshippers. A philosopher might admire so noble a conception; but the crowd turned away in disgust from words which presented no image to their minds. It was before Deity, embodied in a human form, walking among men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on

bering in the manger, bleeding on the cross,
that the prejudices of the Synagogue, and the
doubts of the Academy, and the pride of the
Portico, and the fasces of the lictor, and the
swords of thirty legions, were humbled in the
dust! Soon after Christianity had achieved its
triumph, the principle which had assisted it
began to corrupt. It became a new paganism
Patron saints assumed the offices of household
gods. St. George took the place of Mars. St
Elmo consoled the mariner for the loss of Cas
tor and Polux The Virgin Mother and Cicilia
succeeded to Venus and the Muses. The fas
cination of sex and loveliness was again joined
to that of celestial dignity; and the homage of
chivalry was blended with that of religion.
Reformers have often made a stand against
these feelings; but never with more than ap
parent and partial success.
The men who d

are simple but majestic records of the feelings is good; but it breaks off at the most interestof the poet; as little tricked out for the public eye as his diary would have been. A victory, an expected attack upon the city, a momentary fit of depression or exultation, a jest thrown out against one of his books, a dream, which for a short time restored to him that beautiful face over which the grave had closed forever, led him to musings which, without effort, shaped themselves into verse. The unity of sentiment and severity of style, which characterize these little pieces, remind us of the Greek Anthology; or perhaps still more of the Collects of the English Liturgy-the noble poem on the Massacres of Piedmont is strictly a collect in verse.

The Sonnets are more or less striking, according as the occasions which gave birth to them are more or less interesting. But they are, almost without exception, dignified by a sobriety and greatness of mind to which we know not where to look for a parallel. It would indeed be scarcely safe to draw any decided inferences, as to the character of a writer, from passages directly egotistical. But the qualities which we have ascribed to Milton, though perhaps most strongly marked in those parts of his works which treat of his personal feelings, are distinguishable in every page, and impart to all his writings, prose and poetry, English, Latin, and Italian, a strong family likeness.

His public conduct was such as was to be expected from a man of a spirit so high, and an intellect so powerful. He lived at one of he most memorable eras in the history of manand; at the very crisis of the great conflict etween Oromasdes and Arimanes-liberty nd despotism, reason and prejudice. That great battle was fought for no single generanon, for no single land. The destinies of the human race were staked on the same cast with the freedom of the English people. Then were first prociaimed those mighty principles, which have since worked their way into the depths of the American forests, which have roused Greece from the slavery and degradation of two thousand years, and which, from one end of Europe to the other, have kindled an unquenchable fire in the hearts of the oppressed, and loosed the knees of the oppressors with a strange and unwonted fear!

ing crisis of the struggle. The performance of Ludlow is very foolish and violent; and most of the later writers who have espoused the same cause, Oldmixon, for instance, and Catherine Macaulay, have, to say the least. been more distinguished by zeal than either by candour or by skill. On the other side are the most authoritative and the most popular historical works in our language, that of Clarendon, and that of Hume. The former is not only ably written and full of valuable information, but has also an air of dignity and sincerity which makes even the prejudices and errors with which it abounds respectable. Hume, from whose fascinating narrative the great mass of the reading public are still con tented to take their opinions, hated religion so much, that he hated liberty for having been allied with religion-and has pleaded the cause of tyranny with the dexterity of an advocate, while affecting the impartiality of a judge.

The public conduct of Milton must be approved or condemned, according as the resistance of the people to Charles I. shall appear to be justifiable or criminal. We shall therefore make no apology for dedicating a few pages to the discussion of that interesting and most important question. We shall not argue it on general grounds, we shall not recur to those primary principles from which the claim of any government to the obedience of its subjects is to be deduced; it is a vantageground to which we are entitled; but we will relinquish it. We are, on this point, so confident of superiority, that we have no objection to imitate the ostentatious generosity of those ancient knights, who vowed to joust without helmet or shield against all enemies, and to give their antagonist the advantage of sun and wind. We will take the naked, constitutional question. We confidently affirm, that every reason, which can be urged in favour of the Revolution of 1688, may be urged with at least equal force in favour of what is called the great rebellion.

In one respect only, we think, can the warmest admirers of Charles venture to say that he was a better sovereign than his son. He was not, in name and profession, a papist; we say in name and profession, because both Charles himself and his miserable creature, Of those principles, then struggling for their Laud, while they abjured the innocent badges infant existence, Milton was the most devoted of popery, retained all its worst vices, a comand eloquent literary champion. We need plete subjection of reason to authority, a weak not say how much we admire his public con- preference of form to substance, a childish duct. But we cannot disguise from ourselves, passion for mummeries, an idolatrous veneiathat a large portion of his countrymen still tion for the priestly character, and, above all, a think it unjustifiable. The civil war, indeed, stupid and ferocious intolerance. This, howhas been more discussed, and is less under-ever, we waive. We will concede that Charles stood, than any event in English history. The was a good protestant; but we say that his Roundheads laboured under the disadvantage protestantism does not make the slightest disof which the lion in the fable complained so bitterly. Though they were the conquerors, The principles of the Revolution have often their enemies were the painters. As a body, been grossly misrepresented, and never more they had done their utmost to decry and ruin than in the course of the present year. There literature; and literature was even with them, is a certain class of men, who, while they as, in the long run, it always is with its ene- profess to hold in reverence the great names mis. The best book, on their side of the and great actions of former times, never look question, is the charming memoir of Mrs. at them for any other purpose than in order to luchinson. May's History of the Parliament | find in them some excuse for existing abuses.

tinction between his case and that of James.

In every venerable precedent, they pass by catholics from the crown, because they thought what is essential, and take only what is acci- them likely to be tyrants. The ground on dental: they keep out of sight what is benefi- which they, in their famous resolution, decial, and hold up to public imitation all that is│clared the throne vacant, was this, "that defective. If, in any part of any great exam-James had broken the fundamental laws of the ple, there be any thing unsound, these flesh-flies kingdom." Every man, therefore, who ap detect it with an unerring instinct, and dart upon it with a ravenous delight. They cannot always prevent the advocates of a good measure from compassing their end; but they feel, with their prototype, that

"Their labours must be to pervert that end, And out of good still to find means of evil."

proves of the Revolution of 1688, must hold that the breach of fundamental laws on the part of the sovereign justifies resistance. The question then is this: Had Charles I. broken the funda mental laws of England?

No person can answer in the negative, unless he refuses credit, not merely to all the accusations brought against Charles by his opponents, but to the narratives of the warmest royalists, and to the confessions of the king himself. If there be any historian of any party who has related the events of that reign, the conduct of Charles, from his accession to the meeting of the Long Parliament, had been a continued course of oppression and treachery. Let those who applaud the Revolution and condemn the rebellion, mention one act of James II., to which a parallel is not to be found in the history of his father. Let them lay their fin

To the blessings which England has derived from the Revolution these people are utterly insensible. The expulsion of a tyrant, the solemn recognition of popular rights, liberty, security, toleration, all go for nothing with them. One sect there was, which, from unfortunate temporary causes, it was thought necessary to keep under close restraint. One part of the empire there was so unhappily circumstanced, that at that time its misery was necessary to our happiness, and its slavery to our freedom! These are the parts of the Re-gers on a single article in the Declaration of volution which the politicians of whom we Right, presented by the two Houses to William speak love to contemplate, and which seem to and Mary, which Charles is not acknowledged them, not indeed to vindicate, but in some de- to have violated. He had, according to the gree to palliate the good which it has produced. testimony of his own friends, usurped the Talk to them of Naples, of Spain, or of South functions of the legislature, raised taxes without America. They stand forth, zealots for the the consent of parliament, and quartered doctrine of Divine Right, which has now come troops on the people in the most illegal and back to us, like a. thief from transportation, vexatious manner. Not a single session of under the alias of Legitimacy. But mention parliament had passed without some unconstithe miseries of Ireland! Then William is a tional attack on the freedom of debate. hero. Then Somers and Shrewsbury are great right of petition was grossly violated. Arbimen. Then the Revolution is a glorious era!trary judgments, exorbitant fines, and unwarThe very same persons, who, in this country, rauted imprisonments, were grievances of daily never omit an opportunity of reviving every and hourly occurrence. If these things do not wretched Jacobite slander respecting the whigs justify resistance, the Revolution was treason; of that period, have no sooner crossed St. if they do, the Great Rebellion was laudable. George's channel, than they begin to fill their But, it is said, why not adopt milder mea bumpers to the glorious and immortal memory.sures? Why, after the king had consented to They may truly boast that they look not at men but measures. So that evil be done, they care not who does it-the arbitrary Charles or the liberal William, Ferdinand the catholic or Frederick the protestant! On such occasions their deadliest opponents may reckon upon their candid construction. The bold assertions of these people have of late impressed a large portion of the public with an opinion that James II. was expelled simply because he was a catholic, and that the Revolution was essentially a protestant revolution.

But this certainly was not the case. Nor can any person, who has acquired more knowledge of the history of those times than is to be found in Goldsmith's Abridgment, believe that, if James had held his own religious opinions without wishing to make proselytes; or if, wishing even to make proselytes, he had contented himself with exerting only his cons tional influence for that purpose, the Prince of Orange would ever have been invited over. Our ancestors, we suppose, knew their own meaning. And, if we may believe them, their hostility was primarily not to popery, but to tyranng. They did not drive out a tyrant because he was a catholic; but they excluded

The

so many reforms, and renounced so many oppressive prerogatives, did the parliament continue to rise in their demands, at the risk of provoking a civil war? The ship-money had been given up. The star-chamber had been abolished. Provision had been made for the frequent convocation and secure deliberation of parliaments. Why not pursue an end confessedly good, by peaceable and regular means? We recur again to the analogy of the Revolu tion. Why was James driven from the throne? Why was he not retained upon conditions? He too had offered to call a free parliament, and to submit to its decision all the matters in dispute. Yet we praise our forefathers, who preferred a revolution, a disputed succession, a dynasty of strangers, twenty years of foreign and intestine war, a standing army, and a national debt, to the rule, however restricted, of a tried and proved tyrant. The Long Parliament acted on the same principle, and is entitled to the same praise. They could not trust the king. He had no doubt passed salutary laws. But what assurance had they that he would not break them? He had renounced oppres sive prerogatives. But where was the security that he would not resume them? They had

are simple but majestic records of the feelings is good; but it breaks off at the most interestof the poet; as little tricked out for the public ing crisis of the struggle. The performance eye as his diary would have been. A victory, an expected attack upon the city, a momentary fit of depression or exultation, a jest thrown out against one of his books, a dream, which for a short time restored to him that beautiful face over which the grave had closed forever, led him to musings which, without effort, shaped themselves into verse. The unity of sentiment and severity of style, which characterize these little pieces, remind us of the Greek Anthology; or perhaps still more of the Collects of the English Liturgy-the noble poem on the Massacres of Piedmont is strictly a collect in verse.

The Sonnets are more or less striking, according as the occasions which gave birth to them are more or less interesting. But they are, almost without exception, dignified by a sobriety and greatness of mind to which we know not where to look for a parallel. It would indeed be scarcely safe to draw any decided inferences, as to the character of a writer, from passages directly egotistical. But the qualities which we have ascribed to Milton, though perhaps most strongly marked in those parts of his works which treat of his personal feelings, are distinguishable in every page, and impart to all his writings, prose and poetry, English, Latin, and Italian, a strong family likeness.

His public conduct was such as was to be expected from a man of a spirit so high, and an intellect so powerful. He lived at one of he most memorable eras in the history of manand; at the very crisis of the great conflict etween Oromasdes and Arimanes-liberty nd despotism, reason and prejudice. That great battle was fought for no single generation, for no single land. The destinies of the human race were staked on the same cast with the freedom of the English people. Then were first prociaimed those mighty principles, which have since worked their way into the depths of the American forests, which have roused Greece from the slavery and degradation of two thousand years, and which, from one end of Europe to the other, have kindled an unquenchable fire in the hearts of the oppressed, and loosed the knees of the oppressors with a strange and unwonted fear!

of Ludlow is very foolish and violent; and most of the later writers who have espoused the same cause, Oldmixon, for instance, and Catherine Macaulay, have, to say the least, been more distinguished by zeal than either by candour or by skill. On the other side are the most authoritative and the most popular historical works in our language, that of Clarendon, and that of Hume. The former is not only ably written and full of valuable information, but has also an air of dignity and sincerity which makes even the prejudices and errors with which it abounds respectable. Hume, from whose fascinating narrative the great mass of the reading public are still contented to take their opinions, hated religion so much, that he hated liberty for having been allied with religion-and has pleaded the cause of tyranny with the dexterity of an advocate, while affecting the impartiality of a judge.

The public conduct of Milton must be approved or condemned, according as the resistance of the people to Charles I. shall appear to be justifiable or criminal. We shall therefore make no apology for dedicating a few pages to the discussion of that interesting and most important question. We shall not argue it on general grounds, we shall not recur to those primary principles from which the claim of any government to the obedience of its subjects is to be deduced; it is a vantageground to which we are entitled; but we will relinquish it. We are, on this point, so confident of superiority, that we have no objection to imitate the ostentatious generosity of those ancient knights, who vowed to joust without helmet or shield against all enemies, and to give their antagonist the advantage of sun and wind. We will take the naked, constitutional question. We confidently affirm, that every reason, which can be urged in favour of the Revolution of 1688, may be urged with at least equal force in favour of what is called the great rebellion.

In one respect only, we think, can the warmest admirers of Charles venture to say that he was a better sovereign than his son. He was not, in name and profession, a papist; we say in name and profession, because both Charles himself and his miserable creature, Of those principles, then struggling for their Laud, while they abjured the innocent badges infant existence, Milton was the most devoted of popery, retained all its worst vices, a comand eloquent literary champion. We need plete subjection of reason to authority, a weak not say how much we admire his public con- preference of form to substance, a childish duct. But we cannot disguise from ourselves, passion for mummeries, an idolatrous veneiathat a large portion of his countrymen still tion for the priestly character, and, above all, a think it unjustifiable. The civil war, indeed, stupid and ferocious intolerance. This, howhas been more discussed, and is less under-ever, we waive. We will concede that Charles stood, than any event in English history. The was a good protestant; but we say that his Roundheads laboured under the disadvantage protestantism does not make the slightest dis of which the lion in the fable complained so bitterly. Though they were the conquerors, their enemies were the painters. As a body. they had done their utmost to decry and ruin literature; and literature was even with them, as, in the long run, it always is with its enemies. The best book, on their side of the question, is the charming memoir of Mrs. luchinson. May's History of the Parliament

tinction between his case and that of James.

The principles of the Revolution have often been grossly misrepresented, and never more than in the course of the present year. There is a certain class of men, who, while they profess to hold in reverence the great names and great actions of former times, never look at them for any other purpose than in order to find in them some excuse for existing abuseɛ.