Who now is sovran can dispose and bid What shall be right; farthest from him is best, Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. And what I should be, all but less than he The whole of the speeches and debates in Pandemonium are well worthy of the place and the occasion, with gods for speakers, and angels and archangels for hearers. There is a decided manly tone in the arguments and sentiments, an eloquent dogmatism, as if each person spoke from thorough conviction, an excellence which Milton probably borrowed from his spirit of partisanship, or else his spirit of partisanship from the natural firmness and vigour of his mind. In this respect Milton resembles Dante (the only modern writer with whom he The has anything in common), and it is remarkable that Dante, as well as Milton, was a political partisan. That approximation to the severity of impassioned prose which has been made an objection to Milton's poetry, and which is chiefly to be met with in these bitter invectives, is one of its great excellences. author might here turn his philippics against Salmasius to good account. The rout in heaven is like the fall of some mighty structure, nodding to its base, 'with hideous ruin and combustion down.' But perhaps of all the passages in Paradise Lost, the description of the employments of the angels during the absence of Satan, some of whom, 'retreated in a silent valley, sing with notes angelical to many a harp their own heroic deeds and hapless fall by doom of battle,' is the most perfect example of mingled pathos and sublimity. What proves the truth of this nòble picture in every part, and that the frequent complaint of want of interest in it is the fault of the reader, not of the poet, is that when any interest of a practical kind takes a shape that can be at all turned into this (and there is little doubt that Milton had some such in his eye in writing it), each party converts it to its own purposes, feels the absolute identity of these abstracted and high specula tions, and that, in fact, a noted political writer of the present day has exhausted nearly the whole account of Satan in the Paradise Lost, by applying it to a character whom he considered as after the Devil (though I do not know whether he would make even that exception), the greatest enemy of the human race. This may serve to show that Milton's Satan is not a very insipid personage. Of Adam and Eve it has been said that the ordinary reader can feel little interest in them, because they have none of the passions, pursuits, or even relations of human life, except that of man and wife, the least interesting of all others, if not to the parties concerned, at least to the bystanders. The preference has on this account been given to Homer, who, it is said, has left very vivid and infinitely diversified pictures of all the passions and affections, public and private, incident to human nature, the relations of son, of brother, parent, friend, citizen, and many others. Longinus preferred the Iliad to the Odyssey on account of the greater number of battles it contains; but I can neither agree to his criticism, nor assent to the present objection. It is true, there is little action in this part of Milton's poem; but there 1 The First Napoleon. - ED. is much repose, and more enjoyment. There are none of the every-day occurrences, contentions, disputes, wars, fightings, feuds, jealousies, trades, professions, liveries, and common handicrafts of life; 'no kind of traffic; letters are not known; no use of service, of riches, poverty, contract, succession, bourne, bound of land, tilth, vineyard none; no occupation, no treason, felony, sword, pike, knife, gun, nor need of any engine.' So much the better; thank Heaven, all these were yet to come. But still the die was cast, and in them our doom was sealed. In them 'The generations were prepared; the pangs, Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny.' In their first false step we trace' all our future woe, with loss of Eden.' But there was a short and precious interval between, like the first blush of morning before the day is overcast with tempest, the dawn of the world, the birth of Nature from the unapparent deep,' with its first dews and freshness on its cheek, breathing odours. Theirs was the first delicious taste of life, and on them depended all that was to come of it. In them hung trembling all our hopes and fears. They were as yet alone in the world, in the eye of Nature, wondering at their new being, full of enjoyment, and enraptured with one another, with the voice of their Maker, walking in the garden, and ministering angels attendant on their steps, winged messengers from heaven like rosy clouds descending in their sight. Nature played around them her virgin fancies wild, and spread for them a repast where no crude surfeit reigned. Was there nothing in this scene, which God and Nature alone witnessed, to interest a modern critic? What need was there of action, where the heart was full of bliss and innocence without it? They had nothing to do but feel their own happiness, and know to know no more.' 'They toiled not, neither did they spin; yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. All things seem to acquire fresh sweetness, and to be clothed with fresh beauty, in their sight. They tasted, as it were for themselves and us, of all that there ever was pure in human bliss. In them the burden of the mystery,... the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world, is lightened.' They stood awhile perfect; but they afterwards fell, and were driven out of Paradise, tasting the first-fruits of bitterness as they had done of bliss. But their pangs were such as a pure spirit |