Of the human actors, or, rather, sufferers, throughout this poem, the war in heaven, the creation of the world, and the prophetic disclosures with which it closes, analysis or exposition would be vain in this place. The first appearance of Adam and Eve, in Book IV., is a vision of beauty, unequalled in poetry. Their innocent endearments, their conjugal affection, their sweet and delicate discourse, their pastimes, their labours, their devotions, are all conceived and expressed with consummate ability. In the first pair Milton has delineated theideal, which he fondly cherished, but never realized, of "wedded love." "Here Love his golden shafts employs; here lights his constant lamp, and waves his purple wings; reigns here and revels." In all this author's poems there are no love-verses, addressed either to a living or an imaginary mistress-no Beatrice, no Laura, no Leonora.-In some of his school-boy elegiacs, in Latin, there are allusions to a tender passion, and a very ornate dream of a lady whom he saw in sleep, and sought, in vain, through the world afterwards, but it was manifestly head-work; there is not a trace of heart-love there, or elsewhere, except in the sonnet on his "late deceased saint," his second wife, formerly noticed. And yet no man of woman born has more glorified woman, in prose or rhyme, than he has done in Paradise Lost, in Comus, and even in his Treatise on Divorce.

Against one insuperable difficulty Milton had to wrestle, all the way through his subject, in Paradise Lost; -the inexplicable and inextricable confusion continually recurring between the properties of matter and spirit in his preternatural agency. Dante before him had bravely encountered this perplexity; and, though not in one instance has he succeeded in disentangling the knot,

yet it neither fettered nor hindered him from pursuing his resolute course through a Hell, a Purgatory, and a Heaven, of his own creation, in which impossibilities on earth were the events of every day in his new universe. Milton, in the battle of angels especially, has achieved prodigies of invention, and his triumph, though far from being complete, sufficiently proves that he came short only from the absolute impracticability of any attempt to symbolize eternal realities by temporal things. The close of the conflict, by the interposition of the Messiah, is, beyond comparison, great as the record of what might have been, in such a case:-"So spake the Son, and into terror changed his countenance, too severe to be beheld," to the end of Raphael's narrative. The whole power of the poet's mind, and the whole strength of the English language, are here summoned to describe the one act of the conqueror, routing, expelling and pursuing the enemy, till, from the precipice into the infernal gulf,

"headlong themselves they threw, Down from the verge of heaven; eternal wrath Burnt after them to the bottomless pit."

PARADISE LOST, Book VI.

Much criticism has been expended to prove that the allegorical parts of this poem are faults which no law of epic poetry can absolve. But not one of the censors has ventured to demand that execution should be done upon "Sin and Death," "Chaos and ancient Night," nor even the phantasms that people "the Limbo of Vanity." Offences if these be, what poet would not wish to have committed them; or would not go and do likewise, if he could, at his peril ?

The burthen of Paradise Regained is our Saviour's temptation by the devil in the wilderness. This pro

duction has been unworthily disparaged; a sober judgment will, probably, pronounce it inferior to its predecessor only in proportion as the action, passion, and moral of the subject are necessarily inferior. Our Lord's obedience, in that hour and power of darkness, was but one step in his suffering life, and towards his atoning death, by which, at his glorious resurrection and ascension, he opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers."

The following extracts from this neglected poem will sufficiently show that, where the theme admitted of noble expressions, there was no falling-off of genius in the author to give utterance to such. The tempter plays his part, with consummate address, under the various disguises which he assumes. Through all of these, however, Jesus discerns him, and defeats his devices; confuting his arguments, and confounding his sophistries, though both are set forth with all the splendour of eloquence, and the subtlety of perverted logic; while the Redeemer's replies are in the plainest language that human invention could put into the mouth of Him, of whom it was said, "never man spake like this man." The narrative and descriptive portions of the work are of the richest materials and the rarest workmanship.

When Satan, from "the specular mount," is showing to our Saviour all the kingdoms of the earth and their glory, the discovery of the Parthian armies in motion. affords a magnificent spectacle :

666

now the Parthian king
In Ctesiphon, hath gather'd all his host
Against the Scythian, whose incursions wild

Have wasted Sogdiana; to her aid

He marches now in haste; see, though from far,

His thousands, in what martial equipage

They issue forth, steel bows and shafts their arms,

Of equal dread in flight or in pursuit;

All horsemen, in which fight they most excel;
See how in warlike muster they appear,

In rhombs, and wedges, and half-moons, and wings.'
He look'd, and saw what numbers numberless
The city gates out-pour'd, light-armed troops
In coats of mail and military pride;

In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong,
Prancing their riders bore, the flower and choice
Of many provinces from bound to bound.

He saw them in their forms of battle ranged,
How quick they wheel'd, and, flying, behind them shot
Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face
Of their pursuers, and overcame by flight;
The field all iron cast a gleaming brown:
Nor wanted clouds of foot, nor, on each horn,
Cuirassiers, all in steel for standing fight,
Chariots, or elephants indorsed with towers
Of archers; nor of labouring pioneers
A multitude, with spades and axes arm'd,
To lay hills plain, fell woods, or valleys fill,
Or, where plain was, raise hill, or overlay
With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke;
Mules after these, camels and dromedaries,
And wagons fraught with utensils of war."

Our mighty poet here marshals the words of the English language like disciplined troops, and makes them move, advance, shift, and perform all the feats and manœuvres which, in this marvellous paragraph, he represents the Parthian armies as performing. So perfectly do the sounds, the turns, and the pauses of the verse, though addressed to the ear, convey to the eye the images which they are intended to depict.

The greater part of Book IV. is equal to anything

corresponding with the subjects in the former poem. The vision of Athens excels in beauty and splendour all that her own poets, historians, and orators have said in her praise. But another scene will be as seasonable here, to exhibit the undiminished talents of the author of Paradise Lost in Paradise Regained.

"Darkness now rose,

As daylight sunk, and brought in lowering night,
Her shadowy offspring.

Our Saviour, meek, and with untroubled mind,
After his airy jaunt, though hurried sore,

Hungry and cold, betook him to his rest,
Wherever, under some concourse of shades,

Whose branching arms thick intertwined might shield,
From dews and damps of night, his shelter'd head,
But, shelter'd, slept in vain; for at his head
The tempter watch'd, and soon with ugly dreams
Disturb'd his sleep.

And either tropic now

'Gan thunder, and both ends of heaven; the clouds,
From many a horrid rift, abortive pour'd

Fierce rain with lightning mix'd, water with fire
In ruin reconciled: nor slept the winds
Within their stony caves, but rush'd abroad
From the four hinges of the world, and fell
On the vex'd wilderness, whose tallest pines,
Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks,
Bow'd their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,
Or torn up sheer.

Ill wast thou shrouded then,

O patient Son of God! yet only stood'st

Unshaken! Nor yet staid the terror there;

Infernal ghosts and hellish furies round

Environ'd thee; some howl'd, some yell'd, some shriek'd,

Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou

Sat'st unappall'd in calm and sinless peace.
Thus pass'd the night so foul, till morning fair
Came forth with pilgrim steps, in amice grey;