'Merciful Heaven!

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,
Splitt'st the unwedgable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle ?'*

“I have perambulated far from the Poem, in all this; but serious thoughts flow naturally from its solemn theme, and forcibly to divert or counteract their current is ill beseeming a man who cannot be far distant from an abiding city, a place in another country, where he must rest or else be restless for ever.'t Let us however enter, for a little while, this Lost Paradise, at whose exterior we have thus lingered.

"Yet, pausing for a brief moment at its entrance, is it not beyond expression interesting, to review, through the medium of truthful history and apocryphal tradition, the process by which this stupendous poetic pyramid was reared—a structure so unapproachable in the grandeur of its symmetry, that the solitary achievements of others-imposing when solitarily surveyed-appear insignificant if placed in juxtaposition with it. There exists an indestructible cluster of the habitations of Poesy, distinguished by various charms; but they shrink into shadow when viewed + Taylor.

* Measure for Measure.-Shakspeare.

by an eye which the contemplation of dimensions so vast has distended and enlarged. It is not the greatest of heroic poems, only because it is not the first,' says Dr. Johnson; but stands it not unparalleled in its sublimity? From what we know of Milton's selfdependency, I fancy there was never a Poet who, conscious of having consummated a great work, of which many co-operating causes might tend to mar the reputation at the period of its completion, confided so assuredly in ultimate appreciation, as did this illustrious man. The contrast between Milton and Shakspeare in this respect, is remarkable: the latter sensitively shrinks from posthumous notoriety; and in his poems almost painfully protests against being made a candidate for the plaudits of posterity:

“O if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
Lest the wise world mock."

And again,

"O, lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue,

My name be buried where my body is,

And live no more to shame nor me nor you.

For I am shamed by that which I bring forth."

:

If thou hast ears to hear, O Shade of Shakspeare!

know that the wise world' persists in a contrary notion. But the blind Old Man,' whose intrepidity

urged him beyond the flaming bounds of place and time,' knew no distrust in his reliance on succeeding ages. He had carved for himself a shrine around which Genius in the years to come should wander with suspended breathings; had built for himself, and consciously, a 'live-long monument;' had foresepulchred himself in the reverent remembrance of posterity; had graven in the Roll of the Renowned the name of 'MILTON,' in characters which the failure of intelligence might obscure, but which the flight of Time could not efface. And so I speak of him as moved by fond hopes of glory,'--upheld by the conviction that he had left to future ages a fame they 'would not willingly let die,' he could move on towards Death with the serene dignity of a mighty man from whom Prejudice had withholden cotemporaneous approbation, but whom the Past had taught to regard that present approbation as subsidiary. For him, as with the Great in every generation,

'Enough, if something from his hand had power

To live, and act, and serve the future hour;'*

and a guarantee for the durability of his fame might

6

be found in the theme he had chosen; for man's interest in it was 'infused at the creation of the kind,'

and for ever will it closely come home to men's business and bosoms;'-long as a sentient being, conversant with the Poet's language and the light of letters, mourns in this lower world his alienation from a better, so long will that sublime story be reverently perused, which treats

'Of Man's First Disobedience, and the Fruit

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the world and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.'

6

"The Poet's theme involves our grandest interests, and his illustration of it caught inspiration from its grandeur. As he conceived and prosecuted its argument,' a matter of universal moment was removed so far beyond the sphere in which human reason and imagination are wont to dilate, that had it not been sustained by a gigantic intellect, the proud essay would have provoked reproach;—he explored regions so distant in their latitude and character from this

dim spot which men call Earth,'-assumed a cognizance of beings between whom and us so great a gulf is fixed, that had his design been undevout, his

temerity were of the order of Prometheus. To vindicate' the Infinite to the finite is the high office of sacred ambassadors, effected best by the pure simplicity of His word; but here we witness the Deity vindicated to the child of dust, by a basement and partial outwork of corroborated truth, built upon and filled in by a fancy which, though fallen and fallible, was abashed to no arrestive degree by the consciousness of frailty-confined within no boundary of being; -wiser than Uriel, nigh to God-than Satan, chief in hell: with buoyancy to soar to the sublimest turret of the pavilion of Heaven's King, with gravamen to descend to the profoundest mine of dark confederate fiends, with elasticity to expand over all space; above, in more than Sinai-like proximity with The Presence in whose radiance the angels veil; beneath, in dread vicinity with the Arch-rebel at whose voice the hollow deep of hell resounds.'—These are associations that enter into Milton's justification of GOD, itself 'justified only by success."*"

C.-Numerous are the opinions that take possession of our minds without a substantial title, and (probably from getting into company with our prejudices,) become exceedingly difficult to dislodge.

* Johnson.