high literary merit is remarkable. But we can go farther than this. Cædmon's work is not only meritorious by comparison with the rudeness of the age in which it was produced, but, intrinsically, it takes high rank in our literature. It is true that the poem contains but few similes; still the same may be said of the Beowulf, and of Anglo-Saxon poetry in general. In chasteness of diction, however, in smoothness of versification, in purity of thought, in the human sympathy which breathes forth in every line, no less than in the invention of incident, the arrangement of episodes, and the dignified tone of the ending, it is worthy of the high place which, in days gone by, it held in the estimation of the Venerable Beda, of King Alfred, and of the learned Dujon; and which it still holds in the heart of every lover of AngloSaxon poetry of the present day. Indeed, as we shall subsequently see, the poem, as a whole, will bear favourable comparison, in many respects, with the more elaborate epic of the erudite Secretary of the Commonwealth, and in more than one passage, evinces a chaste and delicate line of thought, while the corresponding passages in Milton, cannot fail to displease by their coarseness and repulsiveness.

CHAPTER IV.

Cadmon's Poem and Milton's Epic, a Comparative Study-Prologue and Creation.

IN

the opening lines of Paradise Lost, when invoking the aid of the Heavenly Muse, Milton expresses the opinion that his "adventrous song" is a unique production in literature, involving,

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme,

and it is beyond doubt that he fully believed in his own estimate of the sacred epic.

Nor do we propose to call this statement in question, as it must be acknowledged that, in a certain sense and under certain limitations, Milton's description of his own work is a true one.

That there existed a number of dramas and poems on the same subject as Paradise Lost, even at the time when the poet made the first rough outline of his future work [1639-42], and still more so when he began the actual writing of his epic [1658], has

been conclusively proved by quite a number of distinguished editors and critics of Milton's works; especially, by the Rev. Henry John Todd in the Introduction to his variorum Edition, where he enumerates the claims of some thirty authors, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch, to the credit of having, probably or possibly, contributed something to the conception, the plan, or the execution of Milton's great poem. Voltaire, in his Essay on Epic Poetry, originally written in English [1727], during his stay in England, was the first to suggest that Milton had borrowed his “original” from a Scriptural drama that he had witnessed while in Italy [1638-9], entitled Adamo, written by a certain Giovanni Battista Andreini, the son of an Italian actress, and known, in both Italy and France, as a writer of comedies and religious poems. This hint of Voltaire's, led to the opening up of one of those, so-called, literary questions that, now and again, have diverted the attention of the scholar from the study of true literature into channels of worthless speculation and useless criticism. Indeed, for many a long year, the question of the particular author to whom Milton may have been indebted for hints and fancies in his Paradise Lost, continued to be a favourite topic of research; and unfortunately, even * Vide Vol. I., pp. 230–270, Edition 1852.

at this late day, the question, thus mooted, has not received its final quietus.

Leaving out of consideration this unedifying question of Milton's possible obligations to previous authors, and passing by even the perfectly legitimate literary question of Milton's "borrowings," and the sources of his poetic similes, illustrations, and images, all that we propose to do is to consider the only two works, written anterior to Milton's time, which can, by any stretch of the imagination, be compared, as literary works, with the celebrated epic of the Latin Secretary of the Commonwealth ; we refer to the Divina Commedia of Dante and Cædmon's "Fall of Man."

That Milton was thoroughly familiar with the immortal work of the great Italian poet there can be no doubt, both from the fact of his well known familiarity with Italian literature, and from his evident "borrowings" from Dante. In the lines in which he describes Hell, as

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes

That comes to all,

we are, at once, reminded of the terrible inscription over the entrance to Inferno,

"Lasciate ogni speranza voi che entrate."

So, again, the influence of Dante's healthier and less materialistic views on the punishments of Hell, as expressed in his Inferno, and his more philosophical, or psychological treatment of the subject, can be traced in many a passage of Paradise Lost, where the Italian's more metaphysical conception crops out quaintly from beneath the puritan theology of Milton's day. But granting all this, there is no "copying," no "original," but simply a suspicion of Dante's higher philosophy, flavouring, so to speak, the dry theology of the puritan poet.

With regard to Cædmon, however, the case is somewhat different. His "Fall of Man" is the only poem, so far discovered, that could be supposed for a single moment to have influenced Milton's brilliant and powerful imagination. As we have already seen, the discovery of this long lost manuscript, and its publication by Junius at Amsterdam in 1655, render it possible that Milton may have seen the work of the Anglo-Saxon poet, prior to the commencement of his Paradise Lost. Indeed, if we take into consideration Milton's insatiable appetite for reading, and his keen interest in all that was passing in the literary world of his day, it amounts to a moral certainty that the publication of such a literary curiosity as the long lost manuscript of Cadmon, must have found its way into Milton's quiet home in Petty