consistently drawn: his pride, his courage, his masterful resolution, the tremendous irony with which he edges his purpose at the moment nearest to relenting, his disdain of the loathsome form which he is to assume 3: there is a splendour in the whole conception which removes it as far from the incarnate evil of Puritan Theology as from the grotesque fiends of mediaeval legend. Again, the scene between Samson and Dalila is a wonderful study of a bad woman who, in place of penitence, feels only the sting of wounded vanity, who tries by every device of cajolery and insincere excuse to bring her betrayed lover back again to her feet, and who shows, by the voluble indignation of her failure, that she had no other purpose than to succeed. Finer still, because more subtle, is the change wrought by the Fall upon the characters of Adam and Eve. All the essential qualities which were there before are there still, but they are all for the moment warped and degraded. Eve's impulsiveness turns to unthinking falsehood, her quickness of intelligence to sophistry, her very love becomes tainted with selfish fears 5 Adam's rebuke, grave and dignified before he partakes of the transgression, grows afterwards harsh, stern, and acrimonious. Yet because knowledge is of good as well as evil, the better part in the end prevails; love and hope and strength return with a deeper note of experience, and Eve's closing words are full of the promise of a new life. ; Thirdly, for all his magnificent austerity, Milton has moments of very keen and genuine feeling. The sonnet on his late-espoused Saint' is an instance, so is that on the Massacres in Piedmont, which burns like one of the denunciatory Psalms; 1 Bk. II, passim. 3 Bk. IX, 162-78. 4 2 Bk. IV, 358-92. Samson Agonistes, 710-996. 5 See especially her speeches on pp. 60, 63, 65 of this volume. Bk. XII, 614-24. the three famous passages on his blindness rise tone by tone to a cry of almost intolerable agony. No doubt such moments are rare-Milton was not one who frequently unlocked his heart--but when they come they are overwhelming. His two most obvious faults are so obvious that they need little more than the bare mention. He had no humour-the elephant of his Eden is the type and pattern of his own jesting, and we could well spare the frigid epigrams, the scene of Satan's artillery, and, except for one memorable line, the sonnet on Tetrachordon. Worse than this, he has, in the highest matters, no reticence. Dante, who describes every circle in Hell and every step of the Hill of Purgatory, turns back in awe from the White Rose of Paradise. St. John was admitted to the vision of the Son of Man, 'And when I saw Him I fell at his feet as dead.' Milton stands in the Presence with knee unbent and head unbowed: he relates the ineffable, he circumscribes the Infinite, he penetrates into the celestial counsels, and without misgiving 'justifies the ways of God'. His Heaven is a little lower than Olympus: a mundane kingdom which is stately, wise, dignified, but not divine. To speak of his poetic form is to speak of the nearest approach to perfection that English verse has yet attained. It was influenced by Spenser and Marlowe Mr. Milton,' says Dryden, hath confessed to me that Spenser was his original'; but it far surpasses even the two great models which it followed. Strong, sonorous, flexible, rich with classic idiom and allusion, it holds in faultless design its counterchange of circling rhythms: like some vast polyphonic web of melodies that call and answer and intertwine at a solemn music. There is no blank verse like that of Paradise Lost; none other that moves with such fullness and majesty, that carries such variety of stress and colour, that has so supreme a sense of the value of noble words. Tennyson spoke of Virgil's hexameter as 'the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man': if it be possible to compare two achievements so dissimilar, we may find here a rival by whom even that pre-eminence can be challenged. JOHN MILTON (1608-1674) was born in London and educated at St. Paul's and at Christ's College, Cambridge. According to Aubrey he was a poet from the age of ten; and he certainly wrote poems both in Latin and English while at the University. For some time after he thought of taking Orders, but he was strongly opposed to the Church policy of Laud, and finally abandoned the idea and settled with his father at Horton. Here he wrote L'Allegro and Penseroso (probably in 1632). In 1634 he wrote the masque of Arcades, and this was shortly followed by Comus, which was acted at Ludlow Castle in September, 1634. Lycidas appeared in 1637. Milton now spent some time travelling in Italy, where he was well received. He repaid the civilities of his hosts with Latin and Italian poems. He was recalled to England by the condition of affairs, and in 1639 he settled in Aldersgate Street and devoted himself to the education of his two nephews. More pupils came later, and for a short time Milton kept a sort of small school. He was already planning a great poem on the lines of Paradise Lost, but political events caused him deliberately to lay aside poetry and take to pamphlet writing. In 1641 he published anonymously three pamphlets in defence of Smectymnuus against the English Bishops: Of Reformation touching Church Discipline in England; Of Prelatical Episcopacy; and Animadversions upon the Remonstrance Defence. These were followed by The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy (1641-2). In 1643 he married Mary Powell, daughter of a cavalier squire near Oxford. His wife was only seventeen, and the marriage proved unhappy. In the same year were published Milton's first pamphlets upon freedom of divorce. These were unlicensed, and the House of Commons directed search to be made for the authors and printers, with a view to punishing them. The only result, however, was the publication of the Areopagitica (1644), which vindicated the liberty of unlicensed printing. Milton now gave up teaching and devoted himself to writing his History of Britain. The death of Charles I called forth The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, and in the same year (1648-9) the Council of State invited him to become their Latin secretary. In October, 1649, he wrote Eikonoklastes, a formal defence of the execution of Charles. In 1650 came the Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio, which cost Milton his eyesight. In the meantime he had been reconciled to his wife. She died in 1652, leaving him with three daughters. In 1654 he wrote the Defensio Secunda, and in 1655 Pro se Defensio, with which he ended this controversy. In 1656 he married Catharine Woodcock, who died within a year. A few short pamphlets appeared during the next four years. In 1660 it was ordered that the Defensio should be burned by the common hangman, and Milton himself was arrested. He was released very shortly, and was allowed to pass the remainder of his life without molestation. In 1662-3 he married for the third time, and soon afterwards moved to Bunhill Fields, where he finally settled. He had already (in 1658) begun to work at Paradise Lost. It was completed in 1663. In 1671 Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes appeared together. Among the more important of his works, in addition to those mentioned, are: Sonnets, written as occasion called them forth, and scattered over many years; the tractate Of Education (1644); and A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes (1658-9). SONGS FROM COMUS SWEET Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen By slow Meander's margent green; And in the violet-embroidered vale Where the love-lorn nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well: That likest thy Narcissus are? A beautiful youth beloved by the nymph Echo. Ovid, Met. iii. 356, &c. O, if thou have Hid them in some flowery cave, Tell me but where, Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere ! And give resounding grace to all Heaven's harmonies. Sabrina fair, Listen where thou art sitting Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave; Listen and save. Sabrina rises, attended by Water-nymphs, and sings. By the rushy-fringed bank, Where grows the willow and the osier dank, My sliding chariot stays; Thick set with agate, and the azure sheen That in the channel strays; FROM AREOPAGITICA 10 10 Now once again by all concurrence of signs and by the general instinct of holy and devout men, as they daily and solemnly express their thoughts, God is decreeing to |