Remarks on the plot of "Paradise Lost."

as it suits his purpose, to the close-packed biblical narrative, he lets his invention wander where it will in the scenes of Hell, of Heaven, and particularly in his episodical account of the revolt and punishment of the fallen angels. Adam, superficially speaking, is only the nominal and conventional hero of Paradise Lost, and the real protagonist is Satan. It is certainly true that the necessarily inferior nature of man, compared with the tremendous agencies which rule his destiny, reduces him, at all events apparently, to a secondary part in the drama; but this difficulty is overcome by the dignity and moral elevation which Milton has given to his human personages, and by his making them the central pivot of the whole action. In this limited space it would be inappropriate to quote passages illustrative either of his poetical mechanism or of sublimity of thought; but it is remarkable that, wherever his imagination and plastic power are seen at work, he soars at once from the concrete and visible into the abstract and unseen.

Macaulay's comparison between the methods of Dante and Milton points to their great difference with regard to this

Pictorial effect of "Paradise

idealising tendency. We spoke of this a few paragraphs back as the real definition of their place with respect to each other among epic poets; here, again, Lost." it has a bearing on details of style and mechanical arrangements. Dante measures and compares, ruler and compasses in hand; Milton simply draws a vast, measureless, impressionist picture. Macaulay compares the passage in which Dante describes Geryon (Inferno xvi. 1) with Milton's description of Satan lying in the fiery lake (Par. Lost, i. 192). Dante goes on the principle of exact mensuration, and likens the monster to familiar and comprehensible objects; Milton, on the other hand, makes the giant bulk of the vanquished demon lie "floating many a rood" on the burning billows, and, for a comparison, turns to picturesque details of Leviathan and the "small night-foundered skiff moored to his scaly rind. Or again, there is the passage of unequalled grandeur (Par. Lost, iv. 985) in which the evil spirit defies Gabriel. The subsidiary comparison here is inseparable from the main idea :—

"On the other side, Satan, alarmed,
Collecting all his might, dilated stood,
Like Teneriffe or Atlas, unremoved:

His stature reached the sky, and on his crest
Sat Horror plumed."

These are only two instances among many of a power which no poet ever possessed in an equal degree. The accompanying comparisons, full of allusions and learning of the highest order, are equally remarkable, so easily and adroitly are they intro

duced.

§ 13. The companion poem to the great epic is its natural

"Paradise

sequel, borrowed from New Testament history, Paradise Regained, which is very much shorter, and consists of only four books. Its subject is the temptation of our Saviour by Satan in the wilderness, and the narrative given in the fourth chapter of St. Matthew is closely Regained." followed throughout. The subject is said to have been suggested by Milton's extraordinary friend, Thomas Ellwood the Quaker. Its choice was evidently dictated by an immoderate estimate of the part played by the Tempter at the Fall, and perhaps from a certain affection for the stupendous conception of Satan. It is clear that the Temptation bears merely an external resemblance Unsatisfacto the Fall; the event which regained a lost Para- tory nature of its subject. dise for man was the Redemption of man through the Saviour's death and resurrection; the Cross, the "tree of glory," is the natural counterpart to the tree of knowledge of good and evil; Calvary is the true sequel to Eden. The Temptation, however important in itself, has nothing to do with the great act of human redemption; and Milton's selection was perhaps due to his advanced age and to his consciousness that he could attempt no worthy treatment of the Passion. A similar apprehension had, years before, put an abrupt end to his ode on the same subject. Some curious spirits have detected a modification of religious belief on Milton's part which prevented him from choosing the Crucifixion as his theme; most people, however, who have come into contact with his type of religious belief know that, whatever its eccentricities may be, the fundamental dogma of the Atonement is the last it is likely to give up. In any case, the almost universal consent of readers places Paradise Regained, in point of interest and variety, very far beneath Paradise Lost. This inferiority is to be attributed, of course, Inferiority to "Paradise to its want of action; for the whole poem is occupied Lost." with the arguments between our Lord and the Tempter, and with the description of the kingdoms of the world as contemplated from the mountain-top. Even in Paradise Lost the long dialogues, frequently turning upon the most arduous subtleties of theology, are now found to be tedious; although, in Milton's own day, when such topics were universally discussed, they probably enjoyed great popularity. But in that poem they are relieved by the constant interference of action. Where, as in Paradise Regained, there is no action whatever, they become doubly tedious. Nevertheless, in this shorter epic, the genius of Milton appears in its ripest and most complete development; the self-restraint of consummate art is everywhere apparent; and, in his descriptions of Rome, Athens, and Babylon, and of their state of society and knowledge, the great poet has reached a height of solemn grandeur which shows him to have lost nothing either of imagination or of learning. We may analyse the poem as

follows:-Book I. After His baptism, Jesus, meditating on His birth and His divine mission, retires into the wilderness. Satan appears under the disguise of an old peasant, and Analysis of endeavours to justify himself. Book II contains "Paradise Regained." a consultation of the evil spirits, after which Satan tempts our Lord with a banquet and afterwards with riches. În Book III Satan pursues his attempts, and endeavours to excite ambition in the Saviour's mind by showing Him the kingdoms of Asia. Book IV exhibits further the greatness of Rome and the intellectual glories of Athens. Our Lord, after having been conveyed back to the desert, is exposed to a pitiless storm; Satan again appears, and, after carrying his divine Adversary to the pinnacle of the temple, is again defeated and reduced to silence. The poem ends in the triumphant hymn of the angels ministering to our Lord after His fast. In grandeur and elevation Paradise Regained in no sense yields to its immortal companion; but the brilliance of its colouring and the intensity of its interest are inferior. It may be said that the beauties of Paradise Regained will, generally speaking, be more perceptible as the reader advances in life, and especially if his contemplative faculty be more fully developed than his imagination.

§ 14. To this closing period of Milton's literary life belongs the tragedy of Samson Agonistes, which is constructed according to the strictest rules of Hellenic drama. The preface, "Samson a noble explanation of the scope of the work as an Agonistes." experiment in the highest style of tragedy, "the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems," is well worth careful reading as a type of Milton's prose style at his best. It is astonishing to find how, in adopting this intensely artificial manner, the poet overcomes all its hindrances. As in the Greek drama, the action is simple, the persons few, the statuesque severity of the iambic dialogue is relieved by the majestic lyrics given to the Chorus. Samson himself acts as spokesman, in the Greek manner, at the beginning of the poem; similarly, the catastrophe, which cannot be worthily represented on the stage, is related by a messenger. In the character of the hero, his blindness, his sufferings, and his resignation to the will of God, Milton refers to his own afflictions. The whole piece reflects most faithfully the austere patriotism and religious feeling of the Old Testament, and the lyric choruses are perhaps the highest flight of the author's genius. He copies all the details of style and construction from the ancient dramas, and so closely that it is no exaggeration to say that, from a study of Samson Agonistes, a modern reader will obtain a more exact impression of the nature of Greek tragedy than from the most faithful translation of Sophocles or Euripides. Further, the stories of the Old Testament are, to our minds, precisely what the legends of heroes and demigods were to the Greeks; and therefore Milton's Samson, con

structed on the lines of Æschylus' Prometheus Vinctus or Euripides' Hercules Furens, and dealing with the sacred life and death of a religious hero, gives us some ap- Appropriate preciation of the hallowed meaning which those ness of the tragedies conveyed to the Athenian mind. It is treatment of hardly too much to say that the Miltonic scholar "Samson" to its subject. -and the word implies a scholarship reaching beyond Milton's own vast horizon, which few can compassfinds his final feast amid the treasures of the Samson Agonistes, and in the closely compressed beauty of its difficult, elliptic, and involved style, which to many readers proves somewhat formidable. And it is certainly true, so far as English literature goes, that the end of tragedy, its ideal representation, its unfolding of the ways of fate in human affairs, has only in two cases been approached as nearly-in Hamlet and King Lear.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

CONTEMPORARIES OF

MILTON.

Closely connected with Milton, principally in a political, but in some degree also in a literary relation, is the name of ANDREW MARVELL (1621-1678). He was born at Winestead, near Hull, in 1621, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and passed the earlier part of his life in travel. About 1650 he became tutor in the Fairfax family at Nun Appleton in Yorkshire, where he wrote lyric poetry fit to rank among the best pre-Restoration verse. In 1653 Milton recommended him to Bradshaw for the post of assistant Latin secretary. The appointment did not fall to him till 1657; but Marvell seems to have entertained all along the strongest admiration for the great poet whose colleague he thus became, and a friendship sprang up between them, founded on a common bond of tastes and agreement in religious and political questions. During the Protectorate of Richard Cromwell, Marvell was returned to Parliament as member for Hull, and, to his death he maintained an incorruptible honesty and fidelity to his rigid principles. The Restoration was a bitter thing to him, in whose display of licence and arbitrary power he could not acquiesce. Under these

circumstances the poet and scholar turned satirist, belabouring the social and political vices of the time unmercifully and not without unnecessary coarseness. Many anecdotes of his constancy, his virtue, and his ready wit still exist, not always on very good authority, but all concurring in the main features of his character. He was not only eloquent, but seems to have commanded the respect of all his hearers of whatever party, which proves that, with all his Puritan stiffness, he must have been good-natured and sympathetic. His friendship with Milton is the most interesting feature of his life, but, even without that, he would claim considerable attention. His earlier lyrics, the Lamentation of the Nymph on the Death of her Fawn, The Song of the Emigrants to Bermuda, and the Thoughts in a Garden, are full of pleasant fancies and a singular choice of expression. On the other hand, his satire, The Character of Holland (1665), is a mixture of droll exaggeration and ingenious buffoonery, not at all unlike the spirit of Hudibras. Marvell is certainly the most lovable of the Puritan writers, and was one of the most respectable men of his age. The extent of his genius can hardly be judged appropriately, since he wrote comparatively little, but that