She'll make you start at every noise you hear, Then Melancholy, with sad and sober face, Mirth good for nothing is, like weeds doth grow, Or such plants as cause madness, reason's foe. Her face with laughter crumples on a heap, Which makes great wrinkles, and ploughs furrows deep; Her mouth doth gape, teeth bare, like one that's dead, A palace 'tis, and of a great resort, It makes a noise, and gives a loud report, Beat down the house, and many kill'd thereby: My music is the buzzing of a fly; I walk in meadows, where grows fresh green grass, To hear how sheep do bleat, and cows do low; Yet better loved the more that I am known; OF THE THEME OF LOVE O Love, how thou art tired out with rhyme! THE FUNERAL OF CALAMITY. Calamity was laid on Sorrow's hearse, FAR above all the poets of his own age, and, in learning, invention, ana sublimity, without an equal in the whole range of English literature, stands JOHN MILTON. He was born in London, December 9, 1608. His father. who was a scrivener, and who had suffered much for conscience' sake, doubtless infused into his son those principles of religious freedom which made him, in subsequent years, the bulwark of that holy cause in England. He was also early instructed in music, to which may doubtless be attributed that richness and harmony of his versification which distinguished him as much as his learning and imagination. His early education was conducted with great care. At sixteen he entered the University of Cambridge. After leav ing the university, where he was distinguished for his scholarship, he retired to the house of his father, who had relinquished business, and had purchased a small property at Horton in Buckinghamshire. Here he lived five years, devoting his time most assiduously to classical literature, raking the wellknown remark that he "CARED NOT HOW LATE HE CAME INTO LIFE, ONLY THAT HE CAME FIT." While in the university he had written his grand * Hymn on the Nativity, any one verse of which was sufficient to show that a new and great light was about to rise on English poetry:" and there, at his father's, he wrote his "Comus," and "Lycidas," his "L'Allegro," and "Il Penseroso," and his "Arcades." 44 In 1638 he went to Italy, the most accomplished Englishman that ever visited her classical shores. Here his society was courted by "the choicest Italian wits," and he visited Galileo,' then a prisoner in the Inquisition. On his return home, he opened a school in London, and devoted himself with great assiduity to the business of instruction. In the mean time, he entered into the religious disputes of the day, engaging in the controversy singie handed against all the royalists and prelates; and though numbering among 1 "The Tuscan artist." Paradise Lost, book 1. line 288. his antagonists such men as Bishop Hall and Archbishop Usher, proving himself equal to them all. In 1643 he married the daughter of Richard Powell, a nigh royalist; but the connection did not prove a happy one, his wife being utterly incapable of appreciating the loftiness and purity of the poet's character. In 1649 he was appointed foreign secretary under Cromwell, which office he held till the death of Cromwell, 1658. For ten years Milton's eyesight had been failing, owing to the "wearisome studies and midnight watchings" of his youth. The last remains of it were sacrificed in the composition of his "Defensio Populi," (Defence of the People of England;) and by the close of the year 1652 he was totally blind: "Dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon." At the Restoration he was obliged to conceal himself till the publication of the act of oblivion released him from danger. He then devoted himself exclusively to study, and espe cially to the composition of "Paradise Lost." The idea of this unequalled poem was probably conceived as early as 1642. It was published in 1667. For the first and second editions the blind poet received but the sum of five pounds each! In 1671 he produced his "Paradise Regained," and "Samson Agonistes." A long sufferer from an hereditary disease, his life was now drawing to a close. His mind was calm and bright to the last, and he died without a struggle, on Sunday, the 8th of November, 1674. It is hardly necessary here to make any criticisms upon the works of this "greatest of great men," as essays almost numberless may be found upon his life and writings. His chief poetical works are—1. His “Paradise Lost," in twelve books, which is an account of the temptation and fall of our first Larents. 2. "Paradise Regained," in four books, depicting the temptation and triumph of "the second Adam, the Lord from Heaven." 3. "Samson Agomustes," ," a dramatic poem, relating the incidents of the life of the great champion of the Israelites, from the period of his blindness to the catastrophe that ended in his death. 4. "Lycidas," a monody on the death of a beloved 1 The best edition of Milton's poetry is that of Todd: London, 1809, 7 vols. This contains the invaluable verbal index. Another excellent edition has been edited by Sir Egerton Brydges, in 6 vols., the first volume of which is taken up with his life, written with that taste and discrimination so characteristic of the author, to whom English literature is under lasting obligations. The best edition of his prose works is by Symmons, 7 vols. 8vo. His prose and poetry have been published in London in one large royal 8vo. An edition of his prose works has been edited in this country by the Rev. Rufus W. Griswold. An eloquent Essay on Milton may be found in Macaulay's Miscellanies; another in the Retrospective Review, xiv. 282; and another in the London Quarterly, xxxvi. 29. In the following numbers of the Spectator, Addison has written a series of admirable criticisms on the "Paradise Lost:" 262, 267, 273, 279, and so on for fifteen more numbers, at intervals of six, being published every Saturday. In No. 76 of the Observer, by Cumberland, there are some remarks upon the "Samson Agonistes." Consult, also, Hallam's "Literature of Europe;" and read an admirable article on Milton in Dr. Channing's works. Of Johnson's "Life," Sir Egerton Brydges justly remarks: "It is written in a bad, malignant, and even vulgar spirit. The language is sometimes coarse, and the humor pedantic and gross. The criticism on the Paradise Lost is powerful and grand: the criticism on the other poems is mean, false, and execrable -Imaginative Biography, i. 149. Of Addison's "Essay," the same writer says: "It ought to be studied and almost got by heart by every cultivated mind which understands the English language. It is in all respects a masterly performance; just in thought, full of taste and the finest sensibility, cloquent and beautiful in composition, widely learned, and so clearly explanatory of the true principles of poetry, that whoever is master of them cannot mistake in his decision of poetical merit. It puts Milton above all other poets on such tests as cannot be resisted."— Life, 1. 221. 2 That is, “the champion," "the combatant," from the Greek aywvorns, (agonistes,) “a combatant at the public games." friend, (Mr. Edward King,) who was shipwrecked in the Irish Sea. 5. L'Allegro," an ode to mirth. 6. "Il Penseroso," an ode to melancholy. 7. "Comus, a mask," the purest and most exquisite creation of the imagination and fancy in English literature. 8. "Arcades," a part of a mask 9 Hymn on the Nativity." 10. "Sonnets." ODE ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY." I. This is the month, and this the happy morn, That he our deadly forfeit should release, 11. That glorious form, that light unsufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-table He laid aside; and, here with us to be, Forsook the courts of everlasting day, And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain, To welcome him to this his new abode, Now while the Heaven, by the sun's team untrod, Hath took no print of the approaching light, And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright? IV. See how from far upon the eastern road The star-led wizards haste with odors sweet; O run, prevent them with thy humble ode, And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; Have thou the honor first thy Lord to greet, And join thy voice unto the angel quire, From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire. 1 " Arcades," that is, the Arcadian shepherds: of course, It is of a pastoral character. 2 "When it is recollected that this piece was produced by the author at the age of twenty-one, all deep thinkers, of fancy and sensibility, must pore over it with delighted wonder. The vigor, the grandeur, the imaginativeness of the conception; the force and maturity of language; the bound, the gathering strength, the thundering roll of the metre; the largeness of the views; the extent of the learning; the solemn and awful tones; the enthusiasm, and a certain spell in the epithets, which puts the reader into a state of mysterious excitement,-all these may be better felt than described."--Sir Egerton Brydges. Q 21 |