J thors. Shakespeare has nothing about him of the gravity, and learning, and classic dignity of the schools of Greece and Rome. All is native, natural, and original. If he soars, it is with the firm and easy pinion of the eagle. If he warbles, it is with as unstudied a note as nature's own choristers." If he is sublime, it is a sublimity which he found not in Longinus, but in his own bosom. Nature found him, in all that regarded human learning, abandoned by man. Like Moses in the bulrushes, he became the child of her adoption. She endowed him with "that large and comprehensive soul" which she knew could create a learning for itself. She led him to her own secret and solitary haunts. She spread before him the book of her wonders, It was after such nurture and admonition that he came forth into the congregations of men, and he came conquering and to conquer." to draw a parallel between them, If the distinction which has been drawn between these two great poets be correct; if, in the first, we find the greatest example which our English literature affords of powerful talents, assisted by the highest degree of cultivation, and in the other, of great and uneducated genius, I know not that there could be a more pleasing task than to follow them in an examination of some of their most celebrated works through the course of their poetical life ---to endeavour to trace their progress to that height from which they have long continued to look down on succeeding generations of poets, who have been passing below them into oblivion. In examining their different works, according to the order in which they were composed, we shall be enabled Comus was written in the 1634, at Horton near Colne Brooke in Buckinghamshire. "I had my time, readers, (says he in his Apology for Smyetyminus,) as others have who have good learning bestowed upon them, to be sent to those places where the opinion was it might soonest be attained, and as the manner is, was not unstudied in those authors which are most commended, whereof some were grave orators and historians, whose matter me-thought I loved indeed, but as my age then was so I understood them. Others were the smooth elegiac poets, whereof the schools are not scarce. Whom both for the pleasing sound tion I found most easy, and most agreeaof their numerous writing, which in imitable to Nature's part in me, and for their matter which what it is there be few that know not, I was so allured to read, that no recreation came to me better welcome." "Thus, from the laureat fraternity of poets, riper years, and the ceaseless round of study and reading, led me to the shady spaces of philosophy, but chiefly to the divine volumes of Plato and his equal Xenophon."-Apology for Smectymnus. "I betook me," he continues in the same Apology," to among those lofty fables and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of knighthood founded by our victorious kings, and from hence had in renown all over Christendom. There us, had been engaged, as he himself tells He had studied and had imitated the pas The traces of these masters are clearly distinguishable in the structure, the morality, and the versification of Comus. The structure is entirely Grecian. The morality consists of the noblest parts of the Greek philosophy engrafted upon the divine truths, and sublimed by the purer creed of the Christian system. The versification is infinitely above his models-the elegiac poets. It is "musical as Apollo's lute."* read it in the oath of every knight, that he should defend, to the expence of his best blood, or of his life, if it so befell him, the honour and chastity of virgin or matron. From whence, even then, I learnt what a noble virtue chastity sure must be, to the defence of which so many worthies by so dear an adventure, had bound themselves. This expression of Milton's, when he describes divine philosophy to be "musical as is Apollo's lute," is borrowed from Love's Labour Lost, Act IV. sc. 3. But Milton's genius was not of that Mortals, who would follow me, Heaven itself would stoop to her. The opening is quite in character with this high design. A heavenly inhabitant of another world, clothed in " pure ambrosial weeds," descends upon this earth. Before the starry threshold of Jove's court Of bright aerial spirits live unspher'd that by due steps aspire To lay their just hands on that golden key That opes the palace of eternity; informing us in this manner, that we are not to expect, under the title of a masque, some light and trifling poem, some work, as its great author himself says, in speaking on another sub Shakespeare's Love's Labours Lost. In Subtle as sphinx-as sweet and musical 1820. ject, "to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist," but a grave and severe production, more consonant to the character of the poet, and those high ideas which he had already formed of the dignity and excellence of bis art. But though this grave and temperate tone is one of the strongest features in the composition of the poem, yet Milton has not forgotten that Comus was intended for the study of the young, nor has he scrupled to give the reins to that wonderful imagination, which, although it had not yet reached the full force of manhood, was glowing with all the warmth and brilliancy of youth. The fiction of Comus and his crew, the scenery in which he introduces them, the dark and embrowned forest where their riot is first heard, their sudden entering with torches in their hands, and their apparel glistering---the unruly welcome that is given to the low and sensual sports which are so greedily followed by those who love To roll with pleasure in a sensual stye, Comus. And on the tawny sands and shelves, There merry wakes and pastimes keep, Reasons for Church Government, Part II. Toland's edition, Prose Works, p. With such sweet descriptions as these, where the fairies dance before us to the light of the moon, and the wood-nymphs keep their pastimes on the brink of the fountains, the poet has contrived to vary the scenes of low and of sensual merriment which follow in the train of the magician. Had not this been done, such scenes might have been too gross for that purity which is the prevailing character of the poem. The description of fairy gambols in the Tempest is still more playful and beautiful than the picture given of the dapper elves" in Comus. Shakespeare introduces these demy-puppets, not only dancing on the tawny sands with by moonlight, but chasing printless feet" the waves when the tide is ebbing, and flying back when it approaches. Ye elves of brooks, hills, standing lakes, and groves, And ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back; you demy-puppets that By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets ́ make Whereof the ewe not bites-Tempest. But to return to Comus. It is im possible to analyse it, or to present any thing like an abstract of its beau ties. If we look to the higher quali fications of poetry for noble and virtuous sentiments expressed with the simple majesty of truth and goodness, the speeches of the brothers, the soliloquies of the lady, the scene of temptation and enchantment between her and Comus, furnish us with many examples which are perhaps without parallel in the whole range of English poetry. Nothing can be more finely described, in the character of the lady, than the fears and feelings of undefended innocence, when she is first separated from her brothers, and begins to breathe. the "spungy air, and to be surrounded by the dazzling spells" of the magician. What might this be? A thousand fanta- Begin to throng into my memory, And aëry tongues, that syllable men's names were, To keep my life and honour unassail'd. To this speech of the lady succeeds Comus's well-known address, after the Song of Sweet Echo,-a passage with which every lover of English poetry is deeply familiar, and beside which all other descriptions of the power of music, with the exception of some similar passages in Shakespeare, are dull, flat, and spiritless. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment? Sure something holy lodges in that breast, And with these raptures moves the vocal air Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years, But let me not offer an injustice to the genius of Shakespeare, an injury to the education of Nature. In describing the effects of music, in delineating that mysterious influence which a concourse of sweet sounds are obin our nature, there are several passerved to have upon the finer feelings sages in the great dramatist which are able to stand comparison with the speech of Comus. In the Tempest, the effect of Ariel's music upon Ferdinand is beautifully described. Where should this music be? i'the air, or the earth? It sounds no more-and sure it waits upon Some god of the island-sitting on a bank Weeping again the king, my father's, wreck. This music crept by me-upon the waters' is here finely given with all the brevity and all the beauty of Shakespeare. Milton's love of music is that of one whose natural taste has been heightened by scientific cultivation. In the speech of Comus, indeed, we see nothing of this; but, in the Allegro, his taste for the scientific part of the of Milton with the homely language in which another contemporary writer, William Brown, describes the Nereids seeking herbs for Circe, and "letting in a song." Call to a dance the fair Nereids, With other nymphs, which do in every crceke, In woods, on plains, on mountains simples secke For powerful Circe, and let in a song. Inner Temple Masque. art is sufficiently marked. His songs Such as the meeting soul may pierce Shakespeare possessed evidently nothing of the science, but was deeply infected with the love of music. He felt its influence in producing that If music be the food of love, play on, In the same play there is a passage, of these ancient melodies. Mark it, Cesario-it is old and plain; with hones, Do use to chaunt it-it is silly, sooth, Music is introduced by Shakespeare more as tending to heighten the beauty of particular scenes, than as itself the subject of any lengthened description. It is introduced more as an accessory than as a principal part of the piece. And this is strictly dramatic. In Milton's Comus, which, although thrown into the shape of a drama, partakes much of the nature of a didactic and philosophic poem, an ela borate description of the effects of this exquisite science is strictly regular. In the musical pieces of Shakespeare; on the other hand, a few rapid and masterly touches, but placed with admirable skill and deep feeling, are all that he allows himself. He first introduces us into some romantic and solitary scene, at a time when thought and feeling are most awake, and Nature most lovely, when every thing parts of our being, and he then allows is in harmony with the tenderer the sounds of music to creep into our ears, to lull us into a forgetfulness of plation of the silent magnificence of man, and to awaken us to a contemNature. This observation enables me to introduce one of the most fascinat ing pieces of poetry which ever issued from the cell of inspiration. It is the moonlight scene in the Merchant of Venice. But, in his motion like an angel, sings, duced by Comus's speech to the lady. This musical discussion was intro the poetic language and rich and varied imagery which is employed,the romantic pictures of the night scenery in the forest,-the description of the quiet of a pastoral evening,—and the discussion on the power and per 10 |
