would be difficult to find in our literature passages more widely different in style than the fifth chapter of Isaiah and the eighteenth of St. Matthew, yet there is more than a surface likeness in theme. Just as variant also are the uses of the Bible by our writers. True, the manner and method have changed in the last three hundred years. But a casual observation will show to-day a large biblical element in our serious prose and poetry. To determine its precise extent will require finer discrimination. It is true we will not find very many passages en bloc. Our skill has gone beyond the primary stage; and the pregnant word, the fine covert allusion, will mean as much now as the literal quotations of a few generations ago. At any rate, this is a question contributory merely to the main interest. Our literary Bible remains. The diction used in its pages is our best illustration of the refining influences of years upon a literature. It is the unique product of our literary history; a type of the ready assimilative power of the English people; at once a product and an active agent in our literary life. It is our most conspicuous example of that backlying power necessary to make a literature. It is not an abstraction. Its nature has been demonstrated many times in the very midst of a nation's life. Over and over the book has been the people's best medium of expression. That alone would stamp it a great literature. Its own utterances assure the title. When we open its covers we enter the very Holy of Holies of that wonderful Spirit of Humanity whose presence must distinguish the temple of a nation's literature.

Charles Addison Dawson

ART. X.-A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF "PARADISE REGAINED" AND GILES FLETCHER'S "CHRIST'S

VICTORIE AND TRIUMPH."

EARLY in the seventeenth century a young Cambridge student felt the thrill of a religious emotion such as stirred saintly hearts in the Middle Ages to paint pictures and see visions and spend hours of rapt contemplation. Had he lived earlier he might have betaken himself to some sequestered cloister, there to "welcome the day with matins and greet with vesper hymns the first couriers of the starry hosts," or, like some devout Fra Angelico, pour out the adoration of his soul in the bright colors with which his brush was familiar. But Giles Fletcher was neither monk nor painter. He was just a young divinity student of a later age who made his literary art an expression of his intense devotion. Instead of pictures he gave to the world in 1610 a poem entitled “The Victorie and Triumph of Christ in Heaven and on Earth," a poem wrought with the quaint conceits of mediævalism, the simplicity of an unquestioning faith and the ardor of fervent love. Nearly fifty years later another poetic genius seized upon the same theme-a poet as different from Giles Fletcher as Michael Angelo from Fra Angelico or Isaiah from the Shepherd King; a poet whose lifework was practically finished, whose powers were fullsummed, whose fame was at its zenith when he undertook this final tribute of song. It was John Milton; not the dreamy, studious youth, nor the stern, active man of affairs turning aside from the dear delights of the Muses to serve his country, but John Milton the great Puritan poet and author of "Paradise Lost," the blind seer who at the suggestion of Ellis sought a sequel to his great epic and found "Paradise Regained" in the scriptural account of Christ's temptation and victory. Such was the origin of the two poems, separated from one another by half a century, whose likenesses and differences are so striking and interesting.

Before beginning our study it will be necessary to say a few words about the place of these poems in literature and their reception. The younger poet in fact is so little known except to the

Grosarts and Willmotts that it may even be well to review the few facts of his life. Giles Fletcher, the younger son of Dr. Giles Fletcher, was born about 1588, in London. The family is interesting, since his uncle was Bishop of London, his father at one time Russian ambassador, his cousin John Fletcher the dramatist, and his brother-poet Phineas the author of "The Purple Island.” Giles took his bachelor's degree at Cambridge in 1606, but stayed on as divinity student until 1619. He held first a college living, then the rectory of Alderton, Suffolk. It was a poor parish, but Fletcher did not live to hold it long. He died in 1623. The only literary work he has given us is a "Canto upon the Death of Eliza❞ written in 1603, the "Victorie and Triumph" in 1610, a prose tract upon "The Reward of the Faithful," some verse translations of Boethius and Greek epigrams, and some metrical renderings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. No monument or stone at Alderton marks the place where he sleeps, but, as Willmott says, "His most lasting memorial exists in his poem, and in it we may discover the spirit of the author looking mildly and beautifully forth." What reception his poem met with in 1610 we do not know, but, whatever its status at that time, we are safe in concluding that it was one of the first long religious poems to leave its mark on English literature. Such a theme had not been treated outside of Italy. If we do not quite agree with Grosart as to its immortality we still may consider it a worthy pioneer effort which should not die while we care for our minor singers, and the less conspicuous but truly poetic contributions which have prepared the way for the masterpieces of literature. Turning now from the prototype to the perfect artistic creation. "Paradise Regained" and its origin are too well known to require much in the way of general comment. Even in early youth Milton had jotted down scriptural subjects for possible treatment. Some of these correspond very nearly to the themes of Cantos III and IV of Fletcher's poem. The subject which he eventually chose to develop many years later in "Paradise Regained" is exactly identical with the theme of the second canto of "Christ's Victorie and Triumph." Whether, therefore, the choice of such a theme as Christ's Temptation was at all due to his early reading of Fletcher,

or whether it emanated only from Ellis's suggestion, must remain conjectural. As a piece of literature the position of "Paradise Regained" is unquestioned. It is not to be ranked as Milton's greatest work, but it takes its place as a masterpiece of poised nobility and perfect workmanship.

Such in brief are the two poems. The exact ground of their resemblance must now be defined. Fletcher deals with the whole triumph of Christ, in heaven and on earth, in a series of four cantos. Only one of these is devoted to the Temptation. We are therefore going to compare the second canto of Fletcher's poem with the entire "Paradise Regained." We are going to compare a section of 533 lines with a poem of over 3,000 lines. To do this it will first be necessary to summarize the contents of each.

"Paradise Regained" is divided into four books. The first is an introduction to the wilderness scene and an account of the first temptation. Milton has expanded the scriptural account by at least eight imaginative additions. They are as follows: Satan is represented as present at the Baptism; his alarm leads to a conference in the world below; there is a scene of rejoicing in heaven; Christ enters the wilderness almost unconsciously, absorbed in a soliloquy; Satan proffers his temptation in the guise of an old man; he gives a long and fawning account of himself; Christ perceives and rebukes the disguise. The Book closes with the ending of the first day. Book II is purely imaginative from beginning to end. It describes very beautifully the sorrow and anxiety of the two disciples, Andrew and Simon, at the inexplicable loss of their Master. This is a beautifully natural touch, and Milton extends it even to the solicitude of Mary. It relieves from the supernatural and gives a sense of warm human reality. Another conclave of evil spirits takes place and Satan's superior subtlety is well shown. The temptation is repeated with different accompaniments, Satan appearing in courtlier guise and spreading a delicious table. The discussion on temperance and indulgence concludes the rejection of his offer. Book III progresses to the second temptation. It culminates in the Specular Mount and the wonderful description of the kingdoms spread before their eyes. This is the completest expansion of scriptural text. Milton's

imagination we have seen to run along two lines: one of pure creation, in harmony with scriptural account but still pure creation, such as the presence of Satan at Christ's baptism or the hellish conclaves; the other an imaginary expansion, often pictorial, of scriptural words. This is what he does here. The evangelist tells us that "the devil taketh him up into a high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world." Milton has taken these pregnant words and painted a canvas. In the one case the idea is perfectly original, in the other it is based on a terse statement of fact. It would be hard to say in the presence of such a passage which is the higher type of imagination. The magnificent conception and tremendous power suggest Michael Angelo's paintings. Satan flashes before him all the Eastern powers and argues the policy of overcoming the Parthian and Roman forces. The Book closes with Christ's rejection of Satan's offer to make the kingdoms his. Book IV continues the same temptation. Studious Athens is charmingly described. Satan makes disheartening prophecies and nightfall is heralded with a raging storm. With the dawn comes the last temptation, that on the pinnacle, to which Milton has added only one touch, but it is the artist's: when Christ gives his final answer it is Satan that falls, smitten with amazement. We now see Milton's art in following Luke's order and putting this temptation last instead of second. It forms a fitting climax to crown the complete defeat of evil, fallen as it were like lightning from heaven. Then comes the fanciful description of the angels bearing Christ to earth, the ambrosial feast they spread for him, and the triumph in heaven. This ends Milton's epic. He has kept closely to the scriptural version, and he has developed this by creative additions and imaginative expansion of the material already there. In neither case is there anything to jar with the simplicity and realities of the original. He has expanded his sources by pictorial descriptions, by arguments, by repetition, and by inference. He has added some entirely new features. Both methods are used with greatest care, so that the natural and supernatural are most beautifully combined and the whole narrative unfolds with a lifelike reality and truth.