66 'Here,' says M. Guizot, 'the superiority of Milton is great. He gives Satan sentiments which are more elevated, more impassioned, more complex, (too complex, perhaps,) and his language is a great deal more eloquent.' This criticism is undeniably just, so far as the elevation and passion of the sentiments are concerned; but the short parenthesis, the too complex, perhaps, points out the great defect of the passage. In Milton, the arch-fiend talks in a style of bitter irony, which we cannot help thinking is not at any time the proper characteristic of a soliloquy, and still less in this particular instance. The contending emotions that seem to agitate him, appear to us to humanize his character too much, and we are more inclined to agree with the latter part of M. Guizot's verdict, where he says, "The simple energy and dreadful concentration of the Satan of St. Avitus, have a very powerful effect.'" The critic considers equally triumphant for the Bishop, the comparison of his Eve in the Sententia Dei with that of Milton in the Paradise Lost: "In Avitus, the accusations of Adam are directed against the Creator who had doomed him to such a fate. In Milton, we all know that, like the majority of his married descendants, he vents all his indignation on his helpless wife. Hear the Saint: "When thus he was condemn'd, and his great crime, The yoke of such a fatal partnership." "When the great Maker heard these angry words Of our first parent, thus, with voice severe, to me, on them also it will be closed. 'Twill mitigate my own sufferings, if this new creature perishes by a similar doom. Be it, then, the companion of my ruin, and share my punishment, and divide with me the fires which I foresee !' Eve he address'd-'Wherefore, when thou did'st fall, Hast thou inclined? Oh, woman of great guile ! Did'st thou man's loftier reason from its throne "She, fill'd with horrent shame, Her cheek with blush remorseful overspread, I touch'd the fruit forbidden-touch'd and ate." This is well and Miltonically expressed; and the reader may compare the passage with the well known one from Paradise Lost. We conclude this brief notice of St. Avitus with the reviewer's remarks: "It is likely enough that these may be nothing more than coincidences, though a coincidence is generally rather an unlucky event to the individual who stumbles on it last. M. Guizot does not openly accuse Milton of imitation; he merely hints that l'érudition, á la fois classique et theologique de Milton étoit grande," and reminds us that the poems of Avitus were published at the commencement of the sixteenth century. Mais peu importe,' he adds, 'a sa gloire, qu'il les ait ou non connus; il était de ceux qui imitent quand il leur plait, car ils inventent quand ils veulent, et ils inventent même en imitant." But in spite of this flourish, Milton has virtually been accused of theft. You have heard the evidence, and no defence has been made on the other side. How say you, then, gentlemen of the jury? Is the accused guilty or not guilty? We leave you to consider your verdict." Hayley, in his Conjectures on the Origin of the Paradise Lost, introduces us into a new field of inquiry; and were the question simply as to whence Milton drew the leading hints of his poem, we should find ourselves abandoning our former grounds, perhaps, and deciding for other germs that equally abound in the field of Italian literature. It was Voltaire's opinion, who, while studying in England, occupied himself with this subject, that Milton took his first hint from an Italian comedy called Adamo, the performance of one Andreini, a player or stroller, which he saw at Florence, while travelling in Italy. "The subject of the play [we quote his words] was the fall of Man; the actors, God, the Devils, the Angels, Adam, Eve, the Serpent, Death, and the seven mortal sins: that topic, so improper for a drama, but so suitable to the absurd genius of the Italian stage, (as it was at that time,) was handled in a manner entirely conformable to the extravagance of the design. The scene opens with a chorus of Angels, and a Cherubim thus speaks for the rest: 'Let the rainbow be the fiddle-stick of the fiddle of the heavens! let the planets be the notes of our music! let time beat carefully the measure, and the winds make the sharps,' &c. Thus the play begins, and every scene rises above the last in profusion of impertinence." Johnson calls this report of Voltaire a wild and unauthorized story; but Hayley has thought Andreini so worthy of notice, as to translate his preface and some of the scenes of his play, and is of opinion that Milton's fancy caught fire from that spirited, though irregular and fantastic composition, and that it proved, in his ardent and fertile mind, the seed of Paradise Lost. This is probable enough, and on comparing the analysis or plan of Andreini with Milton's sketches and portions of the Paradise Lost, what Hayley remarks seems well founded, that "Adam now reigned in his fancy, not immediately as the subject of an epic poem, but as a capital personage in the plan of a dramatic composition, that instead of being formed on the narrow ground of Grotius, in his Adamus exul, allowed a wider range to the fancy, and included allegorical characters, like the Adamo of Andreini.” The characters in the latter are We refer the reader to Hayley for further information, and devote the little space we have to but two extracts from this comedy. The first to show that there is more poetry in the lines which Voltaire so ludicrously translated than we should have supposed. Milton might not have slighted a performance which began thus, with the accompaniments, perhaps, of fine Italian music: Choro D'Angeli cantanti la Gloria Di Dio. A la lira del ciel Iri sia l'arco, The next, from the dialogue between Adam and Eve, will strike the reader as a counterpart to those beautiful lines in the fourth book of Paradise Lost, where Eve addresses Adam, and which he must remember. We give it in the translation: "EVE. "Behold, then, I am seated; How I rejoice in viewing, not alone, These flow'rs, these herbs, these high and graceful plants, Thou, thou art he, by whom the meadows seem More beautiful to me, The fruit more blooming, and the streams more clear." Hayley mentions several other Italian compositions, some of which Milton may very likely have availed himself of, considering his partiality to Italian literature, and the influence which his visit to Italy, where his imagination must have been impressed by the master delineations of sacred subjects, might have had in awakening his enthusiasm, and gradually diverting his ideas from Arthur to Adam. "Dr. Pearce has said, in the preface to his review of Milton's text, that he was informed an Italian tragedy existed, entitled Il Paradiso Perso, Paradise Lost; but, in a very extensive research, I can discover no such performance. There is, indeed, another Italian drama on the subject, which I have not seen, entitled Adamo Caduto, tragedia sacra; but this was not printed until 1647, some years after the return of our poet from the Continent." * He mentions besides: La Battaglia Celeste tra Michele e Lucifero, di Antonio Alfani, Palermitano. Palermo, 1568. Quarto. Dell Adamo di Giovanni Soranzo, i due primi libri. Geneva, 1604. Duodecimo.-La Scena Tragica d' Adamo ed Eva, Estratta dalli primi tre capi della Sacra Genesi, e ridotta a significato Morale da Troilo Lancetta, Benacense. Venetia, 1644. There is certainly something remarkable in the coincidence which Hayley relates of the latter work. The author, in his address to the reader, says: "One night I dreampt that Moses explained to me the mystery, almost in these words: 'God reveals himself to man by the intervention of reason, and thus infallibly ordains that reason, while she supports her sovereignty over the sensual inclinations in man, and preserves the apple of his heart from licentious appetites, in reward of *P. 256. his just obedience transforms the world into Paradise.' Of this were I to speak, assuredly I might form an heroic poem worthy of demigods." "It strikes me as possible," remarks Hayley, "that these last words, assigned to Moses in his vision by Troilo Lancetta, might operate on the mind of Milton like the question of Ellwood, and prove, in his prolific fancy, a kind of rich graft on the idea he derived from Andreini, and the germ of his greatest production." "Let me, therefore, be allowed to advance, as a presumptive proof of Milton's having seen the work of Lancetta, that he makes a similar use of Moses, and introduces him to speak a prologue in the sketch of his various plans for an allegorical drama."* The Angeleida of Erasmo Valvasone, printed at Venice in 1590, consisting of three cantos on the War of Heaven, of which he says several passages induce him to think that Milton was familiar with the work; and transcribes the verses, in which the Italian poet, with Milton, assigns to the infernal powers the invention of artillery: Di salnitro, e di zolfo oscura polve We now close our evidence upon the extent and manner of Milton's imitations of these generally unknown modern writers, and the originality, as far as thus affected, of the Paradise Lost. It might be rendered much more ample by farther researches, perhaps, in the same field; and in order to be complete upon the subject, should embrace all the hints, etc., and more direct appropriations, from Homer down to Tasso and Dante; not omitting works of divinity, science, etc., the more general knowledge which contributed rich stores to feed, invigorate and expand the poet's * Pp. 265-6. |