"Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars
White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.
Here pilgrims roam, that stray'd so far to seek,
In Golgotha, Him dead, who lives in Heav'n;
And they who, to be sure of Paradise,

Dying put on the weeds of Dominic,
Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised:

They pass the planets sev'n, and pass the fix'd,
And that crystalline sphere whose balance weighs
The trepidation talk'd, and that first moved;
And now Saint Peter at Heav'n's wicket seems
To wait them with his keys, and now at foot
Of Heav'n's ascent they lift their feet, when lo!
A violent cross wind from either coast
Blows them transverse ten thousand leagues awry
Into the devious air; then might ye see

Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tost
And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,

The sport of winds: all these upwhirl'd aloft
Fly o'er the backside of the world far off
Into a Limbo large and broad, since call'd
The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown
Long after, now unpeopled, and untrod."

Is this a work of supererogation, in which we have been engaged? Was there no need to point out these characteristics of this immortal poem? For the student certainly not; but as this is intended for a pocket volume, to guide the youthful reader to a more intimate acquaintance with this great man, we believe it will not have been a vain task, in thus spreading

before the mind the most striking points to which the reader's attention may be directed.

CHAPTER XVI.

PARADISE REGAINED.

SOME persons have affected to think the "Paradise Regained" a superior poem to "Paradise Lost." Such a taste, if it have any reality, can only result from an utter inferiority of perception—a lack of imagination, disqualifying all its possessors for the pronouncing of a verdict upon any matters of taste. No! in the "Paradise Regained" we miss all the magnitude that oppressed us in its predecessor. We have neither Hell, Heaven, nor Eden,-with the appalling horrors of the one, and the luxuries of the others. The poem is cast in altogether another mould: it is excellent, most excellent. But if the work of a poem is to be measured by its extraordinary invention-by its longdrawn and highly-animated sublimity-by the vivid colouring in which its actions and scenery

are presented, then there can be no comparison between the poems. We look in vain for the utterances of sombre grandeur in which the lost angels indulge. There is no Pandemonium to build; no Limbo of Vanity to plunge through; no bridge to be thrown over Chaos. Satan has been so long winding through the vortexes of guilt, that he appears altogether another character than that bold defiant spirit, who

66 on a throne of regal state, that far Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind,

. . exalted sate."

...

How different his first presentment to us

now:

"An aged man in rural weeds,

Following, as seemed, the quest of some stray ewe,
Or withered sticks to gather, which might serve
Against a winter's day, when winds blow keen,
To warm him, wet returned from field at eve."

And the introduction of Satan is typical of the whole poem. It is a subdued, yet probably a more earnest performance, and scarcely inferior to" Paradise Lost" in instruction; but it bears a nearer relation to prose; philosophy and history are less concealed in allusion to figure. In

"Paradise Regained," Satan appears before us in council again, but his form and the discourses of his co-mates have lost all their original brightness. Belial sinks into the mere sensualist, very different from the lofty but egotistic intellectualism to which we listened upon another great occasion. But if this production of Milton is inferior to "Paradise Lost," it is not wanting in poetry and fancy abundantly sufficient to immortalise an humbler bard. It has more nakedness of character-a rugged indifference: the condensed phraseology of its companion we do not often find, but the scholar shines here as of old; the fancies of the old poetic mythologies sport about; Grecian and Roman story are still more frequently called upon for appropriate hints or more extended pictures; while the great contest between the Saviour and Satan goes on, the glorious eremite, in many an affecting position, appealing to our admiration, our affection, and our love; and Satan as frequently kindling our hatred or our scorn. Innumerable passages of extraordinary beauty might be quoted. The various methods of Satanic enchantment are placed with great art and skill. The table spread before our Saviour, when hungered in the wilderness-the pouring of the hosts of

light-armed troops through the brilliant cities, -the cities of the earth themselves-Athens, the seat of intellectual glory-all are vividly described; while the replies of the Saviour to the panegyrics of the fiend are remarkable for the plainness and the force of their reasoning. One thing must be especially noticed throughout-the language of Satan is never simple, but always rich, highly-coloured, pictorial, and scholarly the Saviour's in reply, is ever Hebraistic and plain. Let the following be taken as a specimen of the conduct of the various dialogues. "Behold," says Satan,—

"Where on the Ægean shore a city stands,
Built nobly, pure the air and light the soil,
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits,
And hospitable, in her sweet recess,
City or suburban, studious walks and shades;
See there the olive grove of Academe,

Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird

Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long;
There flow'ry hill Hymettus, with the sound

Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites

To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls

His whisp'ring stream: within the walls then view
The schools of ancient sages; his who bred
Great Alexander, to subdue the world,

Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next:

There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power
Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit,