as a sort of Brobdignagian Comus, to whose appetite and whim everything is compelled to yield. A bird sweeps by gracefully on the wing,-"Bring me that bird, I'll eat him;" a beast stalks gracefully through the field— "I'll eat him;" a silkworm spins in its cocoon "Seize it, I'll wear it ;" a poor bee constructs its hive, Comus makes a grip at it—" Honey! my friend, honey!" And I do not so much in every instance condemn this; I quarrel not with that Providence to whom we owe such bounties; but I do quarrel with Comus, because he sees no beauty in anything that does not minister immediately to his appetite, his passions, and his pride. It may indeed be true that man is the principal personage on this little theatre of things. It may indeed be true that all are a kind of drapery and preparation for him; but that mode of speech is not to be admired by which we describe all things as ministering to our enjoyment: we should see a hidden beauty, a spiritual compensation in all things, and reason through the rough curtain to reach the Holy of Holies. By the side of, and in opposition to, Comus, is that of the lady, who may be already understood by the extract we have introduced. illustrates the self-reliant and instinctive force She of virtue; she is self-illumined; she is introduced to us by her brother, before, indeed, we see her beset by the tempter; in the discourse they hold together, and which excited a sneer from Dr. Johnson, the elder brother does not fear for his sister; because she has that sacred and sure defence-a light within-inner purity; therefore "Virtue could see to do what Virtue would By her own radiant light, though sun and moon Where with her best nurse, Contemplation, She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings, Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd. But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts, And, again— "This I hold firm, Virtue may be assail'd, but never hurt; But evil on itself shall back recoil, And mix no more with goodness, when at last Gather'd like scum, and settl'd to itself, "Comus" is a dissertation upon virtue; upon that sure and steady guide, which, in all circumstances, conducts the humble and teachable wanderer. Thus says the Lady :— "What might this be? A thousand fantasies Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire, I see ye visibly, and now believe That he, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill Would send a glist'ring guardian if need were I did not err, there does a sable cloud "Comus" is a fine poem on which to hang homilies; and we much more readily hang our homilies than our criticisms. All virtue is developed in conflict, in fighting. In every character it may be said, where there is no difficulty there is no virtue. Surely Milton himself was a noble instance of this. This princely genius, this great moral instructor, was not less consistent as a man than great as a poet; and, therefore, of all men the man to write "Comus." We cannot understand "Comus;" we cannot see its worth and high moral glory unless we translate ourselves to the times during which it was written. They were the times when first began the long warfare between Puritan and Cavalier. They were times of all but universal intemperance; and nowhere was the intemperance of a more disgusting and universal character than at the courts of James I. and Charles I. The moral purity claimed for the latter is simply ridiculous; it abounded with all the follies and all the grossness of the time. The literature and the history of the period teem with evidences of astonishing vice. "Comus" was written as a Masque; it rises before us with a chastity truly solemn. After a perusal of the performances bearing that name, during the same period, in almost every instance they were only made the theatres for the exhibition of intemperance and folly; and the most chaste of them is characterised by a looseness of expression which no chaste mind could tolerate in our day, either in the parlour or on the stage. It finely illustrates the true beauty of Milton's mind, that his Muse is always robed in matronly dignity and grace; and that even in his earliest years, when the blood of youth is rebellious, and the fancy wild, his thoughts and measures move and march to the sound of Dorian music. CHAPTER VIII. MILTON ON EDUCATION. Ir must be always important to know what the most eminent scholar of his own, or any age, thought and said upon education, and the method of imparting the higher branches of it. He conveyed what he had to say to Mr. Samuel Hartlib, of whom little is known, but that he was a foreigner, and doubtless, a wise and fruitful scholar. Milton published his letter to |