And for thy reason why they should be sought, To gain a sceptre', oftest better miss'd. To gain a sceptre. 485 Dunster gives the following closing summary of this book :-Our Saviour's passing the night is well described. The coming on of morn is a beautiful counterpart of “ night coming on in the desert," which so finely closed the preceding book. Our Lord's waking his viewing the country-and the description of the "pleasant grove," which is to be the scene of the banquet-are all set off with every grace that poetry can give. The appearance of Satan, varied from his first disguise, as he has now quite another part to act, is perfectly well imagined; and his speech, referring to Scripture examples of persons miraculously fed in desert places, is truly artful and in character; as is his second sycophantic address, where, having acknowledged our Lord's right to all created things, he adds, The banquet, ver. 340, comprises everything that Roman luxury, Eastern magnificence, mythological fable, or poetic fancy can supply; and if compared with similar descriptions in the Italian poets, will be found much superior to them. In the concluding part of his invitation, the virulence of the arch-fiend breaks out, as it were involuntarily, in a sarcastic allusion to the divine prohibition respecting the tree of knowledge; but he immediately resumes his hypocritical servility, which much resembles his language in the ninth book of Paradise Lost," when, in his addresses to Eve, "persuasive rhetorick sleek'd his tongue." The last three lines are quite in this style : the : All these are spirits of air, and woods, and springs, Thee homage, and acknowledge thee their Lord. Our Lord's reply is truly sublime : I can at will, doubt not, as soon as thou, This part of the book, in particular, is so highly finished, that I could wish it had concluded, as it might well have done, with the vanishing of the banquet. The present conclusion, from its subject, required another style of poetry: it has little description, no machinery, and no mythological allusions to elevate and adorn it; but it is not without a sublimity of another kind. Satan's speech, in which he assails our Lord with the temptation of riches as the means of acquiring greatness, is in a noble tone of dramatic dialogue, and the reply of our Saviour, where he rejects the offer, contains a series of the finest moral precepts, expressed in that plain majestic language, which, in many parts of didactic poetry, is the most becoming vestitus orationis. Still it must be acknowledged, that all this is much lost and obscured by the radiance and enriched descriptions of the preceding three hundred lines. These had been particularly relieved, and their beauty had been rendered more eminently conspicuous, from the studied equality and scriptural plainness of the exordium of this book; which has the effect ascribed by Cicero to the subordinate and less shining parts of any writing," quo magis id, quod erit illuminatum, extare atque eminere videatur," -De Orator. iii. 101. ed. Proust. But the conclusion of this book, though excellent in its kind, unfortunately, from its loco-position, appears to considerable disadvantage. Writers of didactic poetry, to secure the continuance of their readers' attention, must be careful not only to diversify, but as much as possible gradually to elevate, their strain. Accordingly, they generally open their several divisions with their dryer precepts, proceed then to more pleasing illustrations, and are particularly studious to close cach book with some description, or episode, of the most embellished and attractive kind. BOOK III. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE third book of the "Paradise Regained" continues to be argumentative: but Satan, having found himself hitherto foiled, begins by the most wily and flattering compliments. He now dwells upon the attractions and delights of worldly glory; and tells our Saviour how he is fitted to attain it above all other beings, both by counsel and action; and that it is his duty not to throw away his gifts, and pass his life in obscurity: he says, that men, at a more youthful age than his, have conquered the world. Our Saviour replies calmly : - Thou neither dost persuade me to seek wealth For what is glory but the blaze of fame, The people's praise, if always praise unmix'd? He then describes what is true glory; and instances Job, who was more famous in heaven than known on earth. He next expatiates on the false glory of conquerors : Till conquerour Death discovers them scarce men, Violent or shameful death* their due reward, After Job, he next names Socrates; who, he says, lives now Equal in fame to proudest conquerours. I must here draw the reader's notice to Thyer's observation, who praises the author's great art, in weaving into the body of so short a work so many grand points of the christian theology and morality." Jesus exclaims ;— But why should man seek glory, who of his own Satan, not silenced, takes up another ground: he appeals to Christ's duty to free his country from heathen servitude. Our Saviour answers that this must be done in the Almighty's time, and by the Almighty's means; but demands of Satan, why he should be anxious for his rise, when it would be his own fall. Satan's cunning reply is one of the finest of all that Milton has invented of him. Then it was that he took Christ to a high mountain, to show him the monarchies of the earth. The description of the prospect at the foot of the mountain is in the richest style of picturesque poetry: he now points out the Assyrian empire. After going through an immense Geographical view, conducted with wonderful art, skill, and learning, and everywhere discriminated by the happiest epithets ;Satan says, All these the Parthian (now some ages past, From the luxurious kings of Antioch won. Then comes a most magnificent picture of great armies going out to battle. This is done, to show our Saviour the necessity of worldly power, and numerous military Here is a little carelessness in this repetition of the word "death." preparations, to enable him to fulfil the duties for which he supposes him to be sent on earth;-the recovery of the throne of David. For this end he offers to secure for him the Parthian alliance. Our Saviour, in answer, speaks with scorn "of the cumbersome luggage of war;" and at the same time reproaches Satan with the insidiousness of his pretended zeal for the welfare of Israel, or David, or his throne, when he had hitherto proved their greatest enemy. Of the poetry of this character it is scarcely necessary to urge the exalted merits. Imagination exerts itself in various tracks, and various forms: here it executes its duty in filling up the outlines of a divine story ;—that is, a story of inspired wisdom, of holiest virtue,-of superiority to all worldly temptations,--of patient suffering, -of faith in the Supreme Being,-of examples of the punishment of the wicked,and of the inappeasable malice of Satan. It is necessarily therefore more intellectual, spiritual, and didactic, in every part, than material: and yet it is so intermixed with a due portion of imagery, that the fertility of a rich poetical genius pervades the whole poem. Mind is of more value than matter: it is the soul which belongs to the image, rather than the image itself, which is the gem: thought, opinion, conclusion, the impression of the heart,-these are what instruct us, and elevate our nature. Of these, what poem is so full as "Paradise Regained?" Its mere learning is miraculous; but that is of comparatively less interest. Yet the more enlarged is the author's experience, the wider the field whence he derives his deductions and convictions, the more numerous the eminent minds by whose wisdom he is aided, the richer and more sure must be the intellectual fruits at which he arrives. Milton is so familiar with the ancient classics, that he perpetually falls, not only into a concurrence of observation and sympathy of feeling, but into their very expressions: yet not as if it was borrowed, but as if it was simultaneous: its freshness and its force prove its originality. Our Saviour's answer to Satan, in assertion of the vanity of human glory, astonishes by its vigour of thought and blaze of eloquence. It is like the beams of the cheering sun let in upon a billowy and blinding mist: the understanding ratifies it; the conscience hails it. That no doctrine ean he more pure, more noble, more sound, more useful than this, will scarcely be denied: its poetical character depends upon its loftiness, which also is of the most decisive kind. The poetry of mere style, the artifices of language, are nothing: great thoughts and great images will support themselves. The necessity of illustration proves that the primary idea or image is dark, or weak, or trifling. Grandeur or beauty wants no dress: metaphorical phrases are often corrupt; and similes are generally superfluous and impertinent; yet these are taken to be the essence of modern poetry. I mention this, because the mere reader of the productions of our own times is apt to suppose Milton prosaic, when his strains are of the most poetical tone; because his style is simple and pure. The finest passages in our Saviour's exposition of the nothingness of human glory, are the plainest : till poets learn this, they will be but frivolous and gaudy pretenders. Whoever thinks magnificently, scorns the aid of flowers and spangles. If we could bring back poetry, even in mere style, to what it was in the times of Spenser, and Shakspeare, and Milton, we should indeed be gaining an immense benefit to the world of English readers, and redeeming the splendour of the Muse's name and office. The unmeaning gaudiness, the gilded inanity of the greater part of modern verses, has turned the public taste for poetical composition into loathing. Let the reader study Milton's energetic thought and chaste manner day and night; and if at first any factitious taste may render it more a duty than a pleasure, his diseased habit will soon amend itself, and be changed to simplicity and purity. Then he will find his momentary delight followed by no satiety; but the wholesome food strengthen his mind, and grow with his growth. If the "Paradise Regained" does not please him, let him be sure that he has much to amend in his intellectual qualifications. ARGUMENT. SATAN, in a speech of much flattering commendation, endeavours to awaken in Jesus a passion for glory, by particularizing various instances of conquests achieved, and great actions performed, by persons at an early period of life. Our Lord replies, by showing the vanity of worldly fame, and the improper means by which it is generally attained; and contrasts with it the true glory of religious patience and virtuous wisdom, as exemplified in the character of Job. Satan justifies the love of glory from the example of God himself, who requires it from all his creatures. Jesus detects the fallacy of this argument, by showing that, as goodness is the true ground on which glory is due to the great Creator of all things, sinful man can have no right whatever to it. -Satan then urges our Lord respecting his claim to the throne of David; he tells him, that the kingdom of Judea, being at that time a province of Rome, cannot be got possession of without much personal exertion on his part, and pressÈR him to lose no time in beginning to reign. Jesus refers him to the time allotted for this, as for all other things; and, after intimating somewhat respecting his own previous sufferings, asks Satan, why he should be so solicitous for the exaltation of one, whose rising was destined to be his fall. Satan replies, that his own desperate state, by excluding all hope, leaves little room for fear; and that, as his own punishment was equally doomed, he is not interested in preventing the reign of one, from whose apparent benevolence he might rather hope for some interference in his favour.-Satan still pursues his former incitements; and supposing that the seeming reluctance of Jesus to be thus advanced might arise from his being unacquainted with the world and its glories, conveys him to the summit of a high mountain, and from thence shows him most of the kingdoms of Asia, particularly pointing out to his notice some extraordinary military preparations of the Parthians, to resist the incursions of the Scythians. He then informs our Lord, that he showed him this purposely, that he might see how necessary military exertions are to retain the possession of kingdoms, as well as to subdue them at first; and advises him to consider how impossible it was to maintain Judea against two such powerful neighbours as the Romans and Parthians, and how necessary it would be to form an alliance with one or other of them. At the same time, he recommends, and engages to secure to him, that of the Parthians; and tells him that by this means his power will be defended from anything that Rome or Cæsar might attempt against it, and that he will be able to extend his glory wide, and especially to accomplish what was particularly necessary to make the throne of Judea really the throne of David, the deliverance and restoration of the ten tribes, still in a state of captivity. Jesus, having briefly noticed the vanity of military efforts and the weakness of the arm of flesh, says, that when the time comes for ascending his allotted throne, he shall not be slack: he remarks on Satan's extraordinary zeal for the deliverance of the Israelites, to whom he had always showed himself an enemy; and declares their servitude to be the consequence of their idolatry; but adds, that at a future time it may perhaps please God to recall them, and restore them to their liberty and native land. So spake the Son of God; and Satan stood What best to say canst say, to do canst do; a Him thus accosts. I consider the opening of this book, with the arguments in favour of worldly glory, and especially our Saviour's. answer, to be the finest of the whole poem; notwithstanding that it comes under the classes of character, and sentiment, and language, rather than of story, Its sublime distinctions, its exalted feelings, its magnificent plainess of style, fill one with a sort of glowing approbation, which seems to spiritualize and uplift our nature. b I see thou know'st. The extreme brevity and simplicity, yet noble climax, of this and the four following lines, is admirable. To thy large heart give utterance due; thy heart Urim and Thummim, those oraculous gems That might require the array of war, thy skill In savage wilderness? Wherefore deprive e of good, wise, just, the perfect shape. Milton, no doubt, by the word " shape," intended to express the meaning of the Greek idea, but in my opinion it does not at all come up to it, and seems rather harsh and inelegant. There are words in all languages which cannot well be translated without losing much of their beauty, and even some of their meaning; of this sort I take the word "idea" to be. Tully renders it by the word "species" with as little success as Milton has done here by his English "shape."-THYER. I should rather think it expressed from the perfecta forma honestatis, and the forma ipsa honesti of Cicero," De Fin." ii. 15. “ De Off." i. 5. And the more, because he renders forma by "shape" in the "Paradise Lost," b. iv. 848 :Virtue in her shape how lovely.-NEWTON. Milton was fond of this phrase.-TODD. Infallible. d Or tongue of seers old The poet, by mentioning this after Urim and Thummim, seems to allude to the opinion of the Jews, that the Holy Spirit spake to the children of Israel during the tabernacle by Urim and Thummim, and under the first temple by the prophets. See Prideaux's "Conneet." part i. book 3.-NEWTON. e Glory, the reward. Our Saviour having withstood the allurement of riches, Satan attacks him in the next place with the charms of glory. I have sometimes thought that Milton might possibly take the hint of thus connecting these two temptations from Spenser, who, in his second book of the "Faery Queen," representing the virtue of temperance under the character of Guyon, and leading him through various trials of his constancy, brings him to the house of riches, or "Mammon's delve," as he terms it; and immediately after to the palace of glory, which he describes, in his allegorical manuer, under the figure of a beautiful woman called Philotime.-THYER. f The flame Of most erected spirits. Silius Ital. vi. 332. "Erected spirits" is a classical phrase. "Magno animo et erecto est, nec unquami succumbit inimicis, nec fortunæ quidem," Cicero, " Pro Rege Deiotaro," 13. And Seneca, Epist. ix. "Ad hoc enim multis illi rebus opus est; ad illud, tantum animo sano et erecto, et despiciente fortunam." It occurs likewise in "Paradise Lost," b. i. 679 Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell |