REMARKS

ON

L'ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO.

WHEN Milton's juvenile poems were revived into notice about the middle of the last century, these two short lyrics became, I think, the most popular. They are very beautiful, but in my opinion far from the best of the poet's youthful productions: they have far less invention than "Comus" or "Lycidas," and surely invention is the primary essential; they have more of fancy than invention, as those two words are in modern use distinguished from each other. Besides, it is clear that they were suggested by the poem prefixed to "Burton's Anatomie of Melancholy," and a song in the "Nice Valour" of Beaumont and Fletcher.

There is here no fable, which is absolutely necessary for prime poetry. The rural descriptions are fresh, forcible, picturesque, and most happily selected; but still many of them seem to me much less original than those of "Lycidas" and "Comus;" and though there is a certain degree of contemplative sentiment in them all, it is not of so passionate or sublime a kind as in those other exquisite pieces, in which there is more of moral instruction and mingled intellect, and, in short, vastly more of spirituality. The scenery of nature, animate and inanimate, derives its most intense interest from its connection with our moral feelings and duties, and our ideal visions. If I am not mistaken, Gray thought this when he spoke of merely descriptive poems. Gray's own stanza, in his “Fragment on Vicissitude," beginning

Yesterday the sullen year

Saw the snowy whirlwind fly,

perhaps the finest stanza in his poems, is a most striking example of this sublime combination.

I say, that these two admired lyrics of Milton have less of this combination than I could wish. They were written in the buoyancy and joyousness of youth, though the joyousness of the latter is pensive. All was yet hope with the poet; none of the evils of life had yet come upon him. It was the joy of mental display and visionary glory, of a mind proudly displaying its own richness, and throwing from its treasures beams of light on all external objects; but it was the rapidity of a ferment too much in motion, to allow it to wait long enough on particular topics: therefore there was in these two productions less intensity than in most of the author's other poetry: he is here generally content to describe the surface of what he notices. His learned allusions abound, though not so much perhaps as in most of his other writings; these, however, are not the proofs of his genius, but only of his memory and industry.

462 REMARKS ON L'ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO.

I admit, that the choice of the imagery of these pieces could only have been made by a true poet, of nice discernment and brilliant fancy; of mind constantly occupied by contemplation, and skilful in making use of all those superstitions in which the visionary delight; and that the whole are woven into one web of congenial associations, which make a beautiful and splendid constellation; still a large portion of the ingredients, taken separately, have been anticipated by other poets.

These remarks will probably draw forth the question, "Whence, then, has arisen the superior popularity of these two compositions?" I may now be forgiven for asserting, that popularity is a doubtful test of merit. One reason may be, that they are more easily understood; that they are less laboured and less deep; that they do not try and fatigue, either the heart or the intellect. The mass of the people like slight amusement, and subjects of easy apprehension; the greater part of Milton's poetry is too solemn and thought-working for their taste or their power.

In the sublime bard's latter poems,-in his epics and his drama, and even in his early monody of "Lycidas,"-his rural images, though not more picturesque, nor perhaps, except in "Lycidas," quite so fresh, yet derive a double force from their position-from the circumstances of the persons on whom they are represented as acting; as, for instance, on Adam, Eve, Satan, our Saviour, Samson, and on the mourners for the death of Lycidas.

When the description of scenery forms part of a fable, and is connected with the development of a story, the mind of the reader is already worked up into a state of sensitiveness and sympathy, which confers upon surrounding objects hues of augmented impression.

When Milton recalls to his mind those images with which he had been familiar in the society of his friend Lycidas, they awaken, from the accident of his death, affections and regrets which they never had done before. When Eve is about to be expelled from Paradise, how she grieves over her lost flowers and garden-delights! How the "air of heaven, fresh-blowing," invigorates and charms Samson, when brought out from a close prison! How affecting is the scene in the wilderness, when, after a night of tremendous tempest, our Saviour is cheered by a balmy morning of extreme brilliance!

These are what make fable necessary to constitute the highest poetry. I do not recollect that this has been sufficiently insisted upon by former critics. The want of it is assuredly experienced in Thomson's beautifully descriptive poem of "The Seasons." SIR EGERTON Brydges.

L'ALLEGRO.

(THE CHEERFUL MAN.)

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,

In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night-raven sings:

There, under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come, thou goddess fair and free,
In Heaven yclep'd Euphrosyne,

And by men, heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus at a birth,

With two sister Graces more,

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
Or whether, as some sager sing,

The frolick wind, that breathes the spring,

Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a-Maying;

There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,

Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,

So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Haste thee, nymph, and bring with theo

Jest, and youthful jollity,

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;

2. Of Cerberus. Erebus, not Cerberus, was the legitimate husband of Night. Milton was too universal a scholar, to be unacquainted with this mythology; but as Melancholy is here the creature of Milton's imagination, he had a right to give her what parentage he pleased, and to marry Night, the natural mother of Melancholy, to any ideal husband that would best serve to heighten the allegory.-T. WARTON.

4. Unholy: Abominable, execrable.
6. Jealous: Alluding to the watch which

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fowl keep when they are sitting.—WARBURTON.

15. Two sister graces: Meat and Drink, the two sisters of Mirth. Some sager sing, because those who give to Mirth such gross companions as Eating and Drinking, are the less sage mythologists. WARBURTON.

27. Quips: Satirical jokes, smart repartees. Cranks: turnings in speech; conceits which consist in the change of the form or meaning of a word.

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it, as you go,
On the light fantastick toe;

And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow,
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:
While the cock, with lively din,
Scatters the rear of Darkness thin;
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before:

Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerily rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill:
Some time walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,
Robed in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the plowman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his sithe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

40. Unreproved: Blameless, innocent, | lyze the context. The poet is describing not subject to reproof. Sandys has “un- a very early period of the morning; and reproved kisses." this he describes, by selecting and as48. Twisted eglantine: The honey-sembling such picturesque objects as acsuckle. All these three plants are often seen growing against the side or walls

of a house.

57. Not unseen. In the Penseroso, (line 65,) he walks unseen. Happy men love witnesses of their joy: the splenetick love solitude.

67. His tale. It was suggested to me by the late ingenious Mr. Headley, that the word tale does not here imply stories told by shepherds, but is a technical term for numbering sheep. This interpretation I am inclined to adopt. Let us ana

company that period, and such as were familiar to an early riser. He is waked by the lark, and goes into the fields; the sun is just emerging, and the clouds are still hovering over the mountains: the cocks are crowing, and with their lively notes scatter the lingering remains of darkness; human labours and employments are renewed with the lawn of the day; the hunter (formerly much earlier at his sport than at present) is beating the covert, and the slumbering mora is roused with the cheerful echo of hounds

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landskip round it measures;
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim with daisies pide,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide:
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smoaks
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met,
Are at their savoury dinner set

Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tann'd haycock in the mead:
Sometimes with secure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holyday,
Till the livelong daylight fail:
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,

and horns; the mower is whetting his scythe to begin his work; the milk-maid, whose business is of course at daybreak, comes abroad singing; the shepherd opens his fold, and takes the tale of his sheep, to see if any were lost in the night. Now for shepherds to tell tales, or to sing, is a circumstance trite, common, and general, and belonging only to ideal shepherds; nor do I know that such shepherds tell tales or sing more in the morning than at any other part of the day. A shepherd taking the tale of his sheep which are just unfolded, is a new image, correspondent and appropriate, beautifully descriptive of a period of time, is founded in fact, and is more pleasing as more natural.-WARTON. pide for pied. 77. Towers and battlements. This was the great mansion-house in Milton's early days, before the old fashioned architecture had given way to modern arts and improvements. Turrets and battlements were conspicuous marks of the numerous new buildings of the reign of King Henry

VIII., and of some rather more ancient many of which yet remained in their original state, unchanged and undecayed. Where only a little is seen, more is left to the imagination. These symptoins of an old palace, especially when thus dis posed, have a greater effect than a discovery of larger parts, and even a full display of the whole edifice. The embosomed battlements, and the spreading top of the tall grove, on which they reflect a reciprocal charm, still further interest the fancy, from the novelty of combination; while just enough of the towering structure is shown to make an accompaniment to the tufted expanse of venerable verdure, and to compose a picturesque association. With respect to their rural residence, there was a coyness in our Gothic ancestors: modern seats are seldom so deeply ambushed,-they disclose all their glories at once, and never excite expectation by concealment. by gradual approaches, and by inter rupted appearances.-T. WARTON.