And storied windows richly dight, And may at last my weary age • Storied. 160 165 170 175 Storied, or painted with stories, that is, histories. In barbarous latinity, storia is sometimes used for historia. One of the arguments used by the puritans for breaking the painted glass in church windows, was because, by darkening the church, it obscured the new light of the gospel. -T. WARTON. P And may at last my weary age It should be remarked, that Milton wishes to die in the character of the melancholy man.-T. WARTON. 9 And every herb that sips the dew. It seems probable that Milton was a student in botany; for he speaks with great pleasure of the hopes he had formed of being assisted in this study by his friend Charles Deodate, who was a physician. See "Epitaph. Damon." v. 150.-T. WARTON. Of "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," I believe, opinion is uniform; every man that reads them, reads them with pleasure. The author's design is not, what Theobald has remarked, merely to show how objects derive their colours from the mind, by representing the operation of the same things upon the gay and the melancholy temper, or upon the same man as he is differently disposed; but rather how, among the successive variety of appearances, every disposition of mind takes hold on those by which it may be gratified. The cheerful man hears the lark in the morning; the pensive man hears the nightingale in the evening: the cheerful man sees the cock strut, and hears the horn and hounds echo in the wood; then walks, "not unseen," to observe the glory of the rising sun, or listen to the singing milk-maid, and view the labours of the ploughman and the mower; then casts his eyes about him over scenes of smiling plenty, and looks up to the distant tower, the residence of some fair inhabitant: thus he pursues rural gaiety through a day of labour or of play, and delights himself at night with the fanciful narratives of superstitious ignorance. The pensive man, at one time, walks "unseen" to muse at midnight; and, at another, hears the solemn curfew if the weather drives him home, he sits in a room lighted only by "glowing embers;" or by a lonely lamp outwatches the north star, to discover the habitation of separate souls; and varies the shades of meditation, by contemplating the magnificent or pathetic scenes of tragic and epic poetry. When the morning comes, a morning gloomy with rain and wind, he falls asleep by some murmuring water, and with melancholy enthusiasm expects some dream of prognostication, or some music played by aerial performers. Both Mirth and Melancholy are solitary, silent inhabitants of the breast, that neither receive nor transmit communication; no mention is therefore made of a philosophical friend, or of a pleasant companion. The seriousness does not arise from any participation of calamity, nor the gaiety from the pleasures of the bottle. The man of cheerfulness, TT having exhausted the country, tries what tower'd cities" will afford, and mingles with scenes of spiendour, zav assemblies, and nupcial festivities; but he mingles a mere spectator, as, when the learned comedies of Jonson or the wild dramas of Shakspeare are exhibited, he attends the theatre: the pensive man never loses himself in crowds, but walks the cloister, or frequents the cathedral. Milton probably had not yet forsaken the church. Bota ais marmeters delight in music; but he seems to think that cheerful notes would I have socained from Plato a complete dismission of Eurydice; of whom solemn sounds procured oniv a conditional release. For the old age of Cheerfulness he makes no provision; but Melancholy he conducts with great dignity to the close of life: his cheerfulness is | without levity, and his pensiveness without asperity. Through these two poems the images are properly selected, and nicely distinguished; but the colours of the diction seem not sufficiently discriminated: I know not whether the characters are kept sufficiently apart: no mirth can, indeed, be found in his melancholy, but I am afraid that I always meet some meiancholy in his mirth. They are two noble efforts of imagination.-JOHNSON. Of these two exquisite little poems, I think it clear that the last is the most taking: which is owing to the subject. The mind delights most in these solemn images, and a genius delights most to paint them.-HURD. "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" may be called the two first descriptive poems in the English language: it is perhaps true, that the characters are not sufficiently kept apart; but this circumstance has been productive of greater excellences. It has been remarked, "No mirth indeed can be found in his melancholy, but I am afraid I always meet some I melancholy in his mirth." Milton's is the dignity of mirth: his cheerfulness is the cheerfulness of gravity: the objects he selects in his "L'Allegro" are so far gay, as they do not naturally excite sadness: laughter and jollity are named only as personifications, and never exemplified: "Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles," are enumerated only in general | terms. There is specifically no mirth in contemplating a fine landscape; and even his landscape, although it has flowery meads and flocks, wears a shade of pensiveness; and contains, "russet lawns," "fallows gray," and "barren mountains." overhung with "labouring clouds:" its old turreted mansion, peeping from the trees, awakens only a train of solemn and romantic, perhaps melancholy reflection. Many a pensive man listens with delight to the "milkmaid singing blithe," to the "mower whetting his scythe," and to a distant peal of village-bells. He chose such illustrations as minister matter for new poetry and genuine description: even his most brilliant imagery is mellowed with the sober hues of philosophic meditation. It was impossible for the author of "11 Penseroso" to be more cheerful, or to paint mirth with levity: that is, otherwise than in the colours of the higher poetry. Both poems are the result of the same feelings, and the same habits of thought. Dr. Johnson has remarked, that, in "L'Allegro," "no part of the gaiety is made to arise from the pleasures of the bottle." The truth is, that Milton means to describe the cheerfulness of the philosopher or the student, the amusements of a contemplative mind; and on this principle he seems unwilling to allow that Mirth is the offspring of Bacchus and Venus, deities who preside over sensual gratifications; but rather adopts the fiction of those more serious and sapient fablers, who suppose that her proper parents are Zephyr and Aurora; intimating, that his cheerful enjoyments are those of the temperate and innocent kind, of early hours and rural pleasures. That critic does not appear to have entered into the spirit, or to have comprehended the meaning, of our author's "Allegro." No man was ever so disqualified to turn puritan as Milton: in both these poems, be professes himself to be highly pleased with the choral church-music, with Gothic cloisters, the painted windows and vaulted aisles of a venerable cathedral, with tilts and tournaments, and with masques and pageantries. What very repugnant and unpoetical principles did he afterwards adopt! He helped to subvert monarchy, to destroy subordination, and to level all distinctions of rank: but this scheme was totally inconsistent with the splendours of society, with "throngs of knights and barons bold," with "store of ladies," and "high triumphs,' which belonged to a court. "Pomp, and feast, and revelry," the show of Hymen, " with mask and antique pageantry," were among the state and trappings of nobility, which, as an advocate for republicanism, he detested: his system of worship, which renounced all outward solemnity, all that had ever any connexion with popery, tended to overthrow the "studious cloisters pale," and the "high-embowed roof;" to remove the "storied windows richly dight," and to silence the "pealing organ" and the "full-voiced, quire." The delights arising from these objects were to be sacrificed to the cold and philosophical spirit of Calvinism, which furnished no pleasures to the imagination.-T. WARTON. SONNETS. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE form of the sonnet was invented by the Italians. I have given an opinion of this sort of composition, and of the nature and degree of Milton's merit in this department, in my Life of the Poet. Some of these twenty-three short compositions may not perhaps be above mediocrity: some of them are vigorous, and concordant with the stern portion of the poet's genius: the major part appear to have been written when he was not in a poetical mood, but occupied with harsher studies. The seventh Sonnet, "On being arrived to the age of twenty-three," (1634,) is very fine: it is pre-eminently interesting, as an early development of his own innate character, vowed to great undertakings, and grieved that his virtuous and sublime ambition had yet advanced no step in its own accomplishment. Here the language is simple, chaste, and smooth, and the numbers are not unmelodious. The next, "When the Assault was intended to the City," (1642,) shows that the poet had now conceived that firm opinion of his own genius and worth which never afterwards deserted him: he puts himself upon a par with Pindar and Euripides. Warton and Todd consider it one of Milton's best Sonnets: I do not exactly accede to that opinion. There is more of poetical expression in the next, "To a virtuous young Lady." The tenth, To the Lady Margaret Ley," daughter of James Ley, Earl of Marlborough, Lord President of the Council, has only that sort of merit which is derived from the just consciousness of the bard that his very mention of another with praise would confer immortality on that person. The next Sonnet, on his own book, called "Tetrachordon," witten in a vein of ridicule, is not worthy of much notice: but the twelfth, on the same subject, has some fine lines on the distinction between liberty and licentiousness. The praise of Henry Lawes, in the thirteenth Sonnet, draws its principal value from the fame of the panegyrist, and the interest we take in knowing the opinion of great men regarding those of their contemporaries, whose celebrity has passed down to our own times. Several of the lines "On the Memory of Mrs. Catharine Thomson," are poetical, beautiful, and affecting. The fifteenth, "To the Lord General Fairfax," is generally and properly admired, as powerful, majestic, and historically valuable: it has a loftiness of sentiment and tone becoming the bold and enlightened bard. The sixteenth Sonnet, "To Cromwell," is the most nervous of all. Many will doubt whether Cromwell deserved these praises; but Milton's praise seems to have been sincere. The images and expressions are for the most part dignified, grand, and poetical: but Warton truly observes, that the close is an anticlimax. The Sonnet which follows, "To Sir Henry Vane, the younger," is somewhat prosaic, involved, and harsh, though it has a rude strength. The character of Vane remains to this day somewhat doubtful: Warton's character of him is discriminative and sagacious. The eighteenth Sonnet, "On the late Massacre in Piemont," (1655,) is full of pathos, noble sentiment, and grand imagery; but the subject is almost too extensive for a sonnet. The Sonnet "On his Blindness" is to my taste next in interest to that "On arriving at his twenty-third Year:" the sentiments and expressions are in all respects Miltonic. Of the next, " To Mr. Lawrence," it has been truly observed, that it is perfectly Horatian. Lawrence was ancestor to the late Judge Lawrence, of the King's Bench. The twenty-first, "To Cyriack Skinner," is of the same character. The next, "To the Same," is of a higher tone: he here speaks of his blindness, and his fortitude under it. The twenty-third, and last, is, "On his deceased Wife," his second wife the daughter of Captain Woodcock, about 1656: it is in the form of a vision, and is very poetical and plaintive. As to the Italian Sonnets, which follow the first, they have received the praises of the critics of that poetical country. Another English poet has latterly distinguished himself still more in the same way, Mr. Mathias, who resided the last twenty years at Naples, and died there in August, or the end of July, 1835.. I must confess that more poetry might have been introduced into these Sonnets than our immortal bard has effected: I think that they are not equal in sublimity to Dante; and certainly have little similitude to the tenderness, harmony, and soft and plaintive imagery of Petrarch. Indeed, our language will scarcely admit the softness of the Italian tones: but Wordsworth has shown what rich and harmonious poetry the legitimate sonnet will admit even in our language; and the late lamented Mrs. Hemans has done the same, though in a different style. Charlotte Smith's Sonnets excel in a soft melancholy; and T. Warton's are rich in description, and classical in expressiont. But Dyer's collection will prove that there are many good sonnets by several modern authors, as Edwards, Bamfylde, Bowles, Kirke White, Leyden: but one I must especially quote; because it is by the last editor of Milton's poems, the Rev. John Mitford, of Benhall, in Suffolk; a man of great genius, great learning, || and great taste, and an excellent prose writer as well as poet. It comes from a note to his "Life of Milton," p. xix, GENOA, 1822. Rise, Genoa, rise in beauty from the sea: Flow then, ye emerald waters, bright and free; Hang up thy gorgeous canopy, thou sun! In Milton's Sonnets there is nothing of the flow and excited temperament of "Lycidas:" the reiteration of the rhyme seems in general to embarrass and impede the author: the words are sometimes forced into their places: it seems as if the writer was resolved to rely solely on the strength or elevation of the thought: neither have they any imagination, except the last; nor any rural pictures. This is a less favourable view of these Sonnets than I have been accustomed hitherto to take; but it arises from a still more close and analytical dissection of them, or, perhaps, from a transient state of gloom and spleen in myself. I will never admit that the sonnet is not capable of every sort of sweetness and poetical spirit; but its shortness is some impediment to the gradual elevation to grand or passionate strains: it has not Ample room and verge enough. Though Milton's single images are commonly given with extraordinary compression, yet the multitude of them is inconsistent with the limits of the sonnet: the * See "Athenæum," August 22, 1835. † See Dyer's "Specimens of English Sonnets," 1833. This chronological and critical series of sonnets has been selected in concurrence with the opinions which I ventured to express to the editor. It appears to me an instructive gradation of specimens, and ought to be studied by every lover of English poetry with great attention: it shows the progress of language and thought, and proves that the genuine character of poetry is always the same. How little difference is there between the language and sentiment and harmony of Shakspeare, and those of the present day! The high intellect and sensibility of human nature are always the same. power of the web depends on its combination and extension. The poet scorns all prettiness or littleness: I do not wonder, therefore, that in these short compositions he has not hit the popular taste: I am rather surprised, that, fond as he was of the Italian poets, he did not here catch more of their manner; at least, of the solemn and sombre inspiration of Dante, if not of the amatory tenderness of Petrarch. Loftiness of understanding, and the resolution of a bold, virtuous, strong, and uncompromising heart, the bard had at all times; they were inseparable from his nature: but I persevere in the conviction, that during that long period of his middle life, when he was engaged in political controversy and state affairs, the fire and tone of the Muse were suppressed, and partly forgotten. Mighty poet as he was, I am sure that he would have been still greater if he had never engaged in politics: these politics weighed down and stifled all the romantic predilections and golden arrays of his youthful taste and enthusiastic imagination: chivalry was his early delight, and how could chivalry and democracy co-exist? Such are the inconsistencies of the most highly endowed and greatest of men ! for what man has been greater or more virtuous than Milton? Though the idle pomps and riches of the world were not with him,-empty possessions which he scorned; yet how much greater was he than kings and heroes! In his solitary study, working out his glorious fables by the midnight lamp, how infinitely more exalted than in his office of secretary; or than if he had been performing the acts of Cromwell and Fairfax, the themes of his majestic Muse ! 1. ΤΟ THE NIGHTINGALE. Ο NIGHTINGALE, that on yon bloomy spray 11. Donna legiadra, il cui bel nome honora ■ While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May. b First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, &c. That is, if they happen to be heard before the cuckoo, it is lucky for the lover. Milton laments afterwards, that hitherto the nightingale had not preceded the cuckoo as she ought: had always sung too late, that is, after the cuckoo.-T. WARTON. • Of their train am I. This sonnet has been commended rather more than it deserves: the nightingale is a common theme of poets, and has been often better sung. |