Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

occasion. Milton, like a true poet, in describing the Syrian superstition, selects such as were most susceptible of poetical enlargement; and which, from the wildness of their ceremonies, were most interesting to the fancy."

There are magical words of the same character in almost every stanza. There is not a finer line in the whole range of descriptive poetry than this:

In dismal dance about the furnace blue.

Yet this ode Johnson passes over in silence. Milton was already in a state of mental fervour, in which all the materials of poetry were spiritualized into a pure golden flame ascending in glory to the skies.

Read also the two following lines, where the poet speaks of the flight of Osiris :—

In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark

The sable-stoléd sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark.

We cannot reason upon the effect of such combinations of words,—the charm is indefinable. Into what a temperament of aërial power must the author have been worked! Well might this sublime priest of the Muses then exclaim,

Nec duri libet usque minas preferre magistri,
Cæteraque ingenio non subeunda meo.

No notice has been handed down how this extraordinary performance was received: it seems yet to have produced no fame to him. When he retired to his father's house at Horton next year, he retired as one who had yet done nothing. His Latin poems want the solemnity, the sublimity, the enthusiasm, the wildness, the imaginativeness, of these English, in which the spirit of Dante and Spenser already began to show itself, moulded up with a character of his own. But Ovid was a poet of a more whimsical and undignified kind, of whom it was strange that he should have been fond, but whom his Latin verses almost everywhere show to have been a great favourite with him.

When we see to what holy subjects and holy imagery Milton's mind was already turned, there is reason for some surprise that he should still have had it in contemplation to produce an epic poem on the inferior and comparatively puerile theme of King Arthur, which no imaginative invention could have invested with the same dignity; when even chivalry had not yet arrived at its historic grandeur, and when everything must have had a fabulousness which shocked probability. This is the more extraordinary, because Milton, though intimately conversant with the old romances, was still more familiar with the spirit, the language, the sublimity of the Sacred Story. It is clear that he was not frightened by the difficulty of duly treating this awful subject, from the manner in which he touched upon it in his majestic hymn, where he showed himself a master of all its mysterious tones. Had he at this time taken subjects from the Bible for a series of odes and hymns, he might even have excelled himself.

He has been supposed not to have had a lyrical ear: nothing can be a greater mistake. The arrangement of his stanza, and the climax of his rhymes in this hymn, are perfect. To my perception there is no other lyrical stanza in our language so varied, so musical, and so grand. The Alexandrian close is like the swelling of the wind when the blast rises to its height.

The poet, perhaps, already grasped at too immense a circuit of human learning: he might be at this early age darkening his mind with the factitious subtleties of politics and theology, which might overlay the sublime and inimitable fire of the Muse. It seems as if he pursued the most abstruse, dry, and puzzling tracks of study. It is indeed to be remarked, that in most of his poems there is an occasional over-fondness for allusion to these blind parts of learning. Life is not long enough for everything; nor can the most ardent flame of the intellect entirely overcome an excessive superincumbence of dead matter.

Though Milton's Latin poetry has been remarked not generally to partake of the character of his English, it has some exceptions. Warton observes of his poem "In Quintum Novembris," '—a college exercise,-that "it contains a council, conspiracy, and expedition of Satan, which may be considered as an early and promising prolusion of the bard's genius to the 'Paradise Lost.'

In this poem the cave of Phonos (Murther) and Prodotes (Treason), with its inhabitants, are finely imagined, and in the style of Spenser.

"There is," says Warton, "great poetry and strength of imagination in supposing that Murther and Treason often fly as alarmed from the inmost recesses of their own horrid cavern, looking back, and thinking themselves pursued."

In his seventeenth year Milton wrote a poem (" In Obitum Præsulis Eliensis") on Dr. Nicholas Felton, bishop of Ely, who died 5th October, 1626. In the midst of his lamentations he supposes himself carried to heaven. Cowper shall give the general reader a taste of it; for as Warton, candid in his very admiration, observes, this sort of imagery, so much admired in Milton, appears to me to be much more practicable than many readers seem to suppose."

I bade adieu to bolts and bars,

And soar'd with angels to the stars,
Like him of old, to whom 'twas given
To mount on fiery wheels to heaven.
Bootes' waggon, slow with cold,
Appall'd me not; nor to behold
The sword that vast Orion draws,

Or e'en the Scorpion's horrid claws, &c. &c.

The same elegant and classical commentator remarks, that "the poet's natural disposition, so conspicuous in the Paradise Lost,' and even in his prose works, for describing divine objects, such as the bliss of the saints, the splendour of heaven, and the music of the angels, is perpetually breaking forth in some of the earliest of his juvenile poems, and here more particularly in displaying the glories of heaven, which he locally represents, and clothes with the brightest material decorations: his fancy, to say nothing of the Apocalypse, was aided and enriched with descriptions in romances.' The next poem, “Naturam non pati senium,” a college exercise, is also praised by Warton. He says that it "is replete with fanciful and ingenious allusions. It has also a vigour of expression, a dignity of sentiment, and elevation of thought, rarely found in very young writers."

[ocr errors]

The poem consists of sixty-nine lines. The whole is beautiful. In answer to those who assert the liability of nature to old age, the poet says,

At Pater Omnipotens, fundatis fortius astris,
Consuluit rerum summæ, certoque peregit
Pondere fatorum lances, atque ordine summo
Singula perpetuum jussit servare tenorem.
Volvitur hinc lapsu mundi rota prima diurno;
Raptat et ambitos sociâ vertigine cælos.
Tardior haud solito Saturnus, et acer ut olim
Fulmineum rutilat cristatâ casside Mavors.
Floridus æternum Phoebus juvenile coruscat,
Nec fovet effoetas loca per declivia terras
Devexo temone Deus; sed semper amica
Luce potens, eadem currit per signa rotarum.
Surgit odoratis pariter formosus ab Indis,
Æthereum pecus albenti qui cogit Olympo,
Mane vocans, et serus agens in pascua cœli :
Temporis et gemino dispertit regna colore.

No! the Almighty Father surer laid
His deep foundations, and providing well
For the event of all, the scales of Fate
Suspended, in just equipoise, and bade"
His universal works, from age to age,
One tenour hold, perpetual undisturb'd.

Hence the prime mover wheels itself about
Continual, day by day, and with it bears
In social measure swift the heavens around.
Nor tardier now is Saturn than of old,
Nor radiant less the burning casque of Mars.
Phoebus, his vigour unimpair'd, still shows
The effulgence of his youth, nor needs the god
A downward course, that he may warm the vales;

But ever rich in influence, runs his road,
Sign after sign, through all the heavenly zone.

Beautiful, as at first, ascends the star
From odoriferous Ind, whose office is
To gather home betimes the ætherial flock,

Το pour them o'er the skies again at eve,

And to discriminate the night and day.-COWPER.

Gray, a century afterwards, wrote tripos verses, at Cambridge, on the subject— "Anne Luna est habitabilis ?"

In 1627, anno ætatis 15, Milton wrote his elegy, “ Ad Thomam Junium præceptorem suum, apud mercatores Anglicos Hamburghæ agentes, Pastoris munere fungentem." This Thomas Young was Milton's tutor before he went to St. Paul's school. He was a Puritan, of Scotch birth. He returned to England in 1628, and was afterwards preferred by the Parliament to the mastership of Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1644, whence he was ejected for refusing the engagement. He died, and was buried at Stow-market, in Suffolk, where he had been vicar thirty years.* From Young, Milton says that he received his first introduction to poetry.

Primus ego Aonios, illo præeunte, recessus
Lustrabam, et bifidi sacra vireta jugi;
Pieriosque hausi latices, Clioque favente,
Castalio sparsi læta ter ora mero.

CHAPTER III.

THE SUBJECT OF MILTON'S COLLEGE POETRY CONTINUEd.

Ir does not appear at what exact date Milton wrote his beautiful Latin poem to his .father (who lived till 1647), excusing his devotion to the Muses: it was probably before he left Cambridge. Though it assumes that his father did not oppose his pursuits, yet I think we may infer that he had endeavoured to persuade him to occupy himself with some lucrative profession :·

:

Nec tu perge precor, sacras contemnere Musas, &c.

The poet ends in this noble manner :

Et vos, o nostri, juvenilia carmina, lusus,
Si modo perpetuos sperare audebitis annos,
Et domini superesse rogo, lucemque tueri,
⚫ Nec spisso rapient oblivia nigra sub Orco;
Forsitan has laudes, decantatumque parentis
Nomen, ad exemplum, sero servabitis ævo.

This is an aspiration which Warton praises with congenial enthusiasm, and which was duly fulfilled to its utmost extent.

This poem may be taken as perfectly biographical, as well as poetical: I think it proper, therefore, to give the whole poem, as translated by Cowper.

TO HIS FATHER.

(TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM COWPER.)

O, that Pieria's spring would through my breast
Pour its inspiring influence, and rush

No rill. but rather an o'erflowing flood!

That, for my venerable father's sake,

All meaner themes renounced, my Muse on wings

Of duty borne, might reach a loftier strain.

For thee, my Father! howsoe'er it please,

She frames this slender work; nor know I aught
That may thy gifts more suitably requite;
Though to requite them suitably would ask
Returns much nobler, and surpassing far
The meagre stores of verbal gratitude;
But such as I possess, I send thee all:
This page presents thee in their full amount

*See Mitford's Poetical Dedication to his edition of Parnell.

With thy son's treasures, and the sum is nought;
Nought save the riches that from airy dream,
In secret grottoes and in laurel bowers,
I have by golden Clio's gift acquired.

Verse is a work divine: despise not thou

Verse, therefore, which evinces (nothing more)
Man's heavenly source, and which, retaining still
Some scintillations of Promethean fire,

Bespeaks him animated from above.

The gods love verse: the infernal powers themselves Confess the influence of verse, which stirs

The lowest deep, and binds in triple chains

Of adamant both Pluto and the shades.

In verse the Delphic priestess, and the pale
Tremulous sibyl, make the future known:

And he who sacrifices, on the shrine

Hangs verse, both when he smites the threatening bull,

And when he spreads his reeking entrails wide

To scrutinise the fates enveloped there.

We, too, ourselves, what time we seek again
Our native skies (and one eternal now

Shall be the only measure of our being),

Crown'd all with gold, and chanting to the lyre
Harmonious verse, shall range the courts above,
And make the starry firmament resound:
And even now the fiery spirit pure,

That wheels yon circling orbs, directs, himself,
Their mazy dance with melody of verse
Unutterable, immortal; hearing which,
Huge Ophiucus holds his hiss suppressed,
Orion, soften'd, drops his ardent blade;
And Atlas stands unconscious of his load.
Verse graced of old the feasts of kings, ere yet
Luxurious dainties, destined to the gulf
Immense of gluttony, were known, and ere
Lyæus deluged yet the temperate board.
Then sat the bard a customary guest,

To share the banquet; and his length of locks
With beechen honours bound, proposed in verse
The character of heroes, and their deeds

To imitation: sang of chaos old;

Of nature's birth; of gods that crept in search
Of acorns fallen, and of the thunder-bolt
Not yet produced from Etna's fiery cave:
And what avails, at last, tune without voice,
Devoid of matter? Such may suit perhaps
The rural dance, but such was ne'er the song
Of Orpheus, whom the stream stood still to hear,
And the oaks follow'd. Not by chords alone
Well touch'd, but by resistless accents more
To sympathetic tears the ghosts themselves
He moved these praises to his verse he owes.

Nor thou persist, I pray thee, still to slight
The sacred Nine, and to imagine vain
And useless powers, by whom inspired, thyself

Art skilful to associate verse with airs

Harmonious, and to give the human voice

A thousand modulations, heir by right

Indisputable of Arion's fame.

Now say, what wonder is it, if a son

Of thine delight in verse, if so conjoin'd

In close affinity, we sympathize

In social arts, and kindred studies sweet?

Such distribution of himself to us

Was Phoebus' choice; thou hast thy gift, and I

Mine also; and between us we receive,

Father and son, the whole inspiring god.

No! howsoe'er the semblance thou assume
Of hate, thou hatest not the gentle Muse,
My father! for thou never bad'st me tread
The beaten path and broad, that leads right on
To opulence, nor didst condemn thy son
To the insipid clamours of the bar,
To laws voluminous and ill-observed;
But, wishing to enrich me more, to fill
My mind with treasure, led'st me far away
From city din to deep retreats, to banks
And streams Aonian, and, with free consent,
Didst place me happy at Apollo's side.

I speak not now, on more important themes
Intent, of common benefits, and such
As nature bids, but of thy larger gifts,

My Father! who, when I had open'd once

The stores of Roman rhetoric, and learn'd

The full-toned language of the eloquent Greeks,

Whose lofty music graced the lips of Jove,

Thyself didst counsel me to add the flowers

That Gallia boasts,-these too with which the smooth

Italian his degenerate speech adorns,

That witnesses his mixture with the Goth;

And Palestine's prophetic songs divine.

To sum the whole, whate'er the heaven contains,

The earth beneath it, and the air between,

The rivers and the restless deep, may all

Prove intellectual gain to me, my wish
Concurring with thy will: science herself,
All cloud removed, inclines her beauteous head,

And offers me the lip, if dull of heart

I shrink not, and decline her gracious boon.

Go, now, and gather dross, ye sordid minds

That covet it: what could my Father more?
What more could Jove himself, unless he gave
His own abode-the heaven in which he reigns?
More eligible gifts than these were not
Apollo's to his son, had they been safe
As they were insecure, who made the boy
The world's vice-luminary, bade him rule
The radiant chariot of the day, and bind

To his young brows his own all-dazzling wreath.
I, therefore, although last and least, my place
Among the learned in the laurel grove
Will hold, and where the conqueror's ivy twines,
Henceforth exempt from the unletter'd throng
Profane, nor even to be seen by such.
Away, then, sleepless Care! Complaint, away!
And Envy, with thy jealous leer malign!
Nor let the monster Calumny shoot forth
Her venom'd tongue at me. Detested foes!
Ye all are impotent against my peace,
For I am privileged, and bear my breast
Safe, and too high for your viperean wound.
But thou, my Father! since to render thanks
Equivalent, and to requite by deeds
Thy liberality, exceeds my power,
Suffice it, that I thus record thy gifts,

And bear them treasured in a grateful mind.

Ye, too, the favourite pastime of my youth,

My voluntary numbers! if ye dare

To hope longevity, and to survive

Your master's funeral, not soon absorb'd

In the oblivious Lethæan gulf,

Shall to futurity perhaps convey

This theme, and by these praises of my sire
Improve the fathers of a distant age.

« ZurückWeiter »