DEMONIAC IDEALS IN POETRY. MILTON'S demons, Johnson remarks, are too noble; but they are, nevertheless, the most transcendent embodiments of Satanic nature in poetry. They are ruined gods-gods in their everlasting natures in their immortal, intellectual power-devils only in their hatred of the Supreme Goodness, which is a consequence of their fall, and in the spirit of eternal revenge by which they are actuated; all their other attributes-courage, undisturbed capacity of thought in their surroundments of horror, and, amid unimaginable agonies, fidelity one to the other, &c.--are deitific and sublime. The demoniac nature appears in the boast of possessing th' unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield," they feel strength undiminished, and eternal being to undergo eternal punishment." 66 "Sad cure; for who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity?" &c., lines which breathe a noble aspiration. Many others in the speeches of Milton's angels mark them as belonging to the highest order of imaginative conception, and distinguish them altogether from the fiends of Dante, who are existences of blind, devouring hatred, cruelty, and rage. The latter, however, though inspired by the barbarism of ignorant middle-age fancy, are truer to the ideal of Evil. Dante's demons and Lucifer embody the middle-aged conception of the spirit and form of evil-intensified by a genius characterized by a powerful, but somewhat narrow imagination. Although he has faithfully turned to shape many of the gloomy legends of his age, it appears to us that had he had any opportunity of acquainting himself with the contemporary serf-life of Germany in the twelfth century, in which the witches' Sabbath was an institution, he might have drawn several pictures of demoniac nature more fearful and appalling than almost any he has introduced into the Inferno. Nevertheless the 21st and 22nd cantos display one of the most hideous and uncouth, but at the same time ideally true, reflections of fiend nature in literature. ing the gloomy bridge, which in the fifth region of hell leads to the lake of boiling pitch in which the sinners wallow-the bridge which one of the demons, Malacauda (Evil-tail), says, Cross Just five hours later yesterday than now, twelve hundred three score and six years ago, was broken across the abyss"-they see legions of black fiends armed with hooks, lurking beneath the arches, who rush upon them, roaring with impetuous rage, and one of the Scarmiglion attempts to strike him until pierced by their captain. Then comes the scene in which they exhibit their delight in torturing the damned, and the combat which takes place between two of them Calcabrina and Alechino, who, on the escape of the sinner Crampolo, rush together, exhausting their fury on themselves. Both tumbling into the trench, combat with ungovernable fury, until in the rage of the combat their bodies are seen to glow with fire even in the flaming pool. This scene, in which the overmastering passions of hatred and destruction, natural to the demons, foiled of its exercise on other objects, turn against themselves, exhibits, despite the grotesqueness of the details, a penetrative conception of fiend nature. Despite these and other scenes, however, scattered throughout the "Inferno,' Dante, in the 3rd canto, has exhibited in a few lines an intensity of conception as regards demoniac character and its sufferings, which he did not attain in any of those succeeding. The few lines descriptive of the torments of the envious reach the acme of the sublime of contempt : "Questi non hanno speranza di morte: Misericordia e Giustizia gli sdegna. passa. While in the line e "A Dio spiacenti ed a' nemici sui" he has painted this last extremity of guilt and despair. Dante's "Lucifer," of which we get a glimpse in the 34th canto, is a monstrous and blockish representation of the terrible power-antagonist of the Almighty himself. He appears like a mountain rising from the dark, frosty plain, whose icy winds are created by the movement of his wings (which are compared to those of windmills!) in the poet's usual manner of selecting a realistic representative image, however it may lower the idea of the subject he is treating. Lucifer, with his three faces, one red, one yellow, and another black, each of whose mouths are tearing a sinner (and the selection of the parties so positioned, Judas, Brutus, &c., is to the last degree incongruous). Dante and Virgil mounting on his back, secured by his wings, and his plunge through the centre of the earth with them, at the other side of which they emerge into day-all this and more is rather like the image of some monstrous nightmare than an imaginative conception, true to a high ideal. The best touch in the Lucifer picture is the description of the effect which the first sight of the dark, hideous form produces on the mind of the observer : "I' non mori', e non rimasi vivo." sublime in his contempt. As he proDante, as we have said, is most ceeds in the invention of horrors he becomes almost always bizarre and uncouth-except in the scenes of the fiery tombs; the speaking flames in the awful plain, when the fiery snow is falling; in the description of the giants buried to the waist in the sea of ice-one of whom, Nimrod, cries out after Dante, in the accents of a lost tongue; and in the glimpse we have of the fiends referred to and their irresistible, unappeasable, malevolent fury and hatred raging to exhaustion. The genius of Tasso, whose element was chivalric grandeur and beauty, failed deplorably when it attempted the sublime, as may be seen by contrasting his grotesque, and, indeed, ludicrous, description of hell and its inmates with the inimitable paintings and dramatizations of Milton. In his conception of Satan and his attending demons, Tasso is merely a feeble follower of Dante. His fiends are an in-. congruous collection of bestial monsters and hobgoblin forms, taken from classical mythology-serpents, harpies, centaurs, sphynxes, gorgons, pythons, chimeras, &c., who are enumerated with but few touches of descrip tion; the faces are human, the heads wreathed with snakes, and they have hoofs and tails. The only poetic line in this portraiture is that in which he says they have terror and death in their eyes "Quant' è neg'i occhi lor terrore e morte." In his sketch of Pluto, also, he exhibits an utter want of true imagination and taste. The description is made up of the most confused and contradictory images. The King of Terrors is a monstrous form, so huge, we are told, that beside him Calpe and Atlas would appear as little hills. So far, so well; but when the poet goes on to describe his horns, tail, beard, and mouth befouled with black blood, he presents us with merely a Again, the reason he gives for in but they are red, and distil poison, &c. ducing Faust to sell him his soul : In a word the Pluto and Pandemonium of Tasso are an olla podrida-a classical fable, and middle-age grotesque fancy; and the only good stanza in the entire description is that in which he paints the assembling of the infernal powers. In the diction in which he paints the sound of the trumpet, the earthquake, &c., abounding with aspirates, he has done wonders with the soft Italian : "Chiami gli abitator dell' ombre eterne, Il ranco suon della tartarea tromba, &c." The Furies of Eschylus, like many of his conceptions, have an air of primordial and awful sublimity. The sketch of their appearance as they lie asleep in the temple, around the murderer, Orestes, is at once loathsome and terrible-aged women, garbed in sable stoles, "abhorred and execrable," their harsh breath rattling in their throats, and rheumy gore distilling from their closed eyelids, &c. These beings, daughters of Night, embody the antique, savage idea of blood for blood justice-a raging, Tartarian thirst for revenging crime. At first they appear as inexorable, demoniac powers, of ruthless retribution; but although their natures and purposes display a one-idead directness, resembling that of the august Fates, they are not implacable, as appears from the last scene of the drama. The Mephistopheles of Marlowe, in his "Tragical History of Doctor Faustus," though inconsistent as a dramatic character, is a highly poetic conception. His nature, though lost, is still half human, and an awful melancholy broods round his figure. When Faustus asks him where are the spirits that fell with Lucifer"Mep.-In hell. Faust.-How comes it then that thou art out of hell? Mep.-Why this is hell, nor am I out of it; Think'st thou that I that saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, Am not tormented with ten thou- "Faust.-Stay, Mephistopheles, and tell Mep.-Enlarge his kingdom, Mep.-Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris. To have companions in misery is the motive by which the devils of Marlowe are actuated in tempting mankind. The above melancholy demoniac sentiment contrasts strongly with the human in Virgil. "Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco." Satan in Job appeared as the tempter. Goethe is at once a tempter, denier, and The Mephistopheles of mocker. He has wholly lost the sublime elements of the ruined archangel, and his dry intellect acts alternately in laying a destructive snare, and flashing a withering sneer. Whatever heart he had is ashes-likewise his imagination and passions—all save his love of evil. It is Iago in mediaval dress, with supernatural power; and, like his, the impulse of Mephistopheles toward destruction is purposeless. Goethe's Mephistopheles is the most philosophical conception of demonaic nature in literature. The sketch of Satan in Byron's Cain, which is partly copied from the Miltonic ideal, as regards his character as the eternal adversary of God, is, however, chiefly an embodiment of the sceptical criticism of Voltaire and the French infidels. Milton, in his delineation of Satan, terminated at the point where, entering into the serpent, he accomplished the fall by flattering Eve to taste the apple-of whose core mankind have since chewed the cud. bours by logic to render his mind hosIn tempting Cain, Byron's Lucifer latile to the nature of the Supreme Deity by all the cut-and-dry argu In being deprived of everlasting ments comprised in speculations upon the origin of evil; the result of which bliss? is, that he refuses to join Abel in the sacrifice he is about to offer, and, in the quarrel which ensues, kills him. The scene in Hades displays little imagination; and there is but little poetry in the scenes in which the ruined archangel appears, and less in the language of the drama generally, which is, for the most part, tame prose tortured into blank verse. The strained, sentimental misanthropy of Byron's personality is as apparent in his Lucifer as in Harold, Lara, and the other creations of his oneidead genius. In, however, his burlesque poem, "The Vision of Judgment," there is one stanza which, though in part plagiarized from Milton, is finer than any passage in Cain : WYLDER'S HAND. PART VIJI. CHAPTER LX. THE BRANDON CONSERVATORY. CAPTAIN LAKE did look in at The Lodge in the morning, and remained an hour in conference with Mr. Jos Larkin. I suppose everything went off pleasantly. For although Stanley Lake looked very pale and vicious as he walked down to the iron gate of The Lodge, among the evergreens and bass-mats, the good Attorney's countenance shone with a serene and heavenly light, so pure and bright, indeed, that I almost wonder his dazzled servants, sitting along the wall while he read and expounded that morning, did not respectfully petition that a veil, after the manner of Moses, might be suspended over the seraphic effulgence. Somehow his Times did not interest him at breakfast; these parliamentary wrangles, commercial speculations, and foreign disputes, are they not, after all, but melancholy and dreary records of the merest worldliness; and are there not moments when they become almost insipid? Jos Larkin tossed the paper upon the sofa. French politics, relations with Russia, commercial treaties, party combinations, how men can so wrap themselves up in these things! And he smiled ineffable pity over the crumpled newspaper-on the poor souls in that sort of worldly limbo. In which frame of mind he took from his coat pocket a copy of Captain Lake's marriage settlement, and read over again a covenant on the Captain's part that, with respect to this particular estate of Five Oaks, he would do no act, and execute no agreement, deed, or other instrument whatsoever, in any wise affecting the same, without the consent in writing of the said Dorcas Brandon; and a second covenant binding him and the trustees of the settlement against executing any deed, &c., without a similar consent; and specially directing, that in the event of alienating the estate, the said Dorcas must be made an assenting party to the deed. He folded the deed, and replaced it in his pocket with a peaceful smile and closed eyes, murmuring— "I'm much mistaken if the gray mare's the better horse in that stud." He laughed gently, thinking of the Captain's formidable and unscrupulous nature, exhibitions of which he could not fail to remember. "No, no, Miss Dorkie won't give us much trouble." He used to call her "Miss Dorkie," playfully, to his clerks. It gave him consideration, he fancied. And now with this Five Oaks to begin with£1,400 a-year-a great capability, immensely improvable, he would stake half he's worth on making it more than £2,000 within five years; and with other things at his back, an able man like him might before long look as high as she. And visions of the grand jury rose dim and splendid-an heiress, and a seat for the county; perhaps he and Lake might go in together, though he'd rather be associated with the Hon. James Cluttworth, or young Lord Griddlestone. Lake, you see, wanted weight, and, notwithstanding his connexions, was, it could not be denied, a new man in the county. So Wylder, Lake, and Jos Larkin had each projected for himself, pretty much the same career; and probably each saw glimmering in the horizon the golden round of a coronet. And I suppose other modest men are not always proof against similar flatteries of imagination. Jos Larkin had also the Vicar's business and reversion to attend to. The Rev. William Wylder had a letter containing three lines from him at eight o'clock, to which he sent an answer; whereupon the solicitor despatched a special messenger, one of his clerks, to Dollington, with a letter to the sheriff's deputy, from whom he received duly a reply, which necessitated a second letter with a formal undertaking, to which came another reply; whereupon he wrote to Burlington, Smith, and Co., acquainting them respectfully, in diplomatic fashion, with the attitude which affairs had assumed. With this went a private and confidential, non-official, note to Smith, desiring him to answer stiffly and press for immediate settlement, and to charge costs fairly, as Mr. William Wylder would have ample funds to liquidate them. Smith knew what fairly meant, and his entries went down accordingly. By the same post went up to the same firm a proposition-an after thoughtsanctioned by a second miniature correspondence with his client, now sailing before the wind, to guarantee them against loss consequent against staying the execution in the sheriff's hands for a fortnight, which, if they agreed to, they were further requested to send a draft of the proposed under VOL. LXIII.-NO. CCCLXXIII. taking by return, at foot of which, in pencil, he wrote, "N.B.-Yes.' This arrangement necessitated his providing himself with a guarantee from the Vicar; and so the little account as between the Vicar and Jos Larkin, Solicitor, and the Vicar and Messrs. Burlington, Smith, and Co., Solicitors, grew up and expanded with a tropical luxuriance. About the same time-while Mr. Jos Larkin, I mean, was thinking over Miss Dorkie's share in the deed, with a complacent sort of interest, anticipating a struggle, but sure of victory that beautiful young lady was walking slowly from flower to flower, in the splendid conservatory which projects southward from the house, and rears itself in glacial arches high over the short, sweet, and flowery patterns of the outer garden of Brandon. The unspeakable sadness of wounded pride was on her beautiful features, and there was a fondness in the gesture with which she laid her fingers on these exotics and stooped over them, which gave to her solitude a sentiment of the pathetic. From the high glass doorway, communicating with the drawing-rooms, at the far end, among towering ranks of rare and gorgeous flowers, over the encaustic tiles, and through this atmosphere of perfume, did Captain Stanley Lake, in his shooting coat, glide, smiling toward his beautiful young wife. She heard the door close, and looking half over her shoulder, in a low tone indicating surprise, she merely said "Oh !" receiving him with a proud, sad look. 'Yes, Dorkie, I'm here at last. I've been for some weeks so insufferably busy," and he laid his white hand lightly over his eyes, as if they and the brain within were alike weary. How charming this place is the temple of Flora, and you the divinity!" 66 And he kissed her cheek. "I'm now emancipated for, I hope, a week or two. I've been so stupid and inattentive. I'm sure, Dorkie, you must think me a brute. I've been shut up so in the library, and keeping such tiresome company-you've no idea; but I think you'll say it was time well spent, at least I'm sure 3 |