the enterprise of Satan and in the wars of the angels Satan makes a striking figure, and is considered the best drawn character in the poem-though Milton has not described him as an infernal spirit should, in truth, have been described. He appears no worse than some bold factious chief sometimes read of in history. The different characters of Beelzebub, Moloch, Belial, are exceedingly well painted in eloquent speeches, which they make in the second book. Among the good angels are the finely-drawn characters of the dignified Michael, the mild and affable Raphael, and the faithful Abdiel. The poet has greatly failed, how. ever, in the attempt he has made to describe the Almighty, and to recount dialogues between the Father and the Son. With respect to the human characters, the innocence of our first parents and their love are finely and delicately painted—perhaps overdrawn, however, in some respects.

Almost the whole of the first and second books is a specimen of continued instances of the highest sublimity, in which quality he surpasses Homer, and especially Virgil. The sixth book affords other specimens of sublimity, particularly in relating the appearance of the Messiah. Some parts of that book are justly censured; for instance, the witticisms of the devils upon the effect of their artillery.

Beauty and pathos distinguish other portions of this great poem. The latter part of the poem is not so well sustained as the former. With the fall of our first parents, the genius of the author seems to have declined, yet there are striking passages of a tragic and pathetic nature, those which relate to the remorse and contrition of the guilty pair, and their lamentations over the loss of Paradise.

Fancy, learning, vividness of description, stateliness, decorum, are exhibited throughout the poem. The style is elaborate and powerful, and the versification, with occasional harshness and affectation, is superior in variety and harmony to all other blank verse. It has the effect of a fine piece of music. It affords the most complete example of the elevation which ow

language is capable of attaining by the force of numbers.

As to defects of the work, besides those mentioned already, he is thought to deal too profoundly in theological and metaphysical speculations-his language is often harsh-words technical-and too great a display is made of his learning-but these faults were those of his age

The above criticisms have been selected chiefly from Blair. They are sufficient to awaken a desire and a determination to read this immortal poem, and

prepare for a profitable and agreeable reading of it; it the subject will justify a few additional lines from the pen of a late writer in our own country. He says, that probably, of all poems now in existence, this is the most learned, the most original, and the most sublime. In his descriptions, the poet seems a volcano, pouring forth floods of fire, shaking nature to her centreshaking earth and heaven-all but the throne of God. It must, indeed, be confessed, that sometimes he seems extinguished; his thunderings are hushed; and we see nothing but the dark lava, the cinders, and the ashes. But he is still a great mountain.

But sublimity and originality, though the chief glories of this amazing poem, are not the whole. He dips his pencil in heavenly fountains, and gives us pictures scarcely less beautiful than others are grand. He can paint the dew-drop, and show us the humble violet in all its brilliancy, in all its humble loveliness, as well as the battle-field of heaven, convulsed with warring angels, blazing and smoking with the artillery of Satan, and tempestuous with flying mountains.

As a sequel to the Paradise Lost, Milton afterwards composed the Paradise Regained, in which are represented the circumstances of the Redemption of man By some it is more highly esteemed than the former. It was so by the author, but it is generally considered an inferior production, probably because the subject is less favorable to poetical invention and fancy.

A dramatic poem on the story of Samson, and a beautiful masque entitled Comus, are admired productions of the same great author.

15

We shall close our critical remarks on the works of Milton by quoting from Hazlitt, an acute and dis criminating English writer, though apparently, not always candid.

Milton wrote with a resolution to leave nothing undone which it was in his power to do. He strives hard to say the finest things in the world, and he does say them. He adorns and dignifies his subject to the utmost; he surrounds it with every possible association of beauty or grandeur, whether moral, .ntellectual, or physical. He refines on his descriptions of beauty; loading sweets on sweets, till the sense aches at them; and raises his images of terror to a gigantic elevation, that "makes Ossa like a wart."

Milton's learning has all the effect of intuition. He describes objects of which he could only have read in books, with the vividness of actual observation. His imagination has the force of nature. He makes words tell as pictures. "Him follow'd Rimmon, whose delightful seat

Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks

Of Abbana and Pharpar, lucid streams."

The word lucid here gives to the idea all the sparkling ef fect of the most perfect landscape.

And again :

"As when a vulture on Imaus bred,

Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds,
Dislodging from a region scarce of prey,

To gorge the flesh of lambs and yearling kids

On hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs

Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams;

But in his way lights on the barren plains,

Of Sericana, where Chineses drive

With sails and wind their cany wagons light."

If Milton had taken a journey for the express purpose, he could not have described this scenery and mode or life better.

Again, nothing can be more magnificent than the portrai of Beelzebub:

"With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear

The weight of mightiest monarchies."

Or the comparison of Satan, as he "lay floating many s rood," to "that sea beast,"

"Leviathan, which God of all his works.

Created hugest that swim the ocean streain!"

What a force of imagination is there in this last expres sion! What an idea it conveys of that hugest of created beings, as if it shrank up the ocean to a stream, and took up the sea in its nostrils as a very little thing! Force of style is one of Milton's greatest excellences. Hence, perhaps, he stimulates us more in the reading, and less afterward. The way to defend Milton against all impugners is to take down the book and read it.

Milton's blank verse is the only blank verse in the lan guage, except Shakspeare's (the author would also except some American poets, and some other British poets too), that deserves the name of verse. Dr. Johnson, who had modeled his ideas of versification on the regular sing song of Pope, condemns the Paradise Lost, as harsh and unequal. This is, indeed, sometimes the case; but I imagine that there are more perfect examples in Milton of musical expression, or of an adaptation of the sound and movement of the verse to the meaning of the passage, than in all ou: other (English) writers put together, with the exceptior mentioned. The sound of his lines is moulded into the ex ression of the sentiment, almost of the very image. The rise or fall, pause or hurry on, with exquisite art, but wi out the least trick or affectation, as the occasion seems > re quire.

The following are some of the finest instances.

"His hand was known

In heaven by many a tower'd structure high;
Nor was his name unheard or unadored

In ancient Greece: and in the Ausonian land

Men call'd him Mulciber: and how he fell
From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements; from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,

A summer's day; and with the setting sun
Dropp'd from the zenith like a falling star
On Lemnos, the Egean isle: thus they relate,
Erring."

"But chief the spacious hall
Thick swarm'd, both on the ground and in the air
Brush'd with the hiss of rustling winds-as bees
In spring time, when the sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers
Fly to and fro or on the smoothed plank,
The suburb of their straw-built citadel,
New rubb'd with balm, expatiate and confer
Their state affai 's. So thick the airy crowd

Swarm'd, and were straiten'd: till the signal given,
Behold a wonder "****

The verse, in the exquisitely modulated passage that for ws, floats up and down as if it had itself wings:

"Round he surveys (and well might, where he sto
So high above the circling canopy

Of night's extended shade) from th' eastern point
Of Libra to the fleecy star that bears
Andromeda far off Atlantic seas

Beyond the horizon: then from pole to pole
He views in breadth, and without longer pause
Down into the world's first region throws
His flight precipitant, and winds with ease
Through the pure marble air his oblique way
Among innumerable stars that shone,

Stars distant, but nigh hand seem'd other worlds,
Or other worlds they seem'd, or happy isles," &c.

The interest of the poem arises from the daring ambition and fierce passions of Satan, and from the account of the paradisaical happiness, and the loss of it by our first parents. Three fourths of the work are taken up with these characters, and nearly all that relates to them is unmixed sublimity and beauty. The first two books alone are like two massy pillars of solid gold.

Satan is the most heroic subject that was ever chosen for a roem; and the execution is as perfect as the design is lofty. He was the first of created beings, who, for endeavoring to be equal with the Highest, and to divide the empire of heaven with the Almighty, was hurled down to hell. His aim was no less than the throne of the universe; his means, myriads of angelic armies bright, the third part of the heav ens, whom he lured after him with his countenance, and who durst defy the Omnipotent in arms. His ambition was the greatest, and his punishment was the greatest: but not so his despair, for his fortitude was as great as his suffer ings. His strength of mind was matchless as his strength of body. He was the greatest power that was ever overthrown, with the strongest will left to resist, or to endure. He was baffled, not confounded. He stood like a tower; or "As when Heaven's fire

Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines."

He is still surrounded with hosts of rebel angels, armed warriors, who own him as their sovereign leader, and with whose fate he sympathizes as he views them round, far as