To journey through the aery gloom began, The earth was form'd; but in the womb as yet As drops on dust conglobing from the dry.'1 This is the primitive scenery; immense bare seas and mountains as Raphael Sanzio outlines them in the background of his biblical paintings. Milton embraces the general effects, and handles the whole as easily as his Jehovah. Let us quit superhuman and fanciful spectacles. A simple sunset equals them. Milton peoples it with solemn allegories and regal figures, and the sublime is born in the poet, as just before it was born from the subject: The sun, now fallen. Arraying with reflected purple and gold And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.' 2 The changes of the light become here a religious procession of vague beings who fill the soul with veneration. So sanctified, the poet prays. Standing by the nuptial couch of Adam and Eve, he says: Hail, wedded love, mysterious law, true source Of human offspring, sole propriety In Paradise of all things common else! 1 Paradise Lost, book vii. ». 210-292. 2 Ibid. book iv. v. 591-609. By thee adulterous lust was driven from men Relations dear, and all the charities Of father, son, and brother, first were known.' He justifies it by the example of saints and patriarchs. He immolates before it bought love and 'court amours,' wanton women and harlots. We are a thousand miles from Shakspeare; and in this Protestant eulogy of the family tie, of lawful love, of 'domestic sweets,' of orderly piety and of home, we perceive a new literature and an altered time. A strange great man, and a strange spectacle! He was born with the instinct of noble things; and this instinct, strengthened in him by solitary meditation, by accumulated knowledge, by stern logic, becomes changed into a body of maxims and beliefs which no temptation could dissolve, and no reverse shake. Thus fortified, he passes life as a combatant, as a poet, with courageous deeds and splendid dreams, heroic and rude, chimerical and impassioned, generous and calm, like every self-contained reasoner, like every enthusiast, insensible to experience and enamoured of the beautiful. Thrown by the chance of a revolution into politics and theology, he demands for others the liberty which his powerful reason requires, and strikes at the public fetters which impede his personal energy. By the force of his intellect, he is more capable than any one of accumulating science; by the force of his enthusiasm, he is more capable than any of experiencing hatred. Thus armed, he throws himself into controversy with all the clumsiness and barbarism of the time; but this proud logic displays its arguments with a marvellous breadth, and sustains its images with an unwonted majesty: this lofty imagination, after having spread over his prose an array of magnificent figures, carries him into a torrent of passion even to the height of the sublime or excited ode-a sort of archangel's song of adoration or vengeance. The chance of a throne preserved, then re-established, carries him, before the revolution took place, into pagan and moral poetry, after the revolution into Christian and moral verse. In both he aims at the sublime, and inspires admiration because the sublime is the work of enthusiastic reason, and admiration is the enthusiasm of reason. In both, he arrives at his point by the accumulation of splendours, by the sustained fulness of poetic song, by the greatness of his allegories, the loftiness of his sentiments, the description of infinite objects and heroic emotions. In the first, a lyrist and a philosopher, with a wider poetic freedom, and the creator of a stranger poetic illusion, he produces almost perfect odes and choruses. In the second, an epic writer and a Protestant, enslaved by a strict theology, robbed of the style which makes the supernatural 1 Paradise Lost, book iv. v. 750-757. visible, deprived of the dramatic sensibility which creates varied and living souls, he accumulates cold dissertations, transforms man and God into orthodox and vulgar machines, and only regains his genius in endowing Satan with his republican soul, in multiplying grand sceneries and colossal apparitions, in consecrating his poetry to the praise of religion and duty. Placed, as it happened, between two ages, he participates in their two characters, as a stream which, flowing between two different soils, is tinged by their two hues. A poet and a Protestant, he receives from the closing age the free poetic afflatus, and from the opening age the severe political religion. He employed the one in the service of the other, and displayed the old inspiration in new subjects. In his works we recognise two Englands: one impassioned for the beautiful, devoted to the emotions of an unshackled sensibility and the fancies of pure imagination, with no law but the natural feelings, and no religion but natural belief; voluntarily pagan, often immoral; such as it is exhibited by Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Shakspeare, Spenser, and the superb harvest of poets which covered the ground for a space of fifty years: the other fortified by a practical religion, void of metaphysical invention, altogether political, with worship and law, attached to measured, sensible, useful, narrow opinions, praising the virtues of the family, armed and stiffened by a rigid morality, driven into prose, raised to the highest degree of power, wealth, and liberty. In this sense, this style and these ideas are monuments of history: they concentrate, recall, or anticipate the past and the future; and in the limits of a single work are found the events and the feelings of several centuries and of a whole nation. BOOK III. THE CLASSIC AGE. CHAPTER I. The Restoration. 1. THE ROISTERERS. I. The excesses of Puritanism-How they induce excesses of sensuality. III. Butler's Hudibras-Platitude of his comic style, and harshness of his rancorous style. İV. Baseness, cruelty, brutality, debauchery of the court-Rochester, his life, poems, style, morals. V. Philosophy consonant with these manners-Hobbes, his spirit and his style -His curtailments and his discoveries-His mathematical method-In how much he resembles Descartes-His morality, æsthetics, politics, logic, psychology, metaphysics-Spirit and aim of his philosophy. VI. The theatre-Alteration in taste, and in the public-Audiences before and after the Restoration. VII. Dryden-Disparity of his comedies-Gaucherie of his indecencies-How he translates Molière's Amphitryon. VIII. Wycherley-Life-Character-Melancholy, greed, immodesty-Love in a Wood, Country Wife, Dancing Master — Licentious pictures, and repugnant details-His energy and realism-Parts of Olivia and Manly in his Plain Dealer-Certain words of Milton. 2. THE WORLDLINGS. I. Appearance of the worldly life in Europe-Its conditions and causes-How it was established in England-Etiquette, amusements, conversations, . manners, and talents of the drawing-room. II. Dawn of the classic spirit in Europe-Its origin- Its nature-Difference of conversation under Elizabeth and Charles II. ÌII. Sir William Temple-His life, character, spirit, and style. IV. Writers of fashion-Their correct language and gallant bearing-Sir Charles Sedley, the Earl of Dorset, Edmund Waller-His opinions and style Wherein consists his polish-Wherein he is not sufficiently polished— V. Sir John Denham-His poem of Cooper's Hill-Oratorical swell of his VII. Action-Complication of intrigues — Frivolity of purpose-Crudeness of the characters-Grossness of manners-Wherein consists the talent of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar - Kind of characters they are able to produce. VIII. Natural characters-Sir John Brute, the husband; Squire Sullen-Sir Tunbelly, the father-Miss Hoyden, the young lady-Squire Humphry, the young gentleman-Idea of nature according to this theatre. IX. Artificial characters-Women of the world—Miss Prue, Lady Wishfort, Lady Pliant, Mrs Millamant-Men of the world-Mirabell-Idea of society according to this theatre-Why this culture and this literature have not produced durable works-Wherein they are opposed to the English character-Transformation of taste and manners. X. The continuation of comedy-Sheridan-Life-Talent-The School for Scandal-How comedy degenerates and is extinguished-Causes of the decay of the theatre in Europe and in England. WH 1. THE ROISTERERS. HEN we alternately look at the works of the court painters of Charles I. and Charles II., and pass from the noble portraits of Van Dyk to the figures of Lely, the fall is sudden and great; we have left a palace, and we light on a bagnio. Instead of the proud and dignified lords, at once cavaliers and courtiers, instead of those fine yet simple ladies who look at the same time princesses and modest maidens, instead of that generous and heroic company, elegant and resplendent, in whom the spirit of the Renaissance yet survived, but who already displayed the refinement of the modern age, we are confronted by perilous and importunate courtesans, with an expression either vile or harsh, incapable of shame or of remorse.1 Their plump smooth hands toy fondlingly with their dimpled fingers; ringlets of heavy hair fall on their bare shoulders; their swimming eyes languish voluptuously; an insipid smile hovers on their sensual lips. One is lifting a mass of dishevelled hair which streams over the curves of her rosy flesh; another languishingly, and without constraint, uncloses a sleeve whose soft folds display the full whiteness of her arms. Nearly 1 See especially the portraits of Lady Morland, Lady Williams, the Countess of Ossory, the Duchess of Cleveland, Lady Price, and many others. |