1832.] A Winter Evening with the Poet*. 387 



The genius of Milton possessed more perfectly than that of any poet 

 who ever lived, the opposite endowments of the a>o/3spov and the KaXoy. 

 The terror and majesty of Satan, and the loveliness and delicacy of Eve, 

 can never be surpassed nothing can exceed the charm of that gentle 

 creature in the melancholy season of human sorrow and temptation. 

 Her footsteps make a beautiful light in the darkness of that painful 

 story. But we must look to the character of the fallen angel, and the 

 description of his actions, for the full development of Milton's powers. 

 The wings of his inspiration are unfolded, and their gigantic shadow 

 rests upon his poetry. The present becomes the past ; in the words of 

 Schlegel, he gives de I'ame aux sensations, el un corps a la pensee. Mil- 

 ton has been charged with arraying Satan in too attractive colours, and 

 certainly his sublimity of mariner seizes strongly on an ardent and 

 youthful mind. Lord Thurlow is reported to have been excessively 

 fond of reading the Paradise Lost aloud at Oxford, more especially the 

 speeches which are put into the mouth of Satan ; and he frequently 

 exclaimed, after finishing the celebrated address to the sun, " He was a 

 fine fellow / wish he had won /" Setting apart the impiety of the 

 observation, we think it expresses very vividly the feelings of many of 

 Milton's readers. 



We have already noticed the supernatural strength and energy dis- 

 played by Milton in the Paradise Lost. Even before the " dark pavi- 

 lion," spread out upon " the wasteful deep," the poet stands unquailed 

 by the thrones of Chaos and Night. We see in him none of the straining 

 after effect, and lashing of every power into exertion, so obvious in 

 other poets. He gazes upon Eternity with a calm and serene counte- 

 nance, while the illimitable ocean of time rolls around him. His Titan 

 intellect bears the pressure of six thousand years without any per- 

 ceptible bending. The mind of Milton was not debilitated by the ener- 

 vating nourishment of vain and unprofitable studies. The nerves of 

 the spiritual man were firmly knit together, and braced by the pure air 

 of that lofty region in which he delighted to wander. But the subli- 

 mity and terror of Milton were softened by a most touching and en- 

 dearing grace and pathos. The gentle voice of Sion's " flowery brook" 

 is heard amid the warring elements of nature. He disdained not occa- 

 sionally to mix the crystal waters of the heavenly fountain with the 

 bright wine of a Grecian Circe. Milton was the most learned of poets ; 

 but in him poetry was " the blossom of all human knowledge." Unlike 

 Callimachus, or the writers of the Alexandrian school,, his immense 

 acquirements were all transmuted by a spiritual alchymy into splendid 

 and exhaustless imagery. The stream of his poetry rushes over the 

 orient pearl and sands of gold, which the tide of years has gathered 

 together. Milton was the most frequent, and the most successful of 

 imitators. It may be affirmed of him, as of Virgil, that he borrowed 

 nothing which he did not improve. The various editors of Milton have 

 cited parallel passages almost without number, and the cultivated mind 

 of Mr. Mitford has enabled him to offer another highly interesting con- 

 tribution. It is curious to trace out the sources of some of Milton's 

 peculiar idioms. Mr. S. Boyd very ingeniously pointed out the coin- 

 cidence between a passage in the Banquet of Virgins, of Methodius, and 

 the description of Eden in the 4th book of the Paradise Lost. 



The words of Methodius are, "There bloomed innumerable trees, 



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