94 



Cambrian fonnation, in which very few fossils of any kind have ever 

 been found. 



Dr. W. Ihne concluded his Paper 



ON THE PARADISE LOST OF MILTON. 



"In the vast field of criticism on which we are now entering, innumerable reapers have 

 already put their sickhs. Yet the harvest is so abundant, that the negligent search of 

 a straggling gleaner may be rewarded with a sheaf." 



Macaulay's Essay on Milton. — Edin. Rev., 1825. 



An age is characterised not only by its literary productions, but also 

 by the degree of esteem, in which it holds the j^roductious of former 

 times. The enthusiasm or the coldness shown to them indicates, like 

 the rising or falling mercury, the condition of the intellectual atmo- 

 sphere, and is a tolerably safe criterion of the prevailing spirit of the age. 

 Shakspeare has gone through periods of comparative neglect and 

 admu'atiou, so have Homer and Dante, Horace, Virgil and Cicero, 

 Voltaire and Rousseau, the Niebelungen and Wolfram von Escheubach, 

 in proportion as the character of their works was congenial with, or 

 adverse to, successive ages. Shakspeare is now aU-ruling, Milton is 

 quite in the "dust and silence of the upper shelf." Perhaps our inves- 

 tigation into the composition and style of the " Paradise Lost" may 

 help us to understand the causes, and to appreciate the justice of this 

 e.Ktraordinary neglect.-:- 



Before euteiing upon the detail of my investigation, I think it will 

 be necessary to acknowledge and record my veneration for the nobleness 

 of mind, the moral courage and the sublime genius of the blind poet. 

 I do this to shield myself from the odium, to which a frank and 

 um'eserved criticism might otherwise expose me. I feel the force and 

 beating of what Dr. Johnson says in his life of Milton (p. 171): 

 " What Englishman can take delight in transcribing passages, which, 

 if they lessen the reputation of MUton, diminish in some degree the 

 honour of our country ?" 



But the reputation of Milton is too fii'mly estabhshed, either to need 

 any adventitious support and eulogium, or to suffer much, if at all, 

 fi'om the searching analysis of the critic. If, therefore, I shall be 

 found to dwell chiefly on what appear to me to be blemishes, I trust 

 I shall not, on that account, be ranked among the mean herd of 



* Johnson, (Life of Milton, p. 173) already says: — '"Paradise Lost' is one of those 

 books which the reader admires, and laj's down and forgets to taks up again. None ever 

 wished it longer thau it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure." 



