ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



heart, and which in a hea'.thy state is usually folt between tho 

 fifth ami sixth i il.H. When the action of tho heart ia examined 

 by tho ear, two sounds are heard. Tho first is dull and 

 prolonged ; its commencement coincides with the impulse of the 

 heart, and just precedes the pulno at tho wrist ; the second is a 

 , sharper sound, which follows tho pulse. Tho canso of 

 t of these sounds is still very uncertain ; it coin 

 f time with the contraction of the ventricles, and is pro- 

 artly caused by tho noise or bruit produced by tho con- 

 traction of muscular fibre. Tho second sound is held to be 

 occasioned by tho sudden tightening of tho valves when they are 

 pressed across the orifices of the aorta and pulmonary artery. 

 The contraction of the auricles is a much more rapid and less 

 complete process than that of the ventricles ; tho auricles are 

 probably never completely emptied ; but the ventricles contract 

 BO firmly, that in some cases, whore the heart has been examined 

 uft<T death, their cavities have been found completely obliterated, 

 only a Blight fissure marking their existence. The heart, then, 

 by its contraction propels tho blood, and the amount of force 

 thus generated is sufficient to carry the blood through the com- 

 plete circle. This force has been estimated to be equal to a 

 pressure of six pounds to the square inch ; and taking tho area 

 of the heart at ten inches, this would give a propelling force of 

 sixty pounds. The left ventricle, as would be supposed, from 

 the much greater thickness of its walls, contracts with a force 

 nearly double that of the right. 



The time required for the blood to traverse the circulatory 

 system is very brief, tho average probably being about a minute, 

 though in some experiments mode by injecting substances into 

 the vein of an animal, the circuit was completed in a much 

 shorter time. By the contraction of tho several cavities of the 

 heart the blood is forced along its proper course ; but as these 

 contractions are intermittent, and alternate with each other, 

 there would be a constant reflux of the blood into the cavity it 

 had left, but for the interposition of those valves which have 

 been before described. Those which shut off the communication 

 between the auricles and ventricles are the most important, and 

 may be taken as types of the rest. In speaking of them, it was 

 said that their under-surfacea are connected by strings, the 

 chordae tendinse, with the summits of tho projecting masses of 

 muscular fibre, the columnaa carneae. When the ventriclas con- 

 tract upon their contents, the blood presses up the flaps of the 

 valves, and so mechanically closes the auricular opening; but 

 this is not all, for just in proportion to the amount of pressure 

 made by the blood upon tho under-surface of the valves is tho 

 action excited in these little muscular columns, which at once 

 contract and draw the valves tighter and tighter, and close 

 more perfectly the opening, and so prevent the reflux of the 

 blood ; this is, therefore, a moat perfect floodgate not simply t. 

 mechanical contrivance, but a vital organ, developed just suffi- 

 ciently to perform the necessary work. 



LESSONS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.-XVIII. 



MILTON. 



NOTHINO can be more complete than the change which the 

 Restoration wrought in the position and prospects of Milton. 

 Dp to that time, whatever his personal calamities, and they 

 were heavy, Milton had lived in keen enjoyment of the triumph 

 of that cause for which he had fought so long and so strenu- 

 ously. He had himself been honoured and powerful in his own 

 country, and his fame and influence were known throughout 

 Europe. But the revulsion of feeling which accompanied, and 

 which, indeed, effected the Restoration, was something stronger 

 than it is at all easy for us to realise in the present day. With 

 the exception of a faithful few, the whole nation, Cavaliers and 

 Roundheads, Royalists and Republicans, all alike bowed the 

 knee to Baal. All vied with one another in servile adulation of 

 the new-found sovereign. All alike hastened to lay their poli- 

 tical principles, their personal honour, their faith, their liberties, 

 at the foot of the throne. A blind enthusiam of royalty, real 

 in some, assumed in others, was the spirit of the hour. No ill- 

 will and contempt was too strong for those who had been identified 

 with the establishment or the conduct of the old government. 

 Milton's position was a singularly trying one. He was growing 

 old ; he was totally blind ; he had to see tho work of his life 

 undone ; the republic for which he had struggled overthrown ; ' 

 tho hated monarchy, and the still more hated prelacy, re-esta- ' 



blUhed ; the lofty, though austere morality of the Puritan supre- 

 macy giving place to the unbridled lioentiocne of the new 

 rtgime. Milton himself narrowly escaped being included in 

 the list of those sacrificed to the royal vengeance ; a proclama- 

 tion for his discovery waa even issued ; and more than one of 

 his works was burned by order of the House of Commons. Bat 

 Milton's was not the spirit to sink in despondency. The Mine 

 lofty purpose and proud self-reliance which bo had shown in the 

 earlier days of conflict did not forsake him in this hoar of defeat. 

 The tow remaining years of his life were passed in close re- 

 tirement, for the most part in London ; and daring these yer -s 

 his greatest works were written. 



We know, from Milton's own pen, that from a very early age 

 ho had entertained the thought of writing a great epic or heroic 

 poem. We know, too, that, probably under the influence of his 

 favourite master, Spenser, he had at one time chosen tho story 

 of King Arthur for his theme, though there is no reason to sup- 

 pose that he ever actually commenced any poem on this subject. 

 " Long choosing, and beginning late," as he himself tells us, 

 it is probable that many other themes may have passed through 

 his mind before he finally determined upon the sublime history 

 which he lias embodied in " Paradise Lost." Even when his 

 subject was chosen, the form and character was not at once 

 determined upon. Wo know that Milton at one time intended 

 to represent the fall of man in the form of a sacred drama ; and 

 it is related upon authority which we can scarcely question, that 

 some of the noblest passages in " Paradise Lost," and notably 

 Satan's celebrated "Address to the Sun," at the commence- 

 ment of the fourth book, were written as part of the intended 

 play. But in all probability the substance and form of the 

 great work must have been selected, and probably portions of it 

 written, before the Restoration, though it was mainly composed 

 after that event. It was certainly completed, and, there is no 

 reason to doubt, completed much as we now have it, in 16C5 ; 

 and it was published in 1667. 



No English poet, no poet, indeed, of any nation baa ever 

 ventured to treat so vast, so awful a theme as that which 

 Milton has handled in his great epic. He has painted tho calm 

 serenity of heaven before sin or discord had found entrance; 

 the war in heaven ; the rebellion and fall of the disobedient 

 angels ; the horrors of the hell to which they fell , the creation ; 

 the temptation and the fall of man : the punishment of the guilty 

 pair, and their penitence lightened by the hope and promise of a 

 future redemption. He has touched the most awful mysteries 

 the loftiest counsels of heaven, and the lowest depths of hell 

 no less than the history of the human race. He has essayed to 



" Assert eternal providence, 

 And justify the ways of God to men." 



Nor has he sought in vain to rise " to the height of this great 

 argument." For, whatever his faults, Milton has done what no 

 other poet could ever have done ; he has, throughout the whole 

 of his long poem, maintained a sublime elevation of thought, of 

 moral tone, and of style worthy of his subject. Some of the 

 means by which this effect is attained we can easily perceive. 

 Milton's genius was essentially not dramatic ; that is to say, he 

 had little power of conceiving, portraying, and giving life to 

 individual characters. And this, which for most purposes would 

 have been a defect, was for this poem an immense advantage. 

 Hod the awful personages by whom his heaven is peopled the 

 Eternal Father, the Divine Son, tho great archangels, and all 

 the hierarchy of heaven been presented to us too vividly, 

 with too much dramatic life, they would have been too like 

 ourselves ; the infinite would have been lost in the finite, the 

 Divine in the human ; .heaven would have become earth. But 

 one power which Milton did possess, and that in a very rare 

 degree as he showed in hia early poems, " L' Allegro," in par- 

 ticular was the power of minute, delicate, and accurate paint- 

 ing of scenes and incidents. This power he carefully abstains 

 from using in "Paradise Lost." In that poem all is vast, 

 shadowy, indefinite ; and by this vagr.eness cf outline, Milton 

 adds grandeur to his figures, as mountains are grandest when 

 half veiled in cloud. 



Nothing can surpass the masterly art which Milton shows in 

 the conduct of hia story, especially the skill with which he 

 preserves a complete unity of interest throughout the whole, 

 and, in spite of the inherent difficulties of his subject, maintains 

 that movement and action which are above all things essential 



