Life Of John Milton, Richard Garnett [ebook offline txt] 📗

One Is The Hero Of

The Epic. Attempts Have Been Made To Invest Adam With This Character. He

Is,  Indeed,  A Great Figure To Contemplate,  And Such As Might Represent

The Ideal Of Humanity Till Summoned To Act And Suffer. When,  Indeed,  He

Partakes Of The Forbidden Fruit In Disobedience To His Maker,  But In

Compassion To His Mate,  He Does Seem For A Moment To Fulfil The Canon

Which Decrees That The Hero Shall Not Always Be Faultless,  But Always

Shall Be Noble. The Moment,  However,  That He Begins To Wrangle With Eve

About Their Respective Shares Of Blame,  He Forfeits His Estate Of

Heroism More Irretrievably Than His Estate Of Holiness--A Fact Of Which

Milton Cannot Have Been Unaware,  But He Had No Liberty To Forsake The

Scripture Narrative. Satan Remains,  Therefore,  The Only Possible Hero,

And It Is One Of The Inevitable Blemishes Of The Poem That He Should

Disappear Almost Entirely From The Latter Books.

 

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These Defects,  And Many More Which Might Be Adduced,  Are Abundantly

Compensated By The Poet's Vital Relation To The Religion Of His Age. No

Poet Whose Fame Is Co-Extensive With The Civilised World,  Except

Shakespeare And Goethe,  Has Ever Been Greatly In Advance Of His Times.

Had Milton Been So,  He Might Have Avoided Many Faults,  But He Would Not

Have Been A Representative Poet; Nor Could Shelley Have Classed Him With

Homer And Dante,  And Above Virgil,  As "The Third Epic Poet; That Is,  The

Third Poet The Series Of Whose Creations Bore A Defined And Intelligible

Relation To The Knowledge And Sentiment And Religion Of The Age In Which

He Lived,  And Of The Ages Which Followed It,  Developing Itself In

Correspondence With Their Development." Hence It Is That In The

"Adonais," Shelley Calls Milton "The Third Among The Sons Of Light."

 

A Clear Conception Of The Universe As Milton's Inner Eye Beheld It,  And

Of His Religious And Philosophical Opinions In So Far As They Appear In

The Poem,  Is Indispensable For A Correct Understanding Of "Paradise

Lost." The Best Service To Be Rendered To The Reader Within Such Limits

As Ours Is To Direct Him To Professor Masson's Discussion Of Milton's

Cosmology In His "Life Of Milton," And Also In His Edition Of The

Poetical Works. Generally Speaking,  It May Be Said That Milton's

Conception Of The Universe Is Ptolemaic,  That For Him Sun And Moon And

Planets Revolve Around The Central Earth,  Rapt By The Revolution Of The

Crystal Spheres In Which,  Sphere Enveloping Sphere,  They Are

Successively Located. But The Light Which Had Broken In Upon Him From

The Discoveries Of Galileo Has Led Him To Introduce Features Not

Irreconcilable With The Solar Centre And Ethereal Infinity Of

Copernicus; So That "The Poet Would Expect The Effective Permanence Of

His Work In The Imagination Of The World,  Whether Ptolemy Or Copernicus

Should Prevail." So Professor Masson,  Who Finely And Justly Adds That

Milton's Blindness Helped Him "By Having Already Converted All External

Space In His Own Sensations Into An Infinite Of Circumambient Blackness

Through Which He Could Flash Brilliance At His Pleasure." His

Inclination As A Thinker Is Evidently Towards The Copernican Theory,  But

He Saw That The Ptolemaic,  However Inferior In Sublimity,  Was Better

Adapted To The Purpose Of A Poem Requiring A Definite Theatre Of Action.

For Rapturous Contemplation Of The Glory Of God In Nature,  The

Copernican System Is Immeasurably The More Stimulating To The Spirit,

But When Made The Theatre Of An Action The Universe Fatigues With Its

Infinitude--

 

   "Millions Have Meaning; After This

      Cyphers Forget The Integer."

 

An Infinite Sidereal Universe Would Have Stultified The Noble

Description How Satan--

 

        "In The Emptier Waste,  Resembling Air,

    Weighs His Spread Wings,  At Leisure To Behold

    Far Off The Empyreal Heaven,  Extended Wide

    In Circuit,  Undetermined Square Or Round,

    With Opal Towers And Battlements Adorned

    Of Living Sapphire,  Once His Native Seat;

    And Fast By,  Hanging In A Golden Chain,

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    This Pendant World,  In Bigness As A Star

    Of Smallest Magnitude Close By The Moon."

 

This Pendant World,  Observe,  Is Not The Earth,  As Addison Understood It,

But The Entire Sidereal Universe,  Depicted Not As The Infinity We Now

Know It To Be,  But As A Definite Object,  So Insulated In The Vastness Of

Space As To Be Perceptible To The Distant Fiend As A Minute Star,  And No

Larger In Comparison With The Courts Of Heaven--Themselves Not Wholly

Seen--Than Such A Twinkler Matched With The Full-Orbed Moon. Such A

Representation,  If It Diminishes The Grandeur Of The Universe Accessible

To Sense,  Exalts That Of The Supersensual And Extramundane Regions Where

The Action Takes Its Birth,  And Where Milton's Gigantic Imagination Is

Most Perfectly At Home.

 

There Is No Such Compromise Between Religious Creeds In Milton's Mind As

He Saw Good To Make Between Ptolemy And Copernicus. The Matter Was,  In

His Estimation,  Far Too Serious. Never Was There A More Unaccountable

Misstatement Than Ruskin's,  That "Paradise Lost" Is A Poem In Which

Every Artifice Of Invention Is Consciously Employed--Not A Single Fact

Being Conceived As Tenable By Any Living Faith. Milton Undoubtedly

Believed Most Fully In The Actual Existence Of All His Chief Personages,

Natural And Supernatural,  And Was Sure That,  However He Might Have

Indulged His Imagination In The Invention Of Incidents,  He Had

Represented Character With The Fidelity Of A Conscientious Historian.

His Religious Views,  Moreover,  Are Such As He Could Never Have Thought

It Right To Publish If He Had Not Been Intimately Convinced Of Their

Truth. He Has Strayed Far From The Creed Of Puritanism. He Is An Arian;

His Son Of God,  Though An Unspeakably Exalted Being,  Is Dependent,

Inferior,  Not Self-Existent,  And Could Be Merged In The Father's Person

Or Obliterated Entirely Without The Least Diminution Of Almighty

Perfection. He Is,  Moreover,  No Longer A Calvinist: Satan And Adam Both

Possess Free Will,  And Neither Need Have Fallen. The Reader Must Accept

These Views,  As Well As Milton's Conception Of The Materiality Of The

Spiritual World,  If He Is To Read To Good Purpose. "If His Imagination,"

Says Pattison,  Pithily,  "Is Not Active Enough To Assist The Poet,  He

Must At Least Not Resist Him."

 

This Is Excellent Advice As Respects The General Plan Of "Paradise

Lost," The Materiality Of Its Spiritual Personages,  And Its System Of

Philosophy And Theology. Its Poetical Beauties Can Only Be Resisted

Where They Are Not Perceived. They Have Repeated The Miracles Of Orpheus

And Amphion,  Metamorphosing One Most Bitterly Obnoxious,  Of Whom So Late

As 1687 A Royalist Wrote That "His Fame Is Gone Out Like A Candle In A

Snuff,  And His Memory Will Always Stink," Into An Object Of Universal

Veneration. From The First Instant Of Perusal The Imagination Is Led In

Captivity,  And For The First Four Books At Least Stroke Upon Stroke Of

Sublimity Follows With Such Continuous And Undeviating Regularity That

Sublimity Seems This Creation's First Law,  And We Feel Like Pigmies

Transported To A World Of Giants. There Is Nothing Forced Or Affected

In This Grandeur,  No Visible Effort,  No Barbaric Profusion,  Everything

Proceeds With A Severe And Majestic Order,  Controlled By The Strength

That Called It Into Being. The Similes And Other Poetical Ornaments,

Though Inexpressibly Magnificent,  Seem No More So Than The Greatness Of

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The General Conception Demands. Grant That Satan In His Fall Is Not

"Less Than Archangel Ruined," And It Is No Exaggeration But The Simplest

Truth To Depict His Mien--

 

                "As When The Sun,  New Risen,

    Looks Through The Horizontal Misty Air,

    Shorn Of His Beams; Or From Behind The Moon,

    In Dim Eclipse,  Disastrous Twilight Sheds

    On Half The Nations."

 

When Such A Being Voyages Through Space It Is No Hyperbole To Compare

Him To A Whole Fleet,  Judiciously Shown At Such Distance As To Suppress

Every Minute Detail That Could Diminish The Grandeur Of The Image--

 

   "As When Far Off At Sea A Fleet Descried

    Hangs In The Clouds,  By Equinoctial Winds

    Close Sailing From Bengala,  Or The Isles

    Of Ternate And Tidore,  Whence Merchants Bring

    Their Spicy Drugs: They On The Trading Flood,

    Through The Wide Ethiopian To The Cape,

    Ply Stemming Nightly Towards The Pole: So Seemed

    Far Off The Flying Fiend."

 

These Similes,  And An Infinity Of Others,  Are Grander Than Anything In

Homer,  Who Would,  However,  Have Equalled Them With An Equal Subject.

Dante's Treatment Is Altogether Different; The Microscopic Intensity Of

Perception In Which He So Far Surpasses Homer And Milton Affords,  In

Our Opinion,  No Adequate Compensation For His Inferiority In

Magnificence. That The Theme Of "Paradise Lost" Should Have Evoked Such

Grandeur Is A Sufficient Compensation For Its Incurable Flaws And The

Utter Breakdown Of Its Ostensible Moral Purpose. There Is Yet Another

Department Of The Poem Where Milton Writes As He Could Have Written On

Nothing Else. The Elements Of His Under-World Are Comparatively Simple,

Fire And Darkness,  Fallen Angels Now Huddled Thick As Leaves In

Vallombrosa; Anon,

 

    "A Forest Huge Of Spears And Thronging Helms,"

 

Charming Their Painful Steps Over The Burning Marl By

 

            "The Dorian Mood

    Of Flutes And Soft Recorders;"

 

The Dazzling Magnificence Of Pandemonium; The Ineffable Welter Of Chaos;

Proudly Eminent Over All Like A Tower,  The Colossal Personality Of

Satan. The Description Of Paradise And The Story Of Creation,  If Making

Less Demand On The Poet's Creative Power,  Required Greater Resources Of

Knowledge,  And More Consummate Skill In Combination. Nature Must Yield

Up Her Treasures,  Whatever Of Fair And Stately The Animal And Vegetable

Kingdoms Can Afford Must Be Brought Together,  Blended In Gorgeous Masses

Or Marshalled In Infinite Procession. Here Milton Is As Profuse As He

Has Hitherto Been Severe,  And With Good Cause; It Is Possible To Make

Hell Too Repulsive For Art,  It Is Not Possible To Make Eden Too

Enchanting. In His Descriptions Of The Former The Effect Is Produced By

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