SKETCH OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.

PERIOD 2ND.-FROM THE ELIZABETHAN TO THE AUGUSTAN AGE.
Continuation of 2nd Period.

BY PROFESSOR LYALL.

THE 'Paradise Regained' beside the 'Paradise Lost' is like a cabinet picture beside a great epic painting-like some exquisite miniature of Raphael beside his Transfiguration,' or compared with one of his 'Cartoons.' But just as the miniature may exhibit more elaboration, greater finish perhaps, more exquisite beauty, minuter handling, than the larger canvas, so the 'Paradise Regained' in some parts shows more classic treatment, and is characterized by a more restrained and disciplined imagination than the companion poem. It bears no comparison, however, to the 'Paradise Lost' in grandeur, in compass, in invention, in creative imagination, in richness of diction, in superb beauty of description, in accumulated incident, in the unity and tragic interest of the composition. There is perhaps more thought, more reflection: there is the opportunity, in the dialogue between Christ and the Tempter, for profounder moralizing than is indulged in the greater epic poem. The epos consists more of action than of moral dialogue. For this very reason the 'Paradise Regained' is more a moral poem than the true epic. For other reasons as well it does not come up to the character of the true epic. It is at best but the fragment of an epic: it is the middle, perhaps, without the beginning or the end. Whatever reasons may be assigned for this, the poem is not complete: it either did not take complete form in Milton's own mind, or other causes interfered with its completion. It is like a torso dug up from among the debris that covers the remains of ancient sculpture-only we know that we have the poem as Milton wrote it. It may be the torso, however, of what was in Milton's own mind: it is a sketch for a grander picture which the great artist either could not finish, or which for adequate reasons he was restrained from fully carrying out or embodying,

The incident which gave origin to the poem was simple enough. Ellwood, the Quaker, having had submitted to him for his opinion by the Poet himself, the Paradise Lost' in manuscript, in returning it said to the Poet very characteristically: "Thou hast said much of 'Paradise Lost,' but what hast thou to say of Paradise Found?" This was enough for Milton, and when the Quaker and Poet met again the latter produced 'Paradise Regained.' From such small beginnings may the greatest works originate. In this very incident perhaps we have the explanation of the imperfect form of the poem. The idea or plan of the poem was perhaps too hastily taken up, and it seems to have been as hastily executed. The poem consists accordingly of only four books while the 'Paradise Lost' extends throughout three times that number; and the books of the former in length bear about the

same proportion to those of the latter, as do the numbers of the books respectively of the two poems. The subject of the Poem is simply the temptation in the wilderness. That striking episode in Christ's life, on which so much hinged, certainly carrying in its results, a second time, the fate of our race, has been most dramatically given. Each temptation furnishes the subject of a separate book. Christ is introduced upon the scene receiving baptism at the hand of John at the river Jordan. Thither great crowds resort from all Judæa to John's baptism. Thither Christ himself repairs, under a divine guidance, or prompted by the Divinity which formed part of his nature as the Godman. Satan is there also to look after his interests, or with his eye already upon this remarkable man, who had probably ere this excited the surmise in Satan's mind, whether he might not be the seed of the woman who was to bruise his own head. He has his fears confirmed by the testimony borne to Christ from the clouds, and by the form of the Dove lighting upon him, the well-known symbol of the Divine Spirit. He immediately takes his resolution to frustrate the designs of God in connexion with this illustrious person. He is not altogether certain yet in what sense Jesus is declared to be the Son of God. He is the seed of the woman: may he not be the Son of God in no other sense than the Angels themselves? He will test this. He summons a council of his peers-not in Pandemonium now, but in mid-air, where it seems they had more eligible seats than their former place of lurid confinement

Regents, and potentates, and Kings, yea Gods,
Of many a pleasant realm and province wide:

He states the new emergency, and imposes upon himself, as formerly, the task of meeting it: such a task can be entrusted to no inferior spirit: it will task even all his skill, and require all his wiles.

The

Christ, meanwhile, is led up of the Spirit into the wilderness. poet conceives him led on partly by his own thoughts, abandoning for a time the haunts of men to give scope to his own musings; and it is partly the consequence of this that he finds himself at last in the heart of the desert bordering upon Judæa, whence

-return

Was difficult, by human steps untrad.

The poet adopts the theory held by many, that the superior nature in Christ did not ensure omniscience to the inferior or human, or any more knowledge than from time to time was supernaturally suggested or communicated, and he represents Christ therefore as still uncertain of his true character and mission, and only gathering from his own high aspirations and lofty instincts, as well as from such an incident as had just transpired at the Jordan, that he was possessed of more than ordinary humanity, and was indeed the Son of the Most High with the great mission and work to accomplish which his inward promptings, and the declarations of Scripture, of which he was no inattentive peruser, led him to connect with himself. The Poet, we think, carries this too far, and accordingly the impression which his. representation leaves upon the mind is not what the Scriptures give of the Hypostatical or personal union. This, however, is the basis on

which the whole poem is constructed. Christ in uncertainty of his mission and character is so far open to temptation; and Satan, who cannot be supposed to be better informed, is prompted by this very circumstance to attempt the integrity and fidelity of the reputed Son of God. To the three temptations which the Evangelists give in such sublime simplicity, the poet adds another, if not several others, growing out, or an expansion, of the three scriptural temptations. We have a banquet served up in the most sumptuous and gorgeous style, “in regal mode," with every delicacy and dainty that would have tempted a Roman epicure, even when Rome's luxury was at its height, with troops of Ganymedes, while

-distant more

Under the trees now tripp'd, now solemn stood,
Nymphs of Diana's train, and Naiades

With fruits and flowers from Amalthea's horn,
And ladies of the Hesperides, that seem'd
Fairer than feign'd of old, or fabled since
Of faery damsels, met in forest wide
By Knights of Logres, or of Lyones,
Lancelot, or Pelleas, or Pellenore.

The whole of course was an illusion produced by Satan for his own purpose an enchanting scene evoked in the desert, in the midst of such wild sterility, and when the Son of God had fasted for a space of forty days. This can only be justified by poetic license, if it can be justified by that it does still remain a question whether it is consistent with the simplicity of Scripture, and with the conditions which Scripture should have imposed upon the poet's imagination-conditions which Milton is so careful to observe in his greater epic. The poetry of the passage, however, is in Milton's finest vein.

The address with which Satan follows up the temptation thus presented to the senses is conceived with the most consummate art, and certainly with no lack of beauty, even while it indulges in a vein of irony worthy of the tempter of our first parents :

What doubts the Son of God, to sit and eat?
These are not fruits forbidden; no interdict
Defends the touching of these viands pure :
Their taste no knowledge works, at least of evil ;
But life preserves, destroys life's enemy,
Hanger, with sweet restorative delight.

All these are spirits of air, and woods, and springs,
Thy gentle ministers, who come to pay

Thee homago, and acknowledge thee their Lord.
What doubt'st thou son of God? sit down and eat.

Christ's reply to this is exceedingly fine, high-toned, temperate, though conveying a cutting and dignified rebuke.

Satan baffled in this direction very adroitly follows up the particu lar temptation with another which he conceived more likely to succeed with Christ, viz., that of riches-not for themselves, however, but veiled in the less vulgar form of ambition of power, or presented as the necessary condition of the Kingdom which Christ was to gain for himself. Satan presents this new bait with great dexterity, but is as dexterously foiled, or his glozing words have their edge turned with

the most admirable wisdom, and utmost nobility of sentiment. Satan

Therefore, if at great things thou wouldst arrive,
Get riches first, get wealth, and treasure heap,
Not difficult, if thou hearken to me:

Biches are mine, fortune is in my hand:
They whom I favour thrive in wealth amain;
While virtue, valour, wisdom, sit in want.

Christ's reply to this is in these noble words:

Yet wealth without these three is impotent
To gain dominion, or to keep it gain'd.
Witness those ancient empires of the earth,
In highth of all their flowing wealth dissolved:
But men endued with these have oft attain'd
In lowest poverty to highest deeds;
Gideon, and Jephtha, and the shepherd lad,
Whose offspring on the throne of Judah sat
So many ages, and shall yet regain

That seat, and reign in Israel without end.
Among the heathen, (for throughout the world
To me is not unknown what hath been done
Worthy of memorial) canst thou not remember
Quintins, Fabricius, Curius, Regulus?

For I esteem these names of men so poor,
Who could do mighty things, and could contemn
Riches, though offer'd from the hand of kings.

*

What if with like aversion I reject

Biches and realms? yet not, for that a crown,
Golden in show, is but a wreath of thorns,

Brings dangers, troubles, snares, and sleepless nights
To him who wears the regal diadem,

When on his shoulders each man's burden lies;
For therein stands the office of a king,

His honour, virtue, merit, and chief praise,
That for the public all this weight he bears;
Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules
Passions, desires, and fears, is more a king.

These are Miltonic lines, and in some respects, though yet so different, recall the dramatic style and manner of Shakspeare.

Milton's power of picturesque delineation is finely exemplified in this 2d book, though it is but in snatches, miniature sketches, as it were, suggestions of scenery, rather than detailed description: there is the night scene, with Christ's broken slumbers, and his dreams of food, as "appetite is wont to dream"--the morning dawn, with, the fine EngLish circumstance of the "herald lark" leaving

His ground-nest, high towering to descry

The morn's approach:

The ascent to the hill-top, to view the landscape round-the detection

of a solitary spot possessing any features of beauty, in a bottom or dell removed:

a pleasant grove

With chant of tuneful birds resounding loud:

Thither Christ bends his steps,

determined there

To rest at noon, and entered soon the shade

High roof'd, and walks beneath, and valleys brown
That open'd in the midst a woody scene.

There the arch-fiend, still in disguise, way-lays him, and plies him with his temptations: with what result we have seen.

The third book is occupied with that temptation which we have referred to in these words of the Evangelist: "Again the Devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and said unto him, all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." Baffled in his previous attempts upon Christ: finding he could not be assailed on the side of sensual appetite, that he was inaccessible to the solicitations of mere sensual gratification or indulgence-Satan makes a higher bid for the fidelity and steadfastness of Jesus. In reading the simple narrative of the temptation, as given by the Evangelist, we are apt to miss the profound meaning involved in the fact of a temptation at all, and the modes adopted by Satan to bring Christ into his toils. The temptation in the wilderness is obviously the counterpart of that of the Garden of Eden: there is obviously a certain parallelism between the two. There is a poetic justice at least in this but there is more: theologically, or in its bearings upon our race, there is a strict parallelism between the former event and the latter. Revolving in his mighty intellect, all the long ages that had elapsed. from the first temptation and the consequent apostacy, the prediction in reference to the seed of the woman; not ignorant, doubtless, of the utterances of the prophets regarding the advent of the Messiah, and the expectations that were prevalent about this time of his coming; and hearing the testimony borne to Jesus at the Jordan; Satan bethinks himself of achieving a second victory by his wiles, and of involving a second time our race in ruin. God prepares the way for this; it is his purpose that the race should be again put on trial in the person of its second representative: it is in the accomplishment of this very purpose that Christ is led up of the spirit into the wilderness : Satan seizes his opportunity, comes upon the Saviour in that scene— a fitting scene-themselves the only objects amid the blank expanse, looked down upon by the broad eye of heaven :—and a new thing surely is transacted under the sun.

In the second great temptation all the chief kingdoms of the world, both those which had been, and those which then were, are made to pass before the eye of Christ by a power known only to the tempter himself. Here the introduction of geographical names, as in other places, has a fine effect, and Milton always adopts the most poetic of these, with their most euphonious sounds, it was possible to choose. This is a striking feature throughout Milton's poetry, while his