Shakspeare's dramas; but it is unique and alone in the supernatural element that belongs to it, and belongs to it, not as Homer's Gods, or the supernatural creations of Shakspeare's imagination, to the several poems of these authors, but as the proper subject matter of the poem itself. If we were disposed to magnify our critic's office, and find fault, we would say that the inverted and latinized order of sentences in which Milton indulges, frequently leads to obscurity of meaning, sometimes to an awkward construction, and occasionally even to a grammatical solecism. It is peculiarly tantalizing to have these crossing your path in perhaps some fine passage, or to have them at all confronting you in such an author, and without any apology for their occurrence. There are passages, too, especially in the narrative parts of the poem, that are quite necessary to the poem, but are not particularly poetical, may be even prosaic, and are rather tedious than otherwise. They are like the padding to a dress, necessary, but not any portion of the dress itself. In these passages the poet is often careless, at least not suffi ciently careful, how he expresses himself, so be it he conveys his thought. It is, however, observable that it is just in the passages where the subject rises in grandeur, and the poet's mind rises with it, that the language is freest, moves like Heaven's gates, on golden hinges, sparkles with their crystal light, is harmonious as musical chords, and steeped in supernal beauty. Examples crowd upon you when you would instance this unique circumstance of Milton's compo sition. Take the description of Satan's flight to our world on his errand of mischief; though we cannot see how Satan had such a long and arduous journey to perform, on his broad vans, when one would suppose, as a spirit, he could reach it by a thought or a volition. We might instance also that magnificent passage giving the account of the Son's going forth to war against the rebel angels, to effect their discomfiture, and cast them out of Heaven*—or those passages describing the worship of the Heavenly host on the occasion of the Son's returning from the act of creation-"his six days' work";† or again when the Son offers himself to accomplish the Father's purpose of Redemption after man had fallen. But indeed we may open the poem at any part, and we shall not read far before we come upon some passage with all the Miltonic characteristics of beauty or sublimity. They arrest us almost at every page, or few pages. The description of Paradise could hardly have anything added to its features of surpassing loveliness and then those perfect forms walking amid its sweets, with angels for their guests, and God himself sometimes heard among the trees of the garden! We cannot overtake the other poems of Milton in our present article. These, and the remaining portion of Period 2nd, we defer to our next. Book VI. 1. 746. † Book VII, 1. 557–601. Book IV. 1. 344—371. PEN PHOTOGRAPHS. By DANIEL CLARK, M. D., Princeton, Ontario. BALMORAL. We left Aberdeen far behind, and rushed with railroad speed up the Dee and past many a cosy farmstead and elegant country seat to Aboyne, then by coach through Kincardine O'Neil to Ballater. As we approached Ballater the mountains began to assume respectable proportions to a habitan, but to one who had climbed the Rocky Mountains and Andes and the Swiss Alps, they were not such as would fill the mind of the traveller with awe. They were so bald and grey and misty, that no great stretch of the imagination was required to conjure up the phantoms of Ossian's heroes doing battle in the clouds, or seeking fir-trees and moons for spears and shields, under the ghostly leadership of a Fingal. Yet we were on classic ground, and as we left the dreary Moor of Dinnet behind, and were pressing forward into the mountain gorges near Lochnagar, we had on our left the meandering Deevery pacific in its voice and in its motions-not thus far and in warring October "the billows of Dee's rushing tide." On the far right rose in graceful outlines, the smooth and rounded hill of Morven. The name will suggest to the reader the graphic lines of Byron : "When I roved a young Highlander o'er the dark heath, To gaze on the torrent that thunder'd beneath; Before us opens out the mountain home of the Dee, the river flowing in beautiful cascades and murmuring ripples from its mountain fastness, we gaze into this rugged retreat through a chasm in a rocky spur of the mountain, which cuts a large section of it away, as if a Hercules had in rage cleft it asunder by a huge claymore, shearing the top closely of its "haffets" but bearing round its venerable crown the green and stunted birch and the scraggy freeze bushes. To the south rear up the bald peaks of Craigendaroch, (Gaelic for the rocky mountain of oaks) and away to the north-west shoots up Colbleen. "When I see some dark hill point its crest, to the sky, I think of the rocks that o'ershadow Colbleen." 66 Passing through this cleft in the rocks, and leaving the village of Ballater on the left, we follow on the north side of the now rushing Dee," the stage road leading to Castleton of Braemar. Abergeldie Castle-once the summer retreat of the late Duchess of Kent-can be seen on the south side of the river, close to the edge of the water. this point the river is spanned by a rope and crossed in a rude cradle, which slides along the rope on pulleys. The castle is small, but prides itself in towers, turrets and miniature battlements. Passing on about At Το a mile, we come to a clump of trees composed of birch, ash, fir and scrubby oaks, embowered in which stands the Craithie parish church, and near by the schoolhouse. The church lays no claim to architectural beauty, being only a plain square (or nearly so) stone building with a belfry on the top of the east end, that seems to shelter bird'snests, as well as a small bell whose tones on Sabbath morning were none of the sweetest. In the inside it is equally plain, with the pulpit on the south side, and octagon in shape; on three sides runs a narrow gallery from which are two passages leading, the one down into the lobby at the main door, and the other leads to a private door in the west side, used only by the Queen and the members of her household. the left-front of the preacher in the gallery were the pews of the Royal Family; immediately in front were those of the Duchess of Kent and those of the Executive that might be in council with her Majesty. Every part from the precentor's desk upwards is severely unadorned, old and delapidated. In the valley below is the Manse surrounded by several fertile fields, and near by a handsome suspension bridge leading to the village of Craithie, beyond which are dense fir woods and the Lochnagar distillery, in which is manufactured "Lochnagar whiskey," whose peculiar smoky flavour is obtained by the use of spring water, which percolates through a dense peat moss. About a mile farther on as we turn a sharp angle of the road, Balmoral bursts upon our view rather suddenly. The royal banner flaunts its silken folds from the tower: the Queen was there. Was it possible that a Canadian backwoodsman was now gazing upon the palace of the mightiest molarch that ever ruled since "the morning stars sang together," and was it possible that our eyes were to behold her, whose name and virtues were honoured and revered from "the rising to the setting sun?" We think and gaze and then gaze and think, until our soul is full of delight, and until we are sure it is not a dream and we have not lost our personal identity. The palace sits in the midst of a beautiful valley, whose margin and sides are covered with luxuriant birch trees; around it are the "everlasting hills "—the rugged, bare, grey crags of auld Scotia "stern and wild." This valley is crescentic in shape. The river washes the base of the northern hills. The castle is on the south side of the river, but on the northern and convex side of the valley. Craig-an-gowan, from the south, juts out over the valley, somewhat like Arthur's seat near Edinburgh. On all sides are mountain tops to be seen, the one rising above the other in irregular succession. The contour of the whole is absolutely desolation itself. Rocks and the dark heath everywhere. They looked like thrones for the Titans in the grand amphitheatre of judgment, from which they issued unchanging edicts or hurled, like Jupiter, thunderbolts of war. No wonder that mountaineers are brave, bold and poetic the world over, for their mental modes of thought must be a sort of transcript of unyielding majestic nature around them. About seven miles away, frowns that "most sublime and picturesque of our Caledonia Alps," dark Lochnagar. It is only a section of a cone, for some convulsion of nature has rent it almost in twain from top to bottom. A perpendicular wall presents itself on one side for many hundreds of feet, and at its base is a dark lake fit for a Syren to sit by and lure to destruction. It towers high above its fellows rejoicing in solitary grandeur, "Oh for the crags that are wild and majestic! The steep frowning glories of dark Lochnagar!" The Farquharsons of Inverey were the feudal proprietors of the Balmoral estate. About the beginning of this century, the late Earl of Fife purchased it. The trustees of the estate leased the lands and appurtenances to Sir Robert Gordon, for the term of 38 years. He built a shooting lodge on the present site of the palace. At his death, in 1847, the late Prince Consort purchased a transfer of the lease, and in 1852, bought the lands for $160,000. The lodge was torn down in 1854 and the new palace built. It is unique in style, built in its principal features, after the castellated model of architecture, perhaps the proper term to use would be "Baronial design." The finish on it is modern. It is as if we had clothed an uncouth, semi-civilized, athletic and brave Gael in the drapery of modern civilization. The outline is pleasing, but when the critic begins to disect and analyze and compare one part with another the incongruity strikes the beholder very forcibly as a faux pas in design. Whoever the architect might be it is evident he was endeavouring to serve two classes of masters: they of the old school and they of the new; and shared the fate of all such by pleasing neither. The outlines of an ancient fastness, and of the ethereal models of to day are so dissimilar that no combination of the two, can loom beautifully on the eye, no such hybrid can form a handsome creation. The palace is built in the shape of a quadrangle, minus the north side, which is bounded by the Dee. The south-west and south-east angles are composed of two large buildings. These are connected east and west by two wings extending from each corner; at the east corner there is a tower 35 feet square and 100 feet in height, surmounted by four smaller towers. On the south side the architecture is of the plainest kind, but on the west and north sides the carv ings and mouldings are exceedingly rich. The stone was taken from a quarry on the estate and is grey granite, capable of a beautiful polish. It is smoothly dressed in ashler work, presenting no seams, and consequently the whole castle, at a distance, looks like a block of solid stone, unless closely inspected. The riband, rope, and corbelling mouldings are in keeping, to some extent, with the Baronial style of architecture. The main entrance, at the south-west angle, opens into a large room in which is a fire-place and a mantlepiece, on which stands a fancy clock. Around on the walls are trophies of the chase, such as the antlers of the roe, and the cornuted heads of the red deer. From the hall runs a corridor, at right angles to it, on each side of which are the dining room, the library, the drawing-room and the billiard room. From this passage ascends the grand stair-case to the first floor, on which are the private apartments of royalty. The rooms of the Queen front the valley of the Dee towards Braemar. From this point of observation the scenery is of the wildest description, on all sides are the "Grisly rocks that guard The infant rills of Highland Dee." The bed-room is over the main porch and hall, from which a view south and west can be obtained far over the deer forests of Balloch bowie. To the east of these rooms are those of the children. Thousands of houses in Canada are furnished far more richly than this pretty retreat. The motto seems to be written on everything "plain, useful and substantial.” The carpets, the window curtains and the upholstery of the chairs and sofas, in many of the rooms, are composed of clan tartan. Where there are protuberances or ungainly angles or salient points on roof or walls, these are decorated with a carving of the Scottish thistle. The chairs in the drawing-room are furnished with Victoria tartan of wool and silk. The dining room has drapery of royal Stuart plaid. The wood-work of the furniture is an ash from Africa, being in appearance very much like bird's-eye maple. The curtains of the principal bed-rooms are of Victoria print. The chairs and tables of the dining-room of the Queen's retinue, and also those of the ball-room, are made of highly polished oak. The bed-rooms have furniture of American birch. To the rear of the west side is situated the ball-room, sixty-nine feet by twenty-six feet. A dais is erected for the Queen on the side next the main building, and at the opposite end is an elevation for the musicians. The windows and walls are richly festooned by a material very much like damask, composed of wool and silk. Pure water is supplied by pipes from a mountain spring. Surrounding the palace are several small though beautiful terraces and on the lawn are cultivated, in irregular groups, flowers, mostly those indigenous to the country except the cactus; the fuschia, &c., that were growing in large stone jars near the main entrance. The Queen is adored by the tenantry of Balmoral and were it not that it would be a species of breach of trust, we might recite many incidents of her Majesty's visits to the humble cabins of the poor, (never published) and as told by themselves, although with truly celtic reticence this people tell of her goodness and kindness in a confidential way as if they did not wish to be classified among the gossips of the neighbourhood, or to be the medium of communication to the outside world of aught said or done within the precincts of this rural retreat the abode of happiness and peace, far from cankering care, state troubles and political intrigue, for doubtless, careworn is the brow and weary is the head that wears a crown. We often met her in her visits of mercy and only attended by a single female attendant. It is said that the Aberdonian dialect puzzled Her Majesty not a little at first, but that she is now well read in Highland classics. We have no doubt but the drilling any human tongue must have to pronounce the German accurately, would be sufficient to enable the Teutonic tongue to pronounce the gutteral Gaelic names of some of the mountains, streams and valleys around Balmoral. There is very little Celtic spoken on these estates, but in the neighbouring Straiths it is the mother tongue. It is enough to paralyze an English tongue to pronounce such names as Loch Muick, the Linn of Quoich, Ben-muich-dhue, Braeriach, &c., yet all, like Hebrew, words expressive of some local circumstance or appearance, although it is not to be inferred from this admission that we wish to insinuate that Gaelic was the language of Eden. The village of Craithie, when the Prince Consort bought the estate, was only a collection of miserable hamlets not much better than the wig |