which, in too many instances, serve not so much as a stepping-stone over the current of the verse, as a block or dam to impede and obstruct it.

BOOK III.

THE third book opens with Milton's magnificent Apostrophe to Light. With how much tenderness and deep, heart-felt emotion, he speaks of his privations and sufferings! What a beautiful image, to compare himself to a nightingale, tuning his nocturnal note, and singing in the midst of dark foliage and impenetrable gloom! Then follows the fine Vision of God, who sits enthroned above all heights

"About him all the sanctities of heaven
Stand thick as stars."

At his right hand his only Son, beneath him our first parents in the blissful solitude of Paradise, and Satan prowling about like a burglar, a wretched outcast and wanderer, "coasting the wall of heaven," willing to rest anywhere, to alight anywhere, to relieve his wearied wings and wayworn feet. Have you ever seen at night the shadow of an emaciated being, a thing that was a man, flitting by you, with pallid face, torn and worn-out garments, fragments that would be transparent were it not for the mud by which they were bespattered-a self-accusing, self-degraded creature, one who had seen better days, one who once slept on a bed rich and luxurious, almost princely in its magnificence, but now willing to rest "on the bare outside of this world," upon the miserable straw in the obscure corner of a public asylum, to which the forlorn and houseless creep and crawl at night, without a sign of recognition or a word of consolation from their companions in distress? Here was Satan, the discomfited antagonist of Heaven, "walking about alone," pacing to and fro like a condemned Sepoy, seeking in vain for a spot of earth whereon to repose his exhausted frame. Above him were the angelic host, and floating around him the ambrosial fragrances and seraphic melodies that served to render more excruciating his agony and desolation. Could Danby paint more gloriously could Martin select a finer subject-could Michael Angelo conceive anything more sublimely desolate than this solitary Fiend, this ambassador from Hell?-his rebel host below him, lost, powerless, despairing, and his tremendous foe above him-moping and groping like a blind idiot along a dead, isolated wall upon a rainy and tempestuous night, far from any human habitation, yet fancying that Fate had yet in store for him a splendid destiny and transcendent glory. The dialogue between the Almighty and our Saviour would, in our humble judgment, suit better the "Paradise Regained;" and the description given by God of the free-will of man, and the influence which Satan has over him, seems to be more like the disquisition of a Churchman than the necessary and appropriate address of the Deity. We cannot divest our mind of the idea that it is Milton who is speak ing-the Poet and not the Creator-the dialogue smells so much of

the lamp, and is so full of scholastic argumentation. The Creator asks the Heavenly Powers

"Which of them will be mortal to redeem

Man's mortal crime?"

To this there is not any reply.

"He asked, but all the heavenly choir stood mute,

And silence was in Heaven."

Our Saviour offers himself as the atonement, and declares that He will

"Subdue

His vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil;
Death his death's wound should then receive."

Here Milton could not resist the prevailing defect of the age-playing upon words-the fault of Shakspeare and of Cowley at an earlier period. Then follows the address of the Deity to His Son, which is not very eloquent-if it be at all so-if we except the familiar line in which we are told that in the new Heaven and Earth we shall

"See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds."

But the genius of Milton bursts forth like one of Mendelsohnn's splendid inspirations in music, when he describes the effect of the address of the Lord upon "the multitude of angels"-their shouts of exultation and delight, loud yet sweet-their casting down their crowns of amaranth and gold-their song accompanied by the golden harps, which are for ever tuned, and hang "glittering by their sides like quivers"-and the melodious blending of ten thousand voices in celestial concord, heard and known in Heaven alone. They sing a glorious song to the Father and Saviour, and narrate the history of the Redemption our Lord

"The copious matter of the song."

Here follows another magnificent description of Satan walking up and down the desolate and unpeopled earth, and prowling about like a vulture. The contrast between his loneliness and the splendid company of Heaven is striking-the picture is sublime; but we think its effect is weakened by the cumbrous and heavy similitudes which Milton applies to illustrate his thoughts-the long, drawn-out figure of the Vulture, and the allusions to the Ganges, Hydaspes, and Chinese wagons-or, as he calls them, "Chineses "-destroy, in our mind, the strength of the image as completely as some of the old masters marred and disfigured their works by the introduction of mythological absurdities. A confusion of images renders us incapable of perceiving where the real beauty exists. Who that has seen Paul Delaroche's picture of "Napoleon at Fontainbleau" can ever forget it? The single figure, the melancholy expression of face, the loneliness, the despair,

the consciousness of defeat and impending ruin, have been depicted with wonderful power-the strength of simplicity. We have in Milton also a single figure, but the subject has been rendered complex by extraneous and eccentric illustrations. We are almost inclined, when reading such ponderous passages, to agree with Lord Chesterfield, that an occasional pinch of snuff is requisite to enliven our drowsy faculties while perusing Milton. The passages which follow would not require any such titilating stimulus, for most undoubtedly they are pungent enough. In our mind it is clumsy sarcasm, and might have been avoided; it is a blot and stain upon the face of sublimity, pimples on the glorious countenance of the sublime very well adapted, however, to a satirical poem of a theological character, for we needs must laugh at the description of

"The friars,

White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery,"

blown transversely ten thousand leagues "awry," at the very moment they fancy that St. Peter is about opening the crystal gates of Heaven to admit them-cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tost and fluttered into rags, the sport of winds, all whirled aloft. We pass over these Hudibrastic touches of wicked wit-we pass over his eccentric image of "indulgences, reliques, beads, pardons, bulls," flying over "the backside of the world. We know not whether Milton here indulged in one of Swift's rather broad bursts of humourperhaps so; he was the advocate of a Parliament the name of which was rather in unison with this freak of fancy; or, perhaps, he merely pretended to be geometrically or astronomically accurate. We pass these things over with an inward chuckle and suppressed grin-we pass also over the Paradise of Fools, and walk onwards, till we stand with Lucifer before the magnificent palace of the King of Heaven, embellished with a frontispiece of diamond and of gold, well pleased, indeed, to be delivered from the medley of Mythology, Scripture, Sectarianism and Sarcasm, in which the great poet has revelled, very much to the satisfaction, no doubt, of the sombre gentry with closely-clipped hair, long shirt-collars, and long ears; but, in our mind, the passages to which we have referred are like blocks of decayed wood or putrifying guano, interrupting the genial flow of the stream in which are reflected the glories of Heaven and the sublime miseries of Satan and his disconsolate band. We could have spared the classical allusion to the fool who, to leave behind the impression that he had ascended on high as a god, threw himself into the crater of Mount Etna, but, like Cindrella, forgot, not a slipper but a sandal, and thus exposed the intended deception; nor do we feel more satisfied with the laboured introduction of the youth who drowned himself at once to realize the elysium of Plato. These are scholastic illustrations, and sublimity ceases when a writer is laboured and pedantic. At length, after much painful wandering, the Fiend alights upon "a place beyond expression bright," and discerns an angel

"The same whom John saw also in the sun."

This was the Archangel Uriel, a stripling—

"Not of the prime, yet such as in his face
Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb
Suitable grace

diffused."

There is much grace in the description of this beautiful young spirit; his flowing hair streaming under his coronet, and playing upon each cheek. Satan addresses this favoured spirit, one of those "who stand in sight of God's high throne," and then follows the fine passage, so often quoted

"So spake the false dissembler unperceived;

For neither man nor angel can discern
Hypocrisy, the only soul that walks

Invisible, and, except to God alone,

By His permissive will, through Heaven and Earth,

And oft, tho' Wisdom wakes, suspicion sleeps

At Wisdom's gate, and to Simplicity

Resigns her charge, while Goodness thinks no ill
Where no ill seems."

The Spirit speaks to him in the simple language of a pure Intelligence, and Satan, "bowing low" to the Superior Spirit, throws his steep flight in many an æery wheel,

"Nor stays till on Niphates' top he lights."

This terminates the Third Book.

S. N. E.

576

THE LADY'S LAST STAKE.

"A great and original genius, and rather a writer of comedy with a pencil than a painter, using colours instead of language."

-Lord Orford's Opinion of Hogarth.

On a glorious day in June, 18-, I was sauntering down the promenade of the far-famed "Ride" in Rotten Row; I had run up to town for a day or two from Cowes, where the "Juanita" rode peacefully at the anchorage, awaiting her truant master. Sorely did my spirit chafe to regain her snowy decks, for, good reader, I hate fashion, despise folly (except in myself), love a woollen shirt, the smell of all that's briny, and the grasp of an honest, hard fist, better than the most faultless cut of "Stultz," or Nugèe," the subtle essences of "Jean Farina," or "Bailey," or the languid salute of an exquisitely "Jouvin" fitted hand. Hosts of lovely women, enough to drive any St. Anthony to destruction, hovered on every hand-the man of broad acres, the lordling, the fop, and the fool, jostled side by side-all bent upon the same errand after different fashions. As I looked around me, the cold, heartless selfishness that apparently pervaded the ever-changing mass of Fashion's votaries, struck a chill into my heart. How I longed for the broad, blue sea, a few hearty yachtsmen, and a slashing breeze! Oh! how I yearned for the fierce, wild roar of the surging ocean. I felt alone amidst a multitude, without a kindred spirit to turn to; and although all that was calculated to please the eye and excite the mind was passing before me— youth, beauty, grace, pride of birth, royalty, learning, law, physic, and frailty-yet of all was I heart-sick, tired of the great world of London, and disgusted at being obliged to remain therein for days longer. At this moment a gallantly-mounted cavalier dashed rapidly up the ride; my eye caught his as he advanced. To pull his mettlesome charger on his haunches, fling the bridle-rein to his groom, and spring lightly to the path, was the work of an instant; and the next I was interchanging the warm greetings of long separated friends with the gay and elegant Adrian Luttrell.

In a moment all my vexation of spirit had vanished. I became suddenly amiable, liked the Row and its occupants, and if I had been told that I was free to leave the modern Babylon, I would unhesitatingly have consigned my informant to

"Where good manners won't let me tell."

"Harry Martin, by all the gauze-walls in Galway!" ejaculated the lively Adrian; "where are you from ?-where are you bound to ?—and last of all-what devilment rides on the broomstick?"

"Cowes- the Mediterranean- and a "Faire Ladye!!" was my

answer.

A convulsive start, accompanied by an expression of intense anguish, caused me to regard the ever-joyous Luttrell with anxious astonish