Page images
PDF
EPUB

،،

peculiar excellences of his models, in a combination as exquisite as ingenious. A serious poet, he was induced to reject the admixture of 'comic stuff," and inclined to the statelier measure of versification, exemplified in the more imaginative productions of Shakspere, rather than to the wild and overleaping versification of the fantastical composition of Fletcher, whose spirit he, nevertheless, adopted in the general tone, and his rythmical license in the lyrical portion of his work. These distinctions he united with the "learned sock" of Jonson, but free from all tendency to the grotesque, and accompanied with a solemn grace, and unexampled grandeur, peculiarly his own. Such critics, therefore, who think that he was bound down by classic rules, or any other models, would as much mistake his poetical character, as they who should suppose him to be an advocate of despotism in any shape would his political. But they would equally mistake him in both, who should conclude him to be uninfluenced by antiquity or authority in either. In his religious speculations he was equally daring; but even where he most departs from the orthodox creed, as in several parts of his "Christian Doctrine," he is careful to accumulate Scriptural texts in support of his opinion. In his intellect was comprehended all that had been accomplished in the different countries and ages of the world, while the mind of the human race was under process of development, together with the result of its combination, and the perfection of its united excellences in the Christian Revelation, to which he added whatever helps the works of genius in all languages, since that period, might administer to the accomplishment of his own understanding and reason. He was inferior to Shakspere as respected the cultivation of his common sense, which enabled the latter to shadow forth his ideas in the shapes of his own experience; but he was superior to him in the loftiness of his inspiration, and the purity of his fancy. His power of invention was equally prolific, but his materials were of a different quality, and fewer in number.

We have seen with what ease and effect Milton could convey the real into the purely imaginative; the task is however of superlative difficulty to express with propriety things spiritual by sensible analogies. The impressions of sense are immediately arranged by us every minute of our lives under the laws of the intellect, and generalized by the understanding; but it is with difficulty and labour we reverse the process, and reduce our ideas of what is supernatural to the corresponding emblem in nature, which shall best express its peculiar attribute. Our perceptions in these respects are so obscure that scarcely any image is sufficiently refined and remote to harmonize with the feeling that the poet would willingly excite in the reader. There are also some critics, who would not express the actions of spirits by any images drawn from matter-even by such mere abstractions as "contraction and remove". or, if such images must be admitted, object to the poet's obtruding the spirituality of his agents on the reader's notice at all. This was Dr. Johnson's opinion-it would, however, not only confine the poet's invention within a very limited province, but, to fulfil the first requisition, would require a different language from any that was ever in use among men. For language is not a spiritual but a material instrument, and words, if they are the signs of ideas, as stated by Locke, are signs

chiefly of those ideas which are derived from sensation, and have reference to matter, and are only applied by analogy to the operations of mind. In all other respects they are only spoken hieroglyphics. So fettered was the most ancient language in this respect, that, as Milton himself observes, the idea of eternity in the Hebrew Scriptures is only expressed by a phrase, signifying "of old time or antiquity."-Thus, to adopt his own language, "it is conveyed in the Hebrew Tongue rather by comparison and deduction than in express words." How co-essential with the Being of Man must have been this idea, to exist in its full meaning in spite of the inadequacy of all expressions, to communicate it from mind to mind. But such, and similar ideas are not propagated, neither, indeed, can be; but must and do pre-exist in the human reason, and only wait for the touch of some Ithuriel spear, to awaken into vigour and kindle into animation.

Lord Byron, in his letter to Mr. Bowles, has pushed this principle much farther. "In speaking," says he, "of artificial objects I have omitted to touch upon one, which I will now mention. Cannon may be presumed to be as highly poetical as art can make her objects. Mr. Bowles will, perhaps, tell me that this is because they resemble that grand natural sound in heaven and simile on earth-Thunder. I shall be told triumphantly that Milton made sad work with his artillery when he armed his devils therewithall. He did so, and this artificial object must have had much of the sublime to attract his attention for such a conflict. He has made an absurd use of it; but the absurdity consists not in using cannon against the angels of God, but any material weapon. The thunder of the clouds would have been as ridiculous and vain in the hands of the devils, as the "villanous saltpetre" the angels were as impervious to the one as to the other. The thunderbolts become sublime in the hands of the Almighty, not as such, but because he deigns to use them as a means of repelling the rebel spirits; but no one can attribute their defeat to this grand piece of natural electricity: the Almighty willed, and they fell: his word* would have been enough; and Milton is as absurd, (and in fact, blasphemous) in putting material lightnings into the hands of the Godhead, as in giving him hands at all.

"The artillery of the demons was but the first step of the mistake, the thunder the next; and it is a step lower. It would have been fit for Jove, but not for Jehovah. The subject altogether was essentially unpoetical; he has made more of it than another could; but it is beyond him and all men."

Now these objections, if valid at all, will hold good against the whole of the Paradise Lost, which is an endeavour to represent in material images the most super-ethereal of all speculations" the Origin of Evil," which is its only subject. It is clear from the divine records that evil was introduced into this world from a state of pre-existence, and by a being purely spiritual, and is of itself a mystery transcendentally theological. To say that such subjects and agents shall not be expressible by material analogies, would be to say that a poem constituted

* It may be observed, by the way, that it is by the word of the Almighty, in the person of the Messiah, that they are defeated. The thunder, &c. were symbols of the power of that word.

of such an argument, should not be written at all: and this, in fact, appears to have been Lord Byron's opinion, though his practice differed. These difficulties, however, are not such only in a poetical point of view, but in a philosophical and religious one, and, as it would appear from his recently discovered Treatise, had occurred to Milton before the composition of his great pocm, in the latter serious light. Upon his own theory he was clearly justified in the poetical application, and we hope to be able to shew that he may also be vindicated upon sounder principles.

Milton's opinion of matter, and of its identity with mind, as presented in his treatise of Christian Doctrine, is now well understood. Denying the common opinion of two distinct and different natures as of soul and body, it was with no incongruity that the poet mixed the qualities, or attributes of both indiscriminately, either of which might, by analogy, serve to illustrate the other, the question being not of a difference in kind, but in degree. And, with regard to this question, it would be as well to attend to the following remarkable passage in his treatise, which upon other accounts also, is deserving of serious consideration. "Spirit being the more excellent substance, virtually and essentially contains within itself the inferior one; as the spiritual and rational faculty contains the corporeal, that is, the sentient and vegetative faculty." Admitting this, the objection (otherwise insuperable and only to be justified by the success of the execution) to his theme, as involving the necessary representation of a war between the Almighty and his creatures is, in some measure avoided, and the use of material weapons- and artillery of thunder and lightning is exempt from censure. Milton himself has answered in express terms the ultimate objection, that it is not only absurd but blasphemous to give to the Godhead hands at all. "If God," says he, "habitually assign to himself the members and form of man, why should we be afraid of attributing to him what he attributes to himself, so long as what is imperfection and weakness, when viewed in reference to ourselves, be considered as most complete and excellent whenever it is imputed to God?"

We are not disposed to quarrel with such as prefer to contemplate the Godhead in his abstract essence, rather than in his personal attributes. We are aware how much this tends to assist us in framing a conception of the infinity and omnipresence of the deity, and how agreeable this conception is to the instincts of our rational nature. But we are afraid that this notion of the divine infinity may exclude a belief of the divine personality, and may lead to a confusion of omnipresence with mere ubiquity. Many are the minds that reluctantly admit the life and personal being of the deity, and only conceive of him as of space infinitely extended-and of time immeasurably continued-or, at best, as infinity rather than the infinite, as eternity rather than the eternal. On one of two propositions the whole argument appears to depend. Either the omnipresence of the deity must be interpreted to mean that God is present to all things, or that all things are present to God. The latter is the safer sense in which to understand it, and it is one which reconciles the opposite ideas of personality and immensity.

It has been justly observed that Milton was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and nothing was more remote from the spirit of the Jewish Religion

than any modification whatever of anthropomorphism. It was forbidden to the Jews to make any image of the invisible God, the idea of whom they had it in express charge to preserve; but the prophet thought it not inconsistent with the principles of his faith to describe the great Jehovah as he "who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance." Yet in the very same chapter he demands— "To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?" "Hast thou an arm like God?" said the Lord to Job-"or canst thou thunder with a voice like him ?" Indeed, if we are to condemn Milton on this score, the psalmists and prophets of Israel cannot escape a similar censure. But in fact, the Hebrew Scriptures, while teaching the invisible God as a spirit, are anxious to indicate his personality. He is described "as sitting upon the circle of the earth" in an elevation so remote " that the inhabitants thereof are but as grasshoppers," and as only hidden from the view of mortal men, by "the heavens that he has stretched out as a curtain; and spread out as a tent to dwell in." So lofty, so distant, so obscure-yet as all along abiding in the contrite heart by the operation of the Holy Spirit.

"Jehovah-shapeless Power above all powers,
Single and One-the Omnipresent God,

By vocal utterance, or blaze of light,
Or cloud of darkness, localized in heaven,
On earth enshrined within the wandering ark,
Or out of Sion, thundering from his throne
Between the Cherubim."

In all that regards the distinct tri-personality of the Godhead, the opinion of Milton is consistent with the orthodox creed. He neither attempts to refine it away into essence, form and operation, or to reduce the Creator to a mere Anima Mundi. "Jupiter est quodcunque vides." But of the doctrine of the Trinity, he appears to have had peculiar notions; how far these had any influence in the composition of his two epic poems, we would now proceed to inquire.

(To be continued).

TABLE TALK;

OR, THE HEBREW CLAIMS.

Dedicated, most respectfully, to the Opponents of the Hebrew Claims, by the Author, a CHRISTIAN.

"From the morning watch, even unto night, let Israel hope in the Lord."

INTRODUCTION.

THIS poem, which was written, and a copy presented to, perhaps, the most talented and esteemed Jewish gentleman of our nation, about two years ago, has, its author is proud for his country's sake to confess, been

much qualified in its national censure by the noble and wise conduct of the Government as it regards this highly interesting people, in appointing a vice-consul for Judæa, and adopting other beneficial means of conciliating their affections (a step so necessary for their conversion), in their own venerated and venerable land: for which see the last Number of the Quarterly. The Author feels it likewise due to himself to state, that there are thoughts in that article, to which he with pleasure refers, which would appear to have originated his; but that those who have seen his MS. will be satisfied they have only anticipated his in the press, but are subsequent in time of composition.

These lines, unworthy, perhaps, to be dignified with the name of poem, are addressed to all who oppose themselves to the natural rights of their brethren: rights, whose title is graven upon each individual being at his birth, by the impartial hand of the sole Creator and Universal Father; and which all the efforts of selfishness, prejudice, and bigotry, shall never be able to efface.

But they are particularly intended as the medium by which to convey a few suggestions to the minds of the more scrupulously devout, and religiously timid of all denominations of Christians; whose conscientious, but, in the author's opinion, illiberal and erroneous presumptions, have confounded the dimly seen and never-to-be-fathomed prophecies of Deity, with the clear and strongly defined revelations of His will as regards our duty to our fellows.

To those whom fear and passion (ever the sources of cruelty and injustice), have prompted to become persecutors upon principle, under the mild insignia and noiseless and tranquil wavings of the blessed banner of the great Teacher of peace; and who, inflated with the proud notion that they are the co-adjutors of God, and the executors of his vengeance, arrogantly presume, in attempting to work out his predictions, that, if they withhold the ministry of their uncharitableness, the just designs of an angry God must be rendered futile, and the wrath of the Almighty be laughed to scorn by a few mistaken, but much loved and cherished children.

This poetical essay is intended to awaken the minds of these individuals, in particular, to a few enquiries, which a mind and a heart, obedient to the injunctions, and zealous for the faith of their Founder, ought of themselves to have suggested.

Query 1. Has not Jesus Christ given us a law of love to all men: even to love them, as He has loved us; i. e. to the extent of laying down our lives for them?

2. Is this not an imperative duty, from which we cannot escape?

3. Is there any good which we can do, even to our enemies, whether of soul or body (and differing in opinion is not enmity), which is not enjoined us in this law of sweetness and compassion? Or, is there any evil, however slight-if any evil could be slight or trivial—that is not forbidden us by this same beautiful, and, to the bad passions of men, unaccommodating precept?

4. Are we any where commanded to assist, or to carry out predictions -even although we were certain that we understood them?

5. Can we be certain when the anger of God is relenting, or when and how long it is still to continue unabated? When we are furthering,

N. S.-VOL. I.

3 D

« PreviousContinue »