armed-of this they were vain. But the strife between two such hosts is not to be decided by such means— Equal in their creation they were formed, Save what sin hath impaired, which yet hath wrought Whence in perpetual fight they needs must last, War wearied hath performed what war can do, And to disordered rage let loose the reins, With mountains as with weapons armed, which makes Have suffered, that the glory may be thine Of ending this great war, since none but thou Book vi. 690-703. The poet himself points cut where the "solution" of his argument is to be found, and repeats it in the speech of Messiah previous to his victorious onset on the adversaries of God and man. "Faithful hath been your warfare, and of God All secondary means, all created reason and strength are put aside, that the will of God may be justified, and his power manifested by and in the person of the Messiah. The battle of the angels is said to be founded principally on Rev. xii. 7, 8, "There was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven." The battle described by Milton was intended by him to be a type of that thus sketched in the apocalypse. And the poet repeatedly refers to a period still future "when all things shall be subdued unto the Son, and the Son himself also shall be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all-in-all." Thus the Son immediately before his setting forth on his victorious errand addresses his Father. "O Father, O supreme of heavenly thrones, As is most just; this I my glory account, That thou in me well-pleased, declarest thy will For ever, and in me all whom thou lov'st." Book vi. 723-733. It is still more distinctly, as well as sublimely, referred to in the third book. "On me let death wreak all his rage; I through the ample air in triumph high Shall lead hell captive maugre hell, and shew The powers of darkness bound. Thou at the sight Death last, and with his carcase glut the grave: Of anger shall remain, but peace assured Thenceforth, but in thy presence joy entire."-240-265. In all this, the highest honour is ascribed to the Messiah; Milton, however, would have fulfilled his task more boldly and more satisfactorily, had his mind been better made up respecting the doctrine of the Trinity. In all that respects the Son, he has expressed himself with studied ambiguity, and, as it would appear, in order not to involve (which would have been a manifest impropriety) the poetical reader in a theological controversy, adopted the language of Scripture. Hence there is nothing that ought to offend the most orthodox. But the uncertainty in the poet's mind throws an air of dubiety over this part of the poem which is equally injurious to its poetical effect, and to its religious application. At the same time it clearly appears, notwithstanding the strenuous argument in the "Christian Doctrine," that the poet's reason was in a state of doubt on this great subject, and that he had not arrived to the certainty of conviction in favour of that judgment of this momentous inquiry which differed from the opinions he entertained respecting it at an earlier period of his life. The great moral which is derivable from our view of the subject is this, that in all the conflicts between the spirit and the flesh which every Christian at some time or other invariably undergoes, no permanent dependence is to be placed on the unaided strength and reason of created intelligence, but that ultimately resort must be had to the divine assistance. This mode of symbolical interpretation (which must not on any account be confounded with the allegorical) may startle with its novelty many readers unaccustomed to its use, and many others, with All the originality of its application in the present instance. Milton's commentators, however, have not been blind to the symbolical applications which might be made of this book. Greenwood observes, "that Milton, by continuing the war for three days, and reserving the victory upon the third for the Messiah alone, plainly alludes to the circumstances of his death and resurrection. Our Saviour's extreme sufferings on the one hand, and his heroic behaviour on the other, made the contest seem to be more equal and doubtful upon the first day; and on the second, Satan triumphed in the advantages he thought he had gained, when Christ lay buried in the earth, and was to outward appearance in an irrecoverable state of corruption: but when the third sacred morn began to shine, he gloriously vanquished with his own almighty arm the powers of hell, and rose again from the grave." There are other collateral applications that may be made of several portions of this narrative; but they principally regard what may be called the moral, which, though one (the duty and advantage of obedience to the Deity), is capable of many ramifications. At the conclusion of this episode, Milton repeats the apology with which he commenced it. "Thus measuring things in heaven by things on earth, What might have else to human race been hid." 66 Book vi. 893-896. In the passage at the commencement, and which we have before quoted, he suggests an hypothesis, that "earth may be but the shadow of heaven." This is quite consistent with a platonic notion, and Milton was a platonist. Dr. Henry More describes the word of God, as being the archetypal seal, or intellectual world," whereto should be referred, as he calls it," the paradigm of all virtues, the idea of all ideas, the form of all forms." This he denominates "Eonland" and "idea-land," of which all creation is but an imperfect image, and a mutable mirror. There whatever is, pre-existed after a spiritual manner, subject neither to increase, decay, nor change. Something like this notion appears to have passed through Milton's mind; and the reader will probably think that it was impossible in a briefer compass, to give so complete a prophecy and rehearsal of the history of the human race, under the figure of a warfare, as we conceive was in this book attempted by our sublimest poet. This ground will furnish a new justification for the introduction of artillery into heaven. It was the endeavour of Milton to make his account (to adopt Dr. Henry More's language) a perfect paradigm of the different modes in which the principle of strife had manifested itself in the after-world. This he intimates himself in the following line “War, wearied, hath performed what war can do." "In the compass of this one book," says Addison, “We have all the variety of battles that can be conceived-a single combat, and a general engagement, after the manner of the ancients, with swords and darts-another with artillery, in imitation of the moderns-and the third, borrowed from the fictions of the poets, in their descriptions of the giant's war with the gods." These fictions themselves, and indeed all the ancient mythologies, were constructed upon a similar principle. The gods of the Greeks were only so many personifications of the different parts of naturethe result of a traduction of cosmogony into theogony, or a reduction of the latter into the former. Hence the ideas of material nature and deity, were blended in heterogeneous union. A complete critique. of the Paradise Lost should enter fully into Milton's system of mythology, and point out how far it had reference to those obscure revelations of divine truth, which are to be found mythically expressed in all ages and countries. We must content ourselves with intimating the manner in which this ought to be accomplished. However, it may have been the aim of some writers to reduce these splendid fictions to mere historical facts, the former must always be insufficiently interpreted by the latter. The reason of this is, that the actual event, which was the origin of the fiction, having been lost sight of by the poet, the tradition was elevated by him into a higher element of being; to say nothing of the natural tendency of the imagination, to ascribe to its objects sublimer modes of exist ence, under the relations, and with the attributes of eternity. The or dinary occurrences of the heroes of antiquity, are, in Milton's opinion, magnified as the adventures of deities, or the acts of demigods. They are antedated to render them apparently more divine; but their antiquity, being subsequent to nature's, betrays their earthly origin. "The Ionian gods, of Javan's issue held Gods, yet confessed later than heaven or earth, Book i. 508-514. Still they are carried out of this terrestrial region, and constitute the types and shadows of mysteries, in which, in fact, their own interpretation is only to be successfully sought. Thus the story of the Titans' war, is capable of a similar explication with that already given of Milton's angelic battles. "The Titans, in general," says a formidable critic, "mean the dark primary powers of nature and of mind; the later gods, what enters more within the circle of consciousness. The former are more nearly related to chaos, the latter belong to a world already subjected to order." It is in this tendency of the human intellect, and not from hieroglyphics misunder stood, and badly explained, that the solution is to be found of those daring fables with which the poets abound. They might have had their remote occasion in the symbols and signs alluded to, but their source lay far deeper, in the abysses of the human mind, which adopted those devices only as convenient emblems of its mysteries. We may be told, that the eagle and the vulture were insignia of Egypt, but this piece of information will go a very little way in interpreting the obscurities of the Prometheus. It has been said, by a man of undoubted but perverted genius,* that the characters of the Satan of Milton, and the Prometheus of Eschylus are identical. This, however, we may be permitted to dispute. Prometheus is a representation of humanity struggling against the laws of nature, impelled by its wants to supernatural endeavour, and restrained by physical necessity in its efforts to ameliorate its condition. The strength and force by which he is chained to the fatal rock, are no other than the same "brute force" and "strength," by which the rebel angels "measured all, of other excellence not emulous." Prometheus is not only a representative of human nature, but he is also a god, and finely prefigures the divine humanity. According to the scheme, then, of the writer referred to, we should be compelled to make the Messiah and Satan change places; and indeed, this is the legitimate result and consequence of his argument, which he was by no means solicitous to avert or conceal. True it is, that the character may also be interpreted, as being symbolical of the rebellious spirit," of whose name in heavenly records now is no memorial.” This union is daring, and unexampled in any other work of genius. It gives overwhelming sublimity to this marvellous fragment, and arrests the critic with wonder and awe. The characters of Satan and the Messiah, are identified in that of Prometheus! It required the light of the Christian revelation to make the necessary distinction. The heathen poet could see nothing but unmerited suffering in man, and only rebellion to the divine decree in all friendly interposition on his account. Whatever tended to ameliorate the condition of humanity, was an act of treason against heaven, and whoever dared to introduce the arts and amenities of life, was deserving of implacable punishment.† But our Milton wrote his Divine Poem under a more perfect dispensation, with clearer views and better prospects. The sacred knot had for him been disentangled, and in the divine Friend of man he beheld no rebellious Titan, but the Son of God acting in perfect conformity with the will of his Father; neither in the enemy of man did he behold Him" who sole reigning, holds the tyranny of heaven," but that adversary equally of God and of man, who thought it "better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven;" and accordingly taught, that submission and acquiescence in the directions of Providence was the chief wisdom. In these considerations, also, is to be found the solution of the question, as to the hero of the poem, whether the Messiah, or Adam, or Satan. It is true, that the part of Satan is of remarkable prominence, and it is judiciously made to stand out, since he was the prime Agent by whom evil was Shelley, in the preface to his Prometheus Unbound. We have adopted this explanation, in deference to some great authorities, but the Prometheus is susceptible of one much easier and simpler, and on other accounts also preferable. The poet's description of the Tyrant of Olympus, as of a being inimical to whatever is beneficial for the human race, is only proper to Satan, who is emphatically denominated also "the God of this world." And what else, properly understood, was Jove himself, according to this system of mythology? This view exonerates the resistance of Prometheus of every evil attribute, and makes him simply representative of the divine friend of man, without any alliance with the spirit of rebellion. |