Milton was of middle height, and it is said that his deportment was affable, and his gait erect and manly, bespeaking courage and undauntedness. He had great personal beauty, and his complexion retained even in later life much of its freshness, and the appearance of his eyes was not affected by their blindness. His habits were simple, and music seems, especially in his latter years, to have been his chief recreation. He was to the end of his life a student. An English writer (Rev. F. D. Maurice) has recently said that a knowledge of the life and writings of Milton is essential to a full understanding of the history of the important period in which he lived, and adds, "There is the greatest possible contrast between the lofty and various music of a poem and the vulgar actualities of a colonial existence; yet it seems to me sometimes as if New England were a translation into prose of the thought that was working in Milton's mind from its early morning to its sunset." "We are selfish men. O raise us up, return to us again, And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power! Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, how my light is spent ys, in this dark world and wide, alent, which is death to hide, seless, though my soul more bent amy Maker, and present t, lest He returning chide; act day-labor, light denied?" t Patience, to prevent On replies: "God doth not need ee years day these eyes, though clear , or star, throughout the year, en's hand or will, nor bate a jot e; but still bear up and steer Europe rings from side to side. ight lead me through the world's vain mask gh blind, had I no better guide. THE VERSE.* THE measure is English Heroic Verse without Rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin; Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets carried away by Custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and restraint, to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse, then else they would have exprest them. Not without cause, therefore, some both Italian and Spanish Poets of prime note have rejected Rime both in longer and shorter Works, as have also long since our best English Tragedies, as a thing of itself to all judicious eares triveal and of no true musical delight; which consists only in apt Numbers, fit quantity of Syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sounds of like endings, a fault avoyded by the learned Ancients both in Poetry and all good Oratory. This neglect then of Rime so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar readers, that it rather is to be esteem'd an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recover'd to Heroic Poem from the troublesom and modern bondage of Rimeing. *This was printed in the second title-page of the first edition, as a reason why the Poem rimes not." The original spelling is preserved. poses first, in brief, the whole subject, man's dishe loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he was ches the prime cause of his fall, the serpent, or the serpent; who, revolting from God and drawnany legions of angels, was, by the command of of Heaven with all his crew into the great deep. assed over, the poem hastes into the midst of g Satan with his angels now fallen into Hell, dein the centre (for Heaven and Earth may be supmade, certainly not yet accursed), but in a place =s, fitliest called Chaos: Here Satan, with his an he burning lake, thunder-struck and astonished, pace recovers as from confusion, calls up him who d dignity lay by him; they confer of their miserawakens all his legions, who lay till then in the nfounded; they rise; their numbers, array of bateaders named according to the idols known aftern and the countries adjoining. To these Satan dicomforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven; lastly of a new world and new kind of creature to rding to an ancient prophecy or report in Heaven; were long before this visible creation, was the opinient Fathers). To find out the truth of this prophto determine thereon, he refers to a full council. ates thence attempt. Pandemonium, the palace suddenly built out of the deep: the infernal peers ncil. irst disobedience and the fruit dden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world and all our woe, That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer 4. one greater Man. "For as 6. secret, retired; apart. See Exodus iii. 1; xix. 20; xx. 21; xxiv. 15-18. 7. Of Oreb, or of Sinai. Horeb is a summit of the ridge called Sinai, in the north-western part of Arabia, between the two gulfs of the Red Sea. 8. That shepherd. "Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the back side of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb." Ex. ii. 1. the chosen seed, the Hebrews or Israelites. See 1 Chronicles xvi. 13. 5 10 15 20 10. Chaos, the state of confusion in which matter is supposed to have existed before the Creation. Sion hill, one of the hills of Jerusalem, usually called Mount Zion 11. Siloa's brook. The pool of Siloam (see John ix. 7) was on the south of Jerusalem. 12. Fast by, close by. -the oracle of God, the Temple. 15. the Aonian mount, Mount Helicon in Greece, the seat of the Muses, whence the Grecian poets were supposed to draw their inspiration. It was situated in Aonia, a part of Boeotia. 21. "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Gen. i. 2.- Dove-like. "He saw the Spirit of God, de9. In the beginning. See Gen- scending like a dove" Matthew esis i. 1. iii. 16. |