meet with the venerable Nestor, the fond eulogist of the past generation, and the youthful Achilles, the hope, not to be realised, of the future; the imperious sternness and implacability of Agamemnon; the cunning and daring of Odysseus; the heroic devotion of Hector; the conjugal fidelity of Penelope; the seductive charms of Helen; and Andromache's maternal tenderness, that breaks out into tears, when her foreboding spirit foresees the approaching orphanhood of the child at her bosom. We cannot exhaust or even indicate the exuberance of forms which the fertile soil of the Homeric fables shoots forth, to display all the luxuriance of the richest colours, in the vivifying light of the poet's genius. When with the illusion of a lively imagination we have evoked before our eyes these gorgeous pictures, and suddenly turn to the sublime sameness, the grand and majestic monotony of the "Paradise Lost," we can fancy to realise the feelings with which the desert traveller returns to the dreary reality of a sandy waste, sublime though awful, from the momentary enchantment in which he had gazed upon the waving trees and glittering cupolas of a Fata Morgana.* The great superiority of the Homeric fables over that of the "Paradise Lost" is not confined to the greater variety of the material, and to the intensity of human interest, excited by it. As a religious epic, it was so far from giving offence to the pious feelings of many generations of Greeks, that it almost supplied the want of a sacred volume, and became, to a great extent, the highest authority in matters of religion. It was Homer, that inspired Phidias to the divine conception of his Olympic Zeus, and around this masterpiece of the combined genius of poet and sculptor it was, that, for ages and ages, the solemn assemblies of the scattered tribes of the Hellenes were gathered to celebrate their festive games, to sing their enraptured odes, and to display the whole of their gay religion, full of pomp, gold, and pride; it adorned the altar of the centre of the Greek religion, and that of the Greek brotherhood. Such was the fable of the Homeric poems; and such the contrast of that of the "Paradise Lost." Without attempting totally to exhaust the subject, let us now proceed to inquire into the design, that is, the plan and structure of the poem. 66 The plan of the Paradise Lost" is in all essentials that of the "Odyssey," and it has therefore all the merits and all the demerits of Addison says, "The angels are indeed as much diversified in Milton, and distinguished by their proper parts, as the Gods are in Homer or Virgil." How could a classical scholar write this? an imitation. It stands in this respect on a level with Virgil's "Aeneid.” In both, we miss the vigour of originality, which imparts peculiar charms to Dante and to the Niebelungen. The poet begins in the middle of his story, and brings up the beginning in the form of a narrative by one of the acting persons. The prophetic revelations of the fate of the human race, made by Michael to Adam, are framed after the visions which Odysseus and Aeneas are represented to have seen in the nether world. The prominence given to material battles is quite in the spirit and after the model of the antique, especially the "Iliad." There is little variety in respect of design. Once adopting the Greek style of Architecture, we have little choice and freedom. All the outlines and proportions of our structure are given with the fixedness almost of a natural law; we have only to accommodate it to our site, and we may indulge in a few slight modifications of detail. The general plan will not admit of much innovation. No modern architect has ever shown originality in the Greek style of ecclesiastical architecture, except where he has been led astray to the barbarous hybridism of a style half gothic, half Greek, vainly attempting to be original by combining incongruous elements. I have therefore, very little to say on this subject. It is true, the design of "Paradise Lost" is not original, but it is a successful reproduction of the chaste style of the unrivalled Ionic model. Intimately connected with the enquiry into the design, is that into the management of detail and embellishments. This is for the parts, what the design is for the whole. And as in architecture the decorations and the arrangement of parts grow out of and are intimately connected with the general plan; so the plan of an epic poem is intimately connected with and essentially qualified by the tone and spirit with which persons and circumstances, events and actions, sentiments and natural agents are described. The imagery, allusions, illustrations, the whole poetical apparatus are of such importance, that their selection very much qualifies the judgment which is to be passed on the design, and on the whole poem. It seems sometimes part of the design, and inseparable from it, or hardly distinguishable, and therefore our inquiry into this part of "Paradise Lost” may be looked upon by those who like, as affecting the design. It is a natural rule of Architecture, that the detail and the decoration of a building, should be in the character of the style. We have compared the design of the "Paradise Lost" to that of a Greek temple. But it is not sacred to a Greek deity; it is like a christian church conceived in, and devoted to the spirit of our sacred books. Then what is the meaning of heathen gods and heroes filling the pediments and the metopes and the frieze? Is this demanded by the adopted style, or does not the object to which the building is devoted, demand different decorations? Nothing has been so generally blamed in Milton as his frequent allusions to Greek mythology, nor are these objections unfounded, as we shall presently see. What is the rationale of these objections? It cannot be, that the Greek mythology is in itself devoid of beauty. Nobody ever found fault with Homer,or Pindar, or Aeschylus, for the ever charming forms of Olympic beauty, which they introduced into their poems. Nor is our aesthetic objection a puritanical aversion to images, or even to heathen gods. We justly admire a group of Venus and the Graces, if the sculptor's chisel has been inspired by true art. We hang up in our Museums the masterly productions of Rubens and Titian, even when they represent goddesses, and nymphs and satyrs. Why object to Chaos, or Saturn, or Mulciber in "Paradise Lost?" It is this, that these figures offend against the spirit of truth. We do not like to hear them spoken of as realities by a man, who, like ourselves, knows them to be fictions. Grave, and venerable and truth-loving to austerity as Milton must ever appear, there is in his employment of Greek mythology almost a dash of frivolity. The poet is playing with beings whom he professes to believe to be devils, but whom he really looks upon as poetical imagery, as mere productions of fancy. There is neither a poetical nor a religious conviction in the poet's mind of the reality of his mythological personages. They cannot inspire him, and they cannot of course gain the sympathy of his reader. They lack the reality of truth. They are artificial accompaniments in which we may admire skill and labour, but which cannot produce that never-failing effect of genuine poetical inspiration, wedded with truthfulness, which warms us with the poet's enthusiasm, and raises us, willing or unwilling, with him to the regions to which he soars. It is truth, that is wanting in Milton's mythological persons; and this want makes us indifferent to them. In Homer they have the reality of life; the poet believes in them, and thus he can succeed in making us momentarily believe in their real existence, and to sympathise with whatever agitates their souls. The same effect cannot be produced by any modern author. The Greek mythology has ceased to inspire with that only true inspiration which is allied to truth and faith. It may furnish subjects for works of sculpture or painting, which never appeal to our heart and feelings like those of poetry. But even in these works it is a fatal error to mix up mythological figures with such as are true and taken from life, to evoke the genius of victory to crown a dying hero, or to conjure up the muses to hold the medallion of a philosopher. In poetry the introduction of the unreal and untruthful is a more fatal error, and nowhere so much as in sacred poetry, in which religious objections are added to those which are merely æsthetical. In the "Paradise Lost" Milton has so intimately interwoven the imagery of Greek mythology with the sacred texts, that offence was unavoidable. Jehovah is represented like a Jupiter Tonans, the thunder-bolt is his dreaded weapon; it gives him even the appellation of Thunderer (II. 28); it is the thunder of the Almighty, wielded by the Messiah, which decides the doubtful contest of angels and demons, and which helps to give to the poem so much of the character of a Titanomachia.* The Greek idea of Fate, as superior to the reigning gods of Olympus, has also an offensive prominence in the poem. It is hinted, and not by the devils alone, that there is some mysterious power, to whose decrees even God must bend, (II. 610, VI. 869, XI. 181.) It is quite impossible to give here anything like a complete list of the reprehensible allusions to Greek mythology, of which the "Paradise Lost" is full. I must confine myself to a few examples, sufficient for illustration. Heaven is a complete Olympus. The archangels dwell in separate palaces, erected as those of the Homeric gods, by Hephaestos, the divine architect, I. 732; and they are supported by nectar and ambrosia. On the other hand, Hell is drawn like a perfect copy of Tartarus. There are in it II. 575. 596. "Four infernal rivers, that disgorge At certain revolutions, all the damned Are brought," &c. Of course Milton must have meant heavenly thunder, distinct from earthly. For the latter belongs to these terrestrial elements, which, according to v. 22, the least of the angelic host can wield with ease. 604. "They ferry over this Lethean sound All in one moment and so near the brink. The ford, and of itself the water flies All taste of living wight, as once it fled It is here where 625. "Nature breeds Perverse all monstrous, all prodigious things; Frequent is the polytheistic allusion to gods in the plural number, which can only be explained from a familiarity with the term, caused by classical reading, and which at the present day is beginning to offend our feelings. Who will approve, that the poet says of the devils, "Their visages and stature as of gods," (I. 570) or that the archangel should be made to say, (VII. 329) “That earth now seemed like to heaven, a seat where gods might dwell;" or the following passage in the poet's mouth, (X. 90) "The speed of Gods time counts not, though with swiftest minutes winged." And yet the impropriety that lies in these passages is surpassed by Eve being represented like a Greek Aphrodite, (VIII. 59)— "With goddess-like demeanour forth she went, Not unattended; for on her as queen A pomp of winning graces waited still." Nor does Michael scruple to talk of goddesses to Adam, (XI. 614.) "For that fair female troop thou saw'st, that seemed of goddesses, so blithe, so smooth, so gay, (compare I. 558, II. 108.) There was a period in German literature, when the gods and goddesses of Greece were constantly conjured up to fill the metre, or furnish a hollow phrase. Even Schiller is not free from this fault. He meant no harm in thus appealing to Venus or Bacchus. It was a mere form of speech, the fruit of that devout study of the antique poets, which often made the moderns live and think and speak in the forms of antiquity. But we have emerged from this tirocinium. We have done with these classical exotics. The flowers to adorn our poetry, we require, henceforth, to be native and genuine. One of the worst, perhaps the worst instance of the adoption of |