_'Quintius, Fabricius, Curius, Regulus._'
The reader will readily suppose that both are objected to as 'roll-calls
of proper names.' Now, it is very true that nothing is more offensive to
the mind than the practice of mechanically packing into metrical
successions, as if packing a portmanteau, names without meaning or
significance to the feelings. No man ever carried that atrocity so far as
Boileau, a fact of which Mr. Landor is well aware; and slight is the
sanction or excuse that can be drawn from _him_. But it must not be
forgotten that Virgil, so scrupulous in finish of composition, committed
this fault. I remember a passage ending
'----Noemonaque Prytaninque;'
but, having no Virgil within reach, I cannot at this moment quote it
accurately. Homer, with more excuse, however, from the rudeness of his
age, is a deadly offender in this way. But the cases from Milton are very
different. Milton was incapable of the Homeric or Virgilian blemish. The
objection to such rolling musketry of names is, that unless interspersed
with epithets, or broken into irregular groups by brief circumstances of
parentage, country, or romantic incident, they stand audaciously perking
up their heads like lots in a catalogue, arrow-headed palisades, or young
larches in a nursery ground, all occupying the same space, all drawn up in
line, all mere iterations of each other. But in
'_Quintius, Fabricius, Curius, Regulus,_'
though certainly not a good line _when insulated_ (better, however,
in its connection with the entire succession of which it forms part), the
apology is, that the massy weight of the separate characters enables them
to stand like granite pillars or pyramids, proud of their self-supporting
independency.
Mr. Landor makes one correction by a simple improvement in the
punctuation, which has a very fine effect. Rarely has so large a result
been distributed through a sentence by so slight a change. It is in the
'Samson.' Samson says, speaking of himself (as elsewhere) with that
profound pathos, which to all hearts invests Milton's own situation in the
days of his old age, when he was composing that drama--
'Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
_Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves._'
Thus it is usually printed; that is, without a comma in the latter line;
but, says Landor, 'there ought to be commas after _eyeless_, after
_Gaza_, after _mill_.' And why? because thus 'the grief of Samson is
aggravated at every member of the sentence.' He (like Milton) was--1.
blind; 2. in a city of triumphant enemies; 3. working for daily bread; 4.
herding with slaves; Samson literally, and Milton with those whom
politically he regarded as such.
Mr. Landor is perfectly wrong, I must take the liberty of saying, when he
demurs to the line in Paradise Regained:
'_From that placid aspect and meek regard,_'
on the ground that; '_meek regard_ conveys no new idea to _placid
aspect_.' But _aspect_ is the countenance of Christ when passive
to the gaze of others: _regard_ is the same countenance in active
contemplation of those others whom he loves or pities. The _placid
aspect_ expresses, therefore, the divine rest; the _meek regard_
expresses the divine benignity: the one is the self-absorption of the
total Godhead, the other the eternal emanation of the Filial Godhead.
'By what ingenuity,' says Landor, 'can we erect into a verse--
"_In the bosom of bliss, and light of light?_'"
Now really it is by my watch exactly three minutes too late for _him_
to make that objection. The court cannot receive it now; for the line just
this moment cited, the ink being hardly yet dry, is of the same identical
structure. The usual iambic flow is disturbed in both lines by the very
same ripple, viz., a trochee in the second foot, _placid_ in the one
line, _bosom_ in the other. They are a sort of _snags_, such as lie in the
current of the Mississippi. _There_, they do nothing but mischief. Here,
when the lines are read in their entire _nexus_, the disturbance stretches
forwards and backwards with good effect on the music. Besides, if it did
_not_, one is willing to take a _snag_ from Milton, but one does not
altogether like being _snagged_ by the Mississippi. One sees no particular
reason for bearing it, if one only knew how to be revenged on a river.
But, of these metrical skirmishes, though full of importance to the
impassioned text of a great poet (for mysterious is the life that connects
all modes of passion with rhythmus), let us suppose the casual reader to
have had enough. And now at closing for the sake of change, let us treat
him to a harlequin trick upon another theme. Did the reader ever happen to
see a sheriff's officer arresting an honest gentleman, who was doing no
manner of harm to gentle or simple, and immediately afterwards a second
sheriff's officer arresting the first--by which means that second officer
merits for himself a place in history; for at the same moment he liberates
a deserving creature (since an arrested officer cannot possibly bag his
prisoner), and he also avenges the insult put upon that worthy man?
Perhaps the reader did _not_ ever see such a sight; and, growing personal,
he asks _me_, in return, if _I_ ever saw it. To say the truth, I never
_did_; except once, in a too-flattering dream; and though I applauded so
loudly as even to waken myself, and shouted '_encore_,' yet all went for
nothing; and I am still waiting for that splendid exemplification of
retributive justice. But why? Why should it be a spectacle so uncommon?
For surely those official arresters of men must want arresting at times as
well as better people. At least, however, _en attendant_ one may luxuriate
in the vision of such a thing; and the reader shall now see such a vision
rehearsed. He shall see Mr. Landor arresting Milton--Milton, of all men!--
for a flaw in his Roman erudition; and then he shall see me instantly
stepping up, tapping Mr. Landor on the shoulder, and saying, 'Officer,
you're wanted;' whilst to Milton I say, touching my hat, 'Now, sir, be
off; run for your life, whilst I hold his man in custody, lest he should
fasten on you again.'