"Hear, all ye angels, progeny of light,
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers,
Hear my decree, which unrevoked shall stand:
This day I have begot whom I declare
My only Son, and on this holy hill
Him have anointed, whom ye now behold
At my right hand; your Head I him appoint:
And by myself have sworn, to him shall bow
All knees in heaven, and shall confess him Lord;
Under his great vicegerent reign abide
United as one individual soul,
Forever happy. Him who disobeys,
Me disobeys, breaks union, and that day,
Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls
Int' utter darkness, deep ingulfed, his place
Ordained without redemption, without end."
This act of patronage was not popular at court; and why should it have
been? The religious sense is against it. The worship which sinful men
owe to God is not transferable to lieutenants and vicegerents. The
whole scene of the court jars upon a true feeling; we seem to be
reading about some emperor of history, who admits his son to a share in
the empire, who confers on him a considerable jurisdiction, and
requires officials, with "standards and gonfalons," to bow before him.
The orthodoxy of Milton is quite as questionable as his accuracy; the
old Athanasian creed was not made by persons who would allow such a
picture as that of Milton to stand before their imaginations. The
generation of the Son was to them a fact "before all time," an eternal
fact. There was no question in their minds of patronage or promotion:
the Son was the Son before all time, just as the Father was the Father
before all time. Milton had in such matters a bold but not very
sensitive imagination. He accepted the inevitable materialism of
Biblical (and to some extent of all religious) language as distinct
revelation. He certainly believed, in contradiction to the old creed,
that God had both "parts and passions." He imagined that earth is
"but the shadow of heaven, and things therein
Each to other like more than on earth is thought." [18]
From some passages it would seem that he actually thought of God as
having "the members and form" of a man. Naturally, therefore, he would
have no toleration for the mysterious notions of time and eternity
which are involved in the traditional doctrine. We are not, however,
now concerned with Milton's belief, but with his representation of his
creed,--his picture, so to say, of it in "Paradise Lost"; still, as we
cannot but think, that picture is almost irreligious, and certainly
different from that which has been generally accepted in Christendom.
Such phrases as "before all time," "eternal generation," are doubtless
very vaguely interpreted by the mass of men; nevertheless, no
sensitively orthodox man could have drawn the picture of a generation,
not to say an exaltation, in time.
We shall see this more clearly by reading what follows in the poem.
"All seemed well pleased; all seemed, but were not all."
One of the archangels, whose name can be guessed, decidedly
disapproved, and calls a meeting, at which he explains that
"orders and degrees
Jar not with liberty, but well consist;"
but still, that the promotion of a new person, on grounds of
relationship merely, above--even infinitely above--the old angels, with
imperial titles, was a "new law," and rather tyrannical. Abdiel,
"than whom none with more zeal adored
The Deity, and divine commands obeyed,"
attempts a defense:--
"Grant it thee unjust,
That equal over equals monarch reign;
Thyself, though great and glorious, dost thou count,
Or all angelic nature joined in one,
Equal to him begotten Son? by whom
As by his word the mighty Father made
All things, even thee, and all the spirits of heaven
By him created in their bright degrees,
Crowned them with glory, and to their glory named
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers,
Essential Powers; nor by his reign obscured,
But more illustrious made, since he the Head
One of our number thus reduced becomes,
His laws our laws, all honor to him done
Returns our own. Cease then this impious rage,
And tempt not these; but hasten to appease
Th' incensèd Father and th' incensèd Son,
While pardon may be found, in time besought."
Yet though Abdiel's intentions were undeniably good, his argument is
rather specious. Acting as an instrument in the process of creation
would scarcely give a valid claim to the obedience of the created
being. Power may be shown in the act, no doubt; but mere power gives
no true claim to the obedience of moral beings. It is a kind of
principle of all manner of idolatries and false religions to believe
that it does so. Satan, besides, takes issue on the fact:--
"That we were formed then, say'st thou? and the work
Of secondary hands, by task transferred
From Father to his Son? Strange point and new!
Doctrine which we would know whence learned."
And we must say that the speech in which the new ruler is introduced to
the "Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers," is hard to
reconcile with Abdiel's exposition. "_This day_" he seems to have come
into existence, and could hardly have assisted at the creation of the
angels, who are not young, and who converse with one another like old
acquaintances.
We have gone into this part of the subject at length, because it is the
source of the great error which pervades "Paradise Lost": Satan is made
_interesting_. This has been the charge of a thousand orthodox and
even heterodox writers against Milton. Shelley, on the other hand, has
gloried in it; and fancied, if we remember rightly, that Milton
intentionally ranged himself on the Satanic side of the universe, just
as Shelley himself would have done, and that he wished to show the
falsity of the ordinary theology. But Milton was born an age too early
for such aims, and was far too sincere to have advocated any doctrine
in a form so indirect. He believed every word he said. He was not
conscious of the effect his teaching would produce in an age like this,
when skepticism is in the air, and when it is not possible to help
looking coolly on his delineations. Probably in our boyhood we can
recollect a period when any solemn description of celestial events
would have commanded our respect; we should not have dared to read it
intelligently, to canvass its details and see what it meant: it was a
religious book; it sounded reverential, and that would have sufficed.
Something like this was the state of mind of the seventeenth century.
Even Milton probably shared in a vague reverence for religious
language; he hardly felt the moral effect of the pictures he was
drawing. His artistic instinct, too, often hurries him away. His
Satan was to him, as to us, the hero of his poem: having commenced by
making him resist on an occasion which in an earthly kingdom would have
been excusable and proper, he probably a little sympathized with him,
just as his readers do.
The interest of Satan's character is at its height in the first two
books. Coleridge justly compared it to that of Napoleon. There is the
same pride, the same Satanic ability, the same will, the same egotism.
His character seems to grow with his position. He is far finer after
his fall, in misery and suffering, with scarcely any resource except in
himself, than he was originally in heaven; at least, if Raphael's
description of him can be trusted. No portrait which imagination or
history has drawn of a revolutionary anarch is nearly so perfect; there
is all the grandeur of the greatest human mind, and a certain
infinitude in his circumstances which humanity must ever want. Few
Englishmen feel a profound reverence for Napoleon I.; there was no
French alliance in his time; we have most of us some tradition of
antipathy to him. Yet hardly any Englishman can read the account of
the campaign of 1814 without feeling his interest in the Emperor to be
strong, and without perhaps being conscious of a latent wish that he
may succeed. Our opinion is against him, our serious wish is of course
for England; but the imagination has a sympathy of its own, and will
not give place. We read about the great general,--never greater than
in that last emergency,--showing resources of genius that seem almost
infinite, and that assuredly have never been surpassed, yet vanquished,
yielding to the power of circumstances, to the combined force of
adversaries each of whom singly he outmatches in strength, and all of
whom together he surpasses in majesty and in mind. Something of the
same sort of interest belongs to the Satan of the first two books of
"Paradise Lost." We know that he will be vanquished; his name is not a
recommendation. Still, we do not imagine distinctly the minds by which
he is to be vanquished; we do not take the same interest in them that
we do in him; our sympathies, our fancy, are on his side.
Perhaps much of this was inevitable; yet what a defect it is!
especially what a defect in Milton's own view, and looked at with the
stern realism with which he regarded it! Suppose that the author of
evil in the universe were the most attractive being in it; suppose that
the source of all sin were the origin of all interest to us! We need
not dwell upon this.
As we have said, much of this was difficult to avoid, if indeed it
could be avoided in dealing with such a theme. Even Milton shrank, in
some measure, from delineating the Divine character. His imagination
evidently halts when it is required to perform that task. The more
delicate imagination of our modern world would shrink still more. Any
person who will consider what such an attempt must end in, will find
his nerves quiver. But by a curiously fatal error, Milton has selected
for delineation exactly that part of the Divine nature which is most
beyond the reach of the human faculties, and which is also, when we try
to describe our fancy of it, the least effective to our minds. He has
made God _argue_. Now, the procedure of the Divine mind from truth to
truth must ever be incomprehensible to us; the notion, indeed, of his
proceeding at all is a contradiction: to some extent, at least, it is
inevitable that we should use such language, but we know it is in
reality inapplicable. A long train of reasoning in such a connection
is so out of place as to be painful; and yet Milton has many. He
relates a series of family prayers in heaven, with sermons afterwards,
which are very tedious. Even Pope was shocked at the notion of
Providence talking like a "school-divine." [19] And there is the still
worse error, that if you once attribute reasoning to him, subsequent
logicians may discover that he does not reason very well.
Another way in which Milton has contrived to strengthen our interest in
Satan is the number and insipidity of the good angels. There are old
rules as to the necessity of a supernatural machinery for an epic poem,
worth some fraction of the paper on which they are written, and derived
from the practice of Homer, who believed his gods and goddesses to be
real beings, and would have been rather harsh with a critic who called
them machinery. These rules had probably an influence with Milton, and
induced him to manipulate these serious angels more than he would have
done otherwise. They appear to be excellent administrators with very
little to do; a kind of grand chamberlains with wings, who fly down to
earth and communicate information to Adam and Eve. They have no
character: they are essentially messengers,--merely conductors, so to
say, of the Providential will; no one fancies that they have an
independent power of action; they seem scarcely to have minds of their
own. No effect can be more unfortunate. If the struggle of Satan had
been with Deity directly, the natural instincts of religion would have
been awakened; but when an angel possessed of mind is contrasted with
angels possessed only of wings, we sympathize with the former.
In the first two books, therefore, our sympathy with Milton's Satan is
great; we had almost said unqualified. The speeches he delivers are of
well-known excellence. Lord Brougham, no contemptible judge of
emphatic oratory, has laid down that if a person had not an opportunity
of access to the great Attic masterpieces, he had better choose these
for a model. What is to be regretted about the orator is, that he
scarcely acts up to his sentiments. "Better to reign in hell than
serve in heaven," is at any rate an audacious declaration; but he has
no room for exhibiting similar audacity in action. His offensive
career is limited; in the nature of the subject, there was scarcely any
opportunity for the fallen archangel to display in the detail of his
operations the surpassing intellect with which Milton has endowed him.
He goes across chaos, gets into a few physical difficulties; but these
are not much. His grand aim is the conquest of our first parents; and
we are at once struck with the enormous inequality of the conflict.
Two beings just created, without experience, without guile, without
knowledge of good and evil, are expected to contend with a being on the
delineation of whose powers every resource of art and imagination,
every subtle suggestion, every emphatic simile has been lavished. The
idea in every reader's mind is, and must be, not surprise that our
first parents should yield, but wonder that Satan should not think it
beneath him to attack them. It is as if an army should invest a
cottage.
We have spoken more of theology than we intended; and we need not say
how much the monstrous inequalities attributed to the combatants affect
our estimate of the results of the conflict. The state of man is what
it is, because the defenseless Adam and Eve of Milton's imagination
yielded to the nearly all-powerful Satan whom he has delineated.
Milton has in some sense invented this difficulty; for in the book of
Genesis there is no such inequality. The serpent may be subtler than
any beast of the field; but he is not necessarily subtler or cleverer
than man. So far from Milton having justified the ways of God to man,
he has loaded the common theology with a new incumbrance.
We may need refreshment after this discussion; and we cannot find it
better than in reading a few remarks of Eve:--
"That day I oft remember, when from sleep
I first awaked, and found myself reposed
Under a shade on flowers, much wondering where
And what I was, whence hither brought, and how.
Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound
Of waters issued from a cave, and spread
Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved
Pure as th' expanse of heaven; I thither went
With unexperienced thought, and laid me down
On the green bank, to look into the clear
Smooth lake, that to me seemed another sky.
As I bent down to look, just opposite
A shape within the watery gleam appeared,
Bending to look on me, I, started back,
It started back: but pleased I soon returned;
Pleased it returned, as soon with answering looks
Of sympathy and love. There I had fixed
Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,
Had not a voice thus warned me:--'What thou seest,
What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself;
With thee it came and goes: but follow me,
And I will bring thee where no shadow stays
Thy coming, and thy soft embraces; he
Whose image thou art, him thou shalt enjoy
Inseparably thine; to him shalt bear
Multitudes like thyself, and thence be called
Mother of human race.' What could I do
But follow straight, invisibly thus led?
Till I espied thee, fair indeed and tall,
Under a platan; yet methought less fair,
Less winning soft, less amiably mild,
Than that smooth watery image. Back I turned;
Thou following criedst aloud, 'Return, fair Eve;
Whom fly'st thou?'" [20]
Eve's character, indeed, is one of the most wonderful efforts of the
human imagination. She is a kind of abstract woman; essentially a
typical being; an official "mother of all living." Yet she is a real
interesting woman, not only full of delicacy and sweetness, but with
all the undefinable fascination, the charm of personality, which such
typical characters hardly ever have. By what consummate miracle of wit
this charm of individuality is preserved, without impairing the general
idea which is ever present to us, we cannot explain, for we do not know.
Adam is far less successful. He has good hair,--"hyacinthine locks"
that "from his parted forelock manly hung"; a "fair large front" and
"eye sublime": but he has little else that we care for. There is, in
truth, no opportunity of displaying manly virtues, even if he possessed
them. He has only to yield to his wife's solicitations, which he does.
Nor are we sure that he does it well: he is very tedious. He indulges
in sermons which are good; but most men cannot but fear that so
delightful a being as Eve must have found him tiresome. She steps
away, however, and goes to sleep at some of the worst points.
Dr. Johnson remarked that after all, "Paradise Lost" was one of the
books which no one wished longer: we fear, in this irreverent
generation, some wish it shorter. Hardly any reader would be sorry if
some portions of the latter books had been spared him. Coleridge,
indeed, discovered profound mysteries in the last; but in what could
not Coleridge find a mystery if he wished? Dryden more wisely remarked
that Milton became tedious when he entered upon a "track of Scripture."
[21] Nor is it surprising that such is the case. The style of many
parts of Scripture is such that it will not bear addition or
subtraction. A word less or an idea more, and the effect upon the mind
is the same no longer. Nothing can be more tiresome than a sermonic
amplification of such passages. It is almost too much when, as from
the pulpit, a paraphrastic commentary is prepared for our spiritual
improvement. In deference to the intention, we bear it, but we bear it
unwillingly; and we cannot endure it at all when, as in poems, the
object is to awaken our fancy rather than to improve our conduct. The
account of the creation in the book of Genesis is one of the
compositions from which no sensitive imagination would subtract an
iota, to which it could not bear to add a word. Milton's paraphrase is
alike copious and ineffective. The universe is, in railway phrase,
"opened," but not created; no green earth springs in a moment from the
indefinite void. Instead, too, of the simple loneliness of the Old
Testament, several angelic officials are in attendance, who help in
nothing, but indicate that heaven must be plentifully supplied with
tame creatures.
There is no difficulty in writing such criticisms and indeed other
unfavorable criticisms, on "Paradise Lost." There is scarcely any book
in the world which is open to a greater number, or which a reader who
allows plain words to produce a due effect will be less satisfied with.
Yet what book is really greater? In the best parts the words have a
magic in them; even in the inferior passages you are hardly sensible of
their inferiority till you translate them into your own language.
Perhaps no style ever written by man expressed so adequately the
conceptions of a mind so strong and so peculiar; a manly strength, a
haunting atmosphere of enhancing suggestions, a firm continuous music,
are only some of its excellences. To comprehend the whole of the
others, you must take the volume down and read it,--the best defense of
Milton, as has been said most truly, against all objections.
Probably no book shows the transition which our theology has made since
the middle of the seventeenth century, at once so plainly and so fully.
We do not now compose long narratives to "justify the ways of God to
men." The more orthodox we are, the more we shrink from it, the more
we hesitate at such a task, the more we allege that we have no powers
for it. Our most celebrated defenses of established tenets are in the
style of Butler, not in that of Milton. They do not profess to show a
satisfactory explanation of human destiny: on the contrary, they hint
that probably we could not understand such an explanation if it were
given us; at any rate, they allow that it is not given us. Their
course is palliative: they suggest an "analogy of difficulties"; if our
minds were greater, so they reason, we should comprehend these
doctrines,--now we cannot explain analogous facts which we see and
know. No style can be more opposite to the bold argument, the boastful
exposition of Milton. The teaching of the eighteenth century is in the
very atmosphere we breathe: we read it in the teachings of Oxford; we
hear it from the missionaries of the Vatican. The air of the theology
is clarified. We know our difficulties, at least: we are rather prone
to exaggerate the weight of some than to deny the reality of any.
We cannot continue a line of thought which would draw us on too far for
the patience of our readers. We must, however, make one more remark,
and we shall have finished our criticism on "Paradise Lost." It is
analogous to that which we have just made. The scheme of the poem is
based on an offense against positive morality. The offense of Adam was
not against nature or conscience, nor against anything of which we can
see the reason or conceive the obligation, but against an unexplained
injunction of the Supreme Will. The rebellion in heaven, as Milton
describes it, was a rebellion not against known ethics or immutable
spiritual laws, but against an arbitrary selection and an unexplained
edict. We do not say that there is no such thing as positive
morality,--we do not think so; even if we did, we should not insert a
proposition so startling at the conclusion of a literary criticism.
But we are sure that wherever a positive moral edict is promulgated, it
is no subject, except perhaps under a very peculiar treatment, for
literary art. By the very nature of it, it cannot satisfy the heart
and conscience. It is a difficulty; we need not attempt to explain it
away,--there are mysteries enough which will never be explained away.
But it is contrary to every principle of criticism to state the
difficulty as if it were not one; to bring forward the puzzle, yet
leave it to itself; to publish so strange a problem, and give only an
untrue solution of it: and yet such, in its bare statement, is all that
Milton has done.
Of Milton's other writings we have left ourselves no room to speak; and
though every one of them, or almost every one of them, would well repay
a careful criticism, yet few of them seem to throw much additional
light on his character, or add much to our essential notion of his
genius, though they may exemplify and enhance it. "Comus" is the poem
which does so the most. Literature has become so much lighter than it
used to be, that we can scarcely realize the position it occupied in
the light literature of our forefathers. We have now in our own
language many poems that are pleasanter in their subject, more graceful
in their execution, more flowing in their outline, more easy to read.
Dr. Johnson, though perhaps no very excellent authority on the more
intangible graces of literature, was disposed to deny to Milton the
capacity of creating the lighter literature: "Milton, madam, was a
genius that could cut a colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads
upon cherry-stones." And it would not be surprising if this
generation, which has access to the almost infinite quantity of lighter
compositions which have been produced since Johnson's time, were to
echo his sentence. In some degree, perhaps, the popular taste does so.
"Comus" has no longer the peculiar exceptional popularity which it used
to have: we can talk without general odium of its defects; its
characters are nothing, its sentiments are tedious, its story is not
interesting. But it is only when we have realized the magnitude of its
deficiencies that we comprehend the peculiarity of its greatness. Its
power is in its style. A grave and firm music pervades it; it is soft,
without a thought of weakness; harmonious and yet strong; impressive as
few such poems are, yet covered with a bloom of beauty and a complexity
of charm that few poems have either. We have perhaps light literature
in itself better, that we read oftener and more easily, that lingers
more in our memories; but we have not any, we question if there ever
will be any, which gives so true a conception of the capacity and the
dignity of the mind by which it was produced. The breath of solemnity
which hovers round the music attaches us to the writer. Every line,
here as elsewhere, in Milton excites the idea of indefinite power.
And so we must draw to a close. The subject is an infinite one, and if
we pursued it, we should lose ourselves in miscellaneous commentary,
and run on far beyond the patience of our readers. What we have said
has at least a defined intention: we have wished to state the
impression which the character of Milton and the greatest of Milton's
works are likely to produce on readers of the present generation,--a
generation different from his own almost more than any other.
[1] The Life of John Milton, narrated in connection with the Political,
Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his time. By David Masson, M.
A., Professor of English Literature in University College, London,
Cambridge: Macmillan.
An Account of the Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton. By
Thomas Keightley; with an Introduction to "Paradise Lost." London:
Chapman & Hall.
The Poems of Milton, with Notes by Thomas Keightley. London; Chapman &
Hall.
[2] Review of Lockhart's Scott.
[3] "L'Allegro."
[4] "Life of Milton."
[5] Sonnet xix.
[6] "Though fallen on evil days,
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues."
--"Paradise Lost," Book vii.
[7] John Henry Newman's "Call of David."
[8] "Apology for Smectymnuus."
[9] "Reason of Church Government," introduction to Book iii.
[10] Philips.
[11] Translated by Keightley from "Defensio Secunda."
[12] Wordsworth, "Tintern Abbey."
[13] "Life of Milton."
[14] Philips.
[15] "Defense of the People of England," Chap. iv.
[16] "Paradise Lost," Book vii.
[17] Richardson.
[18] Book v., Raphael to Adam.
[19] Imitation of Horace's Epistle to Augustus, Book ii., Ep. i.
[20] Book iv.
[21] "Essay on Satire."