Part 33 (1/2)

_It has been indeed objected to Milton_. Cf. Coleridge (Works, ed. Shedd, IV, 304): ”Milton is not a picturesque, but a musical, poet”; also Coleridge's ”Table Talk,” August 7, 1832: ”It is very remarkable that in no part of his writings does Milton take any notice of the great painters of Italy, nor, indeed, of painting as an art; while every other page breathes his love and taste for music.... Adam bending over the sleeping Eve, in Paradise Lost, and Dalilah approaching Samson, in the Agonistes, are the only two proper pictures I remember in Milton.”

_Like a steam_. ”Comus,” 556.

P. 106. _He soon saw_. ”Paradise Lost,” III, 621.

P. 107. _With Atlantean shoulders_. II, 306.

_Lay floating_. I, 296.

_Dr. Johnson condemns the Paradise Lost._ See the conclusion of his ”Life of Milton.”

P. 108. _His hand was known_. ”Paradise Lost,” I, 732.

_But chief the s.p.a.cious hall_. I, 762.

P. 109. _Round he surveys_. III, 555.

_Such as the meeting soul_. ”L'Allegro.”

_the hidden soul_. Ibid.

P. 110. _as Pope justly observes_. ”First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace,” 102.

P. 111. _As when Heaven's fire_. ”Paradise Lost,” I, 612.

_All is not lost_. I, 206.

_that intellectual being_. II, 147.

_being swallowed up_. II, 149.

P. 112. _Fallen cherub_. I, 157.

_rising aloft_. I, 225.

_the mystic German critics_. Cf. p. 344.

P. 113. _Is this the region_. ”Paradise Lost,” I, 242.

P. 114. _Salmasius_. At the request of Charles II, Claude de Saumaise (Claudius Salmasius), professor at Leyden, had written a vindication of Charles I, ”Defensio pro Carolo I” (1649), to which Milton replied with the ”Defensio pro Populo Anglicano” (1651). The controversy between the two is noted for the virulency of the personal invective.

_with hideous ruin_. ”Paradise Lost,” I, 46.

_retreated in a silent valley_. II, 547.

_a noted political writer_. Dr. Stoddart, editor of the Times and brother-in-law of Hazlitt, whom the critic bitterly hated, and Napoleon are here referred to. Cf. ”Political Essays,” III, 158-159.

P. 115. _Longinus preferred the Iliad._ ”Whereas in the _Iliad_, which was written when his genius was in its prime, the whole structure of the poem is founded on action and struggle, in the _Odyssey_ he generally prefers the narrative style, which is proper to old age. Hence Homer in his _Odyssey_ may be compared to the setting sun; he is still as great as ever, but he has lost his fervent heat. The strain is now pitched in a lower key than in the 'Tale of Troy Divine': we begin to miss that high and equable sublimity which never flags or sinks, that continuous current of moving incidents, those rapid transitions, that force of eloquence, that opulence of imagery which is ever true to Nature. Like the sea when it retires upon itself and leaves its sh.o.r.es waste and bare, henceforth the tide of sublimity begins to ebb, and draws us away into the dim region of myth and legend. In saying this I am not forgetting the fine storm-pieces in the _Odyssey_, the story of the Cyclops, and other striking pa.s.sages. It is Homer grown old I am discussing, but still it is Homer.” On the Sublime, IX, trans. Havell.

_no kind of traffic_. Cf. ”Tempest,” ii, 1, 148.