"The muses in a ring Aye round about Jove's altar sing: Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea, And hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." If all these mighty fictions had really existed, they could have done no more for us!—I shall only give one other passage from Lycidas; but 1 flatter myself that it will be a treat to my readers, if they are not already familiar with it. It is the passage which contains that exquisite description of the flowers: "Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureat herse where Lycid lies. Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. Dr. Johnson is very much offended at the introduction of these Dolphins; and indeed, if he had had to guide them through the waves, he would have made much the same figure as his old friend Dr. Burney does, swimming in the Thames with his wig on, with the water-nymphs, in the picture of Barry, at the Adelphi. There is a description of flowers in the Winter's Tale, which I shall give as a parallel to Milton's. I shall leave my readers to decide which is the finest; for I dare not give the preference. Perdita says, "Here's flowers for you, Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram, To men of middle age. Y' are welcome. "Camillo. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing. "Perdita. Out, alas! You'd be so lean that blasts of January Would blow you through and through. Now, my fairest friends, I would I had some flowers o' th' spring, that might Become your time of day: O Proserpina, For the flowers now that, frighted, you let fall That come before the swallow dares, and take Dr. Johnson's general remark, that Milton's genius had not room to shew itself in his smaller pieces, is not well-founded. Not to mention Lycidas, the Allegro, and Penseroso, it proceeds on a false estimate of the merits of his great work, which is not more distinguished by strength and sublimity than by tender ness and beauty.-The last were as essential qualities of Milton's mind as the first. The battle of the angels, which has been commonly considered as the best part of the Paradise Lost, is the worst. II. ON THE CHARACTER OF MILTON'S EVE. 66 THE difference between the character of Eve in Milton, and Shakspeare's female characters is very striking, and it appears to me to be this:-Milton describes Eve not only as full of love and tenderness for Adam, but as the constant object of admiration in herself. She is the idol of the poet's imagination, and he paints her whole person with a studied profusion of charms. She is the wife, but she is still as much as ever the mistress, of Adam. She is represented, indeed, as devoted to her husband, as twining round him for support, as the vine curls her tendrils," but her own grace and beauty are never lost sight of in the picture of conjugal felicity. Adam's attention and regard are as much to her as hers to him; for "in the first garden of their innocence," he had no other objects or pursuits to distract his attention; she was both his business and his pleasure. Shakspeare's females, on the contrary, seem to exist only in their attachment to others. They are pure abstractions of the affections. Their features are not painted, nor the colour of their hair. Their hearts only are laid open. We are acquainted with Imogen, Miranda, Ophelia, or Desdemona, by what they thought and felt, but we cannot tell whether they were black, brown, or fair. But Milton's Eve is all of ivory and gold. Shakspeare seldom tantalizes the reader with a luxurious display of the personal charms of his heroines, with a curious inventory of particular beauties, except indirectly, and for some other purpose, as where Iachimo describes Imogen asleep, or the old men in the Winter's Tale vie with each other in invidious praise of Perdita. Even in Juliet, the most voluptuous and glowing of the class of characters here spoken of, we are reminded chiefly of circumstances connected with the physiognomy of passion, as in her leaning with her cheek upon her arm, or which only convey the general impression of enthusiasm made on her lover's brain. One thing, may be said, that Shakspeare had not the same opportunities as Milton: for his women were clothed, and it cannot be denied that Milton took Eve at a considerable disadvantage in this respect. He has accordingly described her in all the loveliness of nature, tempting to sight as the fruit of the Hesperides guarded by that Dragon old, herself the fairest among the flowers of Paradise! The figures of both Adam and Eve are very prominent in this poem. As there is little action in it, the interest is constantly kept up by the beauty and grandeur of the images. They are thus introduced: Not equal, as their sex not equal seem'd; Eve is not only represented as beautiful, but with conscious beauty. Shakspeare's heroines are almost insensible of their charms, and wound without knowing it. They are not coquets. If the salvation of mankind had depended upon one of them, we don't know—but the devil might have been baulked. This is but a conjecture! Eve has a great idea of herself, and there is some difficulty in prevailing on her to quit her own image, the first time she discovers its reflection in the water. She gives the following account of herself to Adam : "That day I oft remember, when from sleep I first awak'd, and found myself repos'd Under a shade of flow'rs, much wond'ring where A shape within the wat'ry gleam appear'd, The poet afterwards adds : : "So spake our general mother, and with eyes And meek surrender, half embracing lean'd On Juno smiles, when he impregns the clouds The same thought is repeated with greater simplicity, and perhaps even beauty, in the beginning of the Fifth Book :— "So much the more His wonder was to find unwaken'd Eve |