The Sun.
London, England, 1830-04-24 00:00:00

SATAN-A POEM.

BY R. lIONTGOME:tY,
Author of " The Omnipresence of the Deity," &e.
Second Editic n. S. Moonier, London.

The nature of Superior Intelligences must for
ever remain a secret which the limited faculties of
man cannot discover; but this very uncertainty
more forcibly recommends them to the poet, since
he is supplied with creatures possessing ceitain
feelings with which men can sympathize, and yet so
far raised above human nature as to render credible
the speciosa miracula reruns with which imagination
invests their character and actions. That an Im-
mortal Being, possessed of powers beyond concep-
tion, dared to rebel against the Omnipotent, that he
hurled defiance at the " Most Highest," that he
was punished by an eternity of anguish, but that
sufferings have left unchanged his pride of soul—
these are matters which, detailed in plain prose, fill
the mind with that indistinct awe which is the very
essence of sublimity. To embody these thoughts,
to arrest the flitting dreams of power, grandeur,
and feeling, which hurry through the soul, is the
office of the poet—he giveth to these airy nothings
" a local habitation and a name." But few are
those who dare to venture on, the delineation of
superhuman energies,—there is danger in every step
of their progress; genius shrinks from the en-
counter until it has mustered up all its energies, and
concentrated all its vigour.
The embodied principle of evil has been already
made the subject of immortal verse by Milton and
Byron ; the Satan of the one and the Lucifer of the
other are at bottom the same character ; but, being
described in different relations, assume a different
aspect. The Satan of Milton is described in all the
energies of rebellious ambition—a proud intelligence
combatting with the Almighty for the dominion of
universe. The Lucifer of Byron has given up the
contest, and has substituted fraudful cunning fqr
the "pride, pomp, and eircemstance of glorious
war." The former desci i lies the relation of the Evil
Being to Deity,—the latter, his relation to man.
Another yet remained ;—neither of these poets had
described the relation of such a being to himself,and
endeavoured to unfold the thought, the specuh.tions,
the intellectual workings of a fallen spirit. There
was in another respect also a gap in the poetical
character of Satan—Me tinse chosen by Milton
was when the world had first started into life and
beauty ; the time selected by Byron was when sin
and sorrow were just beginning to blight its moral
loveliness; the period when ages had lolled over the
history of the human race—wlien guilty passions
and ferocious desires had written the annals of
crime with indelible characters on the face of nature
—when nations, and not individuals, were subjects
of the demon's observation, had been left untouched.

This hitherto untouched field has now been cecu-
pied by Mr. Montgomery, in his poem of " Satan:"
he has chosen the present hour as the time in which
the proud competitor for the dominion of the uni-
verse should revisit the earth, and survey all its exe
tremeS of ennobling virtue and debasing crime; he
has pourtrayed the thoughts of mingled scorn, sor-
row, envy, and the maddening sense of degradation
‘vhieh such a spirit may be supposed to have felt
from the view of such a spectacle. The world is
to us us it may have appeared in his reflec-
tions, and the inmost workings of his soul are deli,.
created with an intensity—with almost a profusion of
power, rare at all times, and never snore rare than
in the present day. Now that we have fallen on
the age of "supetficial poetry," such as " he that
runs may read;"—the age et hourdi lit °rehire,
where no abstract thought, no complication of feeling,
checks for a single moment the reader's happy pro-
gress; but where be is permitted to read to the end
of the volume without having made a single pause,
and can lay it down without a passage remaining to
burden his memory, it is at all events a decided
change to meet with a poem which will not allow of
such rapid driving over as its macadamized eDteni_
poraries. The subject chosen by Mr. M. required
much abstrxtion, much condensation of thought ; it
must, consequently, he read slowly and with care—
where every line is replete with deep energy and vi-
gorous conception, the reader is forced to pause and
reflect : he finds new worlds of thought opened to
his view, and the old world presented to him in a
new and original form. To sum up the character. in
one word, the reader will find this a purely intellec-
tual poem, in which the universe of mutter is made
beautifully subservi,,mt to the development of the
universe of mind.

A very foolish notion seems to prevail i❑ the
world that Satan must possess a mind in which evil is
constantly looked upon as good—this arises from
the mistake of supposing that the object at which
he aims in his fallen state is that which lie believes
would in any state have been the best ; but it is
perfectly absurd to imagine that the innate excellence
and beauty of virtue could be hidden from any Su-
perior Intelligence. The curse pronounced ori the
disappointed demons more probably included the
bitter punishment which Persius prays may be in-
dicted on tyrants—
Virtutem videant intabeseantgdo

Accordingly, we raid Satan a very equitable judge
of human nature indeed, it would be hard to as-
sign a reason why he should be a liar to himtelf—
and yet there have been people who deem it incon-
sistent with demoniac nature that Satan should even
whisper to himself his perceptions of moral love-
liness, his contempt for the sensual slaves who are
dragged bound to his chariot'-wheels. They forget
that " the devils believe and tremble," and that the
greatest triumph of Milton's genius is when he de
scribes Satan in full consciousness of all he had
lost, subduing by innate energies the intense
agonies of hopeless despair. It is the fidelity
with which Mr. M. has preserved in Satan
the wisdom of his former high estate amid all the
degradation of present misery, that gives the prin-
cipal charm to his rem. Utteily depraved a, a
moral agent, Satan still maintains the dignity of
superhuman intellect; though a devil, he is still an
archangel. The execution of this poem is every
way worthy of the sublime conception which is has
embodied. We were particularly strait with the
descriptions of exteinal nature, Which, in addition
to their graphic loveliness, have the still greater
merit of being all combined with internal feeling.
It would seem as if the poet's soul had poured itself
abroad on the scenes that he depicts, and made them
an actual part of his existence. But there is one
praise to which Mr. M. is entitled far bey(nd any
o e have mentioned ; there is a spirit of unaffected
piety and pure morality in every line of' his poem,
which has, unfortunately, been long a stranger to
our literature. lie has successfully shown that the
spirit of true Christianity, far from being inimical to
poetical power, adds to genius new vigour and

vitality, an rvis to the soul visions of glory and
vistas of happilieg, which none can describe but
those who have drunk from the fountains. of Zion as
well as from the streains of Castslia.