The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-11-29 00:00:00

s Poetical Works. With Life, Critical
Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes. By the
Rev. Geo. Gilfillan. Edinburgh : James Nichol.
This very handsome library edition of the
poetical works of Milton constitutes the two first
volumes of a series, which, under the name of the
" Library Edition of the British Poets," has now
reached the publication of its fifth volume ; the
third and fourth being devoted to the poetical
works of Thomson and George Herbert. The plan
of the publication is by yearly subscription, a mode
Embraced by the publishers of several very impor-
tant and valuable classes of works, which, from
their success, appear to have answered the expec-
tations of both the public and the publishers ; and
so far as mere appearances can be taken :as indi-
cative, there seems no ground for doubting that
the present will be as successful as any one series
of its predecessors. If we might "hint a fault,"
without either " hesitating" or implying " dislike,"
it would be done by expressing our inability to
understand why, in Thomson's poetical works, all
ins dramatic compositions are left out. Are we to
understand by this that the rev. and erudite editor
considers the dramatic muses as illegitimate sisters
of Calliope, and unworthy of her high companion-
ship ? Our present business, however, is more
immediately with the series as it exists than with
speculations as to what it might have been. In
point of typographical beauty and correctness, it
will bear a favourable comparison with most of the
Works at present issuing from the press : it is com-
prehensive in its design, that design is ably worked
out, and the cost of the works is absolutely a trifle
in reality, and much more trifling still when com-
pared with the beauty and accuracy of the edition.
The above remarks apply to the series generally,
So far as it has been published. We must now
attend with more minuteness to the claims of the
two volumes whose titles stand at the head of this
notice. The first is opened by a brief but nervous
biographical memoir of Milton from the pen of
.Mr. Gillian. In the rapid sketch of Milton's
character and position given in this memoir,
different parties will concur in varying degrees •, the political as well as theological partialities of
Mr. Gilfillan having lent their willing aid to colour
the portrait. Ilia general estimate of the poet's
intellect will meet with a much wider circle of
sympathising admirers. The author of the "Bards
of the Bible," Mr. Gillian, is well known as an
ambitious writer, and not a few regard him as an
original thinker. The short biographical sketch
we are now considering will go far in justification
of the opinions of each of these classes. As a
favourable specimen of his descriptive aptitude, we
extract the following

PERSONAL PORTRAIT OP MILTON.
Shed, besides, to visit Italy for the sake of its
Music, and designed to form a collection of it whilst there.
Having obtained directions as to his travels from Sir
henry Wotton, to whom he had communicated his pur-
pose, he set out in 1638, attended by a single servant. We
remember few finer subjects for contemplation or picture
than that of Milton in the prime of his life—with youth
and manhood mingling on his brow—with his long auburn
hair—with his beautiful Grecian face—with a mild ma-
jestic enthusiasm glowing in his eyes—with cheek tenderly
flushed by exercise and country air—with a form erect and
buoyant with hope—with a body and soul pure and un-
contaminated—and bearing, like one of the ancient gods,
a musical instrument in his hand, leaving the Horton
solitude upon his travels to the lands of romance and
poetry. How different from the spectacle presented nearly
two
.centuries afterwards, or Byron, soured, satiated, old in
passions, sett ar!cl misery, although younger than Milton in
Th3'earing out on his journey in search of oblivion r.
e one seemed a monstrous mixture of Apollo the beau-
tafal, and Vulcan the vicious and lame; the other the
verY god or poesy himself' as when .he kept the locks of
Admetus, or tuned his lute—

"Sole sitting on t 11; shores of old romance."
Of the peculiar taste which could load so elabo-
rate and ably delineated a picture with the adjunct
which we have marked in italics, it cannot be too
lunch to say, its uncalled-for fidelity mars the
beauty without enhancing the truthfulness of the
delineation.

"What would offend the eye,
In a good picture, the painter casts discreetly
Into shade."

-----
The matrimonial infelicities of Milton are
touched by Mr. Gilfillan with inoffensive generality
and pleasing delicacy ; while his controversial spirit
is glanced at without elaborate admiration.
The openine, of the second volume is devoted to
a " critical estimate' of the genius and poetical
works" of Milton, and here the bold speculative
Spirit of the editor stands out in full, and, it must
be admitted, interesting relief. With unhesitating
eye he glances into and through the opinions of
the early critical commentators on ton's try,
and with little ceremony, although in no o e
rude
manner, he disposes of their leading fallacies, while
with equal candour and readiness he concurs in
several points of their opinions. An agreeable
specimen, if it deserve no higher name, of his style
of deduction, will be found in the annexed
ESTIMATE OP MILTON'S INTELLECTUAL REARING.
The consecration of Milton's mind, too, sprang greatly
from the large wholeness of his being. It is into frag-
mentary minds, especially into minds where there is some
great deficiency, some gap as hopeless as it is wide,—into
minds deficient, like Htune's, in imagination, or like
Rousseau's, in common sense, or like Voltaire's, in rever-
ence, or like Shelley's, in balance, that fiendish doubts as
to the Divine origin and purpose of the universe are apt
to insinuate themselves. Le Sage speaks of one Diable
toiteux, but in reality all the fiends are lame ; and it is
partly because they are so that they are fiends. In pro-
Portion to the general power of a mind is ever its intense
Perception of any vital deficiency in itself ; and this per-
ception often leads, not to humility, but to that pride and
Those, which are the soul of irreligion or Atheism.
'nose, on the other hand, who approach to entireness of
intellect, present in their soul a rounded mirror calculated
to reflect fully, not only literature and nature, but that
near, yet far off, ever present and never visible, One, who
"4, etb immensity,—and such a soul was Milton's. Some-
"rues troubled, but never turbid ; sometimes shadowed,
bat never sullen ; sometimes cold, but never frozen ; some-
t bin%
ather heated, but never glaring—the broad lake of his
elling
and faithfull
od y .
gives back the awful countenance of his
G
It is marvellous how thoroughly in Milton the " Conse-
tra„tluu" and the " Poet's Dream" are attempered and
„,nelled. His dreams are always holy dreams, as though
neTe slumbering with his own angels in the vales of
eueu, or at the foot of the

" Flaming Mount whose top
Brightness bad made invisible."
Ille revel hishis fancy is always under severe restraint,
Itlui when genius at times does dance, it is a measured
I" trlYstic dance like that of the seraphim around the
ilacred hill. His dance,
of the Pagan Mythology has often
fetllt:_bleetecl to him as inconsistent with his reverence
intr4,_tille belief and the Book of God. But he never
caPtireZ! the heathen gods except as tributaries and
Preserved. loons,„:1118bag fall down before Jehovah ; he has
tile inx„. Poetry as in a vast museum, not a temple,
labeuteoe:tt the fallen deities, with the word " idols"
uri"'"itY or Zl,--obSects not of belief or reverence, but of
Raving taken
interest.
While evert in en.,llP 50 much space with extracts—
rather by ther doing so we have felt hampered
we have left littler than by their copiousness—
We must therefor room to indulge in comment.
Ste' a general 4preobSatti.sfy ourselves with expres-
a 1011 of the _manner in which