Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1838-09-21

revenge. Milton, in some OF his prose
works, betrays the parlizan also-but in
his poetry we see him in the white robes of
the minstrel. with upturned though sight
less eyes, rap in meditation at the feet Of
the heavenly muse. Dante in his dark
vision descends to the depths Of the world
of perdition, and, homeless fugitive as he is
drags his proud and prosperous enemies
down with him, and buries Internationally
destroyed in the flaming sepuchres of the
lowest he'll. Milton, on the other hand,
seems almost to have purged off the dross
of humanity. Blind, poor, triendless, in
solitude and sorrow, with quite as much
reason as his Italian rival to repine at his
fortune and war against mankind how calm |
and unimpassioned is he in oil, that concerns
his own personality! He deemed too
highly of his divine gift to make it the in,
strumeut of immortalizng his hatreds.-
One cry alone of sorrow at his blindness.
one pathetic lamentation over the evil
DAYS on which he had fallen, bursts from
his full heart. There is not flash Of hu
man wrath in all his pictures of woe
Hating nothing but evil spirits, in the
chidlke simplicity OF his heart, his pure
hands indebted with the pitch ofthe polili-
cal intrigues in which he had lived. he
breathes forth his inexpressibly majestic
strains-,he poetry not SO much Of earth
as of heaven.
| Can it be hoped that, under the opera
ton ofthe influences to which we have
alluded. any thing superior to Paradise
Lost will ever be produced by man. 1t re.
quires courageous faith in general prin.
crles to believe it. | dare not call it q
probable event; but can we say it is impos-
sible? II out of the wretched intellectual
and moral element of the commonwealth in
England mparting as they did at times
too much of their contagion to Millions
mind-a poem like Paradise Lost could
spring forth, shall no corresponding fruit
of excellence be produced, when knowledge
shall be universally dlfl'uscd. society enlight-
ened, elevated, and equalized; and the
standard of moral religious principle in
public and private affairs, raised far above
its present level'.,-A continued progress
in the intellectual world is consistent with
all that we know of the laws that govern
it, and with all experience. A PRESENT..
ment of it lies deep in the soul of man
spark as it is of the divine nature. The
craving after excellence, the thirst fol
truth and beauty. has never been-never
can be-fully slaked at the fountains, which
have flowed beneath the touch of the en-
chanters wand. Man listens 10 the heav
eDly strain, and straightway becomes de
: sirous of still loftcr melodies. 1t ha
nourshed and strengthened instead of sa
tiatng his taste. Fed by the divine ali
ment he can enjoy more, he can conceive
more, he can himself perform more.
y Should poet of oftier muse than Milton
hereafter appear, or speak more reveren
ly, when the hilton OF better age shal
arise, there is remaining yet one subjec
>, worthy his powers; the complement
Paradise Lost. In the conception of thi
- subject by Milton, then nature in the ex
perience Of his great poem, we have tn
i highest human judgment that this is tn
y. one remaing theme. In his incomplete
49, attempt to achieve it, we have the creates
cause for the doubt, whether it be M
beyond the grasp of the human mind,
~. its present state of cultivation. But | a
:, unwilling to think that this theme, in
70 measurably the grandest which can be col
il templated by the mind Of man, will nev'
ii, receive poelica illustration, proportions
M to its sublmity. Itseems to me impossib
,s, that the time doubtless far dis,ant-shou
nm not eventually arrive when another MltC
- dlvorcing his heart from the delights
h. life; purifying his bosom from its ang
. selfish passions; relieved by happier ft
m tunes from care and sorrow; puming 4
,b wings of his spirit in eolitude,by abstinen
he and prayer. will address himself to Il
no only remaining theme of n great christi
he epic.
io
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