‘With eager thought warbling his Doric lay.’
We shall proceed to give a few passages at length in support of our opinion. The first we shall quote is as remarkable for the truth and sweetness of the natural descriptions as for the characteristic elegance of the allusions:
‘Together both, ere the high lawns appear’d Under the opening eye-lids of the morn, We drove a-field; and both together heard What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, Oft till the star that rose at evening bright Towards Heaven’s descent had sloped his westering wheel. Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, Temper’d to the oaten flute: Rough satyrs danced, and fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long, And old Dametas loved to hear our song. But oh the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone, and never must return! Thee, shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves With wild thyme and the gadding vine o’ergrown, And all their echoes mourn. The willows and the hazel copses green Shall now no more be seen Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. As killing as the canker to the rose, Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, Or frost to flowers that their gay wardrobe wear, When first the white-thorn blows; Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd’s ear!’
After the fine apostrophe on Fame which Phœbus is invoked to utter, the poet proceeds:
‘Oh fountain Arethuse, and thou honour’d flood, Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown’d with vocal reeds, That strain I heard was of a higher mood; But now my oat proceeds, And listens to the herald of the sea That came in Neptune’s plea. He ask’d the waves, and ask’d the felon winds, What hard mishap hath doom’d this gentle swain? And question’d every gust of rugged winds That blows from off each beaked promontory. They knew not of his story: And sage Hippotades their answer brings, That not a blast was from his dungeon stray’d, The air was calm, and on the level brine Sleek Panope with all her sisters play’d.’
If this is art, it is perfect art; nor do we wish for anything better. The measure of the verse, the very sound of the names, would almost produce the effect here described. To ask the poet not to make use of such allusions as these, is to ask the painter not to dip in the colours of the rainbow, if he could. In fact, it is the common cant of criticism to consider every allusion to the classics, and particularly in a mind like Milton’s, as pedantry and affectation. Habit is a second nature; and, in this sense, the pedantry (if it is to be called so) of the scholastic enthusiast, who is constantly referring to images of which his mind is full, is as graceful as it is natural. It is not affectation in him to recur to ideas and modes of expression, with which he has the strongest associations, and in which he takes the greatest delight. Milton was as conversant with the world of genius before him as with the world of nature about him; the fables of the ancient mythology were as familiar to him as his dreams. To be a pedant, is to see neither the beauties of nature nor of art. Milton saw both; and he made use of the one only to adorn and give new interest to the other. He was a passionate admirer of nature; and, in a single couplet of his, describing the moon,—