BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 413, 23 January 1909, Page 9

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

VERSES NEW AND OLD.

; :''.M'l PAST, AND: FUTURE.:. ' "The past we.love not for its being past, .' . But for, its hope and ardour forward cast: _ The victories of bur youth we count for gain Only because they steeled our youth to pain; , And hold, no longer even Clifton great,Bavo' as she schooled: our wills, to serve the '-.". < -State.' ' W/. :■":".:- '■•'..■ Nay, England's self, whose, thousand-year-old •'.■,■'•'.•'■'-name -..-.; " , -- '■• -.:':■ -.'.'..''"' : '-- ."■_:'. ""'•'•,- Bums in bur blood like ever-smouldering .flame, Whose Titan shoulders as the world are wide, .And- her. great pulses.like the Oeean'tide, , : Lives'but to bear the hopes we shall 'not: see— .: Dear.niortalMlother of the'race to be. ■ ■'".■ —Henry,Newbolt ("Clifton Chapel"-:and other .:■ ; ■ .. . --school, poems). '■I- !; :, : MEREDITH ON MILTON. "What splendour of imperial station man, ' : .: The,tree of life, may reach"when, rooted fast, '.- His branching stem,points way.to Upper air ■ : And skyward still aspires, wo.see :in him . . Who sang for us the.Archangelical host Made .Morning by old Darkness::urged to.the , V abyss';-' ':. '"■ ■'..; ■'-.> ■■■ A voice that down three centuries onward rollsj Onward will roll while J lives our . English . .'.-■•.'- tongue,; '■ . -".'V' l ': : ■'.','■ In the devout of music unsurpassed /Since Piety won Heaven's ear on Israel's harp. '-.'■ "The face' of Earth,-the soul of. Earth, her .. '-.':'.■■: charm,.-'..-,. ;- ~.:,.:.,.; ■.-'•"-.•■ .; Her,dread austerity,; the quavering, fate. ,' Of mortals;with' blind Hope by passion swayed; His mind embraced! the while on trodden soil, Defender of the Commonwealth, he,joined ."■..' ■ ■-.- Our temporal fray, whereof is vital fruit, And choosing armoury of the Scholar,; stood '.' Beside .his peers .to.raiso. tho. voice for Free-. :' :; .'doni:' ■.:■.; .','.-•■■ : ■■'■■■? . ■'. :-■ Nor has if air Liberty a champion armed: .•■■ To meet, on heights or -plains the Sophisten Throughout the ages, equal to-this man, ■ : Whose spirit breathed nigh ;Hedven, : and drew •-"'■ thence :'•-,-'.'■;'■': '■:."■'.'-..■ >-■• : . ■:■' .'-'-, The etheredlsword; to smite./ ' "Were England sunk ."..' Beneath, the' shifting:-tides, her heart, her .-:'/brain?.:-;-.-' :-,'■: '■ ■--.'■ ~r ;, 'The'smile she wears; the faith she'holds, her ■, 7 ;best, : . ,- , ■ .'-,. ~.;, .' Would live; full-toned,in the-grand delivery . Of his cathedral speech: an utterance -. i Almost divine,: and such as Hellespont, Crashing its breakers under Ida's frown, : - Inspired:: yet worthier he, whose instrument ;, Was by comparison thevcoarse reed-pipe; ' Whereof :have come, the marvellous harmonies, : Which,: with his lofty theme,' of infinite range : Abash,:entrance, exalt./ ,:,'.. :, ~ ' - '. ' . . '''We need him now,; • -.:'.-'■ .This latest Age.in repetition cries:: .-" ;.'., For Belial,, the ;adroit, is. in our midst; "'■-' Manimbn, more swoln to squeeze the slavish ■:.-sweat ~ .-" .".'.-'' : .■':.'. ';■ ;■'.'■ From hopeless:toil: androverßhadowingly :■ .tdgerandised, :monstrous in' mask' : Of hypocritical Peace), inveterate: Moloch Kemains the great example. - .' _. ; -,.," Homage to him : ■■..''■ His debtor band,, innumerable as waves ' , Running all-golden-from an eastern.sun, / i Joytully render, m deep reverence Subscribe, and as they, speak: their' Milton's ■ .name, :.■'•■•' . ■:, . ■■; ; Rays ; his glory'on- their foreheads bear.". ■"■' -Written by- George -Meredith ,for the Milton ■■■ , / Tercentenary.';, MILTON'S PLACE IN LITERATURE ''' i' en?? Bn ' 76rsal consent,. the second place to bhakespeare in Engnsh: poetry—that is, in English literature — has. been accorddd to John Milton, the tefecriten'ary of whose birth, celebrated to-day./(December 9),' is therefore the most important ;literary "occasion ;, which: the-present /generation, of: Eng-lish,-readers is likely to .witness. Both/are : representative, Englishmen. ', ..But they are . representative only.-.'in-.so- far' as. they are comphnieiital to each other.•',., The 'objective ■'-. charactensation and observation of: Shakespeare fit in to the objective book-learning of Milton, :,whose'haughty self-assertiveness and -. eager polemicsnir-the';feap™lMtfo'ftli'rself- . eifaoement.and broad tolerance of: Shakes- '", peare : ■ An. amalgam of-their: "geniuses "is in-, conceivable. But so also is: an ■ amalgam of: ■ the positive and negative forces of-electricity. Shakespeare and Milton are the highest;" and never-ceasing friction has supplied the'dynamic of English literature and of British history,/, ..'■, v /,-. _The. paradox of genius consists in a union of elements /generally ' regarded: as incom- : ■ patible. The; unique miracle of- Shakespeare :-/ is his blending of tolerance' and. self-elf ace-' mentwith restless curiosity arid powerful objective, passion. The all but/unique, miracle ■ : of Milton.is : his uiiion of Puritanism, with' ffitheticism—of proud.self-assertiveness with implicit obedience,' on the: moral-side, to the Divine will, arid, on the literary side, to the : laws of poetical classicism.: With Milton, as with _ Dante, ythe moral .paradox is tho less striking one; true freedom, is unthinkable apart from,-true obedience, and'there is no .. moral - strength: for. finite, man; save in. alliance w t ith infinite, power. Dante at Verona, and Milton in Bunhill Row, leaned with equal confidence upon the outstretched arm of: Jehovah. That the arm which Dante figured as leng'thened,cut with a.heavenly, hierarchy, and gloved with an ideal Church, was -bare to the; touch of, Milton, was only. a matter -..' of history-and environment. We may accept, with'- certain reservations, the opinion of Hallam, that "each would have been the other if he had lived in the/other's age." ;-.-' But the more, complete personal .'emancipation of Milton—his keener sense of nearness, to the source of-Divine him% to flights that Dante would never have dared./ Ho. could/dispense .with-a. manylinked sponsorship and even-with the hypothesis of a visionary - visit';'' he could dismiss "• the potty happeiiings'of his own'time as unworthy/a: background of eternity; he could gaze where Moses had : not ventured to look, .and make his own mind a, clear, window'to the effulgence of Divine/glory/ Whether he was conscious how much of this effulgence was due.to tho .native tints 'of his, own intellect and the refractions of classical learning, or how far the wholo scheme was but-a ..projection'-'of his own personality, it is fruitless' to inquire. Even before a tribunalxofmodern critics Milton ■'would still be able to plead_ that the individual soul is .the temple in which; the whole mystery of creation and 'redemption must bo re-enacted. His judges wouklbe equally justified in pointing out how the whole of his great poem, had suffered from his arbitrary interpretation of Biblical mysteries. . Savo/as an index to the poet's personality, " Paradise Lost" has almost no moral significance, and its epic interest is destroyed by the foregone event of the struggle with.omnipotence, and by the clumsy efforts of the rioet to bring Satan down from'the pedestal of heroism. . That Milton was no scientist was in his ■ favour, but he would have.been better of a touch of Dante's philosophy. In/one respect, fortunately for his ■" poetry, he outstripped the thinkers of, Wb own and.many subsequent generations;' he' ~- .recognised no division between-the natural and;spiritual worlds, and was able to'adopt v/ith: full, conviction : .tho anthropomorphic hypothesis,essential to his scheme. , The union of Puritanism and aestheticism might have made Milton a (greater Marvell or an earlier Itiiskin; the crystallisation of /his/genius into the imperishable forms of /"Comus."-: "Paradise Lost," and "Samson Agonistes" can bo accounted for only; by the _. " addition of the classical spirit. -.To;say that he could have; evolved classicism out of his own inner consciousness,-'. and combined the styles of Homer and Virgil without knowing either Iliad or iEhoidis, of course," prepostrous;,but he possessed.that native feeling for striking simplicity, grandeur of form, and bold yet harmonious massing of colour, without which the, "ancients"- would have been to him—what they have been to every other English poet. In two things, indeed,: he excelled both Homer • and .Virgil: hn disposd ,of : ten times their materia], while working loyally within their limitations; and he charmed into melodic ..intervals and sonorous harmonies the native wobdnotes wild of a language to which its / greatest poet had failed. to give a definite, tune. The I benefit of Milton's stylistic infln- .": ,enne . bpgaii. 1 and/ended with himself: the absurd -' mqiithings of the.' Miltonic mockingbirds, Thnrnson, Grainger, Armstrong, and the rest, do not inspire us with gratitude to their: instructor;, even Landor, gets on our nerves at:times; Thq many-stopped Michael'strump of Miltonic verso was dumb or false to any lips or fingers but Milton's own; the most successful modern 'writers of blank verse —Cowper,: Keats, Shelley, Tennyson—have

boon those who have gone back upon, or variously adapted, tho easier flutes and oboes of tho Elizabethans. Curiously enough, tho only modern parallel to Milton is a poet who resembles him neither in aim nor stylo. Byron, like Milton, became a social outlaw; and if we substitute England for Milton's Heaven, Byron falls naturally into the role of Satan. And Milton's portrait of Satan was not painted without some unconscious sideward glances at a mental mirror.