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In private life he was an upright man,
The best and trustiest of the Queen's divan;
He 'mid the rest e'en like a virtue shone,
And still was call'd straight-forward Rousillon.

Others there were that seem'd preferr'd, because
They scorn'd religion's, or their country's laws.
Some had deserved to lose their knightly spurs,
And some were heathen image-worshippers,
Whose priests from their success began to try
For restoration of their tyranny.

There was an orator of giant force, That like a meteor ran a zig-zag course; A mind to fathom Nature's secrets deep, That could the flaming bounds of space o'erleap; A voice that now fell soft as dropping snow, And now was as a sting or sudden blow; The poet's fancy, the logician's skill, Persuasion, passion, irony at will, Were his: but he to vanity was thrall, And wanting moral power, he wanted all. He was as variable as the weather, True to no party for two weeks together. Like a mad bull at this or that he strook, And damaged any cause he undertook. Although he for himself could only feel, His theme was evermore the commonweal. As on his word no party could rely, He was a mischievous neutrality, And to cajole or rail was left at large, A patriot rampant at the public charge.

There was a demagogue, of vulgar race, Who sway'd a great part of the populace. Coarse, clever, vigorous, licentious, vainThe Athenian Cleon lived in him again. He wore a black cap, and a mantle green, And was a rebel-loyal to the Queen. He made his bears at will look pleased or grim, And ruled the council-through their fear of him. His accents in the senate fiercely rung, And at his betters boldly wagg'd his tongue. He could work wonders like his priestly crew, Unlike in this his miracles were true; For he obtain'd the spoils of war in peace, And from his mob he shore a golden fleece. He served and ruled the placemen of the court, Who were content to be his mock and sport. Degenerate Sicily! where was thy shame, To let thy Queen be only Queen in name? To let thine ancient laws be trampled down, And miscreants spoil thine altar and the crown? Was there no valour, virtue, in the land,

To save the nation from a clown's command?

Valour there was, and virtue; for a time
Both were disarmed by the force of crime-
Disarm'd, not subdued; -at any cost
Determined to retrieve the field they lost.
Good order's champions, far and near renown'd,
Ne'er lost their faith, but hope in patience found.

The mitred bishop, and the statesman sage,
The young patrician in his pupillage,
The chief, at once the nation's sword and helm,
The banded nobles of the fruitful realm-

All that were justly pious, truly brave,
Stood fast, their country from its mob to save.

The land of Sicily was full of wealth,
And every breeze was redolent of health;
And hope is rash, and modesty is rare,
And royal Argenis was young and fair;
And eagles gather where their booty lies,
And the sweet honey draws a crowd of flies;
No wonder, then, a troop of princes came,
And felt for Argenis, or feign'd a flame.
A Sicel cousin, generous and brave,
Woo'd her as a frank lover, not a slave,
But would not wear her Council's golden chains,
And so was sent to travel for his pains.
Two gallant princes, each in hope to please
The princess, from Batavia cross'd the seas;
They, like their fathers, pious were and just,
Each worthy of a loyal people's trust.
Their very nobleness, and e'en their name,
Was found a hindrance to their gentle aim;
For the bad Council fear'd the loss of power,
Should such a consort share the royal bower.
The youthful scions of the Bourbon stem
Attempted, too, the Sicel diadem;
The heir of Scythia came to be denied,
And was dismiss'd with his barbaric pride.
A swarm of wooers travell'd to and fro,
Of noble lineage some, and some of low.
She look'd upon them carelessly: Love's dart
Had miss'd as yet to touch her royal heart.
But there was one Andrugio much approved,
And she by his persuasion thought she loved.
Son of a line unheard of until late,
Royal by courtesy, of low estate,-
A house of vaulting hopes and high desires,
Whose means exceeded not a Sicel squire's;
This count without a county came to woo,
And seem'd a thriving courtship to pursue;
For he had with the Premier made a league,
And thought to win her through a court intrigue.

While the Queen's favourite, and wooer tall,

Jested together and kept festival;
While the bold prince indulged his love's young dream,
Glad to be party to the statesman's scheme,
Which promised him a bright imperial bride,
On terms well understood and ratified;

While joy was in the palace, earth and sky
Untoward signs gave out portentously :-
Strange voices startled both the hamlet lone,
And city large with busy life o'ergrown;
The days were fill'd with terror, and the nights
With prodigies, dread sounds and awful sights.
Portending judgments which the conscience fear'd,
As red as blood the sun and moon appear'd;
Wild vengeful eyes peep'd from the clouds on high,
And frightful meteors danced athwart the sky.

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While these dread signs from man to man were told,
Which made the impious tremble, awed the bold;
Death from his quiver 'gainst the faithful hearts,
Of those were godly shot his fatal darts;

And so made way for wolves, when he removed
The trusty shepherds whom the people loved.
To fearful head the worst offences grew,
Such as the oldest memory never knew.
Unnatural murders, poisonings were rife,
And every where a recklessness of life;
Sins in high places one should blush to name,
Foulest uncleanness without any shame;
Oppression eating through the poor man's bones,
That to the people gave not bread, but stones,
That tore asunder nature's holiest ties,
And bruised the quivering heart in law's disguise;
Scorn of the gospel, pride that did defy
The simple truth with gross idolatry;
Vice mocking at the wisdom of the wise,
And rioting in Gentile sorceries ;-
It needed not a prophet's power to know,
What harvest from these baneful seeds should grow.
Upon the branded forehead of the times,
Gloom gather'd of unutterable crimes,
While public criminals, a licensed band,
Scatter'd rebellion through the fruitful land.

All was not lost, while faithful some remain'd
With love of country in their souls engrain'd.
But tears for public guilt and public woes
Must dim the lustre of the Sicel Rose,
And grief disturb the lilies of the breast,
Which from misplaced trust must lose its rest.
Oh, royal lady! brief thy vernal smile,
White innocence betray'd by hoary guile!
Then weep the wrong done to thy youthful years,
And let thy people see thy honest tears;
So shall their love, as from a natural urn,
E'en as it was at first, to thee return.
Then shall the good triumphant win for thee
The worthy homage of the truly free;
Then shall no sudden fear thy slumber move,
No birds of evil omen scare the dove,
Now flutter'd from the lilies where they grow,
Amid thy bosom's pure unsunned snow;
Then shall thy heart its confidence maintain,
And the Sicilian Rose bloom out again.

MILTON.

We have two ideas, which we are anxious to bring under public notice, with regard to Milton. The reader whom Providence shall send us will not measure the value of these ideas (we trust and hope) by their bulk. The reader indeed that great idea!is very often a more important person towards the fortune of an essay than the writer. Even "the prosperity of a jest," as Shakspeare tells us, lies less in its own merit than " in the ear of him that hears it." If he should happen to be unusually obtuse, the wittiest jest perishes-the most pointed is found blunt. So, with regard to books, should the reader on whom we build prove a sandy and treacherous foundation, the whole edifice, " temple and tower," must come to the ground. Should it happen, for instance, that the reader, inflicted upon ourselves for our sins, belongs to that class of people who listen to books in the ratio of their much speaking-find no eloquence in 32mo, and little force of argument except in such a folio as might knock him down upon occasion of his proving restive against its logic-in that case he will despise our present essay. Will despise it? He does despise already: for already he sees that it is short. His contempt is a high à priori contempt: for he measures us by anticipation, and needs to wait for no experience in order to vindicate his sentence against us.

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Yet, in one view, this brevity of an essayist does seem to warrant his reader in some little indignation. We, the writer, expect to bring over the reader to our opinion-else wherefore do we write? But, within so small a compass of ground, is it reasonable to look for such a result? "Bear witness to the presumption of this essay," we hear the reader complaining; "it measures about fourteen inches by twotwenty-eight square inches at the most -and is it within human belief that I, simply as I stand here, shall be converted in so narrow an area? Here am I in a state of nature, as you may say. An acre of sound argument might do something: but here is a man who flatters himself-that, before I am advanced seven inches further in my studies, he is to work a notable change

in my creed. By Castor and Pollux! he must think very superbly of himself, or very meanly of me."

Too true, we reply, too true; but, perhaps, there are faults on both sides. The writer is too peremptory and exacting; the reader is too restive. The writer is too full of his office, which he fancies is that of a teacher or a professor speaking ex cathedra: the rebel. lious reader is oftentimes too deter. mined that he will not learn. The one conceits himself booted and spurred, and mounted on his reader's back, with an express commission for riding him: the other is vicious, apt to bolt out of the course at every opening, and resolute in this point-that he will not be ridden.

There are some, meantime, who take a very different view of the relations existing between those well-known parties to a book writer and reader. So far from regarding the writer as entitled to the homage of his reader, as if he were some feudal superior, they hold him little better than an actor bowing before the reader as his audience. The feudal relation of fealty [fidelitas] may subsist between them, but the places are inverted; the writer is the liegeman-the reader it is who claims to be the sovereign. Our own opinion inclines this way. It is clear that the writer exists for the sake of the reader, not the reader for the sake of the writer. Besides, the writer bears all sorts of characters, whilst the reader universally has credit for the best possible. We have all heard of "the courteous reader," "the candid reader," "the enlightened reader." But which of us ever heard of "the discourteous reader," "the mulish reader," "the barbarous reader?" Doubtless there is no such person. The Goths and Vandals are all confined to the writers. "The reader" - that great character-is ever wise, ever learned, ever courteous. Even in the worst of times, this great man preserved his purity. Even in the tenth and eleventh centuries, which we usually account the very noontide of darkness, he shone like a mould candle amongst basest dips. And perhaps it is our duty to presume all other virtues and graces as no less essential to him than his glorious "candour," his "courtesy," (surpassing that of Sir Gawain,) and his truly "enlightened" understanding. Indeed, we very much question whether a writer, who carries with him a just feeling of his allegiance-a truly loyal writer-can lawfully suppose his sovereign, the reader, peccable or capable of error; and whether there is not even a shade of impiety in conceiving him liable to the affections of sleep, or of yawning. Having thus, upon our knees as it were, done feudal homage to our great suzerain, the reader having propitiated him with Persian adorations and with Phrygian genuflexions, let us now crave leave to convert him a little. Convert him! - that sounds" un peu fort," does it not? No, not at all. A cat may look at a king; and upon this or that out-of-the-way point a writer may presume to be more knowing than his reader-the serf may undertake to convert his lord. The reader is a great being-a great nounsubstantive; but still, like a mere adjective, he is liable to the three degrees of comparison. He may rise above himself he may transcend the ordinary level of readers, however exalted that level be. Being great, he may become greater. Full of light, he may yet labour with a spot or two of darkness. And such a spot we hold the prevalent opinion upon Milton in two particular questions of tastequestions that are not insulated, but diffusive; spreading themselves over the entire surface of the Paradise Lost, and also of the Paradise Regained; insomuch that, if Milton is wrong once, then he is wrong by many scores of times. Nay, which transcends all counting of cases or numerical estimates of error, if, in the separate instances, (be they few or be they many,) he is truly and indeed wrong-then he has erred, not by the case but by the principle; and that is a thousand times worse; for a separate case or instance of error may escape any man -may have been overlooked amongst the press of objects crowding on his eye; or, if not overlooked, if passed deliberately, may plead the ordinary privilege of human frailty. The man erred; and his error terminates in itself. But an error of principle does not terminate in itself; it is a fountain; it is self-diffusive; and it has a life of its own. The faults of a great

man are in any case contagious; they are dazzling and delusive by means of the great man's general example. But his false principles have a worse contagion. They operate not only through the general haze and halo which invests a shining example; but even if transplanted where that example is unknown, they propagate themselves by the vitality inherent in all selfconsistent principles, whether true or false.

Before we notice these two cases in Milton, first of all let us ask-Who and what is Milton? Dr Johnson was furiously incensed with a certain man, by trade an author and manufacturer of books wholesale and retail, for introducing Milton's name into a certain index thus-" Milton, Mr John." That Mister, undoubtedly, was hard to digest. Yet very often it happens to the best of us to men who are far enough from "thinking small beer of themselves," - that about ten o'clock A.M., an official big-wig, sitting at Bow Street, calls upon the man to account for his sprees of the last night, for his feats in knocking down lamp-posts and extinguishing watchmen, by this ugly demand of "Who and what are you, sir?" And perhaps the poor man, sick and penitential for want of soda water, really finds a considerable difficulty in replying satisfactorily to the worthy beek's apostrophe. though, at five o'clock in the evening, should the culprit be returning into the country in the same coach as his awful interrogator, he might be very apt to look fierce, and retort this amiable enquiry, and with equal thirst for knowledge to demand, "D your eyes, if you come to that, who and what are you?" And the beek in his turn, though so apt to indulge his own curiosity at the expense of the public, might find it very difficult to satisfy that of others.

Al

The same thing happens to authors; and to great authors beyond all others. So accustomed are we to survey a great man through the cloud of years that has gathered round him-so impossible is it to detach him from the pomp and equipage of all who have quoted him, copied him, echoed him, lectured about him, disputed about him, quarreled about him, that in the case of any Anacharsis the Scythian coming amongst us-any savage, that is to say, uninstructed in our literature,

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