INTRODUCTION TO PARADISE LOST. ORIGIN OF PARADISE LOST. It is probable that Milton early conceived the idea of writing an epic poem: but we have no means of ascertaining the exact time, as there is no hint of such a design in anything he wrote previous to his setting out on his travels. The first intimation we get of such a project is in his verses to Manso, at Naples, in 1639. O mihi si mea sors talem concedat amicum, Magnanimos heroas; et, o modo spiritus adsit, Frangam Saxonicas Britonum sub Marte phalanges, etc. From this it appears that, inspired by Spenser and the romantic poets of Italy, the epic which he meditated was to be of a romantic cast, with Arthur the British prince for its hero. From the following passage in the Epitaphium Damonis, written soon after his return to England, it would seem that the poem was to contain all the principal events of British history, from the landing of Brute till the time of Arthur, perhaps by way of narrative or episode, as in the song of a bard, or something of that kind. Ipse ego Dardanias Rutupina per æquora puppes Brennumque Arviragumque duces, priscumque Belinum, Mendaces vultus, assumptaque Gorlois arma, Merlini dolus. At the conclusion of his piece Of Reformation in England, published in 1641, occur the following words :-"Then amidst the hymns and hallelujahs of saints, some one may perhaps be heard offering at high strains in new and lofty measures, to sing and celebrate thy divine mercies and marvellous judgements in this land throughout all ages." Here again there is an evident allusion to a poem on a British theme. He returns to the subject in his Reason of Church Government, published in the same year, where he still keeps to the idea of selecting his subjects from British history, but is doubtful if he shall treat them in the regular or the irregular epic form, or in the tragic or the lyric manner.* After this we hear nothing more of his poetic designs till the appearance of the Paradise Lost. Had Milton remained in the peaceful seclusion of Horton, and had the folly of the King and Laud not raised the flames of civil and religious dissension in the realm, we may perhaps assume-judging from the cheerful and romantic tone of the poetry which proceeded from the shades of that rural retreat -that the lyre of the poet would have been tuned to British themes, and Arthur have renewed his wars in strains infinitely beyond any that have ever been, or probably ever will be, devoted to them; and a poem might have appeared vying with the Faery Queen in romantic beauty, and far exceeding it in dignity and sublimity. Mr. Mitford has indulged his imagination in the following conception of what such a poem might have contained. We should have had tales of chivalrous emprise "of gentle knights that pricked along the plain," the cruelty of inexorable beauty, and the achievements of unconquerable love. Its scenes would not have been laid in the bowers of Paradise, or by "the thunderous throne" of heaven, nor where the wings of the cherubim fan the mercy-seat; but * See above, page 352. amid royal halls, in the palaces of magicians and islands of enchantment. Instead of the serpent, with hairy mane and eye of carbuncle, gliding among the myrtle-thickets of Eden, we should have jousts and tournaments, the streaming of gonfalons, the glitter of dancing plumes, the wailing of barbaric trumpets and the sound of silver clarions; battles fiercer than those of Fontarabia and fields more gorgeous than that of the Cloth of Gold. What crowds of pilgrims and palmers should we not have beheld journeying to and fro with shell and staff of ivory, filling the port of Joppa with their galleys? What youthful warriors, the flower of British chivalry, should we not have seen caparisoned and in quest of the holy Sangreal? The world of reality and the world of vision would have been equally exhausted to supply the materials; the odours would have been wafted from the "weeping woods" of Araby; the dazzling mirrours would have been of solid diamond; and the flowers would have been amaranths from the Land of Faëry. Every warrior would have been clothed in pyropus and in adamant. We should have watched in battle, not the celestial sword of Michael, but the enchanted Caliburn; we should have have had, not the sorrows of Eve and the fall of Adam, but the loves of Angelica and the exploits of Arthur. Whether such would or would not have been the aspect which the poem would have presented, we cannot pretend to say. But it would, in all probability, have been something widely different from anything we of these later days can imagine. At all events such a creation was not to come. into existence. From the moment when Milton descended into the arena of theologic conflict, there was for him an end of romance, and he would have turned with abhorrence from any theme unconnected with the solemn doctrines and deep questions of the prevailing system of theology. The gay and cheerful tone of the poetry of Horton no more reappears till it becomes necessary for aiding in the creation of the garden of Eden; even his lightest effusions now breathe a solemn tone; religion pervades every region of his mind. As we have observed above, it is impossible now to ascertain when he first conceived the idea of making the Fall of Man the subject of a poem. Aubrey tells us that he commenced Paradise Lost in 1658; but he must have had the subject in contemplation long before that time. It is also uncertain whether he at first intended it to be an epic poem or a |