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of ten Orbs or hollow Spheres in succession, wheeling one
within the other, down to the stationary nest of our small Earth
at the centre, with the elements of water, air, and fire, that are
immediately around it. It is according to this scheme that
Milton virtually describes the process of creation in the first,
the second, and the fourth of the six days of Genesis (VII. 232
-275 and 339-386)—the only deviation being that the word
"Firmament" is not there applied specifically to the eighth or
Starry Sphere, but is used for the whole continuous depth of
all the heavens as far as the Primum Mobile.
As if to pre-
vent any mistake, however, there is one passage in which the
Ten Spheres are actually enumerated. It is that (III. 481-
483) where the attempted ascent of ambitious souls from
Earth to the Empyrean by their own effort is described. In
order to reach the opening into the Empyrean at the World's
zenith, what are the successive stages of their flight?

"They pass the Planets Seven, and pass the Fixed,
And that Crystalline Sphere whose balance weighs
The trepidation talked, and that First Moved."

Here we have the Alphonsine heavens in their order, and with their exact names. But all through the poem the language assumes the same astronomical system. Where the words Orb and Sphere occur, for example, they almost invariably — not quite invariably-mean Orb or Sphere in the Ptolemaic sense. Yet, to make all safe, Milton, as we have seen, inserts two passages at least in which the Copernican theory of the heavens is distinctly suggested as a possible or probable alternative; and, moreover, even while using the language of the other theory, he so arranges that it need not be supposed he does so for any other reason than poetical preference.

In one respect the diagram must fail to convey Milton's complete notion of the World or Mundane Universe at that moment where he supposes the Fiend first gazing down into it from the glorious opening at the zenith, and then plunging precipitate through its azure depths (111. 561-565) in quest of that particular spot in it where Man had his abode. That small Earth which is so conspicuous in the diagram, as being at the centre, either was not visible even to angelic eyes from such an amazing distance as the opening at the zenith of the Primum Mobile, or was not yet marked. The luminary that attracts Satan first, from its all-surpassing splendour, is the Sun. Though the tenant only of the fourth of the

Spheres, this luminary so far surpasses all others in majesty that it seems like the King not only of the seven planetary Orbs, but of all the ten. It seems the very God of the whole new Universe-shooting its radiance even through the beds of the stars, as far as the Primum Mobile itself (III. 571-587). It is thither, accordingly, that Satan bends his flight; it is on this of all the bodies in the new Universe that he first alights; and it is only after the Angel Uriel, whom he there encounters, and who does not recognise him in his disguise, has pointed out to him the Earth shining at a distance in the sunlight (111. 722—724) that he knows the exact scene of his further labours. Thus informed, he wings off again from the Sun's body, and, wheeling his steep flight towards the Earth, alights at length on the top of Niphates, near

Eden.

There is no need to follow the action of the poem farther in this Introduction. All that takes place after the arrival of Satan on the Earth-all that portion of the story that is enacted within the bounds of Eden or of Paradise-the reader can without difficulty make out for himself; or any such incidental elucidation as may be requisite may be left for the Notes. It is necessary only to take account here of certain final modifications in Milton's imaginary physical structure of the Universe, which take place after the Tempter has succeeded in his enterprise and Man has fallen :-In the first place there is then established-what did not exist before-a permanent communication between Hell and the new Universe. When Satan had come up through Chaos from Hellgate, he had done so with toil and difficulty, as one exploring his way; but no sooner had he succeeded in his mission than Sin and Death, whom he had left at Hell-gate, felt themselves instinctively aware of his success, and of the necessity there would thenceforward be for a distinct road between Hell and the new World, by which all the Infernals might go and come. Accordingly (x. 382-324) they construct such a road-a wonderful causey or bridge from Hell-gate, right through or over Chaos, to that exact part of the outside of the new Universe where Satan had first alighted,-i.e. not to its nadir, but to some point near its zenith, where there is the break or orifice in the Primum Mobile towards the EmpyAnd what is the consequence of this vast alteration in the physical structure of the Universe? The consequence is that the Infernal host are no longer confined to Hell, but

rean.

possess also the new Universe, like an additional island or pleasure-domain, up in Chaos, and on the very confines of their former home, the Empyrean. Preferring this conquest to their proper empire in Hell, they are thenceforward perhaps more frequently in our World than in Hell, winging through its various Spheres, but chiefly inhabiting the Air round our central Earth. But this causey from Hell to the World, constructed by Sin and Death, is not the only modification of the physical Universe consequent on the Fall. The interior of the Human World as it hangs from the Empyrean receives some alterations for the worse by the decree of the Almighty Himself. The elements immediately round the Earth become harsher and more malignant; the planetary and starry Spheres are so influenced that thenceforward planets and stars look inward upon the central Earth with aspects of malevolence; nay, perhaps it was now first that, either by a heaving askance of the Earth from its former position, or by a change in the Sun's path, the ecliptic became oblique to the equator (x. 651-691). All this is apart from changes in the actual body of the Earth, including the obliteration of the site of the desecrated Paradise, and the outbreak of virulence among all things animate.

From the foregoing sketch, it will be seen that, while the poem is properly enough, as the name Paradise Lost indicates, the tragical story of the temptation and fall of the human race in its first parents, yet this story is included in a more comprehensive epic, of which the rebel Archangel is the hero, and the theatre of which is nothing less than Universal Infinitude. While the consummation, as regards Man, is the loss of innocence and Eden, and the liability to Death, the consummation, as regards Satan, is more in the nature of a triumph. He has succeeded in his enterprise. He has vitiated the new World at its beginning, and he has added it as a conquest to the Hell which had been assigned to him and his for their only proper realm. True, in the very hour of his triumph a curse has been pronounced upon him; he and his host experience a farther abasement of their being by transmutation into the image of the Serpent ; and he and they are left with the expectation of a time when their supposed conquest will be snatched from them, and they will be driven in ignominy back to whence they came. Still, for the present, and until that " greater Man arise who is to restore the

human race, and be the final and universal victor, they are left in successful possession. Whatever the sequel is to be (and it is foreshadowed in vision in the two last books) the Epic has here reached its natural close. Its purpose was to furnish the imagination with such a story of transcendent construction as should connect the mysteries of the inconceivable and immeasurable universe anterior to Time and to Man with the traditions and experience of our particular planet. This is accomplished by fastening the imagination on one great being, supposed to belong to the thronging multitudes of the angelic race that peopled the Empyrean before our World was created; by following this being in his actions as a rebel in Heaven and then as an exile into Hell; and by leaving him at last so far in possession of the new Universe of Man that thenceforward his part as an Archangel is well-nigh forgotten, and he is content with his new and degraded function as the Devil of mere terrestrial regions. Thenceforward he and his are to dwell more in these terrestrial regions, and particularly in the air, than in Hell-mingling themselves devilishly in human affairs, and even, by a splendid stroke of diabolic policy, enjoying the worship of men while securing their ruin, by passing themselves off as gods and demigods of all kinds of mongrel mythologies. That this is the main course and purport of the Epic will be perceived all the more clearly if the reader will note how much of the action, though it all bears ultimately on the fate of Earth, takes place away from the Earth altogether, and at a rate different from that of earthly causation-in the Empyrean, in Hell, in Chaos, or among the orbs and starry interspaces of the entire Cosmos. The portions of the poem which are occupied with descriptions of Eden and Paradise and the relation of events there are attractive from their peculiar beauty, but they amount to but a fragment of the whole.

One result which ought to follow from a right understanding of the scheme of the Poem, as it has been here exhibited, is a truer idea of the place which Milton's Epic holds among the great poems of the world, and also of its relation to his total mind and life. What is that in any man which is highest, deepest, and most essential in him-which governs all, reveals all, gives the key to all that he thinks or is? What but his way of thinking or feeling, whatever it may be, respecting the relation or non-relation of the whole visible or

physical world to that which is boundless, invisible, unfeatured, metaphysical? What he thinks or feels on this subject is essentially his philosophy; if he abstains from thinking on it at all, then that very abstinence is equally his philosophy. And what greater character can there be in a poem, or in any other work of art, than that it truly conveys the author's highest mind or mood on this subject-his theory, if he has one, or his antipathy to any theory, should that be the case? It may be doubted whether the world ever has taken a poem to its larger heart, or placed it in the list of the poems spoken of as great, except from a perception, more or less conscious, that it possessed, in a notable degree, this characteristic—that it was the expression, in some form or other, under whatever nominal theme, and with whatever intermixture of matter, of the intimate personal philosophy of a great living mind. To suppose, at all events, that Milton could have put forth any poem of large extent uninformed by his deepest and most serious philosophy of life and of the world, is to know nothing whatever about him. The ingenious construction of a fiction that should anyhow entertain the world, and which the author might behold floating away, detached from himself, as a beautifully-blown bubble—this was not his notion of poesy. Into whatever he wrote he was sure to put as much of himself as possible; and into that work which he intended to be his greatest it would have been safe to predict that he would studiously put the very most of himself. It would have been safe to predict that he would make it not only a phantasy or tale of majestic proportions, with which the human race might regale its leisure, but also a bequest of his own thoughts and speculations on the greatest subjects interesting to man- a kind of testament to posterity that it was thus and thus that he, Milton, veteran and blind, had learnt to think on such subjects, and dared advise the world for ever to think also. True, from the nature of the case, a poet must express himself on such subjects not so much in direct propositions addressed to the reason as in figurative conceptions, phantasmagories, or allegories, imagined individually and connectedly in accordance with his intellectual intention. In as far, therefore, as Paradise Lost is an expression of Milton's habitual mode of thought respecting Man and History in relation to an eternal and unknown Infinity, it is so by way of what the Germans call Vorstellung (popular image or repre

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