No More Learning

A fine example of a peculiar class of Poetry;--that written by
thoughtful men who practised this Art but little. Wotton's, 72, is
another. Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Berkeley, Dr. Johnson, Lord Macaulay,
have left similar specimens.


Poem 62.

_whist_: hushed; _Pan_: used here for the Lord of all; _Lars and
Lemures_: household Gods and spirits of relations dead; _Flamens_: Roman
priests; _That twice-batter'd god_: Dagon.

_Osiris_, the Egyptian god of Agriculture (here, perhaps by confusion
with Apis, figured as a Bull), was torn to pieces by Typho and embalmed
after death in a sacred chest. This myth, reproduced in Syria and Greece
in the legends of Thammuz, Adonis, and perhaps Absyrtus, represents the
annual death of the Sun or the Year under the influences of the winter
darkness. Horus, the son of Osiris, as the New Year, in his turn
overcomes Typho. --It suited the genius of Milton's time to regard this
primaeval poetry and philosophy of the seasons, which has a further
reference to the contest of Good and Evil in Creation, as a malignant
idolatry. Shelley's Chorus in _Hellas_, "Worlds on worlds," treats the
subject in a larger and sweeter spirit.

_unshower'd grass_: as watered by the Nile only.


Poem 64.

_The Late Massacre_: the Vaudois persecution, carried on in 1655 by the
Duke of Savoy. This "collect in verse," as it has been justly named, is
the most mighty Sonnet in any language known to the Editor.
Readers
should observe that, unlike our sonnets of the sixteenth century, it is
constructed , on the original Italian or Provencal model,--unquestionably
far superior to the imperfect form employed by Shakespeare and Drummond.


Poem 65.

Cromwell returned from Ireland in 1650. Hence the prophecies, not
strictly fulfilled, of his deference to the Parliament, in stanzas
21-24.

This Ode, beyond doubt one of the finest in our language, and more in
Milton's style than has been reached by any other poet, is occasionally
obscure from imitation of the condensed Latin syntax. The meaning of st.
5 is "rivalry or hostility are the same to a lofty spirit, and
limitation more hateful than opposition. " The allusion in st. 11 is to
the old physical doctrines of the non-existence of a vacuum and the
impenetrability of matter:--in st. 17 to the omen traditionally
connected with the foundation of the Capitol at Rome. The ancient belief
that certain years in life complete natural periods and are hence
peculiarly exposed to death, is introduced in stanza 26 by the word
_climacteric_.


Poem 66.

_Lycidas_. The person lamented is Milton's college friend Edward King,
drowned in 1637 whilst crossing from Chester to Ireland.

Strict Pastoral Poetry was first written or perfected by the Dorian
Greeks settled in Sicily: but the conventional use of it, exhibited more
magnificently in _Lycidas_ than in any other pastoral, is apparently of
Roman origin. Milton, employing the noble freedom of a great artist, has
here united ancient mythology, with what may be called the modern
mythology of Camus and Saint Peter,--to direct Christian images.