A moment give I thee, to take thy choice [Rushes upon Felton, and wrests the sword from Athunree's meditated plot against Hero, which had been inadvertently disclosed by the paper he handed to his challenger,Lewson also having become his betrayer, as well as the confessor of the truth in regard to the villany practised against Helen Mowbray,-speedily, when all the parties are brought before Sir William Sutton in his magisterial character, clears up every misunderstanding and terminates the play; a play, as we have seen, which is brimful of beauties, that combines such sterling excellences, and produces such powerful effects as will add new laurels to the brow of him who has not only been the principal regenerator of our modern drama, but who continues to be its chieftain. ART. III.-Milton, ou la Poesie Epique; Cours professé à L'Athenée Royale de Paris. Par M. RAYMOND DE VERICOUR. Paris: 1838. Milton, or Epic Poetry; a Course of Lectures delivered at the Royal Athenæum of Paris. By M. RAYMOND DE VERICOUR. London: Bailliere. 1838. ONE of the happy effects of the close alliance between France and England, and the increasing approximation of the views and interests of these two great powers, is the anxiety manifested by our neighbours to cultivate our hitherto-despised language, which sounded in the ears of Madam de Staël like the hoarse murmur of our waves, and to form a just appreciation of our standard works of literature and art. Until very lately little was known in France of Shakspeare or Milton, although their celebrity was widely diffused and readily acknowledged by the neighbouring nations. The ignorance and self-sufficiency of French critics, and the unskilful or rather ludicrous efforts of French translators, added to the national antipathy to every thing English, except English gold, were the main obstacles to a proper estimation of our noblest works of fiction. The discrepancy between the tastes of the two nations, as it existed not more than ten years ago, is thus pointedly sketched in a leading periodical journal. "There is nothing in which the opinions of the French and English differ so irreconcileably as in poetry; and therefore, perhaps, the critics of the one nation ought not to pass judgment on the poets of the others. We can exchange our cotton for their wines, our cut steel for their ormolu, and blankets for their cambrics, and find ground for material satisfaction in the bargain; but the prices 1 current of poetry are so outrageously different in the two countries, that we could not part with a scene of Shakspeare for the whole body of their dramatists; nor would they give up one canto of Voltaire's Henriade, or the Pucelle either, for the whole of Spencer and Milton into the bargain." Happily, however, for themselves, as well as for the general interests of literature, the French critics have seen the errors of their ways: a new light has broken upon them, and they are not at all backward in proclaiming their conversion. "Nous avons changé tout cela," they say to the sneering critic we have just quoted; the veil has fallen from our eyes; you were right, and we were wrong; your sneers were merited, but they are no longer so: we have made acquaintance with your Shakspeare and your Milton; the glories of your divinities have been revealed to our eyes; we are ready to prostrate ourselves, and worship and enshrine them in our temples. What would the critic, who perused the foregoing piece of flippancy, say to the following confession of faith in his divinities? "The Paradise Lost possesses in the highest degree all the characteristics of elevation and sublimity. Amongst all the conceptions of the human intellect amongst all the productions of antiquity and modern times, there is none which can bear a comparison with it, in the quality of sustained and varied sublimity." These, we think, are terms quite comprehensive and explicit enough to satisfy the most fastidious, that the person who uses them is a firm believer in Milton; and yet he is a Frenchman; and what is more, a Frenchman of considerable powers of eloquence and correct literary taste. M. Véricour, the individual to whom we allude, has been called to the task of proclaiming to his countrymen the divine attributes of our English Homer. As the apostle of a new poetic revelation to France, he delivered a series of lectures at the Athenée Royal de Paris, on the Life and Writings of Milton, which he subsequently embodied in the form of a book, and printed for general circulation. That he was deeply penetrated with the conviction of the truth of his mission, nobody who reads these pages can doubt for a moment. That his extensive reading, his familiar acquaintance with European literature, ancient as well as modern, fitted him for becoming the interpreter of the oracle is equally incontestable. The only danger seems to be, that the zeal of the new converts may hurry them into professions of enthusastic adoration, which may appear to transcend even so lofty a subject and verge into absolute idolatry. It is curious to observe how France and England mutually influence each other in literary matters. Sometimes it happens that when the influence of a particular school begins to subside in the country of its birth, it flourishes in the utmost vigour and luxu riance in the country of its adoption; while men of extraordinary powers of imagination, such as Shakspeare and Milton, leave behind them a luminous track of light to which all the nations of the civilized world may turn their admiring eyes, and which may become to them the beacons of new careers and new successes. Though the delicacy and perspicuity of the French language make it excellent for conversation or business, it is not so well calculated for the loftier flights of poetry as the Spanish, the Italian or the English. Much may undoubtedly be said for the language of a Racine, a Corneille, a Voltaire; but still we are ready to maintain that the style and character of French poetry is not only very different from the style and character of English poetry, but that it is peculiar to the nation to which it belongs. Neither Italy nor England, we admit, have ever produced an author of the same stamp as Racine; and France, on the other hand, never has, and probably never will produce poets at all resembling Dante or Ariosto, Shakspeare or Milton. On this point Keratry in his examination of the work of Emanuel Kant observes, that "the writers of Great Britain must necessarily have communicated an original character to their works, because the law allowed them to have an original character themselves: no doubt a good deal may be traced to free institutions." M. Vericour says, "it is the equality, before the law, which has powerfully contributed to give to the English poets, that general and surpassing elevation which is not to be found in the literatures of modern nations. This may appear as commonplace; but of this be assured, that one of the most prolific sources of the sublime, that which arms the thought with energy, which imparts the greatest elevation to the sentiments, is liberty; and it is my firm conviction, that the good old British freedom has powerfully contributed to nourish, inspire, and inflame the poets who form its glory; and if it is the source of that superior elevation so much wanted by enlightened critics, it gives us the right to hope that the future will bring forth, among the other European nations, those noble, stately, lofty, and sublime productions which awaken the generous emotions, elevate the spirit of a people, and become the basis of its civilization. Moreover, the nation which has entombed Shakspeare in the burying-place of its kings, must assuredly be justified in its pretensions to a superior literature. "Milton has periods that exhibit a melody to which there is nothing at all comparable in our language, and which strike the more, perhaps, in his great poem from the contrast it so frequently presents of harshness and repulsive austerity. In Milton we find all that is sublime and terrific, much that is beautiful, and sometimes, though rarely, something that is soft and delicate; but with this, there are inelegancies which cannot fail to offend, and deformities that go near to disgust." Delille first stripped Virgil of his toga, and dressed him according to the last Parisian fashion. Having succeeded to his satisfaction in this particular, he next attempted to force the same suit upon the reluctant Milton. There is a stateliness, a gravity, a grandeur in the language of the " Paradise Lost," with which we on this side of the channel are peculiarly struck; and we are better pleased with the grave original, than with all the coruscations of wit which flash through the translation. Delille, it must be confessed, had much to contend with in the intractable nature of his materials. The language is deficient in the majesty, the grace, the energy, the ductility which the language of heroic poetry should possess. It presents no opportunity of compounding, inverting, or employing peculiar or classical idioms. The French language of the thirteenth century, the language of Vellehardouin and the troubadours, now despised and forgotten, was much nearer the true language of epic poetry. Latter ages have polished down its picturesque asperities, and it has become the nerveless and emasculate domiciliary of courts. Happily the last few years have witnessed its efforts to shake off its chains and take a bolder flight. Delille then had great difficulties to contend with in the attempt to embrace the stately and sonorous period of Milton within his puny though smooth phraseology. It was the enormous broadsword of a Paladin, crossing the delicate toasting iron of a gentleman usher. In his "Paradise Lost," we are not in Paradise, but in Paris. His Eve is a "charming woman," a veritable coquette, who awakes most gracefully "en sursaut." His translation of the line, Meanwhile at table, Eve ministered naked," is very generally known for its absurdity, and is a fair specimen of the French graces, in which he has arrayed "the great high priest of all the nine.' It runs thus : In like manner the loves of the great progenitors of the human race, are deprived of the decent colouring flung over them by Milton, and described with all the levity of the eighteenth century. Two other translations in verse followed that of Delille, one from the pen of M. Delatour de Pernes in 1813, another from Mr. Delogne D'Antroche in 1808, both inferior to Delille in harmony of versification and not remarkable for any improvement in other respects. At length Chateaubriand took up the cause of Milton in France, and gave a very respectable prose translation in 1836. It is curious to observe the Republican bard introduced to the French by three fanatic royalists; first, Racine; second, Delille; and then Chateaubriand. Of course in a literal prose translation, we can only find VOL. 11. (1838.) No. III. A A the disjecti membra poetæ-the pale reflection of the noble substance. But Mr. Chateaubriand sometimes falls into serious mistakes, as for instance, when he translates "Siloe's brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of God," "Le ruisseau de Siloe qui couloit rapidement," mistaking fast by for fast. Again, 66 Sing heavenly muse that on the secret top is thus given: "Chante muse celeste sur le sommet d'Oreb;" where the omission of the word that gives quite a new meaning to the sentence; but this is not as bad as another translator, a M. Pougerville, who translates Chateaubriand's translation is given in the form of an essay, in which every thing is sacrificed to the splendour of style; the predominant failing of French writers. It was a task imposed by the necessity of procuring a morsel of bread. This is a painful fact. However, it is by far the most spirited translation of Milton which has yet appeared in France. We shall now proceed to give some extracts from M. de Vericour's book. We shall select his comparisons between Milton, Dante, and Klopstock, as the most novel and instructive to the English reader. "The poetry which sings of the inhabitants of an invisible world, imaginary, or supposed, should be at once mysterious and picturesque. That of Dante is deficient in the mystery, which gives eclat to a conception of the kind. This defect, if indeed it is a defect, is inseparable from the plan of the Divina Commedia, which requires, as we have said, the greatest details of description. Nevertheless this absence of a profound and sacred mystery, may well be considered as a defect in Dante. His supernatural creations excite our interest, but it is not that interest which is properly inherent in supernatural creations. While contemplating the spirits and demons of the Italian poet, you are never struck with that overwhelming awe, mingled with astonishment, which makes you start with horror, while it fascinates you with its majesty, as in the Paradise Lost. In the work of Dante on the contrary, we are almost tempted to imitate the poet, we feel that we too may interrogate his phantoms and devils without any feeling of alarm. 'The infernal regions of Milton differ from those of every other writer: we have shown that his devils are conceptions of extraordinary sublimity: that they are not metaphysical beings, hideous monsters, or deformed misshapen goblins, like those of Tasso and Klopstock. Those of Dante, it is true, are superior to anything of the kind created by the ancients, and far |