FullReads

‘Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves.‘

Thus it is usually printed; that is, without a comma in the latter line; but, says Landor, ‘there ought to be commas after eyeless, after Gaza, after mill.’ And why? because thus ‘the grief of Samson is aggravated at every member of the sentence.’ He (like Milton) was–1. blind; 2. in a city of triumphant enemies; 3. working for daily bread; 4. herding with slaves; Samson literally, and Milton with those whom politically he regarded as such.

Mr. Landor is perfectly wrong, I must take the liberty of saying, when he demurs to the line in Paradise Regained:

‘ From that placid aspect and meek regard,‘

on the ground that; ‘meek regard conveys no new idea to placid aspect.’ But aspect is the countenance of Christ when passive to the gaze of others: regard is the same countenance in active contemplation of those others whom he loves or pities. The placid aspect expresses, therefore, the divine rest; the meek regard expresses the divine benignity: the one is the self-absorption of the total Godhead, the other the eternal emanation of the Filial Godhead.

‘By what ingenuity,’ says Landor, ‘can we erect into a verse–

“In the bosom of bliss, and light of light?‘”

Now really it is by my watch exactly three minutes too late for him to make that objection. The court cannot receive it now; for the line just this moment cited, the ink being hardly yet dry, is of the same identical structure. The usual iambic flow is disturbed in both lines by the very same ripple, viz., a trochee in the second foot, placid in the one line, bosom in the other. They are a sort of snags, such as lie in the current of the Mississippi. There, they do nothing but mischief. Here, when the lines are read in their entire nexus, the disturbance stretches forwards and backwards with good effect on the music. Besides, if it did not, one is willing to take a snag from Milton, but one does not altogether like being snagged by the Mississippi. One sees no particular reason for bearing it, if one only knew how to be revenged on a river.

But, of these metrical skirmishes, though full of importance to the impassioned text of a great poet (for mysterious is the life that connects all modes of passion with rhythmus), let us suppose the casual reader to have had enough. And now at closing for the sake of change, let us treat him to a harlequin trick upon another theme. Did the reader ever happen to see a sheriff’s officer arresting an honest gentleman, who was doing no manner of harm to gentle or simple, and immediately afterwards a second sheriff’s officer arresting the first–by which means that second officer merits for himself a place in history; for at the same moment he liberates a deserving creature (since an arrested officer cannot possibly bag his prisoner), and he also avenges the insult put upon that worthy man? Perhaps the reader did not ever see such a sight; and, growing personal, he asks me, in return, if I ever saw it. To say the truth, I never did; except once, in a too-flattering dream; and though I applauded so loudly as even to waken myself, and shouted ‘encore,’ yet all went for nothing; and I am still waiting for that splendid exemplification of retributive justice. But why? Why should it be a spectacle so uncommon? For surely those official arresters of men must want arresting at times as well as better people. At least, however, en attendant one may luxuriate in the vision of such a thing; and the reader shall now see such a vision rehearsed. He shall see Mr. Landor arresting Milton–Milton, of all men!– for a flaw in his Roman erudition; and then he shall see me instantly stepping up, tapping Mr. Landor on the shoulder, and saying, ‘Officer, you’re wanted;’ whilst to Milton I say, touching my hat, ‘Now, sir, be off; run for your life, whilst I hold his man in custody, lest he should fasten on you again.’