She ended, and the heavenly Hierarchies And every one shakes his ydreaded spear, The earth, and her firm basis quite in sunder, Flam'd all in just revenge, and mighty thunder, Heaven stole itself from earth by clouds that moisten'd under. The awful grandeur of celestial indignation seems to lift itself up in the majesty of these lines. The sudden preparation of the heavenly warriors, the clangor of arms, and the uprising of the Deity himself, are splendid images, which are known to the reader of Paradise Lost not to have escaped the notice of Milton. The pause at the beginning of the stanza is a note of solemn preparation. The re-appearance of Mercy in the midst of darkness and tumult is very picturesque; her face soon glimmers through, and paints the clouds with beauty As when the cheerful sun, elamping wide, Wrapt in a sable cloud from mortal eyes But soon as he again dishadow'd is, So Mercy once again herself displays, Out from her sister's cloud, and open lays. Those sunshine looks, whose beams would dim a thousand days. The poet then describes the charms of Mercy in verses sparkling as the "discoloured plumes" of the graces that attend upon her: If any wander, thon dost call him back; Thou find'st the lost, and follow'st him that flies, Thou art the lame man's friendly staff, the blind man's eyes. That with poor shadows strives thee to compare, How can frail colours portraict out thy face, Or paint in flesh thy beauty, in such semblance base ? Her upper garment was a silken lawn, With needlework richly embroidered, Which she herself with her own hand had drawn, And all the world therein had portrayed, With threads so fresh and lively coloured That seem'd the world she new created there, The silken trees did grow, and the beasts living were. About some molehill, so they wandered; And round about the waving sea was shed; And curling circlets so well shadow'd lay, But those that near the margin pearl did play, As though they meant to rock the gentle ear, Another cloudy sea, that did disdain (As though his purer waves from heaven sprung) To crawl on earth, as doth the sluggish main ; That ebb'd and flow'd, as wind and season would ; To alabaster rocks, that in the liquid roll'd. Beneath those sunny banks a darker cloud, That wonder was to see the silk distained With the resplendence from her beauty gained, Over her hung a canopy of state, Not of rich tissue, nor of spangled gold, Such light as from main rocks of diamound, And little Angels, holding hands, danced all around. The gentleness of Mercy is contrasted with the haggard wretchedness of Repentance : Deeply, alas, impassioned she stood, To see a flaming brand tossed up from hell, Crouching upon the ground, in sackloth trust, The reader may remember the picture of Remorse in the introduction to the Mirrour for Magistrates: And first within the porch and jaws of hell, : Fletcher wanted the energy of Sackville's iron pen. The impersonations of Dread, Revenge, Misery, and Death, placed by that writer in the Porch of Hell, have never been surpassed. They stand out in a ghastly reality, and fill the mind with a solemn visionary terror. When Mercy beheld the wretched form of Repentance sitting in " a dark valley," she sent to comfort her one of her loveliest attendants, "smiling Eirene *, That a garland wears Of gilded olive on her fairer hairs; and in her sublime celebration of the glory of the Redeemer, she describes the worshipping of the shepherds :To see their King the kingly sophies come, And, them to guide unto their master's home, A star comes dancing up the orient, That springs for joy over the starry tent. This beautiful image is borrowed from Chaucer. The "mighty thunder" having dropped from the arm of God at the pleadings of Mercy, the angelic armies cast their broken weapons at her feet, and the canto concludes: Bring, bring, ye Graces, all your silver flaskets. So down she + let her eyelids fall, to shine So beautifully does the poet strew with flowers the path of the infant Jesus. The second canto, Christ's Victory on Earth, opens with the temptation of our Saviour in the wilderness. The fanciful prettiness of Fletcher contrasts unpleasingly with the calm and dignified narrative of Milton, who, without departing from the text of Scripture, where it is said, Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, has invested it with a poetical character. Fletcher's pic+ Mercy * Peace. ture of our Lord 66 upon a grassy hillock laid," with "woody primroses befreckled," does not impress us like Milton's description of Him, who the "better to converse with solitude," entered the bordering desert wild, And with dark shades and rocks environed round, pursued "his holy meditations." The silence of the desert dwells around us! In the representation of our Saviour's personal appearance, Fletcher has manifested a still greater absence of judgment; it is principally formed from the Canticles, and in a style of fantastical colouring, peculiarly displeasing in a sacred poem. The author might, however, have pleaded the prevalent taste of the age in extenuation of his conduct. Two nights the Saviour has passed in "the silent wilderness," making "the ground his bed, and his moist pillow grass," when he sees afar off an old palmer, come footing slowly," who entreats him to bless his lowly roof with his presence. Milton concurred with Fletcher in concealing the Prince of Darkness under the form of an aged man. This similitude appears to have been generally adopted. In La Vita et Passione di Christo, published at Venice in 1518, a wooden cut is prefixed to the Temptation, in which Satan is represented as an old man with a long beard, offering bread to our Lord. In Vischer's cuts to the Bible, as noticed by Thyer, the tempter is an aged man, and Mr. Dunster has pointed out the same circumstance in the painting of the Temptation by Salvator Rosa *. They wander along together until they arrive at a dismal abode, the Cave of Despair Ere long they came near to a baleful bower, That gaping stood, all comers to devour, * See Todd's Works of Milton, v. 4, preliminary observations, p. 18. |