op it from his thoughts." This is easily said; but what if
Milton could not seduce his readers to drop immateriality from their
thoughts? What if the contrary opinion had taken so full a possession
of the minds of men as to leave no room even for the half-belief which
poetry requires? Such we suspect to have been the case. It was
impossible for the poet to adopt altogether the material or the
immaterial system. He therefore took his stand on the debatable ground.
He left the whole in ambiguity. He has doubtless, by so doing, laid
himself open to the charge of inconsistency. But, though philosophically
in the wrong, we cannot but believe that he was poetically in the right.
This task, which almost any other writer would have found impracticable,
was easy to him. The peculiar art which he possessed of communicating
his meaning circuitously through a long succession of associated ideas,
and of intimating more than he expressed, enabled him to disguise those
incongruities which he could not avoid.

Poetry which relates to the beings of another world ought to be at once
mysterious and picturesque. That of Milton is so. That of Dante is
picturesque, indeed, beyond any that ever was written. Its effect
approaches to that produced by the pencil or the chisel. But it is
picturesque to the exclusion of all mystery. This is a fault on the
right side, a fault inseparable from the plan of Dante's poem, which, as
we have already observed, rendered the utmost accuracy of description
necessary. Still it is a fault. The supernatural agents excite an
interest; but it is not the interest which is proper to supernatural
agents. We feel that we could talk to the ghosts and demons without any
emotion of unearthly awe. We could, like Don Juan, ask them to supper,
and eat heartily in their company. Dante's angels are good men with
wings. His devils are spiteful, ugly executioners. His dead men are
merely living men in strange situations. The scene which passes between
the poet and Farinata is justly celebrated. Still, Farinata in the
burning tomb is exactly what Farinata would have been at an
_auto-da-fe_. Nothing can be more touching than the first interview of
Dante and Beatrice. Yet what is it but a lovely woman chiding, with
sweet, austere composure, the lover for whose affection she is grateful,
but whose vices she reprobates? The feelings which give the passage its
charm would suit the streets of Florence as well as the summit of the
Mou