“the Son of God, our Saviour meek,
Sung victor, and from heavenly feast refresh’t,
Brought on His way with joy; He unobserv’d,
Home to His mother’s house private return’d.”
(P. R. iv. 636-9.)
Warton wished to expunge this passage, considering
it an unworthy conclusion. It is to be hoped
that there are many readers of Milton who are able
to see what is the value of these four lines, particularly
of the last.
It is hardly necessary to say more in order to show
how peculiarly Milton is endowed with that quality
which is possessed by all great poets—the
power to keep in contact with the soul of man.
[This is an abstract of an essay four times as long
written many years ago. Although so much has
been struck out, the substance is unaltered, and the
conclusion is valid for the author now as then.]
Byron above almost all other poets, at least in our
day, has been set down as immoral. In reality
he is moral, using the word in its proper sense, and
he is so, not only in detached passages, but in the
general drift of most of his poetry. We will
take as an example “The Corsair.”
Conrad is not a debauched buccaneer. He was
not —
“by Nature sent To lead the guilty—guilt’s
worst instrument.”
He had been betrayed by misplaced confidence.
“Doom’d by his very virtues for a dupe,
He cursed those virtues as the cause of ill,
And not the traitors who betray’d him still;
Nor deem’d that gifts bestow’d on better
men
Had left him joy, and means to give again,
Fear’d—shunn’d—belied—ere
youth had lost her force,
He hated man too much to feel remorse,
And thought the voice of wrath a sacred call,
To pay the injuries of some on all.”
Conrad was not, and could not be, mean and selfish.
A selfish Conrad would be an absurdity. His
motives are not gross —
“he shuns the grosser joys of sense, “His
mind seems nourished by that abstinence.”
He is protected by a charm against undistinguishing
lust —
“Though fairest captives daily met his eye,
He shunn’d, nor sought, but coldly pass’d
them by;”
and even Gulnare, his deliverer, fails to seduce him.
Mr. Ruskin observes that Byron makes much of courage.
It is Conrad, the leader, who undertakes the dangerous
errand of surprising Seyd; it is he who determines
to save the harem. His courage is not the mere
excitement of battle. When he is captured —
“A conqueror’s more than captive’s
air is seen,”
and he is not insensible to all fear.
“Each has some fear, and he who least betrays,
The only hypocrite deserving praise.
* * * * *
One thought alone he could not—dared not
meet—
‘Oh, how these tidings will Medora greet?’”
